[Avodah] Fwd: Torat Chaim VeAhavat Chesed

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 6:34pm EDT, RYK wrote:
: 1) You are making the mistake many others are making as well, conflating
: chassidim with chassidut. Chassidic life today has very little to do with
: original chassidut. Early chassidut was a revolutionary theological
: movement which appealed to a small elitist group...

I thought Chassidus started out a kiruv movement, designed to bring
Judaism to the kind of people Litta's focus on learning left without
religion.

Like the story of the boy who played his prayers on his flute, or the
one who recited the alef beis over and over and begged HQBH to weave
them into the right words.

But in any case, to get closer to the point I intended to make...

...
: 2) Kabbalah and chassidut isn't about warmth and community. It's a highly
: sophisticated philosophical system which offers a nuanced alternative
: to the Maimonidean/rationalist approach.

: While the approach is a-rational, it isn't irrational.

I am not sure how you're using "a-rational". Even after your consequent
explanation (posted Sun Jun 14, 1:30am EDT):
:         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."

What is this a-rational stance that is also highly philosophical and yet
not the experiential chassidus of the nostalgic memories with which you
opened your blog post?

I cannot figure out what you're getting at.

Contining the first post:
: 3) Finally, I'm not sure I understand your point about the Rambam. The
: Rambam says that he believes it is justified to fool and mislead the
: masses. That to me is highly problematic.

And in the follow-up post he elaborated:
: 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."

In an introduction to a philosophical book he thought was a bad idea
to write that he produced as a necessary evil. Thus the title of
the Moreh Nevuchim.

It's a tactic he had to reveal the esoteric to those ready for it while
keeping it esoteric. Recall, that while we think of Pardes's "sod"
as Qabbalah, to him it was more like the Moreh. In the Pesichah the
Rambam limits the need of obfuscation to the topics of Maaseh haMerkavah
and Maaseh Bereishis.

So, after the first 5 chapters of the Yad, the whole discussion in
the pesichah and haqdamah of the Moreh wouldn't apply.

...
: We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims...

Just like I loathe using the word rationalism because it's so vague in
meaning as to just add to the confusion, let me add the word "fact".

We use it to mean (a) a truth, (b) an empirical/physical truth, (c)
a truth established by evidence, (d) an empirical truth established by
evidence, and in legal settings: (e) the empirical evidence itself
("let me present the facts of this case").

: We are making a huge mistake conflating facts with faith claims. A
: faith claim is a religious "belief" not a scientific claim...

... and therefore there is a gap between religious beliefs and scientific
claims.

Belief is yet another dangerous word. Knowledge is classically (Plato)
defined as a justified true belief. In that sense, anything you accept
as true is a belief. Other times we use belief in contrast to knowledge.
A usage that ends up undermining confidence in something we seem to
overtly be claiming is true. After all, if you think it's true, and
you think you have real reason to think it's true, why say "believe"
rather than "know"?

Which gets me back to the point, I hope. You talk about belief in
chassidus being an act of will.

Personally, I agree with Rihal when he has the chaver note that anything
one philosopher can prove, another can prove the opposite. (Kuzari 1:13)
Religion isn't amenable to proof, and that's why Scholasticism, the idea
of giving religion a philosophical underpinning, lost momentum centuries
ago.

The reasons why are two-fold:

First, negi'os. People cannot really objetively think about these topics.
They end up liking proofs of disliking proofs based on where they already
decided things should end up.

Like one of the truisms in my signature file generator says:
    The mind is a wonderful organ
    for justifying decisions
    the heart already reached.

So, whether or not you agree that some postulate is self-evident (Kant:
synthetic a priori) and therefore the proof works will depend more on
whether you want to believe than actual obviousness.

Second, the experiences upon which religious belief gets justified are
internal. Questions of whether Shabbos, kashrus, or some of the more
elegant outcomes of lomdus statisfy my Search For Meaning (Frankl)
is quite a bit more difficult (usually impossible) to duplicate for
someone else. Unlike a getting someone else to experience something
empirical that you did by repeating a science experiment.

But I think chassidic belief, even as per your description of it, is
rational rather than an act of will.  It's not Scholastic, expecting
the kind of proof that would have make R' Saadia Gaon or the Rambam
happy, but it is based on deriving a conclusion that fits one's
evidence (ie experiences).

I would say "rational" but not "rationalist", except that just highlights
how many problems we get into throwing around the word "rationalism".

This is true about how emunah works whether speaking about why people
become BT, go OTD, or even if we're speaking of the Rambam. The Rambam
lived in a world that didn't value non-philosophical justification, so
he felt that real emunah required Scholasticism.

(There was a time, not that long ago, when most people's emunah was
backed by Reliabilism. My parents and community have a track record of
being reliable sources of truth, so I trust them on this too.)

To my mind, the difference is whether someone values the chizuq emunah of
affirming that conclusions with that half of the philosophical proofs that
end up in the right place. The rationalist does so, thinking that's *why*
he believes (despite the Kuzari). Some of us simply enjoy philoosphy or
consider such explorations to be part of talmud Torah. And others simply
don't need the exercise.

:     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...

Again, if it's taken for granted as being true, truth is still at
issue. Moreso, they really don't discuss truth because trueh is a given.
It's like water not being the primary orientation of fish.

:                                            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.

Lets plow through the words and just ask outright: A chassid would take
it for granted that a time traveler would find the Yam Suf divided into
13 tunnels with everything you might want available to be plucked from
the walls. No?

You may deprecate the importance of that historical claim to the
belief system of Chassidic Judaism. I would agree that chassidim do not
consider the historicity important. But the belief is there, and for
reasons that speak volumes about the gap between chassidus and MO as a
potential target audience.

Chassidim have to accept the historicity of this midrashic elaboration of
Qerias Yam Suf because maximalism and acceptance of rabbinic authority
run much stronger in comparison to confidence in one's own truthometer
in chassidus. Part of the value of having a rebbe is to believe he has
access to truths I don't. And similarly one's rebbe's rebbes, and so
on through Chazal and whomever repeated that medrash.

To a community that teaches the value of other sources of knowledge,
such as secular historians or other professionals, such maximalism
is impossible, and therefore bitul to a rebbe will always be limited.

Yes, it would be of value to realize that historical claims are
non-central to religion. It makes it much easier to table any questions
one might have in those areas as not being important, therefore not very
pressing. Things that can wait for an answer rather than being responded
to now, with what I know now, or taken as an upshlug.

...
: 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.

I understood this. However, NC is an indication of what elements of
chassidus actually were found useful by MO Jews. You're theorizing
which elements you thought would in theory be more useful. I am
asking about the difference between the two. If your theory were
correct about what MO could use, wouldn't the Neo-Chassidim have
locked on to those three points?

IOW, I know they are different, and some idea as to how -- but why?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
micha at aishdas.org        once you get to know them.
http://www.aishdas.org          - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne)
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