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<a style="color:#999 ! important;font-size:22px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif;font-weight:normal;" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp">Comments for Aspaqlaria</a>
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<a style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif;font-size:18px;margin-bottom:3px;" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml#comment-354">Comment on The Kuzari Proof, part I by micha</a>
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<span>Posted:</span> 01 Jan 2007 10:48 AM CST</h3>
<div class="itemcontent"><p>Your question of who would evolve the story presumes the conclusion — that it happened as told, and thus there was a continuous chain of neviim.</p>
<p>If the story were made up, there would be a cabal of unintentional inventors of the new religion.</p>
<p>But the bottom line is that as a proof it doesn’t work. There are other foundation stories, and I proposed the mechanism by which stories about millions of ancestors can arise. Once that possibility exists, one is left with claim and counterclaim, not proof.</p>
<p>But then, Rav Yehudah haLevi himself doesn’t consider such proofs to be of value, that any such proof that one person can create, another can deny, so that none actually prove anything.
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<a style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif;font-size:18px;margin-bottom:3px;" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/kuzari-proof-part-i.shtml#comment-353">Comment on The Kuzari Proof, part I by RJ Maroof</a>
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<span>Posted:</span> 01 Jan 2007 09:40 AM CST</h3>
<div class="itemcontent"><p>I revisited your very thoughtful posts in the midst of an exchange I’d been having about the Kuzari argument. I certainly feel that your conclusion about the beauty of Torah as experienced directly is both poignant and powerful. But, after much consideration, I am not sure that your dismissal of Kuzari is well founded.</p>
<p>The fact that other nations have origin myths is one thing. But the Exodus is not an origin myth, it is a transformation story. It is a story about an already constituted nation witnessing unbelievable miracles and going through a huge set of radical changes as a result. No nation’s history includes such stories.</p>
<p>With regard to your second objection - the question is, who would be evolving the story? The very people against whom the Neviim were using it? This highlights an aspect of the “myth” analogy that is deeply flawed. Most myths are explanatory; few create obligations. The stories of the Torah are the basis for a covenant that asked the Jews to leave attractive beliefs and practices behind. They were not bedtime stories recited to entertain; they were challenges that demanded a response. </p>
<p>So I think that the argument based on the Kuzari for the veracity of our tradition is a solid one.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, though, it is the intrinsic beauty of Torah that motivates all of us more than any formal proof ever could. On this we are in agreement.
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