[Avodah] Open Orthodoxy, again

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 05:14:13AM +0300, Ben Waxman wrote:
> This story demonstrates EXACTLY why Rav Lichtenstein says that people  
> simply shouldn't go there (meaning reading Biblical Criticism).
>
> Is that our only recourse?

Part of the problem is also that we tend today toward scientism, a belief
that scientific proofs are the most convincing, and that which can be
proven scientifically exists more objectively, is more real. Of course,
if you start out epistomologically favoring theories that minimize
Hashem's Hand in history, that will shape your resulting conclusion.
If you decide in advance that the only justification you'll take seriously

And then, ironically, most people don't know enough of the topic to
actually accept the science on its own merit, and for the man in the
street it's not so much scientism as reliabilism (deeming a source
reliable). And you never hear about the details, that the final theory
as it exists today could have one verse by three or more authors, that
the original J vs E word usage thing doesn't always work, etc... All that
"cleanly comes apart" stuff isn't true once you get beyond oversimplified
tutorials.

Nor is any literary analysis really scientific or ever possibly freed from
subjective bias. This is liberal arts, after all!

(But then, I agree with the Kuzari that philosophy can't ever produce
one single unequivacle answer that antoher philosopher couldn't prove
otherwise. IMHO [not necessarily the Rihal's] this is because it too can
not be freed from such biases, since philosophical arguments start with
which postulates find self-evident.)

RYBS notes in the Lonely Man of Faith the effect of the spectacular
success of scientific and technological progress on that loneliness:

    Let me spell out this passional experience of contemporary man
    of faith. He looks upon himself as a stranger in modern society
    which is technically minded, self-centered, and self-loving,
    almost in a sickly narcissistic fashion, scoring honor upon honor,
    piling up victory upon victory, reaching for the distant galaxies,
    and seeing in the here-and-now sensible world the only manifestation
    of being. What can a man of faith like myself, living by a doctrine
    which has no technical potential, by a law which cannot be tested in
    the laboratory, steadfast in his loyalty to an eschatological vision
    whose fulfillment cannot be predicted with any degree of probability,
    let alone certainty, even by the most complex, advanced mathematical
    calculations -- what can such a man say to a functional utilitarian
    society which is saeculum-oriented and whose practical reasons of
    the mind have long ago supplanted the sensitive reasons of the heart?

	    -- Tradition Magazine v7n2, The Lonely Man of Faith, pg 8

I think the alternative is to work toward an inspiring avodas Hashem and
limud Torah. The more one sees for themselves the redemptive properties
of halakhah, the more confidence you have in the original revalation
of laws, process and culture that gave you that din. And the more
evidence it would take to convince them that the Torah wasn't written
didactically in order to serve a the seed for an Eitz Chaim, notes for
a body of knowledge far larger than the text and a process of analysis,
mode of thought and culture.

We need to develop more self-confidence in our own non-empirical
experiences, so that they too carry conviction.

 --

There is another kind of option, R' Mordechai Breuer's. In this approach,
you accept their proposed evidence, but offer a different explanatory
theory.

RMB argues that the multiple voices are real, because Hashem is speaking
to people who are full of dialectics and ambivalence, and do see things
from multiple angles. And this is the only way to address the full human
condition. But there is only one text and one author. And he has a whole
system of parshanut based on this.

Then there's a variant laid out by RGStudent (Oct 2001) in
<http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_torah.html . The Torah could have been
redacted by the RBSO when He dicated it to Moshe. After all, according
to R' Yochanan the Torah was given scroll by scroll over the course of 40
years. We usually think of that as incremental, one parashah and then the
next, but maybe the pieces were woven togather. Did Adam, Noach and the
Avos leave behind texts? And then there are the books the Torah itself may
be telling us it's quoting (Sefer Toledos Adam, Sefer Milkhamos Hashem,
Sefer haBeris), Moshe wrote a separate Sefer Bil'am, etc...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When one truly looks at everyone's good side,
micha at aishdas.org        others come to love him very naturally, and
http://www.aishdas.org   he does not need even a speck of flattery.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook