[Avodah] How did Abraham Discover God?: Part I - The Rationalistic Approach

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

I am defying netiquette and list rules to copy this two-parter here
on list. For some reason I cannot fathom, Rabbi Dr. Seth (Avi) Kadish
chose to publish this piece on a site dedicated to teaching O Jews not
to believe in Torah miSinai. I want there to be another URL available.

And am hoping people here actually discuss it, of course.

-Micha

The Illuminated Palace: An Introduction to Dogma in Jewish Thought A
single midrash on Parashat Lekh Lekha manages to touch upon the existence
of God and how to relate to Him, on the tension between Torah and science,
and on rabbinic criticism of Maimonides' thirteen principles.

                               - Part 1 -
                     How did Abraham Discover God?
                      The Rationalistic Approach

Rabbi Dr. Seth (Avi) Kadish

Why did God choose Abraham?

Nechama Leibowitz (of blessed memory) used to tell the following
story.[1] She was once invited to lecture at a seminar for officers in
the IDF, and stipulated in advance that each of them must bring a full
Tanakh to her class. As motivated soldiers they did just that. Then,
when she came into the classroom, she immediately told them to open
their books and find her the well-known story about young Abram
smashing his father's idols.

After letting them struggle for a few minutes to find the story, Nechama
tried to stop them, but they insisted that they all knew it, and so it
just had to be there somewhere in the Torah. After a couple more minutes
she interrupted them yet again, but this time she told them that they were
right: Even thought the story isn't actually in the Torah, it should have
been there! It just doesn't seem to make sense, at the grand moment of
"lekh lekha," for God to suddenly turn to a 75 year old man about whom
we know next to nothing (besides a few dry details about his family).

What the biblical narrative lacks is a statement about what kind of person
Abram was and why God chose him. That gap becomes even more vivid when we
compare Abram to the last great protagonist in the Torah, namely Noah,
about whom we are famously told that he was "a righteous man, blameless
among the people of his time; Noah walked with God" (Genesis 6:9). It
comes as no surprise, therefore, that Noah was chosen. But why Abram?

It is typical of midrash to make use of gaps in the Torah--large
or small, real or imagined--as opportunities for teaching important
lessons. In this case a good argument can be made that the gap is real and
significant.[2] The midrashic story of young Abram smashing his father's
idols is an attempt to explain why he was chosen, by portraying him as
someone clever and inquisitive, a nonconformist devoted to the truth,
who bravely confronted his family and society by vividly illustrating
the foolishness of their idolatry.

The Illuminated Palace

There is also another lesser-known midrash that describes Abram's youth,
and manages at the same time to touch upon the most acute tensions within
Jewish thought. From it we can learn some powerful lessons about dogma
in Jewish philosophy, about the difference between medieval and modern
thought, and about different ways to relate to God. This powerful
midrashic passage is known as The Parable of the Illuminated Palace.

In order to get into the mood of the midrash that we are about to study,
imagine a man, who lived centuries ago, and wanted to get from place to
place. Perhaps he was traveling from his village to the capitol city of
his province. If he was wealthy he might ride a horse or be carried in
a wagon, but if not then he might have to walk, carrying his belongings
on his back. Depending on the distance, such a journey by foot might
have taken many days, traveling on a path through meadows and forest,
and sleeping alongside the trail at night. The journey by day might
be a solitary one, and for lack of anyone else with whom to talk, our
traveler might speak his thoughts aloud to himself.

Let us further imagine that it is now close to the end of the third
day of his journey, and he is both weary and lonely, but still wants
to cover another short distance before the sun sets. Suddenly, above
on a hill to his left, he notices a human-made structure. As he comes
closer he sees that it is a fortified palace, and that it is both
inhabited and well-maintained: As the day comes to a close, he sees
light appear in one window after the next. Though as a stranger he has
no expectation of being invited in to stay the night, he still feels
a certain pleasure, even a sense of relief, at this unexpected sign of
domestication and civilization. Speaking aloud to himself he remarks,
"It would seem there is a master who attends to this palace." And then
to his surprise he hears the voice of the master inside, who, unseen to
the traveler, peers out at him through the window and speaks: "Indeed,
I am the master of the palace."

Now let us read the parable as it actually appears in the midrash
(Bereshit Rabba 39:1):

(1) And God said to Abram: Go, you, from your land...
(2) Rabbi Isaac opened (Psalms 45:11): Listen, daughter, and see, and
turn your ear, and forget your people and your father's house...
(3) Rabbi Isaac said: This may be compared to one who was passing from
place to place and saw a palace illuminated (birah doleqet).[3]^^
(4) He said, "Will you say this palace has no governor (manhig)?"
(5) The master of the palace peeped out at him.
(6) He said to him, "I am the master of the palace."
(7) Thus, because our father Abraham would say, "Will you say this
world has no governor?",
(8) the Holy One, blessed be He, peeped out at him and said to him, "I
am the Master of the world."
(9) (Psalms 45:12): And the king will desire your beauty...--to
beautify you in the world;
(10) because he is your master and bow down to him--that is, And God
said to Abram...

Although the midrash addresses the first verse of Parashat Lekh Lekha, the
verse with which Rabbi Isaac "opened" (2) is from Psalms, and its plain
sense has nothing to do with Abraham. Rather, what is being described in
psalm 45 is the power of the Davidic king, vividly illustrated through the
fate of a foreign princess who is being delivered to him in a political
marriage. Although the fact that she must leave her home and her family
bears some obvious resemblance to Abraham in a general sense, it is the
job of the listener to try to carefully cement the relationship between
the parashah at hand from the Torah (1) and the verse from "left field"
(2). This kind of riddle is a homiletic device, and the technical name
for this kind of midrash is petichta ("opening").

After his opening verse, Rabbi Isaac proceeds immediately with his parable
(3-6) and its explanation (7-8): Abraham was a wanderer and a traveler
throughout his entire life, and his first command from God began with
the very word lekh, go. He sought the "governor" of the world and found
Him. The palace in the parable represents the world, and its master is
the Holy One, blessed be He, who "peeped out" at Abraham (heitzitz),
meaning that He sees but is not seen.

Following the parable, Rabbi Isaac returns to the opening verses of
his riddle (9-10): Abraham was personally commanded by God, whom he both
sought and found, and was then rewarded for his obedience with the promise
of a blessing so great that future peoples would wish Abraham's fate upon
themselves: "and all the families of the earth will be blessed through
you" (i.e. they will be blessed in your name: "May you be like Abraham.")

The lovely young woman in Psalms was also exhorted to obey her new king,
but that in itself is not enough to identify her with the male Abraham. It
takes a clever midrashic twist to cement their common identity: Rather
than being desired by her new king for her beauty, he rather desires to
proclaim her beauty to all (out of his great love for her).

That is Rabbi Isaac's midrash, the Parable of the Illuminated Palace,
at face value. In it we find a man who seeks God, and a God who responds
to him. We find a God who commands and a man who obeys. God loved the
man who sought Him, and then acted upon His love.

First Interpretation: God as a Scientific Fact (Maimonides)

After reading this midrash, the average reader (and not just the modern
reader) wants to know something more. "It would seem there is a master
who attends to this palace," says the man in the parable. Is the universe
itself a testimony to God?

Such was the message of our midrash for Maimonides. In the first chapter
of his "Hilkhot Avodah Zarah" ("Laws of Idolatry") he describes Abraham
as the hero of monotheism:

After this mighty one [Abraham] was weaned, he began to search for
knowledge while he was yet young, reflecting day and night. And he
wondered how the sphere could follow its path continually, if it had
nothing to direct it [manhig]? And who makes it revolve (for it cannot
rotate itself)?

He had no teacher, nor anyone to inform him, being deep inside Ur of
the Chaldees among foolish idolaters. His father and mother and all the
people were idolaters, and he would worship along with them; but his
mind searched to gain understanding until he grasped the way of truth,
knowing rightness through his correct understanding. He knew that there
is one God, and He directs the sphere, and He created all, and in all
of existence there is no God but He...

This short passage requires some unpacking. Just before it, at the
very beginning of Hilkhot Avodah Zarah, Maimonides outlined his
famous explanation of how mankind devolved into idolatry. They began
by seeking to honor the servants of the Great King--the luminaries in
the heavens--but ultimately served them alone and forgot their Master,
and they were further misled by the lies of idolatrous priests. Idolatry
began as something foolish yet well-intentioned, and later developed
into an ugly perversion of the truth and the source of great evil. In
Maimonides' historiography, those who knew the one God in the generations
before Abraham were few and far between.[4]^^

According to Maimonides, Abraham vanquished idolatry through the power
of his mind, by considering the implications of the heavens and the
way they function. What Maimonides' presents here is the Aristotelian
model of the universe, in which transparent spheres rotate around the
earth, carrying the visible luminaries along with them. These spheres
are composed of thick heavenly matter (there is no vacuum between them)
and they rotate in geometric pathways. They are intelligent beings. Their
endless movement is caused by an unlimited power, for if the power that
moved them were to cease then they too would come to a stop. Here we
have the medieval opposite of Newtonian physics: All movement ceases
when the power causing it is exhausted.

Another difference between medieval and modern thought is the concept
of infinity: Aristotle denied the possibility of an "actual" infinity.
No object composed of matter can be infinite, no spacial dimension can
be infinite, and furthermore the very chain of causality itself cannot
be infinite. The movement and change we witness on earth is caused by
the rotation of the spheres above, and that rotation must ultimately be
the effect of one single ultimate cause, so that the chain of causality
at any given point in time always has both a beginning (God) and an end
(movement and change and life on earth). Since this chain of causality
is finite, and can be apprehended at least in part, it became highly
tempting for medieval philosophers to try to explain it as far as they
could, and that included saying various things about God.

Since all physical things are finite, the unlimited power that eternally
moves the spheres must be entirely incorporeal, lacking any aspect
of physicality. This is a consequence of the medieval proof of God's
existence as the First Cause, with which Maimonides began his Mishneh
Torah. For Maimonides, young Abraham proved the existence of God and
the truth of monotheism by using medieval Aristotelian principles, long
before Aristotle himself was born and well before the Middle Ages. Abraham
proved in absolute fashion that there is indeed a governor (manhig)
of the palace, properly understood as the First Cause of all movement
and change, from the revolution of the spheres to life on earth.[5]^^

Maimonides built his description of Abraham, as far as he could, out of
biblical and midrashic materials. This is as good an illustration as any
of a very important fact about medieval Jewish philosophy, namely that
it is not just philosophy per se, but equally (and perhaps primarily)
philosophical exegesis of the Bible and Chazal. Maimonides' reading of
our midrashic passage, and the way he uses it, reflect his intellectual
position: The existence of a single incorporeal God is not a matter of
belief or theory or guesswork, but a demonstrable scientific fact. In
fact, its clear demonstration is the foundation of all true science.

Idolatry, therefore, is no personal betrayal of God, but rather a
philosophical error. It is a colossal error with terrible consequences,
but an intellectual mistake at its core, nonetheless. The very same
thing would be true for atheism according to Maimonides. If you think
that there are many gods, or no God, or even if you are not quite sure,
then you are first and foremost an ignoramus (besides being an idolater
or a heretic). Ascribing this attitude to Abraham reflects Maimonides'
general conviction that Aristotelian science was not just "basically
correct" in terms of its content; rather, the truths of Aristotelian
science are an integral part of the Torah itself (and the key to its
correct interpretation).

This is a crucial point. One of the great debates in medieval Jewish
thought was whether or not it is right, or even possible, to "marry"
the Torah to Greek wisdom. We all know that for a marriage to succeed,
the two partners need to have something significant in common. If
they are too dissimilar then there won't be sufficient basis for a
relationship. Differences can be healthy if they complement each other,
but only if the relationship can still address basic needs and values.

Do the Torah and Greek wisdom share enough common ground to attempt
a shiddukh? According to Maimonides they did. And the greatest single
contribution of Aristotelian wisdom to their mutual relationship was
its absolute proof of the existence of one God, an incorporeal intellect
that is the ultimate cause for the revolution of the spheres.

That proof is the meaning, according to Maimonides, of the opening phrase
of the Ten Commandments: I am the Lord your God... (Exodus 20:2). Knowing
that there is a God is a commandment according to Maimonides, but a
person can only be commanded to do what he or she is capable of doing. In
medieval science, to know that such a God exists was an established
fact that any reasonably intelligent person could apprehend. Hence,
according to Maimonides, the Torah literally commands us to apprehend
it through the proper proof, as did Abraham long ago.

Nevertheless, there were also serious objections to the proposed marriage
between the Torah and Greek wisdom. Medieval Aristotelianism posited
a naturalistic reality: The Aristotelian God behaves according to its
nature, eternally causing the universe to function in much the same way
that a candle gives light or a tree casts a shadow on a sunny day. The
Aristotelian God cares nothing for the world that it generates nor for
the people in it; in fact, according to Aristotle, God has no awareness of
individuals and their changing circumstances. In the same vein the world
itself functions according to its nature eternally, and humans behave
according to their own natures. Not one of the three great realms--God,
the universe, and humanity--ever has any significant impact upon the
others. In this eternally static reality, all three of them continue to
behave as their natures dictate forever.

Can such a God be reconciled with the God of the Torah? Can an unchanging,
naturalistic universe be reconciled with the world that the Torah
describes? These are the fundamental problems that Maimonides dealt
with in his philosophical writings. His personal views on the matter are
unclear and sometimes contradictory. For this reason Maimonides' "true"
views have been debated continually for more than eight centuries--a
debate which continues to this very day.[6]^^

While the medieval science that Maimonides worked with seems archaic
today, the basic problem he dealt with is still quite relevant. The
idea of a naturalistic universe, a system of all encompassing physical
causality with no room for any autonomous, purposeful expression of
personal will (by God or man), is still at the root of the tension between
the Torah and any form of human wisdom that operates in a manner meant
to be objective and universally valid. The latter is best represented
today by academia.

Is God Really a Scientific Fact?

How well does Maimonides' interpretation of the Illuminated Palace
reflect the midrash? What Abraham says, in the original Hebrew of the
midrash, is "[tomar sheha'olm hazeh belo manhig]". But how should that
sentence be punctuated? In Maimonides' view this was no question at all:
Abraham was sure about God's existence, because the scientific proof
is absolutely conclusive. Therefore, what Abraham says in the midrash
must actually be a kind of a statement, a rhetorical question punctuated
with an exclamation point--not a real question. The midrash may be read
this way if we assume that the traveler in the parable was already quite
certain, even before the master of the palace replied to him. We also need
to assume that the high point in the midrash is in Abraham's discovery,
not in God's reply.[7]

But is the "proof" in the midrash which led to the traveler's realization
really conclusive? Seeing light appear in one window after the next
is a very likely indication that someone has personally ordained the
lighting of lamps. But could there be a different explanation? Might
not the spheres which carry the luminaries, once they are set in motion,
rotate forever (recalling Newton)? Nowadays, in our world of electronic
"Shabbat clocks" and digital programming, it is very easy to suggest that
something else entirely might cause light to appear in the windows before
dark. But even in the Middle Ages people were fully capable of realizing
that, in principle, there might be an alternative explanation, even if
they couldn't supply an easy concrete example of what that alternative
might be.

So might it be, contra Maimonides, that Abraham was asking a very real
question in the midrash? Perhaps the traveler who represents Abraham
wasn't fully sure there was a master of the palace, until that person
spoke to him personally? Perhaps it is not the traveler's question,
but rather the revelation of the master of the palace, which is the high
point of the midrash?

___________________

Having finished Part 1 of this Introduction to Dogma in Jewish Thought
by raising some questions about Maimonides' rationalistic reading of the
Parable of the Illuminated Fortress, Part 2 will deal with alternative
interpretations based on the idea of an experiential, living relationship
with God.


Rabbi Dr. Seth (Avi) Kadish studied for his Ph.D. at the University
of Haifa (2006) in Medieval Jewish Philosophy. He previously studied
at Yeshiva University where he received his rabbinic ordination and
master's degrees in Bible and Jewish Education, and then taught secondary
school for 8 years in the USA and Israel. He currently teaches medieval
Jewish philosophy, history and exegesis at Oranim Teacher's College,
and in the Overseas School at the University of Haifa. For many years
he taught immigrant soldiers in the Nativ program of the IDF education
corps, and adult Israeli Jewish education for the Hebrew University's
Melton School. He lives in Karmiel, Israel with his wife and children,
where they are involved in building modern Orthodox communities that are
open and welcoming to people of diverse backgrounds and outlooks. Rabbi
Kadish is the author of Kavvana: Directing the Heart in Jewish Prayer
<https://sites.google.com/site/kadish67/kavvana-en> and The Book of
Abraham: Rabbi Shimon ben Zemah Duran and the School of Rabbenu Nissim
Gerondi <https://sites.google.com/site/kadish67/avraham-avinu>.

[1] I heard it from her at Yeshiva University's Gruss Kollel in
Jerusalem, during the year 5751 (when she was already in her eighties).

[2] Rather than finding a gap here, I personally tend to think there
is great literary significance in the details about Abram's family at
the very end of Parashat Noah, along with all of the various instances
of toledot and lists of "begats" throughout Genesis. In light of them it
may be that God's sudden choice of Abram was ironic or purposely tragic,
but not unexplainable. But that is a topic for another time.

[3] Birah is usually taken to mean a stronghold or a fortress. In
the context of this midrash, where it stands for the entire world, it
implies something more grand and "palace" would seem appropriate. For
a further meaning of doleqet see the third interpretation below.

[4] The plain sense of the biblical text in Genesis is arguably
the opposite.

[5] For background and context on this and other medieval proofs for
the existence of God, see the exhaustive presentation in Herbert A.
Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in
Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1987).

[6] For an excellent summary of the different possibilities inherent in
reading Maimonides, see "Four Readings of Maimonides", the final section
of Moshe Halbertal's new book: Maimonides: Life and Thought (Princeton
University Press, 2013). For two in-depth studies on Maimonides' views
by current scholars who differ in their conclusions, see Kenneth Seeskin,
Maimonides on the Origin of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
and Howard Kreisel, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish
Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001). Creation
and Prophecy are the two most important expressions of the problem of
naturalism. An eternal universe would seem to be naturalistic, while
creation supposes an individual act of will. Prophecy seems to imply
an act of personal will (God chooses to speak to the prophet), but it
can also be explained in terms of naturalistic causality. On a personal
level, I am agnostic regarding Maimonides' "true" beliefs. Extremely
convincing readings can be made in different and opposite directions,
and this has already been done for more than eight centuries. I don't
believe I have any new, fundamental insights into this question that
others have missed, nor do I think we will ever really know. In fact,
that may have been Maimonides' own intention. This is precisely what
has made Maimonides' philosophy perpetually fascinating for centuries,
and also provided a parnasah to a good many scholars in modern times.

[7] Thus possibly suggesting that prophecy may be a naturalistic
phenomenon that occurs under the proper circumstances when a person is
capable and ready.