הלץ ילוצץ על חקי החכמה מפני שלא ישיגם בדעת ברורה אבל אינו שונא דעת, ולא יליץ על דבר שבא עליו מופת.

הלץ מתלוצץ על החכמה מפני שאין עליה מופתי הדעת, והוא אינו שונא את החכמה מפני שאינה יודעת בידיעה ברורה, והם אין מקבלים אותה בקבלה ע״י המוסר ויראת ה׳ מפני שלצון חמדו להם על דברי אמונה שאין עליהם מופת.

יש הבדל בין ״מוסר״ ל״תוכחת״, שה״מוסר״ הוא ע״י יראת העונש וה״תוכחה״ היא ע״י וכוח השכל וראיותיו. והלץ לא יתלוצץ על ראיות השכל, רק יתלוצץ על חקי החכמה מפני שאין עליה מופתי הדעת, ועקר סמיכתה היא על יראת ה׳ שהיא מוסר חכמה, שצריך לקבלה מפני שהיא נתונה מה׳ וצריך לירא מה׳ ומענשו, וכמ״ש יראת ה׳ ראשית דעת, וזה לא יקבל הלץ, אחר שלא יש ע״ז מופת השכל.

הלץ הוא המתלוצץ על חקי החכמה מפני שאין על חקי החכמה מופתים, רק הם מקובלים, וצריך לקבלם בענוה ובאמונה. אבל הלץ שדרכו ללוצץ ילוץ על החכמה, אבל לא ילוץ על הדעת שהוא על דברים הנודעים במופת או ע״י החושים.

הלץ אינו מתלוצץ על הדעת, רק על החכמה, מפני שאין עליהם מופתים, ובאו בקבלה לא בידיעה ברורה, ואם היה משיגם בדעת ברורה לא היה מתלוצץ, רק מפני שביקש חכמה ואין, לא בא לכלל תבונה, שהוא אחר החכמה, שאז היה הדעת נקל בעיניו.

הלץ הוא המתלוצץ על חקי החכמה והמוסר יען שאין יכולים לבררם לו בראיות השכל, אבל על התוכחה שהוא וכוח השכל בראיות לא יוכל להתלוצץ

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑זונטאג אפריל 02, 2023 10:13 pmאיך האב צוגעברענגט פון דר. דוד ביאלע:

Although Maimonides holds that a chain of negations leads ultimately to the affirmation of God's unity (albeit in the form of a negative proposition), it could just as well against Maimonides' intention lead to the final, big negation of atheism: a God so transcendent that "he" cannot be described is virtually a God that doesn't exist

וע״ע במש״כ כאן וכאן.

When the Sceptic in the parable asked the Believer, "Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?" he was suggesting that the Believer's earlier statement had been so eroded by qualification that it was no longer an assertion at all

"Is God real?” Rex asked a lot when he was little. We send him to religious school, so he’s learned a lot about God, or at least the stories that Jews tell about God. We send him, in large part, so that he will know those stories. We want him to feel at home in his community and culture

But as he learned the stories, he’d ask, insistently, “Is God real?” From all I’ve said so far, you might think that I tell him no. But I don’t, for two reasons. First, I am not sure; I’ll say more about why in a moment. Second, and more important, when a kid asks a Big Question, I think it important to start a conversation, not cut one off

So I never say yes or no. Instead, I share a range of views: “Some people think that God is real and that the stories we read in the Bible happened, just the way they are told. Other people think that those stories are just stories, which people made up to explain things they didn’t understand.” Then, I ask: “What do you think?” And I take Rex’s response seriously, not as a conversation stopper but as a conversation starter. If Rex says that God is real, then I’ll want to know what makes him think so, whether he’s noticed that the stories in the Bible don’t quite add up (there are two creation stories, for instance), and why so many bad things happen in the world if God is real and could stop them. If he takes the other path, if he says that the stories are just stories, then I’ll ask him why so many people take them so seriously, how he would explain the existence of the world, and so on

The conversation has to be pitched to a kid’s capabilities. And you shouldn’t think that Rex and I spend hours sitting by the fire, sipping brandy, and sifting life’s mysteries. Most of these conversations are short — often just a minute or two. But they add up over time. Sometimes in surprising ways

“Is God real?” Rex asked. He was four. We’d had this conversation a lot, so I skipped straight to the question: "What do you think?" “I think that, for real, God is pretend, and for pretend, God is real,” Rex announced

I was stunned. That’s a profound thought for a four-year-old. It’s a profound thought for a forty-year-old too. I asked Rex to explain what he meant. “God isn’t real,” he said. “But when we pretend, he is"

Rav Kook argued that the non-believer can never reject the true image of God. For a monotheistic God, a priori, can never be defined. The moment one characterizes God (i.e. "Almighty," "Never-ending" etc.), thereby ascribing some form and shape to God, one has created a false image (see Rambam, Hilkhot Yesodei Ha-Torah 1:7-12). The non-believer, therefore, can at best deny a form of God which he has developed in his mind. This is indeed true, because in order to negate a concept one first needs to define that which he denies, prior to declaring that it does not exist. Once a person paints a static picture of God, by definition he has limited God: the real character of God can never be defined by human faculties
 
Rav Kook argues, however, that the arguments of the non-believer do have subsequent positive value. Since the non-believer has successfully shattered an image of the Divine, which may in fact be a common image in the religious community, he has assisted the world in re-thinking its concept of the Divine. This non-believer has actually smashed a popular image, and forced the religious man to find a more complex and deeper perception of God. The heretic denies the standard religious notion of God, thus requiring the development of a new, refined conception. Ironically, the religious community gains nourishment from the non-believer

Rav Kook argues that a positive spark does emanate from the depths of the non-believer's arguments. The non-believer challenges the religious man's concept of the Divine, forcing the religious man to re-assess his perceptions. Not only does this strengthen the religious community by demanding a re-evaluation, it is also necessary for the community's continued development. Since God is a priori undefinable, the religious community's perceptions of the Divine, and their consequent behavior, must constantly be revised. Hence heresy, "kefira," is the only dark force capable of contributing to world perfection

In general, formulations of Jewish principles of faith require a belief in God (represented by Judaism's paramount prayer, the Shema). In many modern Jewish religious movements, rabbis have generally considered the behavior of a Jew to be the determining factor in whether or not one is considered an adherent of Judaism. Within these movements it is often recognized that it is possible for a Jew to strictly practice Judaism as a faith, while at the same time being an agnostic or atheist. Reconstructionist Judaism does not require any belief in a deity, and certain popular Reform prayer books, such as Gates of Prayer, offer some services without mention of God. Jewish atheists who practice Humanistic Judaism embrace Jewish culture and history, rather than belief in a supernatural god, as the sources of their Jewish identity. A 2003 online poll in the United States found that only 48% of self-identified Jews believe in God

Rather than thinking about ‘the meaning of life’, the vital thing is to “think of ourselves as being questioned by life . . . Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct”. To claim that Frankl is not religious is to miss the point. There is something pro­ foundly religious in his desire to ‘connect us again’ to each other and to the world.8 In the lived experience of religious practice we meet a God who is not abstracted from such striving; a God framed by and in community. God is ‘an event’ (Moltmann 1981) or ‘a relationship’ (McFague 1982)

The neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, who follows in the tradition of negative theology, suggests that God can be loved as an “Idea” alone — no Being, no reality to God is required. In the thought of Martin Buber, all theology is presented as a species of I-It language that puts the “Eternal Thou,” or God, into categories and concepts, like a thing that can be described as opposed to a Thou whose wholeness can never be encapsulated. Emmanuel Levinas, too, speaks of the theological tradition as a failed attempt to contain the infinite God in a defined “totality.” Levinas calls for an end to metaphysics and attempts to establish ethics as first philosophy built upon the face of the suffering other as its touchstone. What Levinas seeks is “God beyond being,” a formulation that we also see in his book, Otherwise Than Being. This God, one might say, is absolutely transcendent and as such, according to Levinas, “does not have a meaning” and “is not a concept at all.” In his apophatic formulations, Elliot Wolfson tells us that even negative theology says too much about God and remains within the spectrum of what he calls Western “theomania”; it is better to behold God in self-contradictory theological poetry and radical nothingness

All of these modern and postmodern Jewish forms of apophaticism follow the limitations established by Kant when he relegated what he called “onto-theology” to the unknowable “noumenal” realm that was inaccessible to rational thought. They also follow the dictates of the empiricists whose foundational epistemologies required “self-evident truths” on the model of mathematics and empirical evidence delivered through the scientific method to establish the truth of belief claims. Since God and theology could not meet these narrow criteria for what counts as knowledge, modern theologians turned away from traditional philosophy as the basis of theology, and they turned toward the existential experience of the individual, the aesthetic strategies of myth, the thick descriptions of phenomenology, and then to the radical denial of the whole meaning-making project of religion and culture in postmodern deconstructionism

What all the post-Enlightenment and postmodern negative theology and apophatism do to Jewish theology is to make it impossible to really say anything positive at all about God. As Jacques Derrida has said, “[A]pophasis inclines almost toward atheism.” So I think it not wrong to say that postmodern negative theology really signals the end of theology even as, it speaks of the end of philosophy and the long Western tradition of using human reason to form knowledge of the world, of humans, and of God

Plantinga argues, however, that just because we cannot accept all that our perception and religious tradition teaches about God, and just because our knowledge cannot comprehend all that the nature of God includes, it does not mean that all of theism must be rejected. Here, Plantinga addresses both the skeptic and the negative theologian when he argues that ignorance of the totality of God does not discount partial knowledge:

Is there really a substantial reason for believing that we can’t think or talk about God? . . . No doubt there is appropriate caution here. And no doubt it is true that we can’t comprehend him, if to comprehend God is to know a significant proportion of what there is to be known about God. But of course that doesn’t mean we can’t think about God at all and it doesn’t mean that we can’t know some extremely important things about God

Much of modern Jewish thought was developed on the Continent in German speaking lands. This means that the effect of Kant on Jewish philosophy and religious thought is immense. We can see the assumptions of Kant’s epistemology — most notably the separation of the phenomenal and noumenal worlds and the critique of classical metaphysics — in the religious thought of Cohen, Buber, and Levinas, the canonical thinkers of modern Jewish philosophy

However, the assumptions (and limitations) of Kant’s epistemology can be traced to his 18th century Newtonian physics. This mechanistic and deterministic model has little place for freedom and creativity in the workings of the universe. Therefore God, who must certainly be free if God is to be able to do any of the things we expect of God (create, judge, will) is relegated to the unknown noumenal realm. However, what if the cosmos itself is a dynamic and changing system full of spontaneity and creativity? What if “freedom,” then, is a basic element in the fabric of the cosmos and a reflection of God as creator of the cosmos? This is precisely the view of cosmology today, so that a notion of God as free — and, indeed, of all life, animal and human, as free from an absolute, fixed, and determinate form — makes rational sense

And what of Kant’s famous notion of the thing in itself? In Kant’s own day, the philosopher Friedrich Jacobi questioned the contradictory claims made by Kant for the thing in itself. If we cannot know the thing in itself, how do we know that it is there at all? The thing in itself then suffers from the same problem as God in negative theology: it is an entity that we assume exists, yet at the same time we cannot know that it exists

What these criticisms of Kant’s epistemology suggest is that his a priori principles must give way to more sophisticated understandings both of the mind (in cognitive science) and of the world (in quantum mechanics, sub-atomic particles, the space/time continuum, genetics, etc.) When these advances are taken into consideration, the barrier to knowledge of the thing in itself appears to have been crossed, and the very notion of the thing in itself unnecessary. Certainly there will always remain mysteries about objects and beings in the world, including God, but the categorical attempt to set aside rational attempts to understand these realities as part of an unknowable noumenal realm does not make sense

I no longer think that we must accept the limitations on the use of traditional logical forms like deduction and the syllogism and propositional forms of truth that pragmatism and postmodernism attempt to impose upon thought. The Jewish pragmatist philosopher Peter Ochs often has said that traditional logic and propositional statements of truth work for many expressions of truth. In everyday living and thinking, we are constantly deducing from the general to the particular case: given the standards of an A paper, this is a B; if this governmental policy is unjust, then that one is barely civil. In everyday speech we present propositions: it is cold; he is tall; they are generous, and we have been stingy. We need complex semiotics to express the more difficult epistemological challenges: for example, the making of scientific hypothesis (thus abduction), poetic discourse and the complexities and paradoxes of theology (thus rhetoric and textuality). However, propositional statements like “God is good”, “God is eternal”, “God is wise”, or “God is creator”, while not adequate to all that we might want to express in a theology, remain excellent formulations of aspects of God’s nature and reality. They communicate knowledge of God and can stimulate contemplation, exploration, and the development of theology. Given God’s ultimate unknowability and difference from us, all propositional statements about God need to be regarded with some suspicion as too facile, too simple. At the same time, as the Talmud says, “God speaks in human language.” We are in our rights to use human language to speak about God. Here, medieval philosophers like Crescas in the Jewish world, Aquinas in the Christian, and Averroes in Islam developed ways of speaking propositional truths about God as a series of “perfections” that are part of God’s very essence and therefore not accidental attributes that we normally use to describe a being’s qualities and characteristics. And finally, medieval reason has the advantage of allowing for divine participation in reason through the “active intellect” of God. This divine element in rational thought then elevates philosophical exploration to a form of contemplation that at once could be called the quest for truth and also a kind of prayer

Otherwise, the negation of all meaning which is presented as exalted as a form of revelation in itself, leads to the end of theology: like an uroborus eating its tail, it destroys itself in the very act of positing itself

In the specifically Jewish context, it is hard to imagine how Judaism could continue with radical apophatic theologies since, if nothing at all can be said about its God, the commandments lose their anchoring in a commanding presence. It is hard to imagine how this God could be conceived as entering into history to give the Torah or redeem the Israelites from slavery. Thus, as well as marking an endpoint for philosophy and theology, I would offer that postmodern apophatism also signals something of an end to Judaism. Therefore, having come to this end, I see no option but to begin again

In some ways, the assertion of the “complete existence of God” in all senses of the word ‘existence’ is all that must be said to propose a theological realism and positive theology. God’s existence is neither dependent upon the existence of the world nor upon the human mind. It is complete and sufficient unto itself, and so it cannot be reduced to any non-divine existence. Indeed, if there is to be a reduction, it must be a reduction of the world and humans to God, since God is the creator and sustainer of “the existence of all else.” For Maimonides, God’s existence is “the first and most fundamental principle” of Judaism. This is where it all begins. Negative theology, then, is about whether or not human cognition and language is appropriate to comprehend the nature of God. It has none of the modern doubts about the existence of God, and certainly none of the postmodern sense of God as the abyss or nothingness that defies meaning. God is, for Maimonides and all of medieval theology, not a negative at all, but an intense and infinite positive. Indeed, in the words of the neo-Thomistic theologian Etienne Gilson, God’s being is “the very excess of positivity which hides the divine being from our eye.” God’s positivity is “the light which lights up the rest“

In philosophical terms, in naming himself as Being, God is declaring God’s aseity. To use the language of Kant and Heidegger against them, in declaring God’s name “I Am,” as absolute being, God is making the primary statement of “onto-theology.” It is God and God alone that provides all there is with an ontology, its basis for existence. This means, furthermore, that nothing else ranks as true and real as God does

I would suggest that, at the very least, what is to be gained from a return to medieval theology for the projects of theological realism and positive theology is the first principle that God exists as sufficient and absolute Being and that God’s existence provides the ground and sustenance foe all other beings. The Being of God as absolute Being must be considered a rational option to explain the basis of all that is, or what has been called “metaphysics,” given the failures of foundationalism and Kantianism as epistemological models, the failure of materialist reductionism to physics and chemistry with the weak explanation that the most complex forms of life emerged through processes of accident and chance, and, finally, an epistemology based upon probability and not certainty. This belief, as I have suggested, is enough to establish a positive theology, since it asserts the existence of God as ontological basis of what is real, irreducible to the world and to human thought. The belief in God as absolute Being is a rational belief, one could say, because it does what reason does: it “makes sense” of the world — of its origin, of its existence, and of its order. God as absolute Being is a positive assertion and not a negative one because it presents God as the fundamental given behind all other givens, the fundamental “yesh” or “yes” before the “ayin” or “no” that might detract from what is given. Is the theistic assertion of a primal and sufficient Being an incontrovertible fact of metaphysics? Can we explain all that is without this Being? Yes, sure. But, at this point in human history and science, given what we know, we can no longer say with the modern and postmodern atheists that this theistic belief is irrational

Furthermore, if belief in God’s absolute existence is rational, there is, as I suggested, a structure, an order, and a telos that is established in the universe, and this provides the structure of the monotheistic religions. We can see this from what Gilson says about the implications of God’s sufficient Being: “If God is Being, He is not only total being…He is more especially true being: verum esse. And that means everything else is only partial being and hardly deserves the name of being at all.” If God is absolute and complete Being, we are obviously less so

The contemporary neo-Thomist theologian Norris Clarke speaks of theology as having an “outer and inner path.” The outer path is the path of the medieval philosophers, and the inner path is the path of the psalms and prophets. The outer describes God as distant absolute Being, the inner describes God as person and focuses on our relationship to Him

Gellman takes the notion of double-mindedness from scripture itself. He uses it to explain Abraham’s mindset in going out to sacrifice Isaac after being commanded by God to do so. One the one hand, Abraham had to believe that he would not have to sacrifice Isaac, that God “would provide” a way out. On the other hand, he had to believe that he would have to sacrifice Isaac. Without this “double-mindedness,” we cannot understand the trial that God had put Abraham through. Without this paradox, we cannot understand the psychological and religious stress Abraham was under

Gellman’s notion of double-mindedness has some affinities with Kierkegaard’s notion of Abraham making a “double movement” (Fear and Trembling). It also relates to Kierkegaard’s notion of the sacrifice of Isaac as “the absurd.” However, Gellman wants to avoid the irrationality suggested by this term, suggesting that “double-mindedness” is not absurd, irrational, or a-rational. Indeed, he wants to say that there is a rationality to the position of double-mindedness. It is rational because it helps us to understand in the clearest way, despite the contradiction, what was actually going on Abraham’s mind as he traveled with Isaac to Moriah. It is rational because it helps bring understanding and insight into Abraham’s mental state as he traveled to Moriah with his son. It is rational because it displays most clearly Abraham’s religious struggle. It is rational because it fulfills the function of reason: to make the strange familiar, the opaque clear, and the obscure distinct

Ochs argues that Peirce supplies us with the tools to develop a “logic of scripture” that helps us to understand Torah as a complex system of signs aimed not only at understanding the nature of God, but also at applying divine healing energy to a human situation of need. Given the complexity of scripture and its obvious gaps, repetitions, contradictions, and dichotomies, scripture, as a religious medium, requires a different logic than traditional philosophy with its law of contradiction. Ochs argues that the reasoning of scripture is neither primitive nor confused, but that scripture displays a logic ruled by what Peirce calls abduction and thirdness. It uses these logical forms to push human logic toward divine logic. The pragmatic dimension of a sign’s use, its relation to the interpretant and the community of interpretation, provides a way to understand the rich Jewish traditions of interpretation of scripture in midrash, aggadah (stories), and medieval exegesis, as ways of generating new understandings of God diachronically through tradition. Ochs helps us to see that the semiosis of God is no simple matter. Indeed, it requires a complex use of signs that rivals the use of signs by mathematics and physics to express the fundamentals of our knowledge of reality. Given this, it is no wonder that the Torah and the Jewish theological tradition stretches our normal use of language to its limits in its attempt to express the inexpressible

There is one more thing that I must say, however, before ending this paper: that the condition for the possibility of God’s contradictory status as both distant and present, transcendent and immanent, the condition for the double-mindedness I am arguing for, is God’s oneness. If God were two there would be no problem, no contradiction, since we could say that God A is transcendent and God B is immanent. However, the Shema teaches us that we must remain with God’s oneness. And maybe the prophet Zachariah is addressing the hope of the philosopher when he says, “On that day the LORD shall be One, and His name One”. This means that redemption is not only the solution to the problems of exile and sin, suffering and evil, but it is also the solution to the philosophical problem of the contradiction of seeing and not seeing God

Kant was sympathetic to negative theology up to a point. As he saw it, the virtue of negative theology is that it removes any empirical content from our idea of God and thus frees us from anthropomorphism. But he is clear that negative theology is not enough. As I indicated earlier, he shares Kepnes’ conviction that unless we have something positive to say about God, we will end up with a theology manqué, which is to say an idea of God that “is wholly idle and useless and makes no impression on me if I assume it alone.” The reason behind this is that I need the idea of holiness or moral perfection to make sense of my obligation to strive to embody it. If all I had were the idea of something that resists characterization, there would be nothing to ensure that my striving had some hope of success

Kant therefore maintains that we need to bring together the idea of a creator of the world with that of an author of the moral law. Only then can we assure ourselves that the world is not so constituted as to resist our efforts at moral improvement. In this way, he has moved from a purely deistic understanding of God to one that makes room for life, intelligence, and will. Unless I have misunderstood Kepnes, he wants to do the same thing. Rather than a God who is reached purely by negation, he wants a God who can be praised and serve as the basis for hope in a future redemption

This does not mean that we have to abandon prayer or that a person errs as soon as she opens her mouth to speak about God. All of the negative theologians that Kepnes mentions — Maimonides, Cohen, and Levinas — had important things to say about prayer. All wrote extensively about God and the human effort to come to grips with transcendence. What it means is that, however necessary, discourse about God can take us only so far. Having been brought to the precipice of human understanding, the proper response is to follow Job in bowing our heads to something too great to fathom

Too often in Jewish theology we are witness to what the American philosopher William Alston called “transcendentalitis,” a determined desire to refrain from saying anything at all about God, which for some folk might be but one small step from or equivalent to agnosticism

In my simplest understanding of the terms, a realist engaging in discourse about God in traditional Judaism affirms that God is real, genuine, actual, and existent independent of our or anyone else’s thinking of God. A non-realist engaging in discourse about God in traditional Judaism denies that God is real, genuine, actual, and independently existent. A non-realist could be a “fictionalist,” thinking of “God” as an imaginative fiction designed to express and encourage one’s commitment to a particular religious way of life. Or a non-realist might treat “God-talk” as an emotively fitting way to relate to well-appreciated features of life and the world with some combination of gratitude and wonder at being alive, or the like. Or a non-realist, pining for Kant, might “posit” God from a desire to motivate morality, yet not really believe there is such a thing at all

An analogous course for God-duality would be that God truly features both in the mode of Being and in the mode of personhood. However, God, in God’s essential self, is neither an Absolute Being nor a person. Theological realists of this kind believe there is a real God, an “it,” behind these two modes, and we are able to make affirmative attributions about God — namely, that God takes on these two modes, respectively, at various times. It is only that we can know nothing about the “itness” of God’s own self. We thereby escape inconsistency in the God-duality by asserting modal duality but not substantive duality in God. This assertion is affirmative about God, that God possesses both modes

This means thinking of God as a person rather differently than we think of a human being as a person. With a human, he or she is a person — that is her substance, as it were — whereas with God, on the present proposal, we can say only that God takes on a personal modality. And to say that God is Absolute Being would be to say that God has such a modality of being. This way we would be saying something about a real God, something positive, and something true of God independently of how we think of God. So, the application of “person” here would differ somewhat from our ordinary usage

Alternatively we can state that given our conceptual limitations and inability to comprehend the truth about God's essence, we accept that it is best to think of God both as an Absolute Being and as a person. This is the closest to the truth we can get within our finite limitations, knowing that somehow these terms describe God for us in the best way they can. We have this on the authority of our religious tradition

Here, when I believe that God is both an Absolute Being as well as a person, I am employing “absolute being” and “person” with semantic literalness but am not attributing these to God in semantic literalness. Rather, what I believe, on authority, is that God sufficiently resembles an Absolute Being for it to be best for us to think of God as an Absolute Being. And I am saying that God sufficiently resembles a person for it to be best for us to think of God as a person. As a realist, I believe that there are positive, actual, real, facts about God that correspond to the way I intend what I am saying

Or one can think of God as a person rather differently than we think of a human being as a person. With a human, he or she is a person. Being a person is her intrinsic substantive nature, as it were, whereas with God, on the present proposal, we can say only that God has what functions as personal-ness. In so saying, we succeed in saying something true about a real God and true of God independently of how we think of God — namely, that there is something about God that functions in this certain way. “That way” is how something in us functions in the same way, but without God having the relevant intrinsic substantive nature. An argument could be made for imaging a functionally person-like God as a person for purposes of the religious life. We need to picture God to ourselves in ways that enhance prayer and devotion. So, we picture God as a person when the reality is that God only functions in a person-like way. For practical purposes God is “a person.” In actual fact, there is something about God that functions as personable-ness

There is another approach that strove mightily to accommodate both the personal God and the God of Being, and that is the explicit Hasidic teaching of there being the Infinite in Itself and the Infinite Light that proceeds from the Infinite Itself. The Infinite in Itself corresponds to the impersonal, absolute being of God. The character of personhood takes place in the realm of the Infinite Light that emanates from the Infinite Itself. Contradiction is avoided by having the elements of the Being-person duality in different locations. Neither the Infinite Itself nor the Infinite Light should be called “God” in this scheme. Rather, the two together may be called “The Godhead” or “The Infinite” as a term encompassing both the Infinite Itself and the Infinite Light

The historian uses his skills to demonstrate what Jews have believed. The theologian is embarked on the more difficult, but, if realised, more relevant, task of discovering what it is that a Jew can believe in the present

והברור דההרגשות כולם בנויות מהטבע והמוחש אשר תתרגש מהם לב האדם כמו האהבה והיופי והגבורה, והעמים הקדמונים הקדישו כל כוחות הטבע בהתרגשם מכל זה והעריצום וקראו לכן שמות אלילים לאליל היופי, לאליל הגבורה, אליל האהבה כידוע, ומי שהיה לו בזה הפלגה הקדישוהו וקראוהו בן אלקי, ועד היום העמים מציירים תמונות ומקדישים המוחשים ואף הישמעאלים מקדשים קבר משיחם במעקא וכיו"ב, נמצא דההרגשות מסייעים לאמונתם הבנוי על המוחש והמצוייר, לא כן ה', שעמד אברהם והתבונן שאינו חלק מהנבראים ולא כח בגשם ואינו מתואר ואינו מצוייר ואינו מושג שאילו היה מתואר או מצוייר היה נגדר בדבר מה והיה לו תכלה וכל שיש לו תכלה יש לו תחלה והוא מחוייב המציאות ממציא כל המציאות בלעדי האפשריות מאין המוחלט, יחיד שאין כיחודו שאילו היה יותר מאחד היה חלוק ביניהם באיזה צד והיו בעלי גבול שזה נגבל מחבירו וכל המציאות כולה רותקה מהממציא האחד יתברך, וזה עיון אמיתי ומושכל, אבל מי יוכל להשיגו עד כי כתב רבינו בחיי הזקן שלא יעבדוהו באמת רק הפילסוף או הנביא, ובכ"ז כל ישראל מאמינים באמת מציאותו ואחדותו ענין מושכל כזה, ומלעיגים לכל ההרגשות וההתפעלות שמרגישים מצד הטבע ומבינים שהמה כולם הווים ונפסדים אפשרי המציאות וכגרזן ביד החוצב. וע"ז ביארו מאמרם ז"ל, מפני מה זכו ישראל לקרות את שמע שהן בני אברהם יצחק ויעקב מבינים ענין פילוסופי כזה וילעגו לכל ההרגשות.

ולכך כביכול בחכמתו שרצה שכל ישראל יתעצמו בעיון מושכל שיאמינו באחדותו וכל ההרגשות והמוחשים לא ירעו להם ולא יזיקו למושכלותם, מה עשה לדרכי ההטעאה מכוחות המדמה והמתעה, הרבה להם תורה מושכלות רבות בתורה שבכתב ושבע"פ לחזק כח השכל להיות קיים ועומד ומתגבר על המדמה, ועל ההרגשות המתעות ומביאות להתפעל מהטבע ולשכוח היוצר בראשית ולתת כבוד להנבראים, הרבה להן במצות לחלק להם ההרגשות כמו אהבה, אהבת רעים חיי המשפחה, אהבת האומה, נקמה לנקום משונאי ה', חסד לעשות עם חבירו, וכל ההרגשות מקום להם במצוות. וזה רצה הקב"ה לזכות את ישראל (פירוש נקיון מלשון, משלי כ ט, זכיתי לבי) להעמידם על הדת הפלסופי ולבלי להתפתות מהציורים והמוחשים הרבה להם תורה מושכלות לגעור בכח המדמה, ומצות ליקח כל המוחשים וההרגשות למצות ומעשים טובים שלא יפתו את האדם לרע ולכן נשא הציץ על הראש והיה כתוב (שמות כח לו) קודש לה' שהשכל כולו קודש, אמנם על הלב מקור ההרגשות כתיב בני ישראל להורות שההרגשות יהיו אל המצות שרובן המה התאחדות האומה כמו בית הבחירה וביאה ברגל לירושלים, ולקט שכחה ופאה ומעשר ותרומה שזה התאחדות האומה. ולכן יהיו ההרגשות עסוקים במצות ולא יתפתו להטבע להעריץ מה שהלב מתרגש מהם לעבוד ע"ז ולכך אפוד מכפר על עו"ג (זבחים פח:).

והנה יש להאריך, שכל מקומות המקודשים אין יסודם מן הדת רק מהאומה והשרשים כמו הר המוריה שמשם נברא אדם ושם הקריב אברהם את יצחק וכן נבחר עפ"י נביא ובדת לא כתוב רק (דברים יב ה) מקום אשר יבחר ה', והר סיני מקום הדת כיון שנסתלקה שכינה ממנו ועלו צאן ובקר, שחלילה ההרגשות לא יתעו לייחס להדת איזו ציור, רק ירושלים וכל ארץ ישראל והר המוריה בנויים על התייחסותם לאבותינו שרשי האומה והתאחדות האומה לשרשה שכל ההרגשות יהיו רק להתאחדות האומה וזה דרוש עמוק, אכמ"ל.

בְּתוֹךְ עַמִּי האט געשריבן: ↑דאנערשטאג פעברואר 01, 2024 8:18 pm

אלפא האט געשריבן: ↑דאנערשטאג פעברואר 01, 2024 7:50 pm ובכלל אידישקייט איז ווי באקאנט א רעליגיע פון טון און איז נישט געבויט ארום גלייבן (ולואי אותי עזבו ותורתי שמרו...).

ווי באקאנט? ווען באקאנט?

בפירוש אמרה תורה: ״דע את אלקי אביך ועבדהו״. ועוד כמה וכמה מקראות מורים על זה הענין.

און אויך א חלק פון די מצוות וואס מ׳דארף ״טון״ איז תלוי במח ולב. ס׳דא שש מצוות תמידיות און אזוי אויך שש זכירות, וואס רובם ככולם איז נאר שייך אויב ס׳דא ׳אמונה׳.

וזה שנחשוב ונתבונן במצותיו ומאמריו ופעולותיו עד שנשיגהו ונהנה בהשגתו בתכלית ההנאה. וזאת היא האהבה המחוייבת.

הנה בארנו לך שבהתבוננות תעלה בידך ההשגה ותגיע ההנאה ותבוא האהבה בהכרח.

היא שצונו להאמין יראתו יתעלה ולהפחד ממנו, ולא נהיה ככופרים ההולכים בשרירות לבם ובקרי, אבל נירא ביראת ענשו בכל עת.

והיאך היא הדרך לאהבתו ויראתו? בשעה שיתבונן האדם במעשיו וברואיו הנפלאים הגדולים, ויראה מהם חכמתו שאין לה ערך ולא קץ, מיד הוא אוהב ומשבח ומפאר ומתאווה תאווה גדולה לידע השם הגדול, כמו שאמר דוד צמאה נפשי לאלוקים לא-ל חי (תהלים מב ג).

וכשמחשב בדברים האלו עצמן, מיד הוא נרתע לאחוריו, ויירא ויפחד ויידע שהוא בריה קטנה שפלה אפלה, עומד בדעת קלה מעוטה לפני תמים דעות, כמו שאמר דוד כי אראה שמיך וגו׳ מה אנוש כי תזכרנו (תהלים ח ד-ה).

Strauss maintains that the attentive reader will notice that Maimonides distinguishes between Moses, the lawgiver, and all other prophets. Maimonides stresses Moses’ exalted status, argues Strauss, because for Maimonides Moses is the Platonic philosopher-legislator. The emphasis on the uniqueness of Moses as the ideal prophet and ideal ruler is the core of Maimonides’ political philosophy because “Not the mystery of its [the Torah’s] origin, the search for which leads either to theosophy or ‘Epicureanism,’ but its end, the comprehension of which guarantees obedience to the Torah, is accessible to human reason”

According to Strauss, Maimonides is able to properly balance the relation between praxis, obedience to the law, and theory, the mystery of the law’s origins, not by conflating them but by keeping them in continual dialectical tension. For Strauss, Maimonides’ refusal to resolve the tension between law and philosophy (between praxis and theory) expresses Maimonides’ moderate claims both for what philosophy can produce on its own (it cannot produce the law) and for what revelation can claim to know absolutely (it cannot provide certain knowledge of the mystery of its origin). Strauss’s attention to esotericism is rooted in a philosophical interest in “a golden mean which is neither a compromise nor a synthesis, which is hence not based on the two opposed positions, but which suppresses them both, uproots them by a prior, more profound question, by raising a fundamental problem, the work of a truly critical philosophy”

For Strauss, the work of a truly critical philosophy is to grasp problems, and not to provide solutions. What is the absolute problem at the heart of esotericism, according to Strauss? The problem concerns the self-sufficiency of reason or, put another way, the inescapable and necessary tension between theory and practice. The theological-political predicament of modernity stems from the modern commitment to the self-sufficiency of reason that, Strauss argues, results in reason’s self-destruction. Esotericism is a means toward preserving the limits of philosophy and revelation (or law) vis-à-vis one another. The law comes up against its own limitations in the quest to articulate the philosophical foundations of the law. But at the same time, philosophy comes up against its own limits in recognizing that the philosopher is always already within society (or the law) and for this reason dependent upon the law. Strauss thus makes the seemingly immoral move of revealing Maimonides’ art of writing for the sake of saving the possibility of both revelation and philosophy

For thousands of years, billions of people have found meaning in playing virtual reality games. In the past, we have called these virtual reality games “religions”. What is a religion if not a big virtual reality game played by millions of people together? Religions such as Islam and Christianity invent imaginary laws, such as “don’t eat pork”, “repeat the same prayers a set number of times each day”, “don’t have s*x with somebody from your own gender” and so forth. These laws exist only in the human imagination. No natural law requires the repetition of magical formulas, and no natural law forbids homosexuality or eating pork. Muslims and Christians go through life trying to gain points in their favorite virtual reality game. If you pray every day, you get points. If you forget to pray, you lose points. If by the end of your life you gain enough points, then after you die you go to the next level of the game (aka heaven)

The idea of finding meaning in life by playing virtual reality games is of course common not just to religions, but also to secular ideologies and lifestyles. Consumerism too is a virtual reality game. You gain points by acquiring new cars, buying expensive brands and taking vacations abroad, and if you have more points than everybody else, you tell yourself you won the game. You might object that people really enjoy their cars and vacations. That’s certainly true. But the religious really enjoy praying and performing ceremonies, and my nephew really enjoys hunting Pokémon. In the end, the real action always takes place inside the human brain

I think it is essentially inconclusive because it requires too many, unproven metaphysical assumptions to work. But I also think that a full 'proof' of a naturalistic or nontheistic worldview requires similar assumptions. Establishing worldviews is hard, and I don't think I or anyone else is capable of definitively doing so. We can only offer more or less plausible arguments for different possibilities

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑מאנטאג אקטאבער 05, 2020 11:48 pm דער פילאזאף דר. אנטאני מקגאוואן ‏שרייבט אז כהיום באציהט זיך פילאזאפיע צו דריי דאמעינס (ברייט גערעדט):

‏1). עטיקס.

‏2). עפיסטעמאלאגיע [ווי אזוי מ׳״ווייסט״ וכל המסתעף].

‏3). מעטאפיזיקס [דאס נאטור און מיינונג פון ״עקזיסטענץ״ און אבסטראקטקייט בכלליות כדוגמא אעסטעטיקס].

Philosophy can garb itself in sophisticated verbiage, but it all boils down to asking three basic types of question:

* Ontological Questions: These are questions about existence. What exists? How did it get that way? How does it work? What are things made of?
* Ethical Questions: These are questions about appropriate behaviour. What should I do? How should I treat others?
* Epistemological Questions: These are questions about knowledge. How do I know what exists or what I should do? What tools (logic, evidence, experiment etc.) can I use to gain knowledge about the world?

Religion tries to answer these basic philosophical questions. Examine any major religion, and you will find a set of ontological claims about the origins of the universe, the mechanics of the universe and the events in human history.

Examine any major religion and you will also find a set of moral prescriptions about how one should live one's life and how one should treat other people.

Nicholas Everitt argues that for most religions the God hypothesis is at the root of its ontological and ethical claims: God is the ultimate ontological entity which explains all other aspects of reality, including moral values. Thus, although religions are not just about God, it is appropriate to dedicate significant attention to the God question

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑פרייטאג מאי 05, 2023 3:08 pmלגבי די געדאנק פון דר. דוד ביאלע, האט יצחק דויטשער געשריבן:

The Jewish heretic who transcends Jewry belongs to a Jewish tradition

ועיין כאן.

קאווע טרינקער האט געשריבן: ↑זונטאג פעברואר 16, 2014 5:10 pm אין א צווייטע שמועס (פאר נישט אידן) האב איך אמאל געהערט רב זאקס זאגן - בנוגע וואס אידן האבן אלץ תורם געווען פאר די פאבליק, זאגט ער:

אפילו אין אפיקורס'עס און אין כפירה זענען אידן די בעסטע... נעם למשל 3 פון די 4 גרעסטע כופרים אין מאדערן-וועלט: שפינוזא, מארקס און פרויד
דער איינציקסטער וואס איז נישט געווען א איד איז דארווין, פארוואס דארווין - מיט אזא לאנגע בארד, איז נישט געווען אידיש, ווייס איך נישט
must have been a random genetic mutation

Maimonides' conception of prayer transcends the prevailing distinction between supplication and meditation. Maimonides saw prayer primarily not as a manner of communicating with God or of contemplating eternal truths but as a pure act of worship. He saw it as an act that brings a person to realize the true nature of God, to experience God's presence, and to inculcate this realization in all dimensions of life

There are those who scoff at the school boy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was the school boy who said, “Faith is believing what you know ain't so”

שלא היה כופר וכו׳ אלא שלא היה מאמין

נ״ל כוונתו ד״כופר״ לא מיקרי אלא אחר החקירה בכל חלקי הסותר, אבל זה לא חקר ולא נוכח אלא שלא היה מאמין

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑דאנערשטאג יולי 20, 2023 1:35 pmאיך האב געהערט ביי א לעקציע פון הרב דר. שי וואזנער אז אין סאציאלאגיע זענען דא צוויי סוגים: די פּאָבּליק ספערע, וואו עס איז פתוח לכל און וואו דאס געזעלשאפט קומט זיך צאם און וואו עס איז (בעיקר) שייך דעם קצתו לקצתו פונעם מענטש. דערנאך איז דא דאס פּריוואטע ספערע, וואס איז דער מענטש בינו לעצמו (און זיין פאמיליע).

יעצט, בעצם איז דאס גאנצע דיסקאָרס פון הלכה (ואפילו קאַנדאָקט רוּלס הנ״ל) נאר געזאגט און גערעדט אין די פּאָבּליק ספערע על הכל ולהכלל. ואפילו וואו עס זאגט "אפילו בחדרי חדרים" אא"וו וכדומה, איז דאס אליין אויך געזאגט געווארן אינעם פּאָבּליק ספערע (וכעין ענין "האומר" של המעשה נסים). ולכן, איז אולי לפי הרמב"ם וואו ס'איז טאקע א היזק פאר'ן איש פרטי (על צד הזר) און ער איז טאקע ממש נאר אין זיין פּריוואטע ספערע, איז די הלכה נישט גילטיג לגביו. בדרך אפשר.

ער האט דאס אביסל צוגעשטעלט צום באקאנטן מעשה מיט הרב שאול ליבערמאן ז"ל. א גוי א פראפעסאר האט געפרעגט הרב ליבערמאן אז אויב זיי צוויי זענען אליינס אויף אַן אינזל, וואו עס איז נישטא קיין איבה פון אנדערע, און עס איז שבת, וואלט ער מחלל שבת געווען אים צו ראטעווען? האט הרב ליבערמאן גע'ענטפערט אז יא. און שפעטער האט ער געזאגט פאר אנדערע אז די ענטפער זיינער אליינס צום גוי'שן פּראפעסאר איז געווען משום איבה...

עכ"פ אפילו ווען די הלכה זאגט אז עס באציהט זיך צום פּריוואטע ספערע, איז דאס אבער אליינס אלעמאל געזאגט צו און אינעם קאנטעקסט פונעם פּאָבּליק ספערע.

דאס קען אולי געבן א נייע פשט אין (קידושין מ.) אמר רבי אלעאי הזקן אם רואה אדם שיצרו מתגבר עליו, ילך למקום שאין מכירין אותו וילבש שחורים ויתכסה שחורים ויעשה כמו שלבו חפץ, ואל יחלל שם שמים בפרהסיא ע"ש. והיינו, ווען ער איז אך ורק אינעם פּריוואטע ספערע און אנדערש איז אים פערזענליך טאקע קיום התורה ואיזה מצוה א היזק באמת. אבל ע"ש בתוד"ה ויעשה (אבער, ווי געזאגט, איז דאס אלעס ווייטער געזאגט אינעם קאנטעקסט פונעם פּאָבּליק ספערע; ואפילו די ילבש שחורים אליין אויך).

God degenerated to the contradiction of life instead of being its transfiguration and eternal Yes! ... In God nothingness deified, the will to nothingness sanctified

Suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short; some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness; some thought him too dark, and some too fair. One explanation would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is another explanation. He might be the right shape. Outrageously tall men might feel him to be short. Very short men might feel him to be tall. Old bucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled out; old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyond the narrow lines of elegance. Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the center. Perhaps, after all, it is Theism that is sane and all its critics that are mad

מי אני האט געשריבן:די פראבלעם איז נאר אז דאן פארוואס קען מען נישט נוצן דאס זעלבע תירוץ פאר ע"ז וכדומה, וואו ס'איז גילטיג אינעם "לעבנסוועלט"? ואולי וועט זיך דאס טאקע ווענדן אין ווי ווייט נפסד די דעה וואס ליגט אונטער די מעשה איז, וואס דאן וועט דאס די הלכה, לפי הרמב"ם, נישט צולאזן אפילו ס'איז דא די סאָשׁעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם. וקצת כעין וואו ווען די סאָשׁעל קאַנסטראָקט מציאות איז אז מ'איז מתיר רציחה, וואס דאן וועט דאס דאך, כמובן, נאך אלס בלייבן אסור להלכה. (ועיין לדוגמא בהל' ע"ז פי"א הי"א-הי"ב (אבל עיין בכסף משנה ולחם משנה שם) והט"ז ובבאר אליעזר, ובמו"נ ח"ג פל"ז. וידוע הגר"א ביו"ד סימן קעט ס"ק יג.)

וכן מציאותו ומציאות זולתו אמנם יאמר עליה מציאות בהשתתף השם, כמו שאבאר.

ר"ל כי מציאותו ית׳ הוא מהותו, ומציאותו מחוייבת, ומציאות זולתו אפשרית בלתי המהות.

כי חכמת האלקות וזה הספר, עיקרם הרחקת ההגשמה וההתפעלות מהשם, והוא האריך בפרקים הקודמים בשימנע לימודם מן ההמון, לכן היה הכרחי מה שיאמר עתה.

וראוי לפי חלשת ההמון שיהיה המאמרים בזה הדעת האמתי מעט והראשון הרבה, וזה כדמות מושך חבל בשני ראשים.

וכתב אבן סינא: אין ראוי להטריד ההמון בשום דבר בידיעת הא-ל ית׳, אלא שהוא אמת ואחד באין דומה. ואין להטרידם שיאמינו שאינו מתחלף ושאינו חוץ העולם ולא תוכו וכן כל הדומה לזה, כי זה ישבש עליהם הדת, כי אין כח בם לצייר זה הענין, אבל יכזיבו אותו או יהיה סבה למחלוקת ימנעום מהמעשים המדיניים.

ואמנם החכם אבן רש״ד אמר כי אין ראוי לומר להמון שאיננו גשם כי יבטל מציאותיו [בלשון מושאל, כנ"ל] אצלם, גם איננו ראוי לומר כי הוא גשם כי הוא חילוף האמת. אבל ראוי שנבחר היותר נכבד ממשיגי הגשם ושנאמר כי הוא אור כי נמלט אותם מאמונת ההגשמה, ויהיה נמצא אצלם ונכבד שבנמצאים עד שיכלול זה מן הצדק כמו שהאור סיבת מציאות הגוונים בפועל וסיבת ראותינו אותם, כן הא-ל ית' סיבת הנמצאות כולם וסיבת השכלתם. ומאד המריץ באמרו ונהורא עמי' שרי׳.

R. Hochman goes on to explain that most of the Principles are indeed mentioned in Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah in a positive sense (even if not as a unit of Thirteen Principles). He also notes the following important point, that when principles of faith are mentioned in the Talmud, they are never listed in a positive sense, that one must believe X. Rather, they are listed in a negative sense, that one who denies X has no share in the World to Come. Why Maimonides, in his Commentary on the Mishnah, chose to formulate the Principles in a positive sense and require active belief as a necessity for all Jews — something the Talmud never explicitly required — is an interesting point which we will come back to. Regarding some of the Principles the difference is clear. For example, according to the Talmud, denial of Resurrection is heresy, but one who has never heard of the Resurrection and thus does not deny it, or affirm it, is a Jew in good standing. For Maimonides, however, the doctrine of Resurrection must be positively affirmed. In a future post we can come back to which Principles even the Talmud implicitly requires positive affirmation of (obviously number 1, belief in God, but there could be others as well)

In Mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it

ואשר לא יאמין בזה כופר בעיקר ואין לו חלק וזכות עם ישראל. וענין האמונה הוא שיקבע בנפשו שהאמת כן ושאי אפשר חילוף (בחילוף) זה בשום פנים. ואם נשאל עליו, ישיב לכל שואל שזה יאמין לבו ולא יודה בחילוף זה אפילו יאמרו להרגו, שכל זה מחזיק וקובע האמנת הלב כשמוציא הדבר מן הכח אל הפועל, רצוני לומר כשיקים בדברי פיו מה שלבו גומר. ואם יזכה לעלות במעלות החכמה ולבבו יבין ובעיניו יראה (ישעיהו ו י) במופת נחתך שהאמונה הזאת שהאמין אמת וברור אי אפשר להיות דבר בלתי זה, אז יקיים מצות עשה זו מצוה מן המובחר.

אמרתי במה אתרצה לבוא לשמש לפני הגבורים, וכבר ביררו לנו הם כל הדברים, הלא בסדר תרי"ג מצות על דרך הסדרים, אולי יתעוררו יותר בהן מתוך כך הנערים, ישימו לב בהם בשבתות ובחגים, וישובו מהשתגע ברחוב הערים, לאור באור החיים, איש אל רעהו הילדים רכים, ישאלו מצות שבת זו כמה, ומלאה הארץ דעת ומזמה. והנה פרוש כל אחת נכון לפניהם, ומבלי יגיעה ימצאו דברי חפץ בסמניהם, זרע קדש יתברכו מאלקים, הם ובניהם וכל אשר להם, בכל מקומות מושבותיהם, ואני בכלל הברכה עמהם.

האמונה בדבר הוא הצטייר הדבר ציור חזק עד שלא תשער הנפש בסתירתו בשום פנים, אף אם לא יודע דרך האמות בו.

והאמונה תפול בכל דבר שלא הושג למאמין מצד החוש, אבל הושג לאיש מה רצוי ומקובל או לאנשים רבים גדולי הפרסום, הושג הדבר ההוא או כיוצא בו בזמן מה בחוש ונמשכה הקבלה למאמין מן האיש ההוא או האנשים ההם קבלה נמשכת מאב לבן.

ביום השביעי כטוב לב המלך ביין אטו עד השתא לא טב לביה בחמרא אמר רבא יום השביעי שבת היה שישראל אוכלין ושותין מתחילין בד"ת ובדברי תשבחות אבל עובדי כוכבים שאוכלין ושותין אין מתחילין אלא בדברי תיפלות וכן בסעודתו של אותו רשע הללו אומרים מדיות נאות והללו אומרים פרסיות נאות

אלפא האט געשריבן:הגם לגבי דעם שאלה פון דעם אשכול גלייב איך אז רובא דרובא רעליגיעס דארפן צו מסכים זיין אז גאט האט אן אחיזה אין מציאות באמת - דלא כהרמב״ם.

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field

When I reviewed the literature, it seemed at first that the foxhole theory was right. A substantial body of research suggests that religion helps people cope with dying. While some of that positive impact is tied to community (the social support offered by religion), the provision of meaning is a significant causal factor: religion can offer coherence, a feeling of confidence that our life events are ordered or purposeful, rather than random and chaotic, which in turn can confer a sense of control over one’s life

The end of life is frightening because it’s a new experience; we don’t know where we are going. If a person is ill, dying may entail physical pain and disability. Even in the best of circumstances, we may find ourselves unable to engage in basic physical activities we used to take for granted, or facing the loss of mental acuity. And for most older people, the final years bring the loss of partners, family members, and friends who would otherwise support them at this time. Religion can provide a framing for why we are in pain or why we had to lose somebody we love — for example, if suffering is viewed as redemptive or part of a divine plan. Religion also answers questions about what happens after death, whether through complex and varied conceptions of reincarnation in Buddhism and Hinduism, or through comforting beliefs that we will see loved ones again in heaven, as in some Christian traditions

There are increased rates of depression and suicidal behavior among elderly people. Religious traditions can provide supportive social networks, and offer people in the final years of life steps to work through devastating losses and to continue living a purposeful life. Reading scripture or meditating is something an individual can do, even with physical disability. And when a loved one dies, rituals like sitting Shiva or preparing for a funeral mass offer structured, familiar activities for loved ones to do

we should distinguish American “Nones” into at least four categories:

1). Unaffiliated Believers have conventional, usually Christian or Jewish worldviews, but reject organized religion

2). Philosophical Secularists have replaced religion with a distinct nonreligious worldview such as atheism, Humanism, Free Thought

3). Spiritual Seekers claim no religion because they create their own worldviews from more than one spiritual tradition

4). Those who are indifferent to any kind of religious, spiritual, or secular worldview

”I think Judaism is the only religion that does not require belief in God”

Trained in physics and chemistry, he rejects any kind of supernaturalist framework and sees all ritual as theater — and yet he finds value in tradition and creates his own personal meaning from it. Thus, he and his wife regularly host a secular Passover at their house to pass on the family tradition, but Jack interprets the Exodus story as a metaphor for his hope that freedom will eventually triumph over oppression. Perhaps we need another category for people like Jack, such as culturally religious, or existentially secular, or both

The data I’ve gathered thus far suggests that the foxhole theory (fear of death pushes us toward religion) is wrong. Instead, awareness of death pushes us to find meaning, and secular sources like science can be as rich a source of meaning making as religion is. Secular meaning-making maps are actually quite similar to religious ones, at least in structure and function: they build coherence and control, they place human experience in relation to something bigger than ourselves, and they lend moral significance to our lives as we face its inevitable end

They are different from religious narratives in key ways, too, in their materialist conception of life and their social constructionist view of meaning. By materialist conception, I mean the way that people rejected supernatural notions of a spirit or soul that survives death in favor of a scientific view that consciousness is located in the brain. While parts of us may live on (in the sense of genes passed on to our children or an energy that goes back into the universe), respondents did not think they, as individuals, had continued existence once the brain was dead. By social constructionist, I mean that to deny that there is any inherent meaning in the universe leaves it up to human beings to create meaning and purpose in our lives

And yet, it is not just the secular who create their own meaning. The way that people mix and match from various sources should make us rethink the boundaries between “religious” and “secular.” There is a small but growing number of scholars exploring how people build their own meaning systems from a variety of cultural resources, both religious and secular

חדשים האט געשריבן:איך פארשטיי נישט וואס איז געווען די הוא אמינא פון די מקשן. פארוואס האט ער געהאלטן אז דאס גייט אריין בגדר אפיקורס. ער אליינס קען דאך אויך נישט מסביר זיין גאט, ער האלט דאך לא ישיגוהו משיגי הגוף. וואס האט ער געמיינט ווען ער האט געפרעגט ”גליייבסט אין גאט”? וואספארא גאט האט ער געהאט אין מיינד? איז נישט זיין אפטייטש אין גאט אליינס כפירה?

חדשים האט געשריבן:איך זעה אז דו דרוקסט די ”אויך בצנעא,” אויב גייט עס נאר צו אלץ סאשעל קאנסטראקט, איז דאך דאס נישט שייך בצנעא. עס איז אפשר דא א סאשעל קאנסטראקט צו זאגן אז מען דארף מקיים זיין מצוות בצנעא, אבער למעשה צו טון בצנעא, איז דאך יעדער א יחיד. וויאזוי שטעלט זיך עס צאם אלץ סאשעל קאנסטראקט?

דע, כי האמת לא יתואר בו הדבר מצד האומרים, וגם כן בהפכו, ואולם גדר האמת שהוא אשר ימצא בשכל, לפי מה שהוא עליו חוץ מן השכל, וגדר הכוזב מתנגד לזה, ולכן לא יחזק האמת בהודות כל העולם עליו, ולא יחליש בחלוק כל העולם עליו

וכבר גדר החכם הצניעות שהוא הענוה והחכמה.

unlike in the past, the question “Who am I fundamentally?”, that is, in the essentialist sense, is now less significant than the question “What do I do?” in the constructionist sense

מי אני האט געשריבן:הניחא אויב די ביסוס ויסוד איז אלס געווען, און מ'האלט אז עס דארף נאך אלס זיין, אַן "אמת" מכח א מושכל'דיגע/מציאות'דיגע/עמפּירישע פאקט. דאן, אויב נאר דאס קען זיין א בסיס, פאלט דאס לכאורה טאקע צאם מכח טעות - מ'קומט דאך צו דערצו ממבט מושכלות וכנ"ל. טאמער אבער פעהלט נאר (צום מערסטענסט) אויס אז די בסיס דערפון זאל זיין פשוט "אמת" און "עכט", איז דאס טאקע למעשה פשוט "אמת" און "עכט" מכח סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם.

ועיין עוד כאן. ווי איך האב דערמאנט, האב איך דאס אויסגעברייטערט אין צוויי ארטיקלען וועלכע איך האב סאָבּמיטעד צום וועקער.

חדשים האט געשריבן:אויב גייסטו שוין מיט סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם קענסטו שוין צוזאמענשטעלן קיום המצוות מיט גלייבן אין ג-ט. דאס איז דאך סאך א שטערקערע סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם.

מי אני האט געשריבן:מ׳קען בעצם נעמען דעם געדאנק פון דאס אז סאשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם איז דאס וואס מאכט מציאות הא-ל ״עכט״ (און די מאראלישע אנטי-ריעליזם וואס קען מיטקומען דערמיט), נאך ווייטער אויך לגבי המחייב והנותן תוקף לקיום המצות והתורה בכלל.

חדשים האט געשריבן:צאמצושטעלן סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם מיט ריעאליטי איז א סטרעטש. איך האב נישט געליינט די צוגעצייכענטע בוך אבער איך גלייב אז ער איז כמעט א דעת יחידאה. בפשטות מאכט נישט קיין סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם א מציאות. נעם למשל די געזעצן פון גראוויטי, ספיד אף לייט, טערמאדינאמיקס אדער דיין משל פון 1+1, אפילו סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם גייט האלטן פארקערט גייט דאס נישט מאכן די סייענטיפישע געפריווטע מציאות אנדערש.

חדשים האט געשריבן:פונקט ווי סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם האט אוועקגעשטעלט גענדער, ראסע און אין פריערדיגע צייטן רציחה במלחמות, אבער אזויווי זיי זענען געווען געבויעט אויף פאלשע גלויבונגען איז דאס געטוישט געווארן איינמאל עס איז געווארן סייענטיפיש געפריווט אנדערש. הוא הדין לגבי רעליגיע והמסתעף.

חדשים האט געשריבן:דאס מיינט אז סאָשעל קאַנסטראָקשעניזם איז נישט מער ווי גלויבונגען. עס רירט נישט קיין סייענטיפישע פאקטן און עס טוישט זיך מיט סייענטיפישע פאקטן.

חדשים האט געשריבן:בפשטות, ווען די ציבור איז זיך טועה אין א סייענטיפישע געפריווטע פאקט איז נישט דא קיין איסור לפרוש מן הציבור אפילו להגראי”ה.

לכן בהלכה מותר ליחיד לפרוש מהחלטת הרוב, שכן רוב בבי"ד לא קובע מהותית את האמת. כפי שקובעת הגמרא בהוריות ב (טועה במצוות לשמוע לדברי חכמים), יחיד לא צריך לשמוע בקול בי"ד שטעה. אם הם טעו זו לא האמת. אבל פרישה מן הציבור אינה אופציה. עצם הקביעה הציבורית (לגבי המפורסמות) היא היא האמת. לכן שם הרוב קובע מהותית ואין לפרוש ממנו. למרבה האירוניה דווקא בשאלות שבהן לא האמת קובעת החובה ללכת אחרי הרוב היא מוחלטת. בשאלות של אמת ושקר הרוב הוא אינדיקציה אבל אין חובה חלוטה להיצמד אליו.