On my Quora feed, I keep seeing people ascribing the Flood to “the Christian god”. So apparently “the Jewish god” had nothing to do with it, and it was inserted in the Torah by nefarious Christian time travelers.
Franz Rosenzweig said that all year, he thought the story of Bilaam's donkey was a folk tale, but when he heard it read in shul, he thought it was the word of God.
I have to say I'm something of a rationalist. This is less for reasons of believability and more for reasoning that God wouldn't make nature only to break it as if He didn't know He was going to have to split the sea when He created the universe. I think Orthodox Judaism is overly left-brained and I suspect that's why a lot of Jews get into religious rationalism as a way of avoiding atheist rationalism. There's a Talmudic urge to say, "Is that what *really* happened? Maybe we can interpret differently. How much do I have to believe literally?"
That said, I do broadly think of Torah as poetry and don't worry too much about facticity (I think it's very important for Orthodox Jews to think the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai occurred, but everything else I think is OK to see as poetry or metaphor or whatever, even if I personally think most of it "really happened" on some level).
That’s a great observation and also paradoxical. I do think Talmudic Judaism is very left brained. And yet, the Talmud depends on a text and on ideas that appeal to the right brain, that sees the bigger picture and sees metaphor and poetry. And maybe this is the problem that Yeshivas are running into. They can’t square the two because they are relying almost entirely on left brain methodology. And it’s also why Chassidus works for many, because it brings in the right brain approach. I think there’s a sub stack or a longer article here for one or both of us.
I’ve got nothing against the apologetics, by the way. I site CS Lewis, who is the greatest Christian apologist of modernity. In fact, I think apologetics are essential for many people, myself included. But some apologetics work better than others. And I find for me some of the rationalist apologetics have a very limited function. All that haven’t been said, I’m not sure. I understand your take on Maimonides. I think there’s an argument to be made that guide to the perplexed is one long apologetic. Also, apologetic just means a defense. It doesn’t mean you’re distorting anything. Socrates apology is not a rationalization; it’s an explanation.
I agree this is apologetics, which is why I noted that it’s what people think is apologetics, namely, squeezing together 2 ideas that are held in a non-rational manner. For example some vague idea that miracles aren’t real and therefore minimizing the miracles in the Torah. Maimonides on the other hand, has an entire philosophical system, which includes the Torah (in a manner beyond the scope here) and is trying to see if there is any way his ideas fit into the pesukim. The difference is subtle, but important. The difference in outcome here is that Maimonides is much more concerned with the angels in the story because they touch upon the nature of angels and prophecy, which are so much more important than minimizing the miracle in the story.
You might not like Maimonides’ answer, but he’s not trying to explain away to make it make sense in the way most people think of apologetics. He’s trying to fit into his larger context of prophecy, which he takes extremely seriously. A more important aspect of the story is that there are angels, which Maimonides thinks can only be seen in a vision, again, because of a prophetical context.
Since the basis for his ideas about prophecy is philosophy and not internal data from within the Torah, that by definition categorizes his attempt at harmonizing them as apologetics, because he's trying to fit pre-existing notions (in this case the notion that the Torah shares his philosophical perspective, which he held because he held 1. The Torah is divine and absolutely true and 2. A certain brand of metaphysics is true), and that's probably why textually a lot of it seems weak.
2. The hesitancy to believe in miracles such as reflected in this post is not fundamentally different than Maimonides motivations even after your explanation. The idea that miracles are "irrational" is based on a philosophy, although some may believe it for different reasons than having engaged in intense philosophical Argumentation (such as Maimonides did for his philosophy). That philosophy is naturalism, or possibly even materialism, and one who doesn't subscribe to that philosophy will not think miracles to be irrational.
3. Maimonides also shares this philosophical motivation of naturalism, at least in contrast with philosophers like Al ghazali who advocated for occasionalism as opposed to a real natural order, or what we might call naturalism. This is what compelled him to limit spiritual or non-physical or natural entities or events to a prophetic context. How does that help? For that he appealed to his philosophical arguments to support prophecy.
You may call it "naturalism" or "materialism"--and it may be. But I also think it's common sense. A six-year-old child who doesn't know Maimonides from a hole in the ground might well ask, if you told him the story of Balaam, "Is that really true?" because he knows from experience that animals don't talk. You would have to explain to him that, yes, it is true because it is in the Bible, and he might believe that because he has been educated to believe the Bible is true. So, really, it's arguably more natural not to believe in miracles than to believe in them. Is that a naturalist argument?
And, yes, in a way, my response is a "rationalist" response, despite my making fun of the rationalists. All responses to everything are "rational" because we always use our reason even when we reason something is true because God said so.
But my response is also anti-rationalist because I'm privileging the poetic imagination over "reality"--in this case God's Poetic Imagination. This is Romanticism 101, which was, a reaction itself to Enlightenment rationalism, reductionism.
The argument from experience *is* a naturalist argument, even if it's not put in formal terms in the academy. Our experience aligns with natural causes and events, and we make a subconscious induction (pattern-recognitiom) that this is how things will be everywhere.
Heck, talking donkeys could have been natural, just as it's natural for humans to talk. It happens to not be and donkeys don't talk naturally. How do we know? Past experience.
But I really like your point about anti-rationalism privileging poetic imagination over reality, and you're probably right that's to an extent it's a backlash from reductionism.
But don’t you think Maimonides sees prophecy in this way because it feels more rational than prophets, actually speaking audibly with God or his angels? Everything becomes much more believable if it’s in dreams or visions. I suppose though he’s building off Gods assertion that only Moshe interacts with Him face-to-face, so to speak?
No, he sees prophecy this way because of his theory of the world, more specifically what he thinks a human is and can be. He literally says in the Guide that he agrees with Aristotle’s theory of prophecy, albeit with a difference. Point is, this is not just to make the Torah more “rational”, but to fit it into a philosophical theory he genuinely believed in.
I have never liked mysticism, so I feel uneasy about this donkey story except as representation of all creation attempting to dissuade Balaam from his doomed mission. Towards the end, the story becomes comical when in desperation, Balak led Balaam to a different vantage point, from where only a small portion of the Israelite encampment was visible.
I especially agree with “I believe God wants me to act as though it literally happened, which is why he wrote it into His Poem.” The Bible is rich with profound truths if only we allow ourselves to trust it. I am so glad I have reached that place.
There are portions of Leviticus that are beautiful. And there are parts of the wasteland that I don’t understand and parts of the Cantos that I don’t understand. Poetry is difficult and I do believe that the so-called New Testament is beautiful as well, but I don’t feel called to it.
Ok, I try to keep an open mind about these things. Lay a beautiful portion on me.
I'm sitting here scrolling through https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt03.htm?0aad2a666c and not seeing anything poetic in the English translation. I'm willing to believe there's more music ... or however you'd describe the delta between prose and poetry ... on the Hebrew side.
1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
2 And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
3 Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
This isn't solely my understanding. James Kugel in his phenomenal book "The Great Shift" demonstrates how the Balaam story fits squarely into a form of Biblical prophecy similar to a trance, where things appear to occur in the real world until the observers eyes are opened.
To my reading that is God opening his eyes to see the angel until then was pretty clearly hidden. He’s still riding his donkey and the angel is still talking about the donkey so to me it reads like that part is real.
Great piece. Alexander Pope wrote Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;. The proper study of mankind is man. In his Essay on Man - yours is a good afterword
Actually, we wouldn't fight that CNF transforms memory into art and, in doing so, makes it something other than just the retelling of autobiographical detail. It just includes the "don't lie" rule. Which, if we agree that G-d's Poem (I love that) includes figurative language which G-d intends us to recognize, I'm on board. If there is a talking ass in my essay, and the ass isn't the human sort, I trust the reader to know it's a figurative talking ass. But if I tell you my cat is curled up in my lap, and I don't have a cat but you don't know that or have any way to recognize it as figurative, then I've just intentionally mislead you. Neither G-d nor I would do that.
On my Quora feed, I keep seeing people ascribing the Flood to “the Christian god”. So apparently “the Jewish god” had nothing to do with it, and it was inserted in the Torah by nefarious Christian time travelers.
😝 at least they’re not calling it a Jewish conspiracy.
Franz Rosenzweig said that all year, he thought the story of Bilaam's donkey was a folk tale, but when he heard it read in shul, he thought it was the word of God.
I have to say I'm something of a rationalist. This is less for reasons of believability and more for reasoning that God wouldn't make nature only to break it as if He didn't know He was going to have to split the sea when He created the universe. I think Orthodox Judaism is overly left-brained and I suspect that's why a lot of Jews get into religious rationalism as a way of avoiding atheist rationalism. There's a Talmudic urge to say, "Is that what *really* happened? Maybe we can interpret differently. How much do I have to believe literally?"
That said, I do broadly think of Torah as poetry and don't worry too much about facticity (I think it's very important for Orthodox Jews to think the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai occurred, but everything else I think is OK to see as poetry or metaphor or whatever, even if I personally think most of it "really happened" on some level).
That’s a great observation and also paradoxical. I do think Talmudic Judaism is very left brained. And yet, the Talmud depends on a text and on ideas that appeal to the right brain, that sees the bigger picture and sees metaphor and poetry. And maybe this is the problem that Yeshivas are running into. They can’t square the two because they are relying almost entirely on left brain methodology. And it’s also why Chassidus works for many, because it brings in the right brain approach. I think there’s a sub stack or a longer article here for one or both of us.
I’ve got nothing against the apologetics, by the way. I site CS Lewis, who is the greatest Christian apologist of modernity. In fact, I think apologetics are essential for many people, myself included. But some apologetics work better than others. And I find for me some of the rationalist apologetics have a very limited function. All that haven’t been said, I’m not sure. I understand your take on Maimonides. I think there’s an argument to be made that guide to the perplexed is one long apologetic. Also, apologetic just means a defense. It doesn’t mean you’re distorting anything. Socrates apology is not a rationalization; it’s an explanation.
I agree this is apologetics, which is why I noted that it’s what people think is apologetics, namely, squeezing together 2 ideas that are held in a non-rational manner. For example some vague idea that miracles aren’t real and therefore minimizing the miracles in the Torah. Maimonides on the other hand, has an entire philosophical system, which includes the Torah (in a manner beyond the scope here) and is trying to see if there is any way his ideas fit into the pesukim. The difference is subtle, but important. The difference in outcome here is that Maimonides is much more concerned with the angels in the story because they touch upon the nature of angels and prophecy, which are so much more important than minimizing the miracle in the story.
You might not like Maimonides’ answer, but he’s not trying to explain away to make it make sense in the way most people think of apologetics. He’s trying to fit into his larger context of prophecy, which he takes extremely seriously. A more important aspect of the story is that there are angels, which Maimonides thinks can only be seen in a vision, again, because of a prophetical context.
Since the basis for his ideas about prophecy is philosophy and not internal data from within the Torah, that by definition categorizes his attempt at harmonizing them as apologetics, because he's trying to fit pre-existing notions (in this case the notion that the Torah shares his philosophical perspective, which he held because he held 1. The Torah is divine and absolutely true and 2. A certain brand of metaphysics is true), and that's probably why textually a lot of it seems weak.
2. The hesitancy to believe in miracles such as reflected in this post is not fundamentally different than Maimonides motivations even after your explanation. The idea that miracles are "irrational" is based on a philosophy, although some may believe it for different reasons than having engaged in intense philosophical Argumentation (such as Maimonides did for his philosophy). That philosophy is naturalism, or possibly even materialism, and one who doesn't subscribe to that philosophy will not think miracles to be irrational.
3. Maimonides also shares this philosophical motivation of naturalism, at least in contrast with philosophers like Al ghazali who advocated for occasionalism as opposed to a real natural order, or what we might call naturalism. This is what compelled him to limit spiritual or non-physical or natural entities or events to a prophetic context. How does that help? For that he appealed to his philosophical arguments to support prophecy.
You may call it "naturalism" or "materialism"--and it may be. But I also think it's common sense. A six-year-old child who doesn't know Maimonides from a hole in the ground might well ask, if you told him the story of Balaam, "Is that really true?" because he knows from experience that animals don't talk. You would have to explain to him that, yes, it is true because it is in the Bible, and he might believe that because he has been educated to believe the Bible is true. So, really, it's arguably more natural not to believe in miracles than to believe in them. Is that a naturalist argument?
And, yes, in a way, my response is a "rationalist" response, despite my making fun of the rationalists. All responses to everything are "rational" because we always use our reason even when we reason something is true because God said so.
But my response is also anti-rationalist because I'm privileging the poetic imagination over "reality"--in this case God's Poetic Imagination. This is Romanticism 101, which was, a reaction itself to Enlightenment rationalism, reductionism.
The argument from experience *is* a naturalist argument, even if it's not put in formal terms in the academy. Our experience aligns with natural causes and events, and we make a subconscious induction (pattern-recognitiom) that this is how things will be everywhere.
Heck, talking donkeys could have been natural, just as it's natural for humans to talk. It happens to not be and donkeys don't talk naturally. How do we know? Past experience.
But I really like your point about anti-rationalism privileging poetic imagination over reality, and you're probably right that's to an extent it's a backlash from reductionism.
But don’t you think Maimonides sees prophecy in this way because it feels more rational than prophets, actually speaking audibly with God or his angels? Everything becomes much more believable if it’s in dreams or visions. I suppose though he’s building off Gods assertion that only Moshe interacts with Him face-to-face, so to speak?
No, he sees prophecy this way because of his theory of the world, more specifically what he thinks a human is and can be. He literally says in the Guide that he agrees with Aristotle’s theory of prophecy, albeit with a difference. Point is, this is not just to make the Torah more “rational”, but to fit it into a philosophical theory he genuinely believed in.
I have never liked mysticism, so I feel uneasy about this donkey story except as representation of all creation attempting to dissuade Balaam from his doomed mission. Towards the end, the story becomes comical when in desperation, Balak led Balaam to a different vantage point, from where only a small portion of the Israelite encampment was visible.
I especially agree with “I believe God wants me to act as though it literally happened, which is why he wrote it into His Poem.” The Bible is rich with profound truths if only we allow ourselves to trust it. I am so glad I have reached that place.
"It's nonsense, but that doesn't matter." I'm going to have to give that one a good thinking over.
The library of books that is the Bible is quite uneven as literature/poetry, no? What's beautiful about the book of Leviticus, just to pick on one?
Or 3 John, if you prefer.
There are portions of Leviticus that are beautiful. And there are parts of the wasteland that I don’t understand and parts of the Cantos that I don’t understand. Poetry is difficult and I do believe that the so-called New Testament is beautiful as well, but I don’t feel called to it.
Ok, I try to keep an open mind about these things. Lay a beautiful portion on me.
I'm sitting here scrolling through https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt03.htm?0aad2a666c and not seeing anything poetic in the English translation. I'm willing to believe there's more music ... or however you'd describe the delta between prose and poetry ... on the Hebrew side.
1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
2 And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
3 Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
That last line is devastating.
I'll give you that one.
Scrolling down I found this one that had a certain Tolkien-esque ... or Iron Maiden (perplexity.ai's suggestion) ... quality to it:
14 And the breast of waving and the thigh of heaving
shall ye eat in a clean place;
thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee;
for they are given as thy due, and thy sons' due,
out of the sacrifices of the peace-offerings of the children of Israel.
-------------
Ok, point conceded. There's a lot of dreck in that book, but poetry as well.
Devastating and yet piercing, no? Tragic truths can also be beautiful
And yes, of course, great piece.
And yes, of course, great piece.
Hate to be that guy but a few verses later God opens Bilaams eyes, strongly implying he was asleep or in some state of otherworldly consciousness.
https://www.sefaria.org/Numbers.22.31?lang=bi&with=all
This isn't solely my understanding. James Kugel in his phenomenal book "The Great Shift" demonstrates how the Balaam story fits squarely into a form of Biblical prophecy similar to a trance, where things appear to occur in the real world until the observers eyes are opened.
To my reading that is God opening his eyes to see the angel until then was pretty clearly hidden. He’s still riding his donkey and the angel is still talking about the donkey so to me it reads like that part is real.
Great piece. Alexander Pope wrote Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;. The proper study of mankind is man. In his Essay on Man - yours is a good afterword
Actually, we wouldn't fight that CNF transforms memory into art and, in doing so, makes it something other than just the retelling of autobiographical detail. It just includes the "don't lie" rule. Which, if we agree that G-d's Poem (I love that) includes figurative language which G-d intends us to recognize, I'm on board. If there is a talking ass in my essay, and the ass isn't the human sort, I trust the reader to know it's a figurative talking ass. But if I tell you my cat is curled up in my lap, and I don't have a cat but you don't know that or have any way to recognize it as figurative, then I've just intentionally mislead you. Neither G-d nor I would do that.