The Izbicer Rebbe and Freewill

Having spent some time thinking about medieval approaches to the freewill problem – the apparent contradiction between God’s foreknowledge and our freedom – Rabbi Herzl Hefter introduced me to the work of the Chassidic Rebbe, R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner, otherwise known as the Izbicer. In this blog, I want to present what I take to be the Izbicer’s ‘solution’ to the free will problem. All of this has been worked out for me, essentially, by R. Hefter. The only contribution I’ve made, if any, is to repackage the central ideas utilising a collection of philosophical tools that I borrow from Gareth Evans and Kendal Walton.[1]

Developing a philosophy of Judaism: the fortunes of an enterprise

by Ben Elton

Leopold Zunz (1794-1886) famously remarked that the Jewish Middle Ages did not come to an end until the French Revolution. He was making the important point that a state or religion does not become modern simply because it is exists in modern times. To be modern it must engage with modernity. The French Revolution facilitated that engagement by setting in train events that would lead to the tearing down of the ghetto walls, and with them the intellectual walls that some hoped would keep modernity at bay.

Letter of Support from Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks

When we established this blog, I wrote to the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Lord Sacks. He is surely one of the greatest living rabbis and one of the greatest living Jewish philosophers/thinkers/leaders, so, I asked him what he thought were the major tasks for the next generation of Jewish philosophers. We are thrilled and honoured to have received this response, which I post below.

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Dear Sam, Dani and Aaron

What a wonderful idea: a Jewish philosophy blog. Where blogs fit in the genealogy of philosophical thought, I'm not sure. Are they a continuation of the Socratic dialogue by other means? Are they – bearing in mind Franz Rosensweig’s reservations about the nature of those dialogues – what he sought by way of the “new thinking,” namely a genuinely open conversation that changes its participants in unpredictable ways as it is taking place? Or are they simply musings in the manner of Nietzsche or Schopenhauer, or for that matter Wittgenstein?

It may be that blogs will produce new forms of thought. Walter J Ong, in his Orality and Literacy, wrote that “writing restructures consciousness”, and I believe this. New modes of communication change not only how we communicate but also what we communicate. They change the way we think. And I believe that, as Jews, we need to change the way we think.

Which brings me to the question you ask: what should the next generation of Jewish philosophers be thinking about and writing about?

To that I have no doubt. As I argued in one of the chapters of Future Tense, we need to understand the world in order to transform the world. The three great principles of Judaism are creation, revelation and redemption. Creation is the relationship between God and the world. Revelation is the relationship between God and us. When we apply revelation to creation the result is redemption. We are called on to change the world.

We are not called on to convert the world. How then do we change the world? By contributing to it what we uniquely are, thus giving what only we can give.

Avishai Margalit distinguishes between an i.e. philosophy and an e.g. philosophy. In Judaism, the Noahide covenant is the i.e.; the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants are the e.g. We are called on, that is to say, not to be the only way of finding and serving God, but to be a compelling example to others who will find their own way -- inspired by us but not imitating us.

This means that we must so construct our thought – our philosophies of Judaism, if you like – in such a way as genuinely to engage with the world. That is what I find in very short supply. We are not short of Torah in our time – Torah that operates within a closed, self-contained, self-referential system. But Torah that engages with the world – that could be read by, understood by, appreciated by the world – of that I find little.

One of the great inspirations in my own work was the writing – the immense lifework – of the late Prof Daniel Elazar on Jewish political thinking, that is to say, the politics of covenant. Other inspirations have been cognitive psychotherapists like Aaron T. Beck and Martin Seligman. Then there was the late David Daube who showed, in his great book Biblical Law, published in 1947, how law and narrative were interwoven in the Torah. There have been many others.

But the overwhelming majority of what passes for Torah today does not speak to the world, in a language comprehensible to the world, taking into account the current state of knowledge of the world, and thus has nothing to say to the world.

Judaism really is different, as I have argued in many books, including my latest: The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning. I use the metaphor – it is only a metaphor – that the thinking that emerged in Greece on the fifth century BCE was left brain, as contrasted with the thoroughly right brain thinking of the prophets of ancient Israel.

Judaism focused and should still focus on what makes a person a person and not the object of scientific knowledge. From that much else follows, from the theology of Tanakh, to the epistemology of personal knowledge (the phrase belongs, of course, to Michael Polanyi), to the kind of political philosophy that honours persons as persons, and so on.

This is a genuinely philosophical enterprise – it is not simply theology – and in my view the only one worthy of the name of a Jewish philosophy, that is, not Greek, not Cartesian, not Kantian, not shaatnez or kilayim, a forbidden mixture of things that don’t belong together, but a genuinely systemic philosophy of (to use John MacMurray’s phrase) Persons in relation.

And yes, it would involve biblical exegesis, and perhaps aggadah and halakhah, but it would have to stand on its own authority, as intellectually compelling even without prooftexts. And – to state a personal prejudice – it should also be readable and intelligible. I say this because I am British, therefore in the great empiricist tradition, but also because that is what the prophets of Israel did: they spoke in language intelligible to the people (see on this both Moshe Greenberg and Michael Walzer). As Jeremiah in effect said: only a prophecy that is testable is worthy of the name. The same applies to philosophy.

In short, I urge the next generation of Jewish philosophers to help me and others understand what it is to think distinctively as a Jew. To quote a non-Jew, former editor of The Times, William (Lord) Rees-Mogg: "One of the gifts of Jewish culture to Christianity is that it has taught Christians to think like Jews. Any modern man who has not learned to think as though he were a Jew can hardly be said to have learned to think at all." Or to quote Nietzsche: “Wherever Jews have won influence they have taught men to make finer distinctions, more rigorous inferences, and to write in a more luminous and cleanly fashion.”

I will be right there beside you, because I intend doing my own share of the intellectual work that so badly needs to be done. And for all those wondering whether in a 4000 year old tradition, which more than most has given rise to generation after generation of thinkers, each of whom has added his commentary to the tradition, is there still work to be done? Are there still ideas to be clarified? Is there still a philosophy to be written? The answer is unequivocally, manifestly and urgently: yes.

So, with every good wish and with great expectations, I send you my blessings.

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks

Some "Meta Questions"

So if one reads the philosophical literature on God's relationship to time (e.g. Leftow, Swinburne, Plantinga, Hasker, Wierenga), one encounters the following phenomenon: those arguing for God's being outside of time will draw on certain biblical verses in support of their position. Similarly, those defending God's being inside time draw on biblical verses in support of their position.

At a recent conference that I attended on Jewish philosophy, I had a similar experience: presenters would draw on different verses or references in Jewish literature (Tanakh, Talmud, Midrash etc.) in support of the position/interpretation they were pushing.

This makes me wonder: Is there a "Jewish philosophy" to be uncovered or discovered in the texts? Or are the very theological/philosophical fundamentals of Judaism "up for grabs"?

I realize that the question could do with more clarity. Here is one way to see what I am getting at: Is there, for example, a Jewish position on God's relationship to time? Or is this question a matter of dispute? Here are two practical differences between the two sides of the coin.

Heschel's Concise Dictionary of Hebrew Philosophical Terms now available opensource online

My Rabbi sent me the link to a blog called "On the Mainline," which looks like it might have some more useful stuff. (Correction: definitely interesting stuff, see also the writer's other blog, English Hebraica)

The Six Pillars of Jewish Wisdom

What on earth is the philosophy of Judaism?

There are six elements. Each has roots in the Pentateuch. It is part of the mystery of Jewish identity that these principles produce techniques that are fecund and unembarrassing in the hands of avowed secularists.

1. The Imago Dei

Man, says the Torah, is made in the image of God. That indicates: (a) that man is not God; and (b) that man has some of God’s attributes, and is accordingly worthy of respect (although not worship). The tension between (a) and (b) generates the energy of Jewish ethics.

In the hands of Christian theologians, the notion of the Imago Dei has become a liability. That is because they have engaged in over-elaborate exegesis of the creation story in Genesis. They have derived over-dogmatic conclusions about God’s nature (and hence man’s nature), from the description of God’s attributes there. The dogmatism has gone in several different directions, but here’s one example. In the creation story, God is rational; he has a plan, which he utters into existence. That indicates, says one line of Christian theological speculation, that man is only properly human if and insofar as he is rational too. You can go straight from that conclusion to Kant, whose metastasis throughout medical ethics has done incalculable harm. Kant, if he’s being consistent, denies full human status to everyone and everything that is incapable of reason – whether a stone, a dog, a child, or an adult in Permanent Vegetative State.

Maimonides, Boethius and Freewill

It strikes me that the solution proposed by Maimonides to the freewill problem has been wrongly equated with the solution put forward by Boethius. In what follows, I try to explain how the two proposals differ. I’d love to hear people’s feedback on this, as I’m no real Maimonides scholar. Have other people noted this difference? Do let me know.

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The freewill problem, in its medieval formulation, arises from the fact that our free will seems to be incompatible with God’s foreknowledge. The problem can be stated as follows:

1. A being with a free will often has the choice between two mutually exclusive actions, action x and action y, at some time, t.
2. God is omniscient, and therefore knows that I will chose to perform, say, action x at time t.
3. Knowledge is factive, which is to say that it’s either a relation between a mind and a fact, or at least, a relation between a mind and a true proposition; a proposition made true by a fact. Knowledge is, therefore, always accompanied by the existence of a fact.
4. Given 3, if God knows that I will perform action x at time t, then it is a fact that I will perform action x at time t.
5. If it is a fact that I will perform action x at time t, then I cannot choose to perform action y at the same time.
6. Therefore, I am not a free being with control over the course of my own life. Given any choice, I am always bound to act in the way that God already knows that I will act.

Review of Ze'ev Maghen's "John Lennon and the Jews: A Philosophical Rampage" (Bottom Books 2011)

Reviewed by Andrew Pessin, Professor of Philosophy, Connecticut College: apessin@conncoll.edu

John Lennon and the Jews (JL&J) is an extremely original and significant book. It should be read by every Jew, no matter where he or she stands on the long spectrum between strict religious observance and determined rejection of the same. Maghen -- an American-born Israeli scholar of Islamic law but also something of a Talmid chacham and general know-everything-but-not-in-an-arrogant-way sort of guy -- has literally invented a new genre of writing, aptly self-titled the “philosophical rampage,” which might best be described as the literary equivalent of three parts strong coffee, two parts Red Bull, and one part nuclear fusion. You pick this thing up and it practically supernovas right in your hand. And if you can hold on you are in for a heck of a ride, whoever you are.

In its very high-energy and entertaining way that is philosophically informed throughout, JL&J basically addresses the question of why, if you're Jewish, you should be Jewish, i.e. make your Jewishness a flourishing part of your identity – despite the fact that stressing your affiliation with an ancient tribe seems, in this 21^st century, to be not merely outdated and inconvenient but even downright irrational. Why be Jewish, after all, when there are so many other wonderful things you can be: modern, progressive, scientific, secular, multicultural, an American, a European (etc.), a Citizen of the World, or maybe just an individual devoid of all labels, period? But Maghen is rightly aware that this sort of question cannot be addressed properly without quickly ranging deeply into issues of very general philosophical interest and urgency.

Evidence and the Exodus

posted on behalf of Yehudah Gellman

Sometimes, absence of evidence for p does not count as evidence for not-p. So, there being an absence of evidence for, say, that there are 1.2 billion ants in Jerusalem does not count as evidence that there are not 1.2 billion ants in Jerusalem. At other times, however, absence of evidence for p does count as evidence for not-p. So, that there are no signs of footprints in the mud is not only an absence of evidence that somebody has just recently walked in the mud, but is evidence that nobody has walked there. The difference seems to be this:

The absence of evidence for p is evidence for not-p when - were p true, then there would be evidence for p.

The more evidence there should be for p and there is not, the more evidence there is that not-p.

In what follows I will refer to natural evidence, independent of religious authority as simply "evidence."

The conclusion I want to argue for is that regard to the biblical story of the stay of the Israelites in Egypt, and their exodus from Egypt, their sojourn in the desert, and invasion of Canaan, (hereafter: The Exodus Story) we have strong evidence that the story did not take place. And the argument is this: If the story did take place, we would have strong evidence in its favor. But none of the evidence that should exist does exist. Therefore, we have strong evidence against the truth of the story.

Maimon and Agushewitz

In recent years works by Reuven Agushewitz and Solomon Maimon have been translated into English. I wonder if anyone is able to furnish us with a book review or a detailed summary of their work. Whilst the two men couldn't have been more different by the end of their lives, their reputations as men of extraordinary learning makes me inquisitive about their work. I post links to the translations of their works below. Dani

Religious Belief, Make-believe and Science

I’ve written a short little book that is a re-writing of Rav Hirsch’s Nineteen Letters. The re-working tries to package the key ideas in modern language and reapply them to different historical circumstances. Here is an edited excerpt from the manuscript. It’s aimed for a lay audience, and tries to be accessible to young adults. But I’m interested to hear what readers of this blog think about this excerpt, in which I outline why the Nineteen Letters interests me as a philosopher. Rav Hirsch’s book is an argument for living an observant Jewish lifestyle that never once tries to argue that the theological or historical claims made by the religion are true. I find that interesting and strangely compelling, as I try to explain in what follows. The excerpt starts with some philosophical background ...

Philosophical background

In the course of our everyday lives, we are forced to make a large number of assumptions. Indeed, we habitually make all sorts of assumptions for all sorts of reasons. When I attend an ‘introduction to physics’ lecture, I assume that the teacher is teaching well established facts and not simply making things up! When I get into an aeroplane, I assume that the laws of aeronautics that have held planes up in the sky for the entire history of aviation will continue to operate, at least until I land safely on terra firma. I assume that other people exist and that I’m not just dreaming them up. These things I assume to be true. These assumptions are simply beliefs that I might not feel confident enough to call ‘knowledge’ when pressed by a sceptical philosopher; but I believe them, nevertheless, without any real reservation.

Logic and the Talmud

Here are links to two articles relating to logic in the Talmud:


"The Realm of the Sacred, wherein We may not Draw an Inference from Something which Itself has been Inferred: a reading of Talmud Bavli Zevachim folio 50" by Curtis Franks
Department of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
http://www.nd.edu/~cfranks/frankssacredinference.pdf

"The Evolution of Talmudic Reasoning." History and Philosophy of Logic 32 (1):9-28 by Norman Solomon, Oriental Institute, Oxford University. 
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01445340.2010.506081

Induction: A peculiar little discussion in tractate Gittin 28a

In what follows, I copy the soncino translation of tractate Gittin 28a. I intersplice the text with my italicised comments. I have nothing of real interest to say about this excerpt. That's why I'm appealing for your help! If we don't want to reduce the Talmud's second response, on behalf of Raba below, to absurdity, how should we interpret it?

The exceprt talks about a person who is delivering a Get (a bill of divorce) from a husband to a wife. The divorce doesn't take effect until the Get reaches the hand of the wife (or her appointed agent). Only a living man can divorce his wife, so the rabbis discuss what justifies the messenger's assumption that the husband is still alive at the point of delivery to the wife.