[Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy?

Akiva Miller via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 PDT 2016


Cantor Wolberg wrote:

> Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God
> granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses
> tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject
> what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a
> bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue
> driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our
> senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another
> direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's
> will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas.

I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed
reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from
that which we merely "don't perceive".

If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we
should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many
*did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and
these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we
may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected?

On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which
randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or
randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut
fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies.
Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a
person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill
consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the
research.

Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are
nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these
causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really
understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then.

Akiva Miller
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