I really liked this reading, Lisa Liel. When I was very young, a kind lady Holocaust survivor who was given assisted living by my Grandfather helped me to question religious dogma and like a stencil over a canvas hold it up to the Torah. This has helped me throughout my life to accumulate understanding of Torah, making it three-dimensional rather than linear.
For instance, regarding the Flood, and resultant sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons: a new Discovery Center for science and earth history (ICR) has photographs of Mount St. Helens eruptions (circa 1980, and 1982), because of which they realized that “sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons can form in only hours rather than millions of years”, proving that Torah is Emes not fiction.
I know. On my first trip to Israel, they took us to these stalactite caves. Someone asked how long it took for the stalactites to form, and the guide looked at them and said, "Is the earth older than 6000 years?" When the guy said yes, the guide said, "Millions of years." He just wanted to check his audience.
Then I heard there was an earthquake that broke a ton of the stalactites, and that no more than 7 years later, they were back.
But I guarantee you that if that guide is still working there, he's still telling them it had to have taken millions of years.
>>>Then I heard there was an earthquake that broke a ton of the stalactites, and that no more than 7 years later, they were back...But I guarantee you
I guarantee you that if this were the case, it would be have documented properly, reported properly, reviewed properly, published properly and embraced properly.
Your anecdotes are not compelling and your blinders are obvious. You ought to follow the evidence, rather than hold on to ideas without evidence and try to backfill them with unconvincing stories.
>>>For instance, regarding the Flood, and resultant sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons: a new Discovery Center for science and earth history (ICR) has photographs of Mount St. Helens eruptions (circa 1980, and 1982), because of which they realized that “sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons can form in only hours rather than millions of years”
Why hasn't this been published more widely? Why isn't it known to all of science? Such a finding that overturns the basis for all geology would have certainly earned the Nobel Prize. And yes...we need you to inform us of this on a substack response to Lisa.
What do you make of that?
>>>proving that Torah is Emes not fiction.
The search is ongoing for anything to validate the truth of the Torah, but there has been no progress, ever.
That is why intelligent Orthodox Jews are going OTD.
Yes, I own a copy of it. That's true, it's an exception. I'll try and reread it over Shabbat and see what I can say about it. But note that it's published by Mosaica Press, and has likely not been sold anywhere outside of Jewish bookstores.
He draws a lot of conclusions that sound good on the surface, but have problems with the details. That doesn't mean that everything is quackery, though. His dating of the Yev papyri has a lot to recommend it.
I don't like being stuck between Artscroll and Wellhausen. But the middle way of Velikovsky isn't any better. Yes, our rabbis have failed us, and yes, there secular scholarship should not be treated like Torah from Sinai, but at the end of the day, the Wellhausen guys seem to be more and more correct. At least I take the approach of buying all the criticisms of the maximalist scholars (like K. A Kitchen, J. K. Hoffmeier, J. Berman), and follow a minimal Wellhausen approach. Chazal has been debunked, it's time for a modern Orthodoxy of some sort.
Velikovsky asked a lot of great questions. His answers were less great, but that was largely because he was ignorant of the fields in question.
Wellhausianism isn't even wrong. It's silly. It's too insubstantial to even be wrong. Consider, among other things, the fact that the two points at which Wellhausians propose the Torah to have been cobbled together were times when the animosity between Jews and Samaritans were at a peak. The reign of Josiah, after he raged through the north, destroying altars and burning graves, and the time of Ezra, when they slandered us to the Persians to prevent us from rebuilding Jerusalem and the Mikdash. And it was in those periods that they said, "Huh. The Jews have this new Torah thingie. We should totes copy that!"
Wellhausianism is not a source for the non-historicity of the biblical narratives. On the contrary; it requires that non-historicity to be taken seriously by anyone. Because it's honestly such a childish approach. "Omgz, there are two perspectives given about the creation of the world and man! It must be written by two different people!" It's just sad. Reductive and puerile.
Recent scholarship suggests that the Torah laws didn't really become popular among the Judeans until the 3rd-2nd century BCE. Ezra-Nehemiah demonstrate the lack of piety, as well as Elephantine papyri and temple. Yonatan Adler has pointed to the first strong evidence of archaeological evidence for Judiasm being practiced on a mainstream scale to be in the 2nd century BCE. It's quite plausible, therefore, that the Torah was composed in the days of Ezra, and only when it became popular thoughout the Jewish world in the 2nd century BCE, the Samaritans accepted it. (Obviously, the theological differences were edited out by Samaritan scribes, which is why they have a explicit commandment to build the Sanctuary in My. Grizim.)
The 2 Creation accounts don't just have different perspectives, but they have a contradiction about when the plants were made. Gen 1 says day three, and man day six, but Gen 2 says that there was no man to plow the field and thus and thus there was no plants! Stirah Stirah!
Obviously Rashi gives a very twisted interpretation, as do others, but even critics like Caussto had to acknowledge that there are contradictions between in the Torah.
Interesting article. I have been wrestling with the fact that Jews are genetically Canaanites history, but it really hasn’t shaken my belief at all. Instead I want to try to figure out what the Torah was ACTUALLY saying in light of these facts.
I won’t argue with you on that. This is not the forum. However, simply put HKBH’s ‘Derech’ is known only to HKBH. We were gifted with Torah Mitzvot and Machshava - the Derech is the individual’s choice. דרכיה דרכי נועם.
The same word can be used in multiple ways. You were asking about OTD, and that's the way the word derech is used in that term. I'm not saying that every instance of derech denotes the same thing. There's also דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה כ"ו דורות.
Your point is well taken. I only mentioned what I did as I am of the opinion that the term is ‘off putting’ and in a sense derogatory and that it there are perhaps other ways to approach the subject. Shabbat Shalom
Thank you - am aware of the concept - which is entirely erroneous in its origination : HKBH’s Derech encompasses ALL. Certain parts pertain to certain aspects of God’s creations others not. There is a story I heard many years ago of a response by Rabbi Mordechai Willig to crying parents that their child was ‘nebech’ off the Derech - he started crying and plaintively said simply ‘just widen the Derech’.
It's part and parcel of Judaism's dealings with science in general. Sure, most haredim don't know from chronological issues. But they know that they can either turn a blind eye to an intellectually stimulating world out there, or embrace that world. Because they haven't been shown any way to embrace the intellectual stimulation without embracing its values.
“I was riding the bus home one Friday many, many years ago, talking with a friend of mine. I was thinking about these things. About why we keep kosher, for example. Why God wants us to. And she was utterly baffled. God said to. Isn’t that the beginning and end of it? And while I’ve known fellow frummies who are… let’s say, intellectually challenged, she wasn’t one of them. Any other area, and she had tons to say. But when it came to this, she showed zero curiosity.”
For whatever reason, I feel like “frummie” is talking to me, though in all likelihood, it was referencing a frumanit where I would be a frummetzin,
Why do we eat kosher?
G-d created the world in a physical realm so that we could use it to sanctify His Name. Judaism doesn’t preach abstinence, but rather a refining of the character via self-discipline: what, where, when and how. That, I would say, is the core idea of kosher. Instead of immediately indulging every corporeal desire of ours, we wait, we don’t have every option open to us, we wait again. This is how we polish the diamonds of our souls that we were born with. This is also how we raise our children-from birth- the permissible and the prohibited; the now and the later. Self-discipline as a means of character refinement.
Kosher has an added element of “you are what you eat” When I saw vegan shellfish a few years ago in the healthy eating magazine Eating Well (now defunct), I couldn’t help but marvel at the contrast between the ‘compassionate’ refusal to eat shellfish of the 2020’s with the mocking of the protagonist of Herman Wouk’s 1985 Inside, Outside for his parochial refusal to eat shellfish (or maybe he ate it in the end; I don’t remember.)
The vegan shellfish touch on a reality that there is a potential for cruelty in what we ingest.
Cooking a goat in its mother’s milk is a mocking and a cruelty that adds a sinister element to the permissible killing of the goat. It reminds me of the sending away of the mother bird, but perhaps my analogy is off.
So too, the characteristics of the animals we are forbidden to eat are characteristics we do not want to integrate into our selves.
I know that G-d created the world because I have a soul and a material creation couldn’t create something that is spiritual.
I know I have a soul because I love music, doing things to help others that doesn’t benefit me makes me happy, and when I hear words of Torah they resonate like I have heard them before.
I know that G-d created a physical realm because I live in a physical realm.
Something came before. That something is G-d. That something cannot be solely physical like the Big Bang, because then I would have no soul. I have a soul. So the thing that came before is G-d. G-d is the creator of everything. He existed before us. Ergo, He created a physical realm.
I know that G-d wants us to sanctify His Name because He is spiritual and we are physical (and spiritual). He created a physical world with spiritual intent. As physical beings, we are actualized when we devote ourselves to a spiritual purpose (See Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning).
So, that is how I know.
I do know.
I don’t think I can “prove” that there is a G-d.
I would never attempt to “prove” to someone that there is a G-d.
If someone could “prove” it, it wouldn’t be me. I am not good at science or math.
>>>I know that G-d created the world because I have a soul
You might as well have said, "I know because I do." How do you know that you have a soul?
>>>a material creation couldn’t create something that is spiritual.
I don't think there is anything spiritual. Why do you?
>>>I know I have a soul because I love music, doing things to help others that doesn’t benefit me makes me happy, and when I hear words of Torah they resonate like I have heard them before.
None of this constitutes good evidence for a soul. The fact that you love music or are happy when you practice altruism is no justification for believing in the supernatural. Making claims about having heard the Torah before are similarly insufficient evidence. When you're indoctrinated from a young and impressionable age to think that the Torah is real and that you have experienced divine connection, it's no wonder you mistake feelings of euphoria like music and other intangible enjoyments as spiritual connection.
Do you have any good evidence for any of your claims?
>>>Something came before. That something is G-d.
You seem to be making lots of claims, but providing no good evidence for believing in any of them.
>>>That something cannot be solely physical like the Big Bang, because then I would have no soul. I have a soul.
Repeating a claim doesn't make it any more true than shouting it. You should believe things after you have sufficient evidence, not just because it makes you feel good or that's what you've been taught as a kid and then walled it off, protecting it from rigorous scrutiny.
>>>So the thing that came before is G-d. G-d is the creator of everything. He existed before us. Ergo, He created a physical realm.
You seem to be using logic here (with use of the word "ergo") but it's a non sequitur. You again make claims with no backing. You're just saying that you know there's a god because you have a soul. Then you anticipate what my next question will be ("how do you know that?"), and so you offer that the spiritual can't derive from the material. Then you anticipate the next question ("how do you know that?"), and you offer that god did it.
But you don't seem to offer any good reason to believe in any of this.
>>>I know that G-d wants us to sanctify His Name because He is spiritual and we are physical (and spiritual).
More claims without any evidence.
>>>He created a physical world with spiritual intent.
And more still.
>>>As physical beings, we are actualized when we devote ourselves to a spiritual purpose (See Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning).
Now you seem to think that quoting famous people will give substance to your claims, but they do not.
>>>So, that is how I know.
I don't think you even know what you don't know.
>>>I do know.
Saying it doesn't make it true.
>>>I don’t think I can “prove” that there is a G-d.
We're not looking for proofs here, because this isn't mathematics class. We're just looking for good evidence to believe in any of the wacky and crazy thoughts you just wrote about above. There have been literally thousands of gods proposed over the millennia and you likely don't believe in any of them, regardless of how many anecdotes and stories have been told about them. How much meaning they have provided for those who held them to be the guide in their life. And the reason, it seems, is not because they were just silly stories, because you demonstrate your grasp on silly stories here. No, the reason you do not believe in the many gods you don't believe in is simply because you weren't indoctrinated to listen to the Uncle Moishies of those faiths, while you were indoctrinated in Orthodox Judaism.
>>>I would never attempt to “prove” to someone that there is a G-d.
Again, we're not looking for proof. We're just looking for evidence. The same was you likely believe is dogs but not dragons and butterflies but not fairies. There's good reason to believe in dogs and butterflies because we have evidence, but not in dragons and fairies because we don't.
>>>If someone could “prove” it, it wouldn’t be me. I am not good at science or math.
The way you write demonstrates you haven't confronted good questions about what you believe and why. That's fine...no one comes out of the gate with polished responses. But you'll have to do much better than this. And this is not something you should think you're exempt from. You're may not be on a dais at a conference, but if you make claims you should be able to justify them with more than silly circular arguments like "I believe in god because I have a soul and I know I have a soul because god gave it to me."
Is it really true that there is a secret OTDs crisis? About a month ago I emerged from my rock and found a bunch of orthodox and no longer orthodox people arguing wether God exists. But I just assumed that they're concentrated on social media, never thought it was a crisis...I'd like to know if anyone knows wether it's a new or recently more common phenomenon.
On another note, I liked this article very much. I was lucky enough to have a very unusual father, and so I read and still do any history book I fancy without it posing problem to my faith.
I think alot of the problem also comes from a very infantile view of the world; its either Truth or Lies, Good or Evil...thinng are alot more complicated than that. There can be lies in truth, evil in good and vice-versa.
>>>Is it really true that there is a secret OTDs crisis? About a month ago I emerged from my rock and found a bunch of orthodox and no longer orthodox people arguing whether God exists. But I just assumed that they're concentrated on social media, never thought it was a crisis...I'd like to know if anyone knows whether it's a new or recently more common phenomenon.
If there is a significant percentage of the Orthodox population which is really merely orthoprax, and they are very good at it (hiding their views that Orthodoxy is false), how could one tell if not to interview them all?
>>>On another note, I liked this article very much. I was lucky enough to have a very unusual father, and so I read and still do any history book I fancy without it posing problem to my faith.
Why do you have faith, and what do you think it is good for?
>>>I think a lot of the problem...
What problem?
>>>...also comes from a very infantile view of the world
It's a weak discussion strategy to besmirch the other side as being a bunch of babies who simply can't understand your sophisticated approach...is that really your position?
>>>its either Truth or Lies
Yes, members of the intellectual orthoprax and OTD community maintain the view that Orthodox Judaism is a lie. Do you have any good evidence that the claims made are true?
>>>Good or Evil...thing are a lot more complicated than that.
I don't know what you mean by this...seems like a throw away comment setting up dichotomies, but I can't be sure.
>>>There can be lies in truth, evil in good and vice-versa.
Again, I can't really tell what you're trying to say here. Just that not everything is 100% of something? I observe that most everyone in high school and above can appreciate that. MLK Jr. did a lot of good, but he apparently (as it's just been revealed) did a lot of bad, as well. Hitler did a lot of bad, but if he paid his grocery bill in a timely manner, then he can be said to have done some good. Is there really an argument to the contrary that anyone makes that you seem to be confronting with these comments?
There's a reason why the yin yang paisleys are drawn the way they are...complementary and yet opposing, tapering into one another, and each containing a dot of the contrast color. What a beautiful idea, a metaphor for life and the human condition...but certainly this is no good evidence for a god, and certainly not the god of the Old Testament.
This was all foreseen by the holy Baal Shem Tov and his students. The teachings of chassidus were revealed precisely because of the darkness of this present time deep in exile. Chassidus reveals the light of the Torah, the deep meaning in doing mitzvos and the joy of being a yid. If only those whom tragically distanced themselves from these teachings would embrace the living waters, we would see a sharp turn of the tide in this regard.
Just look at the communities (even outside chabad) that have embraced the Torah of the Baal Hatanya and the Lubavitcher Rebbe today and you see modern day Jews with a joy and life for Judaism that is unparalleled in the frum world today.
Many rabbis. Including Rabbi Meir Kahane, incidentally. In fact, including the Conservative movement's flagship camp, Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, which has turned out (despite themselves) vast numbers of frum Jews who have remained frum for generations.
Any good Riskin did in the past... that was a different man. People change. Even Elisha ben Avuya was once a Tanna.
So, just to clarify, your personal religious journey has led you to confidently declare that every rabbi who has signed on to that letter is by definition an apikores and should lose his semicha? Or is there something you find particularly objectionable about Rabbi Riskin - who, after all, welcomed my parents to Lincoln Square even though it meant them driving on Shabbat, thereby steering them away from their first choice of the Reconstructionist synagogue - only until they moved to a community with its own shul and were then able to stop driving?
Just trying to understand your perspective.
A good friend is particularly active in Jewish/Christian relations, specifically as an Orthodox Jew interacting with committed Christians, and he’s too busy trying to influence the new Trump administration’s Israel policies, or I would ask him how to respond. I am familiar with the “apikores” arguments against such initiatives but was surprised to find them in the secular blogsphere, so to speak.
Yes. Every "rabbi" who has signed onto that letter is an apikorus. At best. Some are probably closer to amei ha'aretz.
As I said, Riskin may have done good things in the past. No one is all one thing. But giving a hechsher to avodah zarah is unconscienable.
Your ability to make fine distinctions seems a little lacking here. It's possible to work with Christians without proclaiming that Christianity is kosher. Do you insist that everyone who works with you sign on to all of your personal or communal or religious views? I certainly don't.
But Christianity (as opposed to individual Christians, who may simply be misinformed, and are certainly to be excused as the equivalent of tinokot shenishbe'u, since there's no way they should be expected to know better) is avodah zarah. Yes, even for non-Jews. The rampant misreading of Tosfot to try and create a category of "Shituf" that's "permissible AZ" is tragic. But nowhere near as tragic as Riskin blatantly misrepresenting the Rambam, who merely pointed out that God can even use bad things to achieve good ends, and claiming that Rambam therefore sees this bad thing as good.
Do you understand the difference?
The Bavlim were doing God's will by destroying the Mikdash. That doesn't mean that what they did was not evil. It doesn't mean that it wasn't worthy of divine punishment. It only means that God is God, and as the Rambam says, "His ways our not our ways", and He can use bad guys to achieve His ends.
Your friend, as well, is misguided. Interacting with Christians in an attempt to influence policy does not require "Jewish/Christian" relations. Such relations are bad. RYBS ruled them out absolutely, but many of his talmidim seem to find rationalizations for ignoring this. That, too, is tragic.
I am a Jew. Not frum, not reform, not conservative. I have 2 adult children and 2 grandchildren. All are Jews. Thank you for this essay. I watch a lot of archeology and history YouTubes and I recognized what you're writing about. I'm sick of it too. Yesterday I discovered a video ( from one of those Christians who celebrate Shabbat) that Torah discusses healing and he wrote a book about it. Kol Ha Kavod for writing about this.
The problem faced by the MO world as to its level of Avodas HaShem has been noted by both RYBS and CI as well as by RAL ZL All are with reading As far as R Riskin is concerned when he was in the US when he was pioneering and great Rav and rebbe he consulted with RYBS RMF R YK and the Lubavitcher Rebbe Zicronam Livracha It is unfortunately true that after giving into the demands of LW MO on gender issues and moving to Israel R Riskin never found a rebbe in the same way as RAL ZL did with R SZA zZL
I'm not sure what you meant by "All are with reading". Did you leave out words?
I'll be honest about RYBS. I thought of writing this as a piece, but I never did. I may still.
In Pirkei Avot, it says that Antigonus Ish Socho, who received the Torah from Shimon HaTzaddik, said not to be like a servant who serves a master for the sake of a reward. Be like a servant who serves a master *not* meaning to get a reward.
In Avot D'Rabbi Natan, we learn that Antigonus Ish Socho had two talmidim before Yosi ben Yoezer and Yosi ben Yochanan. Tzadok and Beitus. And that they understood Antigonus incorrectly, and concluded that there *is* no reward. And the Tzdukim and Beitusim were their students, with all the damage they did to Klal Yisrael.
Years later, Avtalyon said, "Sages, be careful with your words," and I've heard it said that he was referring to Antigonus.
RYBS was a gadol. But he taught a Torah of the yachid. Not one of the am. And we have dinei yachid and dinei tzibbur, and I understand why, given the times in which he learned, why he would have put such a large focus on the yachid. But I believe that he made the mistake of Antigonus Ish Socho. Because the rabbis who have been pulling away from Torah in the Orthodox world have been almost exclusively students of his.
Thankfully, there are many students of his who have not gone the way of Avi Weiss and Shlomo Riskin and the like, but I don't know what the ratio is. I do think that the whole "Open Orthodox" pgam in the frum world traces itself back to RYBS even if he never said anything in his life that actually justified such a thing.
Just like Tsadok and Baitus, who I suspect used their misinterpretation of Antigonus's statement to justify what they already wanted to do, I think much the same is true for many of RYBS's wayward students. But some of them simply never learned a Torah that dealt with Am Yisrael as an Am. As a tzibbur with a corporate identity running parallel to our identity as individual Jews. And that, tragically, made them completely unprepared to deal with challenges like the ones I mentioned in my article.
I really liked this reading, Lisa Liel. When I was very young, a kind lady Holocaust survivor who was given assisted living by my Grandfather helped me to question religious dogma and like a stencil over a canvas hold it up to the Torah. This has helped me throughout my life to accumulate understanding of Torah, making it three-dimensional rather than linear.
For instance, regarding the Flood, and resultant sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons: a new Discovery Center for science and earth history (ICR) has photographs of Mount St. Helens eruptions (circa 1980, and 1982), because of which they realized that “sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons can form in only hours rather than millions of years”, proving that Torah is Emes not fiction.
I know. On my first trip to Israel, they took us to these stalactite caves. Someone asked how long it took for the stalactites to form, and the guide looked at them and said, "Is the earth older than 6000 years?" When the guy said yes, the guide said, "Millions of years." He just wanted to check his audience.
Then I heard there was an earthquake that broke a ton of the stalactites, and that no more than 7 years later, they were back.
But I guarantee you that if that guide is still working there, he's still telling them it had to have taken millions of years.
>>>Then I heard there was an earthquake that broke a ton of the stalactites, and that no more than 7 years later, they were back...But I guarantee you
I guarantee you that if this were the case, it would be have documented properly, reported properly, reviewed properly, published properly and embraced properly.
Your anecdotes are not compelling and your blinders are obvious. You ought to follow the evidence, rather than hold on to ideas without evidence and try to backfill them with unconvincing stories.
>>>For instance, regarding the Flood, and resultant sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons: a new Discovery Center for science and earth history (ICR) has photographs of Mount St. Helens eruptions (circa 1980, and 1982), because of which they realized that “sedimentary rock layers and steep-walled canyons can form in only hours rather than millions of years”
Why hasn't this been published more widely? Why isn't it known to all of science? Such a finding that overturns the basis for all geology would have certainly earned the Nobel Prize. And yes...we need you to inform us of this on a substack response to Lisa.
What do you make of that?
>>>proving that Torah is Emes not fiction.
The search is ongoing for anything to validate the truth of the Torah, but there has been no progress, ever.
That is why intelligent Orthodox Jews are going OTD.
https://jewishlink.news/reflection-on-a-jewish-future/
In case you are interested - a very similar perspective but from the side of the questions science raises
He's not wrong.
Rabbi Wein’s books which are published by an offshoot of ArtScroll are a great introduction to Jewish history
Yes, but they also start around the time of Alexander the Great. Even Rabbi Wein doesn't dare touch the third rail of pre-Alexandrian Jewish history.
I don’t understand. Rabbi Wein starts with Avraham. What do you mean?
I'm not sure which book you're talking about. I'm talking about the "Jewish History Trilogy" he wrote, which goes back to 350 BCE.
At one point many years ago I listened to all of his hundreds of tapes. The tapes actually start with Noach, I believe.
Oh, I'm sure. And I bet he covers our history according to Chazal, as he should. But he's never made an effort to fight against the dominant paradigm.
I'm not criticizing him. It's simply not a place he went to, because he doesn't have the tools of that particular trade.
Yes, I own a copy of it. That's true, it's an exception. I'll try and reread it over Shabbat and see what I can say about it. But note that it's published by Mosaica Press, and has likely not been sold anywhere outside of Jewish bookstores.
B'n, I'll have more to say about it next week.
His approach is to propose a grand conspiracy theory - utter quackery.
If you join the respectfully debating Judaism Facebook group the book has been covered extensively.
I can't find that Facebook group.
He draws a lot of conclusions that sound good on the surface, but have problems with the details. That doesn't mean that everything is quackery, though. His dating of the Yev papyri has a lot to recommend it.
I don't like being stuck between Artscroll and Wellhausen. But the middle way of Velikovsky isn't any better. Yes, our rabbis have failed us, and yes, there secular scholarship should not be treated like Torah from Sinai, but at the end of the day, the Wellhausen guys seem to be more and more correct. At least I take the approach of buying all the criticisms of the maximalist scholars (like K. A Kitchen, J. K. Hoffmeier, J. Berman), and follow a minimal Wellhausen approach. Chazal has been debunked, it's time for a modern Orthodoxy of some sort.
Velikovsky asked a lot of great questions. His answers were less great, but that was largely because he was ignorant of the fields in question.
Wellhausianism isn't even wrong. It's silly. It's too insubstantial to even be wrong. Consider, among other things, the fact that the two points at which Wellhausians propose the Torah to have been cobbled together were times when the animosity between Jews and Samaritans were at a peak. The reign of Josiah, after he raged through the north, destroying altars and burning graves, and the time of Ezra, when they slandered us to the Persians to prevent us from rebuilding Jerusalem and the Mikdash. And it was in those periods that they said, "Huh. The Jews have this new Torah thingie. We should totes copy that!"
Wellhausianism is not a source for the non-historicity of the biblical narratives. On the contrary; it requires that non-historicity to be taken seriously by anyone. Because it's honestly such a childish approach. "Omgz, there are two perspectives given about the creation of the world and man! It must be written by two different people!" It's just sad. Reductive and puerile.
Recent scholarship suggests that the Torah laws didn't really become popular among the Judeans until the 3rd-2nd century BCE. Ezra-Nehemiah demonstrate the lack of piety, as well as Elephantine papyri and temple. Yonatan Adler has pointed to the first strong evidence of archaeological evidence for Judiasm being practiced on a mainstream scale to be in the 2nd century BCE. It's quite plausible, therefore, that the Torah was composed in the days of Ezra, and only when it became popular thoughout the Jewish world in the 2nd century BCE, the Samaritans accepted it. (Obviously, the theological differences were edited out by Samaritan scribes, which is why they have a explicit commandment to build the Sanctuary in My. Grizim.)
The 2 Creation accounts don't just have different perspectives, but they have a contradiction about when the plants were made. Gen 1 says day three, and man day six, but Gen 2 says that there was no man to plow the field and thus and thus there was no plants! Stirah Stirah!
Obviously Rashi gives a very twisted interpretation, as do others, but even critics like Caussto had to acknowledge that there are contradictions between in the Torah.
Interesting article. I have been wrestling with the fact that Jews are genetically Canaanites history, but it really hasn’t shaken my belief at all. Instead I want to try to figure out what the Torah was ACTUALLY saying in light of these facts.
Very on point!
Thanks.
Excuse my ignorance but what does the acronym OTD stand for ?
Sorry. Off the Derech. Derech in Hebrew means path, or way. So someone who has stopped being observant is considered to have gone off the right path.
I won’t argue with you on that. This is not the forum. However, simply put HKBH’s ‘Derech’ is known only to HKBH. We were gifted with Torah Mitzvot and Machshava - the Derech is the individual’s choice. דרכיה דרכי נועם.
The same word can be used in multiple ways. You were asking about OTD, and that's the way the word derech is used in that term. I'm not saying that every instance of derech denotes the same thing. There's also דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה כ"ו דורות.
Your point is well taken. I only mentioned what I did as I am of the opinion that the term is ‘off putting’ and in a sense derogatory and that it there are perhaps other ways to approach the subject. Shabbat Shalom
Thank you - am aware of the concept - which is entirely erroneous in its origination : HKBH’s Derech encompasses ALL. Certain parts pertain to certain aspects of God’s creations others not. There is a story I heard many years ago of a response by Rabbi Mordechai Willig to crying parents that their child was ‘nebech’ off the Derech - he started crying and plaintively said simply ‘just widen the Derech’.
Well... no. HKBH's derech for Jews is keeping the mitzvot, among other things. Stopping that is definitely going OTD.
While I agree with the critique, I hardly think that this causes many of the adult OTD community.
From my experience most ultra orthodox jews are not even aware of the historical discrepancy let alone bothered by it.
It's part and parcel of Judaism's dealings with science in general. Sure, most haredim don't know from chronological issues. But they know that they can either turn a blind eye to an intellectually stimulating world out there, or embrace that world. Because they haven't been shown any way to embrace the intellectual stimulation without embracing its values.
“I was riding the bus home one Friday many, many years ago, talking with a friend of mine. I was thinking about these things. About why we keep kosher, for example. Why God wants us to. And she was utterly baffled. God said to. Isn’t that the beginning and end of it? And while I’ve known fellow frummies who are… let’s say, intellectually challenged, she wasn’t one of them. Any other area, and she had tons to say. But when it came to this, she showed zero curiosity.”
For whatever reason, I feel like “frummie” is talking to me, though in all likelihood, it was referencing a frumanit where I would be a frummetzin,
Why do we eat kosher?
G-d created the world in a physical realm so that we could use it to sanctify His Name. Judaism doesn’t preach abstinence, but rather a refining of the character via self-discipline: what, where, when and how. That, I would say, is the core idea of kosher. Instead of immediately indulging every corporeal desire of ours, we wait, we don’t have every option open to us, we wait again. This is how we polish the diamonds of our souls that we were born with. This is also how we raise our children-from birth- the permissible and the prohibited; the now and the later. Self-discipline as a means of character refinement.
Kosher has an added element of “you are what you eat” When I saw vegan shellfish a few years ago in the healthy eating magazine Eating Well (now defunct), I couldn’t help but marvel at the contrast between the ‘compassionate’ refusal to eat shellfish of the 2020’s with the mocking of the protagonist of Herman Wouk’s 1985 Inside, Outside for his parochial refusal to eat shellfish (or maybe he ate it in the end; I don’t remember.)
The vegan shellfish touch on a reality that there is a potential for cruelty in what we ingest.
Cooking a goat in its mother’s milk is a mocking and a cruelty that adds a sinister element to the permissible killing of the goat. It reminds me of the sending away of the mother bird, but perhaps my analogy is off.
So too, the characteristics of the animals we are forbidden to eat are characteristics we do not want to integrate into our selves.
>>>G-d created the world in a physical realm so that we could use it to sanctify His Name.
How do you know this?
I know that G-d created the world because I have a soul and a material creation couldn’t create something that is spiritual.
I know I have a soul because I love music, doing things to help others that doesn’t benefit me makes me happy, and when I hear words of Torah they resonate like I have heard them before.
I know that G-d created a physical realm because I live in a physical realm.
Something came before. That something is G-d. That something cannot be solely physical like the Big Bang, because then I would have no soul. I have a soul. So the thing that came before is G-d. G-d is the creator of everything. He existed before us. Ergo, He created a physical realm.
I know that G-d wants us to sanctify His Name because He is spiritual and we are physical (and spiritual). He created a physical world with spiritual intent. As physical beings, we are actualized when we devote ourselves to a spiritual purpose (See Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning).
So, that is how I know.
I do know.
I don’t think I can “prove” that there is a G-d.
I would never attempt to “prove” to someone that there is a G-d.
If someone could “prove” it, it wouldn’t be me. I am not good at science or math.
>>>I know that G-d created the world because I have a soul
You might as well have said, "I know because I do." How do you know that you have a soul?
>>>a material creation couldn’t create something that is spiritual.
I don't think there is anything spiritual. Why do you?
>>>I know I have a soul because I love music, doing things to help others that doesn’t benefit me makes me happy, and when I hear words of Torah they resonate like I have heard them before.
None of this constitutes good evidence for a soul. The fact that you love music or are happy when you practice altruism is no justification for believing in the supernatural. Making claims about having heard the Torah before are similarly insufficient evidence. When you're indoctrinated from a young and impressionable age to think that the Torah is real and that you have experienced divine connection, it's no wonder you mistake feelings of euphoria like music and other intangible enjoyments as spiritual connection.
Do you have any good evidence for any of your claims?
>>>Something came before. That something is G-d.
You seem to be making lots of claims, but providing no good evidence for believing in any of them.
>>>That something cannot be solely physical like the Big Bang, because then I would have no soul. I have a soul.
Repeating a claim doesn't make it any more true than shouting it. You should believe things after you have sufficient evidence, not just because it makes you feel good or that's what you've been taught as a kid and then walled it off, protecting it from rigorous scrutiny.
>>>So the thing that came before is G-d. G-d is the creator of everything. He existed before us. Ergo, He created a physical realm.
You seem to be using logic here (with use of the word "ergo") but it's a non sequitur. You again make claims with no backing. You're just saying that you know there's a god because you have a soul. Then you anticipate what my next question will be ("how do you know that?"), and so you offer that the spiritual can't derive from the material. Then you anticipate the next question ("how do you know that?"), and you offer that god did it.
But you don't seem to offer any good reason to believe in any of this.
>>>I know that G-d wants us to sanctify His Name because He is spiritual and we are physical (and spiritual).
More claims without any evidence.
>>>He created a physical world with spiritual intent.
And more still.
>>>As physical beings, we are actualized when we devote ourselves to a spiritual purpose (See Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning).
Now you seem to think that quoting famous people will give substance to your claims, but they do not.
>>>So, that is how I know.
I don't think you even know what you don't know.
>>>I do know.
Saying it doesn't make it true.
>>>I don’t think I can “prove” that there is a G-d.
We're not looking for proofs here, because this isn't mathematics class. We're just looking for good evidence to believe in any of the wacky and crazy thoughts you just wrote about above. There have been literally thousands of gods proposed over the millennia and you likely don't believe in any of them, regardless of how many anecdotes and stories have been told about them. How much meaning they have provided for those who held them to be the guide in their life. And the reason, it seems, is not because they were just silly stories, because you demonstrate your grasp on silly stories here. No, the reason you do not believe in the many gods you don't believe in is simply because you weren't indoctrinated to listen to the Uncle Moishies of those faiths, while you were indoctrinated in Orthodox Judaism.
>>>I would never attempt to “prove” to someone that there is a G-d.
Again, we're not looking for proof. We're just looking for evidence. The same was you likely believe is dogs but not dragons and butterflies but not fairies. There's good reason to believe in dogs and butterflies because we have evidence, but not in dragons and fairies because we don't.
>>>If someone could “prove” it, it wouldn’t be me. I am not good at science or math.
The way you write demonstrates you haven't confronted good questions about what you believe and why. That's fine...no one comes out of the gate with polished responses. But you'll have to do much better than this. And this is not something you should think you're exempt from. You're may not be on a dais at a conference, but if you make claims you should be able to justify them with more than silly circular arguments like "I believe in god because I have a soul and I know I have a soul because god gave it to me."
Ok thanks
There's simply no polite way to tell people they've dedicated their lives to an illusion.
Daniel Dennett
You can always tell me that.
If it makes you happy.
You asked a question.
I answered in good faith.
My original point was why we eat kosher and that I “a frummie” thinks about kosher.
I specifically said in my answer that I am not trying to convince you.
Thank you for your thought-out response.
Is it really true that there is a secret OTDs crisis? About a month ago I emerged from my rock and found a bunch of orthodox and no longer orthodox people arguing wether God exists. But I just assumed that they're concentrated on social media, never thought it was a crisis...I'd like to know if anyone knows wether it's a new or recently more common phenomenon.
On another note, I liked this article very much. I was lucky enough to have a very unusual father, and so I read and still do any history book I fancy without it posing problem to my faith.
I think alot of the problem also comes from a very infantile view of the world; its either Truth or Lies, Good or Evil...thinng are alot more complicated than that. There can be lies in truth, evil in good and vice-versa.
>>>Is it really true that there is a secret OTDs crisis? About a month ago I emerged from my rock and found a bunch of orthodox and no longer orthodox people arguing whether God exists. But I just assumed that they're concentrated on social media, never thought it was a crisis...I'd like to know if anyone knows whether it's a new or recently more common phenomenon.
If there is a significant percentage of the Orthodox population which is really merely orthoprax, and they are very good at it (hiding their views that Orthodoxy is false), how could one tell if not to interview them all?
>>>On another note, I liked this article very much. I was lucky enough to have a very unusual father, and so I read and still do any history book I fancy without it posing problem to my faith.
Why do you have faith, and what do you think it is good for?
>>>I think a lot of the problem...
What problem?
>>>...also comes from a very infantile view of the world
It's a weak discussion strategy to besmirch the other side as being a bunch of babies who simply can't understand your sophisticated approach...is that really your position?
>>>its either Truth or Lies
Yes, members of the intellectual orthoprax and OTD community maintain the view that Orthodox Judaism is a lie. Do you have any good evidence that the claims made are true?
>>>Good or Evil...thing are a lot more complicated than that.
I don't know what you mean by this...seems like a throw away comment setting up dichotomies, but I can't be sure.
>>>There can be lies in truth, evil in good and vice-versa.
Again, I can't really tell what you're trying to say here. Just that not everything is 100% of something? I observe that most everyone in high school and above can appreciate that. MLK Jr. did a lot of good, but he apparently (as it's just been revealed) did a lot of bad, as well. Hitler did a lot of bad, but if he paid his grocery bill in a timely manner, then he can be said to have done some good. Is there really an argument to the contrary that anyone makes that you seem to be confronting with these comments?
There's a reason why the yin yang paisleys are drawn the way they are...complementary and yet opposing, tapering into one another, and each containing a dot of the contrast color. What a beautiful idea, a metaphor for life and the human condition...but certainly this is no good evidence for a god, and certainly not the god of the Old Testament.
Do you have a better argument?
It didn't seem like any of those commenting went OTD within the last 4 years.
And there is no evidence that there are large numbers.
This was all foreseen by the holy Baal Shem Tov and his students. The teachings of chassidus were revealed precisely because of the darkness of this present time deep in exile. Chassidus reveals the light of the Torah, the deep meaning in doing mitzvos and the joy of being a yid. If only those whom tragically distanced themselves from these teachings would embrace the living waters, we would see a sharp turn of the tide in this regard.
Just look at the communities (even outside chabad) that have embraced the Torah of the Baal Hatanya and the Lubavitcher Rebbe today and you see modern day Jews with a joy and life for Judaism that is unparalleled in the frum world today.
Rabbi Riskin? Jewish “mediocrity “?
Perhaps you would like to reassess that particular label.
Riskin? I thought mediocrity was being kind. How about apikorsut? https://www.jcrelations.net/statements/statement/to-do-the-will-of-our-father-in-heaven-toward-a-partnership-between-jews-and-christians.html
This particular piece of trash was *after* his "Rabbi Jesus" naarischkeit. He misrepresents the Rambam in order to flatter his Christian friends.
"Neither of us can achieve G-d’s mission in this world alone"?! It's a shame his smicha can't be revoked.
It is wholly because of Rabbi Riskin that generations of my family are now dati.
I wonder how many others can make such a claim.
Many rabbis. Including Rabbi Meir Kahane, incidentally. In fact, including the Conservative movement's flagship camp, Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, which has turned out (despite themselves) vast numbers of frum Jews who have remained frum for generations.
Any good Riskin did in the past... that was a different man. People change. Even Elisha ben Avuya was once a Tanna.
So, just to clarify, your personal religious journey has led you to confidently declare that every rabbi who has signed on to that letter is by definition an apikores and should lose his semicha? Or is there something you find particularly objectionable about Rabbi Riskin - who, after all, welcomed my parents to Lincoln Square even though it meant them driving on Shabbat, thereby steering them away from their first choice of the Reconstructionist synagogue - only until they moved to a community with its own shul and were then able to stop driving?
Just trying to understand your perspective.
A good friend is particularly active in Jewish/Christian relations, specifically as an Orthodox Jew interacting with committed Christians, and he’s too busy trying to influence the new Trump administration’s Israel policies, or I would ask him how to respond. I am familiar with the “apikores” arguments against such initiatives but was surprised to find them in the secular blogsphere, so to speak.
Yes. Every "rabbi" who has signed onto that letter is an apikorus. At best. Some are probably closer to amei ha'aretz.
As I said, Riskin may have done good things in the past. No one is all one thing. But giving a hechsher to avodah zarah is unconscienable.
Your ability to make fine distinctions seems a little lacking here. It's possible to work with Christians without proclaiming that Christianity is kosher. Do you insist that everyone who works with you sign on to all of your personal or communal or religious views? I certainly don't.
But Christianity (as opposed to individual Christians, who may simply be misinformed, and are certainly to be excused as the equivalent of tinokot shenishbe'u, since there's no way they should be expected to know better) is avodah zarah. Yes, even for non-Jews. The rampant misreading of Tosfot to try and create a category of "Shituf" that's "permissible AZ" is tragic. But nowhere near as tragic as Riskin blatantly misrepresenting the Rambam, who merely pointed out that God can even use bad things to achieve good ends, and claiming that Rambam therefore sees this bad thing as good.
Do you understand the difference?
The Bavlim were doing God's will by destroying the Mikdash. That doesn't mean that what they did was not evil. It doesn't mean that it wasn't worthy of divine punishment. It only means that God is God, and as the Rambam says, "His ways our not our ways", and He can use bad guys to achieve His ends.
Your friend, as well, is misguided. Interacting with Christians in an attempt to influence policy does not require "Jewish/Christian" relations. Such relations are bad. RYBS ruled them out absolutely, but many of his talmidim seem to find rationalizations for ignoring this. That, too, is tragic.
I am a Jew. Not frum, not reform, not conservative. I have 2 adult children and 2 grandchildren. All are Jews. Thank you for this essay. I watch a lot of archeology and history YouTubes and I recognized what you're writing about. I'm sick of it too. Yesterday I discovered a video ( from one of those Christians who celebrate Shabbat) that Torah discusses healing and he wrote a book about it. Kol Ha Kavod for writing about this.
The problem faced by the MO world as to its level of Avodas HaShem has been noted by both RYBS and CI as well as by RAL ZL All are with reading As far as R Riskin is concerned when he was in the US when he was pioneering and great Rav and rebbe he consulted with RYBS RMF R YK and the Lubavitcher Rebbe Zicronam Livracha It is unfortunately true that after giving into the demands of LW MO on gender issues and moving to Israel R Riskin never found a rebbe in the same way as RAL ZL did with R SZA zZL
RYBS never approved of what is called Open Orthodoxy in practice or hashkafa
I'm absolutely sure he never did. But Antigonus Ish Socho never, as far as we know, approved of Sadduceeism in practice or hashkafa.
I'm not sure what you meant by "All are with reading". Did you leave out words?
I'll be honest about RYBS. I thought of writing this as a piece, but I never did. I may still.
In Pirkei Avot, it says that Antigonus Ish Socho, who received the Torah from Shimon HaTzaddik, said not to be like a servant who serves a master for the sake of a reward. Be like a servant who serves a master *not* meaning to get a reward.
In Avot D'Rabbi Natan, we learn that Antigonus Ish Socho had two talmidim before Yosi ben Yoezer and Yosi ben Yochanan. Tzadok and Beitus. And that they understood Antigonus incorrectly, and concluded that there *is* no reward. And the Tzdukim and Beitusim were their students, with all the damage they did to Klal Yisrael.
Years later, Avtalyon said, "Sages, be careful with your words," and I've heard it said that he was referring to Antigonus.
RYBS was a gadol. But he taught a Torah of the yachid. Not one of the am. And we have dinei yachid and dinei tzibbur, and I understand why, given the times in which he learned, why he would have put such a large focus on the yachid. But I believe that he made the mistake of Antigonus Ish Socho. Because the rabbis who have been pulling away from Torah in the Orthodox world have been almost exclusively students of his.
Thankfully, there are many students of his who have not gone the way of Avi Weiss and Shlomo Riskin and the like, but I don't know what the ratio is. I do think that the whole "Open Orthodox" pgam in the frum world traces itself back to RYBS even if he never said anything in his life that actually justified such a thing.
Just like Tsadok and Baitus, who I suspect used their misinterpretation of Antigonus's statement to justify what they already wanted to do, I think much the same is true for many of RYBS's wayward students. But some of them simply never learned a Torah that dealt with Am Yisrael as an Am. As a tzibbur with a corporate identity running parallel to our identity as individual Jews. And that, tragically, made them completely unprepared to deal with challenges like the ones I mentioned in my article.
My mistake-all are worth reading
Ah, thanks.
It probably never occurred to him that they could go wrong in this way.