עס איז אויך מן הראוי לציין צו וואס דר. תמר ראָס שרייבט:Even after Maimonides attempted, under the influence of Islamic theology, to lay down definite formulations of Jewish belief, Judaism refused to accept them as sacrosanct and did not allow such attempts to come between itself and the inexhaustible Torah text. It is for this reason that the kind of tension between religion and the quest for truth is almost unknown in Judaism. No sacrifice of the intellect is demanded
One look in the Talmud proves this point beyond doubt. The flow of thoughts, opposing ideas, and the making and rejection of opinions and insights are abundant. The interaction between legality, prose, narrative, illusion, and the hard reality is astonishing. It makes the Talmud into the richest of all literatures; not even Greek philosophy was able to produce such a symphony of ideas in which the waves of the human intellect and divinity move forward and backward. There is an absolute lack of systematization, and it is clear that any such attempt was nipped in the bud. From a modern point of view, one might argue that the search for truth in the Torah was not directed toward proportional truth because such a notion was lacking by definition. The most persistent intellectual energy and analytic efforts were devoted to the continual contrivance of beautiful and profound interpretation to discover the totality of life
Today, the attempt to streamline and straightjacket the Jewish tradition and to create a final Jewish theology is a major mistake and a complete misreading of its very character. Although there is, for practical reasons, a need to put halakhic living into a pragmatic context that requires conformity in action, this should never be the goal when focusing on Judaism’s beliefs. It is the task of the rabbis to do everything in their power to rescue Judaism from dogmatism. Although it can’t be denied that Judaism incorporates certain primary beliefs, these beliefs were always kept to the minimum and were constantly a source of fierce debate. Most important, one must remember that such “dogmas” never turned into a reductio ad absurdum. Freedom in doctrine and conformity in action was the overall policy to which the talmudic rabbis were committed, even when convinced of certain fundamental truths
The attempt today to halakhalize and legalize Jewish thought is missing the whole message of the talmudic way of thinking. It will undermine the halakha itself since it will kill its underlying spirit
Uniformity in the opinions expressed by teachers is not only not to be sought, but is, if possible, to be avoided since diversity of opinion among preceptors is essential to any sound education. No religious Jewish student can pass as educated if he or she has heard only one side of the debates that divided the earlier and later sages. One of the most important things to teach is the power of weighing arguments, and this is the foundation of all talmudic debate. To prevent the teacher from doing do so or to bring this to the attention of his or her students is misplaced rabbinic tyranny and has no place in the Jewish tradition. It is the Christianization of Judaism by rabbis
As soon as censorship is imposed upon the opinions that teachers may avow, Jewish education ceases to serve its purpose and tends to produce instead a nation of men and women, a herd of fanatical bigots
above all, modern commentary must make sure that the Torah speaks to the atheist and the agnostic, for they need to realize that the text is replete with examples of sincere deniers and doubters who struggled all of their lives with great existential questions. The purpose is not to bring the atheists and agnostics back to the faith, but to show that one can be religious while being an atheist; to make people aware that it is impossible to live without embarking on a search for meaning, whether one finds it or not. It is the search that is important, the end result much less so. The art is to refrain from throwing such a pursuit on the dunghill of history throughout the ages. The struggle of homo religiosus is of greatest importance to the atheist
. . .
The truth is that Jewish Orthodoxy (from the Greek orthos [“true” or “right”) and doxa (“opinion” or “belief”) never existed. Originally Judaism was highly unorthodox. Although it always believed in God and Torah, it never offered any specifics of what God meant or what Torah consisted of. That was left to speculation, never to be determined. The early Sages, as testified by the Talmud and philosophers, disagreed on some of the most fundamental issues of faith
But over the years we wanted more certainty. We wanted it handed to us on a silver platter, so that we could avoid debates and live a life of religious comfort, apathy, and mediocrity. Influenced by other religions, we adopted the need for cast-iron certainty and psychological security. So we began to rewrite Judaism in a way that would fit into the notions of established religions – well-structured, with a good dose of dogma. What we did not realize is that by doing so, we misrepresented Judaism by losing sight of the plot, thus doing it a great disservice
We need to realize that our epoch of uncertainty is in fact much more conducive to authentic Judaism than all the conviction we’ve had in previous generations. It forces us to rediscover what Judaism is really about and gives us the opportunity to rebuild where rebuilding is required and leave untouched what should remain untouched
הרב דר. יואל בן-נון שרייבט לגבי עמדתו של הרמב״ם בענין אמונה:It is precisely because of the importance of everyday “realist” assumptions in cementing religious commitment that so much effort is expended by religious conservatives in cordoning off some religious beliefs as off-bounds to demythologizing or re-interpretation. Because the notion of “truth” and religious commitment are so intimately connected in the human psyche, critical scrutiny of beliefs that appear indispensable to the system is sometimes held back by upholding the remote possibility that future investigation will overturn current impressions. When scientific discoveries or deeply felt moral intuitions render even such eventualities incredible, religious adherents may resort to deliberate bifurcation, conducting themselves in accordance with reason in the laboratory and in their everyday lives while preserving professions of faith in the synagogue and in formal allegiance to what are regarded by current halakhic consensus as unavoidable halakhic constraints. Irrespective of the difficulty some may have in granting legitimacy or persuasive value to such policies, it would be fair to say that a religious world-view lacking any claims of attunement to a reality beyond its self-contained universe of discourse will never match traditional belief in its ability to preserve the intensity of feeling generated by its models and paradigms and to transmit the passion of its message to future generations
Given these precedents, we would do will to rid ourselves once and for all of the misnomer of Orthopraxy, often invoked in a pejorative sense in order to dismiss halakhically conformist behavior that is not grounded on acceptance of dogma in its literal sense. Any behavior externally conforming to that which is historically and sociologically identified with traditional halakhic practice indicates some form of belief or justification though it may not tally with the naive objectivism of strict correspondence theory
Postmodern language theory can redeem modern Orthodoxy from its counter-productive attachment to naive objectivism. The epistemological modesty of non-foundationalism can help religious adherents move away from overly rigid definitions of doctrine and allow them to return to the pre-modern function of religion as providing a valuable universe of discourse and a compelling way of life. It can extricate them from a mindless and stultifying triumphalism and encourage the willingness to refine religious convictions by listening carefully to other points of view
***כל זה היה נכון ומוצק כל עוד שלטה בעולם הפיזיקה של אריסטו, ועליה נבנתה המטפיזיקה, שאותה אימץ הרמב"ם בהתאמות מסוימות. אבל כל זה התרסק ונעלם כאשר באו קופרניקוס וקפלר וגליליי, ואחריהם ניוטון, ושינו כליל את פני הפיזיקה. בעקבות ניוטון בא קאנט, הגדיר גבולות לתבונה הטהורה, ושם קץ לכל תאולוגיה שבנויה על הוכחה שכלית. מעתה, כל יסוד אמונה תלוי רק באמונה, ואי אפשר לכוף אמונה על אנשים בכוח.
שיטת הרמב”ם ברורה: יסוד שתלוי באמונה, ואין בו הוכחה שכלית, וכל החכמים [המדענים] מתווכים עליו, אי אפשר להגדיר את מי שאינו מאמין בו כ”כופר” או כ”מין”. עצם העובדה שהדבר נתון בוויכוח שכלי בין החכמים מאפשר ומחייב לבנות על עולם האמונה, אך אינו מאפשר לשפוט ולדון את הכופרים. רק ודאות שכלית מוחלטת מאפשרת לדון אדם כמזיד בשאלות של אמונה וידיעה.
א וויץ איבער די אויבנדערמאנטע זאץ מיט וואס וויטגענשטיין ענדיגט צו:
