The Four Books and the Book of Books (2)

 

A Pauper at the Gate: Intellect and Intuition

 

            We have spoken of intellectual power; however our internal world is larger than intellect alone.  Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook taught that beyond the intellect lies what can be termed, perhaps, healthy intuition.  Rav Kook's son, Rav Zvi Yehuda, used a beautiful image to express this idea.  The source of this image is in the beginning of Tractate Shabbat: the philosopher who searches for a way to Judaism and passes through Greek philosophy, is comparable to the pauper who stands at the door begging alms.  Rihal is the homeowner inside.

 

            This idea was admirably expressed by Rihal himself in the fifth part of his book.  The difference between the rich man and the pauper in the previous parable is similar to the difference between the poet and the literary critic, or between the artist and the art critic.  Some people instinctively know how to write poetry, from within themselves, without ever having learned the rules.  In contrast, the literary critic who is an expert on poetry, is extremely adept at differentiating between the different types of poetry, may successfully analyze and appraise it, but cannot write poetry.  In fact, people often comment ironically that every unsuccessful poet becomes a critic.  The man of the house is the poet, and the pauper extending his hand for alms is the critic.

 

            Instinctive faith is the unique gift of the poet, the rich man, the man who reaches the truth on his own.  In contrast, the philosopher is like the critic who tries to understand the wonder of the poetry, to understand how the literary miracle transpires, and how words impact upon us.  It seems to me that Rihal attempts to synthesize the two approaches.  Despite the fact that the poet's genius cannot be learned, we may well understand the poet better if we listen to the critic's explanations.  There is potential for a relationship between the two, between the prophet and the philosopher.  Jewish philosophy is an attempt to understand and interpret poetry, as though one were lead through the intricacies of the poem with a guide.  It is an effort to construct criticism in the positive sense of the word, to deepen our understanding of those enigmatic gems that the genius of prophecy has laid at our feet.

 

            However to a certain degree, this genius exists in each and every one of us as well.  This genius, in essence, is the faith that is rooted in the heart.  Following Rihal, Rav Kook developed this idea.  He emphasized religious sentiment rather than the wisdom of intellectual inquiry.  Allow me to illustrate this point with a parable.  Imagine a group of  students whose English grades were mediocre, yet who may surprise and even exceed the literary abilities of the very teachers who tried to enforce rules of grammar, or forms of written expression that they considered superior.  Similarly, in the history of opinions, philosophers attempted to "critique" religious and prophetic positions, when in fact they ought to have behaved more humbly.  Truth, like the beauty of poetry, is not necessarily the domain of the critics; it is the domain of the prophets and the poets, even if generations pass before this truth or beauty receive recognition.

 

            Rav Kook emphasized another point as well.  In brief, he maintained that every person draws on his inner world in a different way.  There are other societies with different cultures, and even different psychologies.  People's inner worlds are affected by this social psychology.  Each society brings man to extract something different from his inner world.  As we have already seen, Rav Kook claims that chosenness implies a basic correspondence between the Torah and the Jewish conscience. 

 

            Rihal attempts to bridge the gap between poetry and criticism in the fifth section of the book.  Rihal presents the level of the naive, unsophisticated man as the highest.  He is the intuitive believer, the poet who has no need to learn the rules of poetry, who has no need of philosophical proofs.  The course of the artless believer is  the healthiest and the loftiest path.  It is simple good-hearted faith; however, under our circumstances, if we were to be "thrown" into the world without the training to relate to intellectual inquiry and philosophical concepts, the situation would be worse.  Philosophy is comparable to certain medicines; the sick person must take them, but the healthy person does not need them, and they might even cause him damage.  Even if we have no intention to buy, we pass through the market of ideas, and inevitably something of the various stalls sticks to us, undetected.  Rihal writes (5:2):

           

            "The Chaver said: but do we have within us a tranquil            soul that is not tempted towards the various opinions           that abound in the world - the opinions of the scientists          and the soothsayers, the opinions of the talisman holders     and the practicers of witchcraft, the opinions of the    believers in the eternal existence of the world and the         philosophizers, and such? In our day man does not achieve   faith until he has passed through all the many levels of heresy, but "the days of life are short and the task is   great" and only individuals, and they are few, have been    granted the gift of natural faith.  These [individuals]   are not at all damaged by these opinions, for they           immediately perceive the error in them." 

           

            Rihal here refers to the philosophers, to the various men of science, but also to the prophets of pseudo-science and the prophets of the false sciences, who change their garb in each generation.  These are the people who believe in astrology, magic and witchcraft, who try to construct an alternative to religion [1:79].  This reality uncovers a strange paradox; intelligent people attempt to disregard religion, while they confuse scientific rationalism with superstition.  These people are astute and exacting when involved in scientific inquiry, while their personal lives are chock-full of superstition.  However, the great danger still lies in the lack of faith, in heresy.  It accompanies us and surrounds us, and this is one of the central reasons why we need philosophy; it accounts for our need of literary criticism as well as poetry.  Man must work hard indeed to escape from this influence, the unconscious influence that he acquires from the marketplace.  I often find myself humming a tune without realizing that it is an advertisement jingle that I heard on the radio.  Despite my self-development and despite my will, I cannot successfully avoid the influence of these tunes that I despise.  This is what happens to each and every one of us when he goes out into the world.  And herein lies the importance of Jewish philosophy.  This is its therapeutic, and perhaps hygienic role.

 

            Does this mean that the religious position is weak?

 

            Absolutely not, and I will illustrate this with another example.  As the Rambam already stated, philosophy must invest tremendous effort in convincing us of the trivial.  The first famous example are the paradoxes of Xeno, the student of Parmenades, who tried to prove, with brilliant logic, that there is no movement in the world.  Xeno's famous paradox runs as follows: Achilles and the tortoise are running a race.  Achilles allows the tortoise, in a moment of mercy, to start first.  It can be logically demonstrated that Achilles will  never be able to catch up to the tortoise! Until this very day, philosophers devote tremendous efforts to prove that movement does indeed exist, a fact that every child knows. 

 

            This paradox is mentioned by Rav Sa'adia Gaon in the first essay of his book, in the fourth proof of creation.  We have received a number of answers to this age old query.  Rasag informs us that "one of the investigators was forced to say that there is a part that does not divide".  In other words, he concluded that there are indivisible units of measurement, and reality is composed of a collection of such quantum units.  Others claim that movement is not continuous: "Some of them say [that movement occurs] at intervals" as though people and animals do not walk continuously but rather jump from place to place.  This was the beginning of the debate about the nature of the world.  Through Xeno's paradoxes we discover some of the most interesting and important riddles of reality.  For example, what is reality composed of?  Is it composed of consecutive and continuous things or of atoms?  This was the basic debate between the Aristotelians who believed in continuity and the Atomists, who influenced, via Indian philosophy, the Islamic "Medabrim" -  the Kalam school.

 

            In the last two sections of the Kuzari, Rihal speaks of the attempts to reach the truths of the Torah philosophically.  One of the serious problems with this method is that there are many philosophical approaches.  The Aristotelians mocked the Atomists.  Today we are disciples of quantum theory, and to a certain extent we have returned to the approach of the "Medabrim," who were mocked by the Rambam.  The fifth section nears the approach of some of the "Medabrim." We must add here that in ancient and medieval times philosophy could be divided into three central approaches.  These three positions differ on fundamental issues, not merely in their final conclusions.  They are the Kalam, the Aristotelians, and the neo-Platonists.  The conflict between them touches on problems of epistemology, ontology, etc.

 

            The paradoxes promise philosophers constant activity.  Every generation brings its own solution, and the succeeding generation disproves it.  On this background we can once again ask ourselves, which option is preferable? Is it better to construct our world view simply, without spending time solving these sophisticated paradoxes, or to devote the time, under the assumption that man develops and benefits by solving these philosophical riddles?

 

            A large percentage of philosophical thought is devoted to apologetics, to the attempt to defend what we know intuitively or instinctively.  Often these apologetics are simply incorrect, full of logical errors.  If we leave the paradox of infinity, and search for a  current example, we can point to a very difficult issue, the question of "thou".  If I had to prove that the person I am talking to now is not a robot but a person, and that he has an inner world just as I do, I would not succeed.  The existence of others, of another soul, is an enigma in philosophy.  In fact, one great philosopher of our century claims that the belief that other humans exist is merely a "primal belief."

 

            The Kuzari says that this is actually the case in very many areas.  This situation resembles that of a country which must devote much of its gross national product (GNP) to defense and preventing infiltration.  The Kuzari says that we must almost instinctively understand the truth and not permit others to mislead us. 

 

            The three key words in the Book of Creation, Olam (world), Shana (year), and Nefesh (soul) point to the three additional books that the Torah both commands and helps us to read; nature, history and the human soul are the key to understanding Jewish philosophy.  Jewish philosophy is an attempt to continue to read those three books, with the aid of the Torah.      

       

(This lecture was translated by Gila Weinberg.)

Copyright (c)1997 Prof. Shalom Rosenberg, Yeshivat Har Etzion.  All rights reserved.

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