Re-igniting the Storm

-----Original Message-----
From: Zoo Torah [mailto:zoorabbi@zootorah.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:44 PM
To: 'Rav Feldman'
Subject: "The Eye of the Storm"

Dear Rav Feldman, shlita,

Shalom u'vrachah, I hope you are well.

I recently acquired your newly published book, "The Eye of the Storm: A Calm View of Raging Issues." It was with great surprise that I saw that it includes the essay of several years ago, "The Slifkin Affair: Issues and Perspectives," entirely unchanged from its original form. This was even though a number of rabbis and academic scholars publicly pointed out the many, many factual errors and serious flaws that this essay contained. Especially disturbing was that in describing the "discarded minority view" that Chazal occasionally erred in their statements about the natural world, you omitted any mention of the more than three dozen further sources which I sent to you a few years ago, in a letter to which you never responded. Attached is the letter, along with the most comprehensive of the critiques of your essay that were circulated.

I was also surprised that you chose to re-ignite this controversy at a new level, by introducing it to the domain of English published works, when even you yourself acknowledge that it is probably the public issue most damaging to the honor of Torah and to its leaders in recent memory. But since you chose to do so, I have decided to respond in kind, and I will publish a complete book about the controversy. This is something that I refrained from doing until now, but the publication of your book, along with the publication of the appalling sefer Chaim B'Emunasam, has helped me decide that it is the appropriate course of action. Actually, I think it will be of great help in helping people make informed decisions about where in the Orthodox world they should align themselves.

Sincerely,
Natan Slifkin

Black and White

I just got off the phone with a good friend of mine in the Mir. He suggested that in the charedi world, there are several qualities that are seen as necessarily connected - meaning, that if somebody possesses one of them, they are seen as automatically possessing all the others. They are:

• Great Torah scholarship
• Righteousness
• Spiritual powers (e.g. berachos)
• and I forget the fourth.

In other words, anyone who is a great Torah scholar is automatically also considered to be a tzaddik, and so on.

I have an elaboration of this concept which relates to the comments in the previous discussion about yeridas hadoros. Intelligence and wisdom themselves have several components. There are analytical skills and there is retention of knowledge. There are different types of wisdom and intellectual acument - Talmudic expertise and philosophical expertise are very different. And there are many other divisions that could be mentioned. But my impression is that many people assume that anyone who excels in any one of these, also excels in all of them.

Yeridas HaDoros

The comments on the previous post have made me realize something that I've been chewing over for a while. If there's one single issue that really strikes at the core of the rationalist/non-rationalist divide, it's yeridas hadoros.

The notion of yeridas hadoros is rarely defined, but certainly most people take it mean that Rishonim, and all the more so Chazal, were more intelligent than us. With this understanding, yeridas hadoros conflicts with two aspects of rationalism.

One, which is more the Rishonic aspect of rationalism, is that rationalism maintains that there is a basically constant order of nature over history. Mankind doesn't change in its level of intelligence. Menachem Kellner, in his book Maimonides on the Decline of Generations, uses this argument and others to show that Rambam did not subscribe to the notion of yeridas hadoros.

The second way in which yeridas hadoros conflicts with rationalism is that rationalism mandates that claims require evidence proportionate to the degree that they are far-fetched. Until a few centuries ago, all mankind believed that the ancients were more intelligent than us. That's why it was virtually unthinkable to dispute Aristotle. Today, outside of traditionalists, people do not accept that the ancients were more intelligent than us. There is no evidence for it, a lot of evidence against it, and understandable reasons as to why people used to believe it to be the case.

Within the Torah world, aside from Rambam, it's hard to find those that oppose this understanding of yeridas hadoros. There is a discussion by R. Shlomo Fisher that approaches it, based on Kesef Mishnah, which I discussed in Sacred Monsters. Also, as noted, I heard a prominent Rosh Yeshivah from YU say, "Who says there's such a thing as yeridas hadoros?" But, understandably, this is something that most people would be wary of voicing their opinion on - it is dangerous in many ways.

There are many people who are rationalist vis-a-vis evolution, or Chazal's knowledge of science, but whose views on yeridas hadoros mean that they cannot be considered as full-blooded rationalists. (Of course, my own views on certain topics would probably also disqualify me from being considered a full-blooded rationalist by others.)

One Man's Maverick is Another Man's Bore

A few years ago I had an interesting conversation with a certain Rav. This Rav is a tremendous talmid chacham with tremendous breadth of thought, but he is basically in the charedi world. He didn't object to any specific view of mine, but he criticized me for the totality of them. He said to me, "Look, it's okay for a person to have one or two radical views, but why do you have to have so many?" The world being billions of years old, evolution, no global flood, Chazal being wrong about spontaneous generation, Moshe not being ten cubits tall, Rashi being a corporealist, etc., etc., etc. Why do I have to always be a radical?

My response was that in the intellectual circles into which I was (at that time) moving towards - frum academics and frum people who subscribe to their rationalist approach - nothing that I say is remotely radical. All the aforementioned views are completely normative. In fact, in these circles, I am considered as a person who has not contributed any original or interesting ideas.

It was interesting to see how taken aback he was.

Chazal's Belief in a Flat Earth

This Wednesday will be the second part of my live Internet class about Chazal's belief in a flat earth and the sun moving behind the sky at night. In this part, I will be reviewing how various authorities over the ages dealt with it. You can download the audio/ video for the first part (which will be necessary for understanding the second part) here. To register for the classes, click here. Next week, I will be moving on to the topic of geocentrism vs. heliocentrism.

By the way, there is a change of schedule for the zoology classes - they are starting next Sunday instead of this Sunday.

Yet Another Ban - UPDATED

(UPDATE: I apologize for assuming that everyone is fluent in Hebrew. People, this poster is a joke; it's an advertisement put out by the manufacturer.)

The Challenge Of Ptolemy

A quick reminder that today at 2pm EST is my first live shiur via Torah In Motion. The topic tonight is (probably) The Challenge Of Ptolemy. Did the Sages of the Talmud believe the world to be flat? In the Talmudic era, the rabbis faced a challenge from Ptolemy in astronomy. The way that they coped with it is remarkably different from how it is commonly portrayed. To watch/listen to the shiur, you have to register with Torah In Motion. For a list of all my classes, many of which will appear as part of this series, click here.