[Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed

[Ysoscher via Avodah]

R. Micha, you write "I think it's wrong to think the 7th principle
applies to the Yad. While the Rambam may not have believed every word
in the Moreh as it would seem to someone reading it naively, I do think
"he fully and literally believed every word he wrote in the Yad."

This is pure conjecture, perhaps even wishful thinking. The Rambam
shares the 7th principle in which he argues that one may disseminate
untruths for the greater good of society. Once he believes that, we are
left to wonder about everything he wrote: did he really believe that or
was there a political (in the Aristotelian sense) agenda behind it. To
then preference the yad over the moreh is a personal bias.

You and I as Orthodox Jews would like to believe that he believed every
word in the yad and that the stuff he says in the moreh, oftentimes
contradicting Chazal and the mesorah, was only said for the greater
good of society-he personally didn't believe them. The non-observant
philosopher, on the other hand, would say the opposite, that in the
Moreh he articulates what he really believed, not in the Yad.

Ultimately there's no objective measure to determine who's right.

R. Isidore Twersky in his book on the Rambam tried to argue that there
is no stira, that the moreh and the yad compliment each other. I don't
find his arguments compelling. These two sefarim are incompatible and,
ultimately, we are left in the dark, never able to objectively determine
which of the two Rambam's sefarim were written with ulterior motives.

You then write "I am uncomfortably using the Rambam as a poster boy
for rationalism."

I am using "rationalism" in a loose colloquial sense. Rambam believed
in an evidence based religiosity, that we believe in God because His
existence can be proven. That project, IMHO, failed. For every proof
proving existence there's a proof to the contrary. That is precisely
why I believe that the non-rationalist/Kabbalist approach is a better
option. They offer an a-rationalist approach ("a-rational," not to be
confused with "irrational," they're not the same). They believe because
they chose to believe not-because they are "convinced."

Their mehalach is more appealing to our post/modern generation where
few people believe in absolute truths, and, it's also truer to our
tradition. We were always a a-rational tradition until Maimonides came
along and changed that.

Which brings me to my next point.

You then write "...means accepting Chazal's historical and scientific
claims as being from ruach haqodesh. And not stam as meshalim." implying
that I believe that stories in Chazal or Torah are meshalim.

[Chas lei lezar'eih deAvraham deleimru hakha]; God forbid that I should
make such a suggestion. I am saying something radically different.

We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A
faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim. Two
things distinguish the chasid's experience of reading Torah from the
philosopher's experience. When the chasid reads those stories he or
she a) doesn't pause to ask if it's "true" they just learn it. "Truth"
isn't a primary orientation of their encounter with toras Ha'shem. B) In
the event that he does pause to ask the "truth" question, his approach
is a-rational and unscientific. The truth question, for him or her, is
internal to the system as is the solution. It truthfully and absolutely
happened in the Torah. It's not denying the claim, it's just ignoring
the scientific objective layer. Because the chasid's yiddishkeit happens
exclusively in the religious realm.

I also think there's a lot of confusion between what I'm arguing and
what you're responding to.

Briefly:

1) As I wrote to Chana: Chassidim and chassidut is not same. Chassidim
today have little to do with chassidut. Contemporary chassidic philosophy
is a complete deviation from original chassidut.

2) A-rationalism isn't one iota less sophisticated than rationalism. These
are two parallel philosophies each with their own set of nuanced
assumptions, postulates, and assumptions.

3) My program has nothing to do with neo-chassidut. NC is a behaviorist
movement with very little philosophical underpinning. I'm proposing a
theological program which also happens to have behavioral implications.

Rabbi Ysoscher Katz
Chair, Department of Talmud, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School;
Director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies;
Educational Director of Judaic Studies, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, NY.;
Rabbi, Prospect Heights Shul.
E-mail: ysoscher at gmail.com