Latest / The Podcast of Jewish Ideas / 91. The Halakhic Man | Dr. Lawrence Kaplan

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91. The Halakhic Man | Dr. Lawrence Kaplan · The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Greetings listeners, and welcome to the podcast of Jewish Ideas
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a Terror in Motions production. I'm jj Kimbri. Rabbi Joseph B.
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  Speaker 1: Slivacik was a giant of twentieth century Jewish life. A
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  Speaker 1: Titanic scholar, teacher, and community leader, Rabbi Salavacik was a
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  Speaker 1: leading light of Yeshiva University in New York for several decades,
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  Speaker 1: ordaining thousands of rabbis and cementing his place as perhaps
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  Speaker 1: the foremost Robinic authority within the modern Orthodox community. In
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  Speaker 1: addition to this, from Salavasik was one of the great
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  Speaker 1: Jewish thinkers of the previous century, having received a thorough
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  Speaker 1: training both in classical Jewish texts and in modern European
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  Speaker 1: philosophy at the University of Berlin. It was this extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: combination of the traditional and the academic that lent Solavajic's
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  Speaker 1: ideas a union, weakness and sophistication second to none. And
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  Speaker 1: it is precisely this intricate complexity that we hope to
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  Speaker 1: explore with you today. With us to discuss the writings
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  Speaker 1: and legacy of Rabbi Joseph Salavajic is Doctor Lawrence Kaplin,
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  Speaker 1: Professor of Robbinicks and Jewish Philosophy in the Department of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Jewish Studies at McGill University, a noted authority on modern
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  Speaker 1: Jewish thoughts. Professor Kaplin is also an editor of a
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  Speaker 1: volume of Around My Solovtrix's Lectures, as well as the
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  Speaker 1: translator of Solovagic's central work, halak Man, which is now
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  Speaker 1: being released in a fortieth anniversary edition with a new introduction, annotation, glossaries,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera. It is an honor to have Professor Kaplin
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  Speaker 1: on the Podcast of Jewish Ideas Today. Professor welcome, Thank
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  Speaker 1: you very much.
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  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Excellent. Let's jump in, and I suspect many of much
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  Speaker 1: of the audience will already know something about Rabba Slavajik,
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  Speaker 1: will have come across perhaps some of his writings or
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  Speaker 1: some of his biography. But let's start from the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: If you can perhaps paint a short biography of Rasolovichk.
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  Speaker 1: When did he live? Where did he live? What did
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  Speaker 1: he do? What were his primary pursuits and interests?
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  Speaker 2: Yes? Well, actually you had a very nice summary of
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  Speaker 2: his importance, which I hope to elaborate on. But it
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  Speaker 2: will be a good jumping point starting point for discussion.
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  Speaker 2: But certain basically bliographical facts which I think are more
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: than biographical facts, which I think are just more than biographical.
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  Speaker 2: So Robas Salvation was born in nineteen oh three, actually
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  Speaker 2: he passed away in nineteen ninety three. He was born
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  Speaker 2: in Prusion, Poland. He came from a very distinguished one
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  Speaker 2: of the most distinguished Litvac rabbinical families. His father's Rabbi
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Mosha Saliva Chick, was the rabbi of that town. His
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  Speaker 2: grandfather will talk about this greater length later was Rabbi
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  Speaker 2: Chaiam Saliva Chick, oftentimes known as the briska rubb, who
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  Speaker 2: was the leading tumutic scholar of his day. And again
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: we'll come back, as he really developed a new, highly conceptual,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: rigorous approach to the Talmud which swept the old methods away.
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  Speaker 2: Ur Talmudic studying became very popular in all the Yeshivo
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  Speaker 2: and Salovnci actually, like other actually interesting a number of
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  Speaker 2: important rabbinic figures of the twentieth century. I he his
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  Speaker 2: own issue. Others never studied in the Yeshima. He was
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  Speaker 2: educated by his father and Slovenci at a young age
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  Speaker 2: was known as his child prodigy, and his father really
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: evidently drove him mercilessly. There all types of horror stories
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  Speaker 2: that will go overwhelmed with modern educators and psychologists. So
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  Speaker 2: of Salivation himself some thrived on these challenges, and he
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  Speaker 2: was trained by his father and mastery of this Halmtic
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  Speaker 2: method pioneer developed by his grandfather. And actually you can
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  Speaker 2: say by the age of sixteen already he was already
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  Speaker 2: a seasoned scholar. We actually have letters between Salivation and
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  Speaker 2: his father from about the time of Salivation at sixteen
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  Speaker 2: till he's twenty. Dealing with very obscure areas of Jewish law,
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  Speaker 2: particularly areas of the sacrificial services, is generally not studying yeshimo.
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  Speaker 2: Did you already see that Salivation at that time was
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  Speaker 2: already mature or maturing scholar. So this is on the
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  Speaker 2: one hand, so this is this very intensive, internal, almost hermetic,
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  Speaker 2: insulated approach to the study of Almud and other text
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  Speaker 2: and somehow isolated from general society. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 2: his mother's influence, who also came from a bit affair
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  Speaker 2: but maybe more worldly rabbinic families. So his mother was
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  Speaker 2: a devotee of German and Russian literature, Pushkin and Toastoy
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  Speaker 2: Gert and others. So SALIVATIONI developed an interest in general culture. Actually,
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  Speaker 2: it's interesting, even though later on Salavation's educational and professional
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  Speaker 2: specialties are philosophy, science, mathematics. You see a great love
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  Speaker 2: of literatuy Or quotes both general literary works. At one
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  Speaker 2: point he says, when he's a teenager, he would swallow
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: up these long books by Romain Roland and various other
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: popular early twentieth century writers, and as well as Hebrew
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  Speaker 2: literatary and particular fondness for the great Hebrew poet Bialen.
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  Speaker 2: So at that point he decides to get the more
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  Speaker 2: formal secular education to as many did, a gymnasium, which
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: is not a modern gymnasiums basically an academic high school
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: which trains you in classics, so you can go to
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  Speaker 2: the university. And first he went to a university in Poland,
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  Speaker 2: but then in nineteen twenty five he goes to Berlin,
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  Speaker 2: where as you said, he studies at the University of Berlin,
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  Speaker 2: which is one of the great centers of study of
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the time, and he devotes the next five six years
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: he gets he finishes PhD at thirty one against the
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  Speaker 2: thirty two to the intensive study and mastery of philosophy
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: with a p emphasis on philosophy of science and mathematics
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  Speaker 2: as well, all at the same time continuing his rabbinic studies.
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  Speaker 2: And we have various accounts of him in Berlin as
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  Speaker 2: is both a brilliant young student of philosophy as well
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: as the outstanding Talmudists. So in ninety thirty one thirty
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: two a number of events happen, so simultaneously he gets
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  Speaker 2: his PhD on the philosophy of Hermann Cohne. We'll talk
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: about that in a little while, the founder of the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: school of Neo Kantianism, and we'll talk about the influence
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: of Neocondienism Saliva Chick. In a while. He gets married,
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  Speaker 2: which is rather important, and his wife itself as a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: PhD in Jewish education, and that's rather important because together
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  Speaker 2: later on they were founded by Moneting School in Boston.
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  Speaker 2: It's really the educational vision of both of them both,
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  Speaker 2: so it's really not just a personal but an intellectual
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  Speaker 2: spiritual team. He gets ordained, He gets ordained by the
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  Speaker 2: Covenant rub the Rabbi of covenor Rabbi Abraham Dolbert Kahana Shapiro,
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  Speaker 2: who writes this unusual in Komium. He says, Halajam Tobajol Macombe,
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  Speaker 2: the law is like him everywhere. Now, that does that hyperbole, obviously,
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  Speaker 2: but it means that he's competent to rule in all
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: areas of Jewish law. He's a really I mean, he's
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  Speaker 2: a really master all areas of Jewish traditional traditional ordination
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  Speaker 2: is limited to certain areas, but Salivation here really is
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  Speaker 2: the master of all areas. So that's that's a rather
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  Speaker 2: blowing compliment. And he leaves Germany and he gets a
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  Speaker 2: to the US under one of these clergy one of
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  Speaker 2: these clergy visas, you know, basically after nineteen twenty for
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: the US to allow Jews into into the US. Yeah,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: they didn't allow them in, but if you were a
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  Speaker 2: clergy and had had a position offered, you could jump
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  Speaker 2: to the head of the Q. Many this things, which
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  Speaker 2: rabbis believe. My grandfather got in on a clergy clergy
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  Speaker 2: visit Lisa So and he becomes the rabbi was the
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  Speaker 2: some of you called the chief Rabbi Boston. That's an
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  Speaker 2: exaggeration exactly, it's not precise. He really becomes a rabbi
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  Speaker 2: of the Heavers Shats of Boston, which is a group
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  Speaker 2: of synagogues in Boston. Maybe unofficially he had a status
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  Speaker 2: of chief rabbi, although perhaps had you asked other rabbis
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  Speaker 2: in Boston, they might not have agreed with them that
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  Speaker 2: other more traditional rabbi sometimes felt the competition of Salivation
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  Speaker 2: with his general background ended to overshadowed him. In the
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  Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, he begins writing articles on technical alakhic issues.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing nothing fillstop so I from his thesis in publishing
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  Speaker 2: them in in rabbinic journals. And that's more like the
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  Speaker 2: calling card, the calling card of the up and coming
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  Speaker 2: of the up and coming rabbinic scholar. In thirty seventy
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  Speaker 2: and his wife found my monority's school in Boston, which
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  Speaker 2: is the Jewish Day School, which you know, was really
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  Speaker 2: unusual in time, and even Orthodox people will send their
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  Speaker 2: kids to public schools, and there was opposition even with
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  Speaker 2: the Orthodox community. The Jewish day school would supposedly isolate
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  Speaker 2: the students the happy part of general. So sorryety, so
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  Speaker 2: you'll have gone to public school and you'll have a
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  Speaker 2: Hebrew school so he and his wife together establish that school.
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  Speaker 2: Basically is his field of operation is is Boston. His
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  Speaker 2: father was the leading rabbinic scholar teacher at Yeshiva University,
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  Speaker 2: but Salavatik himself was not there, and it seems there
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  Speaker 2: are his tensions. There's only when his father passed away
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen forty one that he was actually appointed as
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  Speaker 2: the Rose Shueshiva. And even there there was opposition for
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  Speaker 2: various reasons which maybe will come will come back to.
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  Speaker 2: But once there, as you say, for forty years, he
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  Speaker 2: becomes the chief, the un challenge leading teacher, and he
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  Speaker 2: ordains over two thousand students until he retires because of
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  Speaker 2: ill health in nineteen eighty four nineteen eighty five. I'll
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  Speaker 2: maybe speak about what he wrote a bit later on,
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  Speaker 2: but let me just sort of finish these biographicals. By
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  Speaker 2: the early nineteen fifties, he becomes recognized as the unchallenged
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  Speaker 2: leader of modern Orthodoxy. He becomes the head of the
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  Speaker 2: Rabbinical Committee, the Law Committee of the Rabbitical Council of America.
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  Speaker 2: He becomes the honorary president of Miss Roccoly Religious Hignists.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if he had any official role at
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  Speaker 2: the Orthodox Union, but unofficially he was there a lachic
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  Speaker 2: advisor with an advisor generally what he said, go. So
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  Speaker 2: he becomes the leader and the spokesman, the spokesman, the face,
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  Speaker 2: the face of modern Orthodoxy, both within the Jewish community
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  Speaker 2: and to the and to the general world. So maybe
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  Speaker 2: let me just say a few words about his writings. Yeah, okay.
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  Speaker 2: So in forty four he writes this major article Halacha
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  Speaker 2: com man in Hebrew, in isha Alakai, which appears in
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  Speaker 2: a in a journal. The fact that it's really a
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  Speaker 2: small book, a small monograph, but the fact that actually
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  Speaker 2: appears in the journal means that it's not reviewed. The
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  Speaker 2: book you review, book youn' review articles and journals. We
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: don't have a I discussed. It's actually a preface in
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  Speaker 2: my new addition to the reception history. We don't have.
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  Speaker 2: People don't seem to be writing about it, but there's
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  Speaker 2: evidence that it orally it created quite a stir. It
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: created quite a stir. And this is really a very
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  Speaker 2: brilliant and some ways controversial article about isha command, about
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  Speaker 2: the person and the nature of the person, the consciousness
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  Speaker 2: of the person. Again, we'll come back to this of
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  Speaker 2: the individual who is committed to the practice and even
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  Speaker 2: more important to the study of the halaka. I said,
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  Speaker 2: it's a difficult article. The Hebrew is a difficult Hebrew.
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  Speaker 2: When I translated it, I sort of had a struggle
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  Speaker 2: to put in a lot of work into translating it.
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  Speaker 2: So to a certain extent it reached. When it was
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  Speaker 2: a Hebrew was limited. Once it was translated into English,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: it had a much broader It had a much broader impact.
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  Speaker 2: And I hope this new indust will even broad in it.
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  Speaker 2: Were brought in it further. We know it's strange. It's
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: still not clear. We know he was working on other
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  Speaker 2: major projects in the forties, was working on a book
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  Speaker 2: which later appeared under the title of the Halachic Mind,
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  Speaker 2: which I never liked that title, Salvation didn't give it.
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  Speaker 2: Originally was gonna called is a Philosopher Helca Possible, which
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  Speaker 2: appeared only in nineteen eighty six. It's like forty years
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  Speaker 2: later than he wrote it. Why it's not really clear.
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  Speaker 2: And he was working on another major article which appeared
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  Speaker 2: in actually seventy eight. Well, hopefully we'll speak a boy
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  Speaker 2: some of this vi Kashtemisham, and from thence you will
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  Speaker 2: seek about man's the individuals search for God. But again
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: it's not a clear not that much appears in the
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  Speaker 2: forties and the fifties, although we know that he was
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: giving lectures, he was writing. We have manuscripts, important manuscripts.
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  Speaker 2: We have a manuscript, The Emergence of Ethical Man, which
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: is a very important work, again focusing on the human
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: being more placing the individual in a naturalistic setting and
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  Speaker 2: showing how the person emerges as a human and ethical personality.
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  Speaker 2: It's only in the early sixties and mid sixties that
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  Speaker 2: he begins publishing again. And there's a lot to say,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: but I want to focus on his major articles for
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: peers in English, The Lonely Man of Faith, which is
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: written with a more existentialist tone, and perhaps it is
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the most popular, or certainly the most accessible of all
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: of Soliva Chicks, of all of Saliva Chicks essays, it's
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: actually interesting. After my English translation appeared, I was at Harvard.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I met the teaching assistant of a course at Harvard
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Divinity School, a modern Jewish Thought, and what she told
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  Speaker 2: me was that to begin with, they had one session
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  Speaker 2: of salvation, they would do the Lonely Man of Faith,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: because that's broad universal accessible. And also alack Man wasn't
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  Speaker 2: even they couldn't do it. Once my translation appeared of
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  Speaker 2: halackic Man, they switched and they taught halachic Man as
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  Speaker 2: the essay for the session on Salivation, precisely because it
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: had an internal perspective, an internal perspective on Judy's. And
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: maybe we'll come back to that when we speak about
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: hellaic Man. So in the sixties, that lowly man of
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  Speaker 2: faith appears. Others appear various sure, in various elmutic lectures appear.
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  Speaker 2: I already mentioned the works even though they had been
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: written at least in earlier versions forty years before the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: new versions appear. And from then from costume such from
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: there you will seek the Essays of Philosophy at Possible
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: in which are written in forty for it appears in
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six. And even now people joke that he's
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: published more since his death than his life, because all
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: types of posthumous lectures and manuscripts, and the recordings and
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: transcriptions in various forms, some at least in my views,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: some better, some maybe not as good, have have appeared.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So in a certain sense his intellectual record it's still unfolding.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: It's still an folding before us. So okay.
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  Speaker 1: So eventually is, as you say, one of these extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: authors who is likely to be writing for decades and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: decades after his death, because there's a whole, and this
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: speaks to his extraordinary status, extraordinary pull really within a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: certain segment within let's say, the modern Orthodox and religious
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Zionist segments of the Jewish community, who have many of
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: whom have devoted themselves and their efforts to excavating his
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: notes and his lectures and transcribing them and publishing them.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: And then this speaks to his his deep reverberating impact.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I like to turn a little bit to his to
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: some of the basics of his ideas and no two traditions.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: You mentioned some of them, but I wonder if we
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: could expand a little bit ob themoms. The first is
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I can some of them up as brisk and Berlin. Right,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: it seems that those two are are very prominent within
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: his within his work and inform you know, a large
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: portion of his writings. So the first is what is
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: known as the Brisker methods. So I mean, I would
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: like to ask, firstly, how can one define that? What
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: is that and what ways some of agic makes that
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: his own, refine it, use it both in terms of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: his you know, religious writings and his more philosophical writings.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And then after that, if you could perhaps expand on
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: what means by a neo Kantian philosophy in which he
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: developed an expertise and also developed in his writings. So
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I suppose Brisk and Berlin? What were they? And how
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: did he himself develop those strands of thoughts?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Well, those are I say. I was going to say,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: that's a large question, but it's actually two large questions.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Two large questions.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Actually may actually maybe it's okay, maybe three large questions, namely,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: what is Brisk, what is Berlin? And what is the
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: relationship between them? So it gets and then we have
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: three questions. So I spoke about a little bit about
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: his grandfather, who was considered to be a pioneer this method,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Like all pioneers, it didn't come from nothing. There were
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: precedents before it was called the britsk method. He was
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: originally rubber kind of salvation was the ros Yeshiva in
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: vallusion the leading yeshiva's day, as you may know, was
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: listeners may know Belusian was shut down in eighteen ninety
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: two by the Russian authorities, and rabbi kind of salavation
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: then became the went to Brisk, which is Brestlatovsk. So
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: it's interesting. So in the Jewish world, or at least
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: the traditional Jewish world, you think of Brisk and this
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Hotel Meudic school in Russian history, you think of the
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: famous or infamous treaty of Breslatok the same place, same place.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: So because he was the rabbi in Brisk and he's
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: often called the Brisker Rub, the rub of Brisk That's
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: why the method is called brisk. So this method is
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: a very type of conceptual method. Namely, what it tries
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to do is masha talmud is really case law, and
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: it tries to uncover the conceptual the juridical foundations of
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the law. And the assumption will also come to is
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: that that stands on its own. These are legal concepts
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: which have their own integrity, their own autonomy. So one example,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: actually I referred to it in my book in my
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: new edition there I attributed to professor him Saman Actually,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: so later on, already making notes for the new revised edition,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: things I should include it but then include I saw
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: the actually rev Ora left in the thereby salvation center.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: A greater rabidic scholar already makes this point, so we
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: have just to give you an example. Examples are always good,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: right ah, you play something, but to give an examples
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: always is always good. So this debate among the medieval scholars.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: When you acquire a movable object through lifting it, if
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: you have to lift it one cubic or three cubans
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: to actually get acquisition, so you know, you might want
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: to explain it. Maybe there were different practices, maybe there
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: were different economic circumstances, may be different psychology, but the
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: way of risk is explained conceptually in terms of No,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: it's the issue of what is the legal nature of
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the kinyon of acquisition without so without going to details
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: too much. Is it really more demonstrating control, in which
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: case maybe you have to lift the three cubans to
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: demonstrate control. Or is it bringing it into your possession,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: in which case may be just any lifting it as
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: long as you're lifted from the ground. That's in the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: case that you brought it into your possession. So again
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: that's not's so what's the details, But you see here
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: how you who approach certain discussions and debates among the
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: commentators and try to explain them in these type of
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: abstract conceptual categories. And just maybe another famous example, a
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: famous debate in terms of how do you have to
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: get rid of the comtes before passover? Do you have
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to burn it or do you can get rid of
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: anyway just sort of throw it at in the garbage
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: because we burn it. Have a hopic ceremonies now about
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: burning it. But again the brisker method is that there's
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: really a fundamental conceptual debate. Is it is the focus
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: on destroying the commates or is rather the focus that
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't be in possession of it? And then it
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: turns out this is always the point that this has
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: actual practical differences in terms of to the law. So
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the assumption is that there's a debate and some type
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: of conceptual debate, it has to make a difference, It
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: has to make a difference in practice. A difference which
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: makes no difference is no difference, right, okay to put
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: it to put it that way. So that's very raw
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: and rough summary. So Salivation is really the master. Salivation
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: is really the master of this of his grandfather's method,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: but in a certain says in terms of the method itself,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that he really develops it this much.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I mean he's a great exponent. Then he polishes it.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: What I think he does, which becomes very relevant, is
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: he expands it and broadens it to new areas. A
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: particular area is dealing with more religious experience. As we
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: could can say, I mean generally the method was othertimes
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: used like the examples I gave these technical issues of
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: a business law, of acquisition, of divorce, of ritual. He
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: expands it, for example, to prayers two okay, uh, the
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: prayer discussing repentance, where he applies its conceptual method to
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: sort of the world, which of which law, which deals
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: more with inner religious experience. So one thing which he
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: does a very famous uh innovation of his. I mean
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: there's no precedent. There always is, you know, when you
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: say something is New York, someone will come along and say, yeah,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: but what so and so a whole range of topics
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: where his argument is even the action, I mean, the
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: objective actuals you are commanded to do, is extra. The
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: fulfillment is internal. So normally let's say I don't know,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: eating matsa on Passover, so the commandments to eat the matza,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and the fulfillment is eating the matza. But he wants
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: to argue that the whole series of laws which called
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: experiential commandments, and both Rabbi Iron Listen and I refer
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: to it. I'm not really sure who maybe was independent.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not really sure who's first year with the action
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: that your commanded to do is external, but the fulfillment
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: is internal, Like prayer is reciting prayer, but the fulfillment
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: is really the inner awareness that you're standing before God.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Another interesting example is mourning m o U R mourning
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: the commandment of mourning in general, where obviously the actions
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: are certain rights of morning r I t e S,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: But the fulfillment, he argues that or would agree, is
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: really the inner experience of grief and actually experienced that
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: somehow the debt has cut you off from the presence
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: of a God. And there are other examples which he
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: develops and general. He is a great deal on prayer.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Analyzing prayer this way, he.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Would be fair just just a sort of a in summary,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: would it be fair to say that he takes this
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: method which in the generation of his father and grandfather
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: had been used exclusively for debates within the talm Woods
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: and the Talmud's commentaries sort of concept a way of
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: conceptual analysis in that particular field and expands the or
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: at least applies it to broader philosophical questions concerning prayer,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: concerning belief, or any of the other list of issues
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: which he addresses.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, well yeah, I mean it's more, we say,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: the realm of religious experience, which has had his right
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: dimension insurance of philosophy of religion will come back to that,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: and the sense that his philosophy actually focuses more on
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: the human being, Yes, and a philosophy of man type
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: of philosophical anthropology.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Right, so let's uh, in which case, let's move on
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: to the second of the bees, which is Berlin. Oh brilliant,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: And what did he I mean? You know, many people
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: pursue a PhD for more for even together PhD as
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: just just together qualification or you know, as an intellectual
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: passion product before moving on to other things. But there's
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: definitely a sense amount oft of ague scholars that the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: methods and ideas that he received in Berlin, and certainly
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: when studying the Newokanty philosophy of Herman Coin are one
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: of the great late nineteenth early twentieth century Jewish thinkers,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and also for philosophical thinkers in Germany. That he this
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: followed him and was part of his intellectual arsenal throughout
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: his life, and therefore it is relevant to ask what
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: did he gain there and how do you applay it?
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, actually it's in some ways in talking about Berlin.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe an answer that second part, maybe i'll answer by
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: the way. The third part is what is the relationship
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: between them? So of course neo continent is neo, so
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: it means it's development of cons So to try to
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: give kantil regulat on one foot is rather hard. But
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: basically the idea is that we don't somehow look at
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: like the persons. We don't somehow look at the world
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: and just make generalization. The only way we can really
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: understand the world is to bring certain categories of understanding
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: that to it. Like for example, so if I would
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: say that every effect has a cause, that's really analytic,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: meaning the pre kid is contained in the subject because
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: effect means cause, right cause means effect. But if I
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: say every event has a cause, that's interesting because On
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: one hand, event doesn't necessarily just just look at the
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: word an event, it doesn't mean that the event necessarily
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: has a cause. But I'm making a universal statement. So
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: what gives me the right to make this universal statement?
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I haven't gone through every event in the world. I
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: couldn't do that and determined it. In some sense, we
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: bring these categories beforehand, and this then enables us to
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: understand the world. So that's consuming and really he applies
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: us to all the areas. What are we toldally a
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: priority certain categories, scientific categories, moral categories, the idea of
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: free will. I mean, do we examine each person's actions
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: and the determined that he did that it freely. Actually
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: might be the other way around. If we examined the
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: person's actors in pericle, he would say, oh, there were
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: psychological causes and of the environment, et cetera, et cetera.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: In some sense, in a priority category, the only way
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you can make sense of moral responsibility is if you
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: assume we will. So this is the way conn works,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: and in some sense, the Neo Kantians developed this cont
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: seem to focus more on type of what it's called
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: a faculty psychological categories. The neo contients. It's really more
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: that science develops these abstract categories, which is some sense
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: precede experience in order to make sense of the experience,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: and you really have to understand the events of the
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: world in light of these scientific categories. Now you can
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: already see a solid as you actually points us to
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: how Berlin and Brisk are coming together, because what Cone
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: is arguing, let's say, in terms of science, we have
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: to understand the development of science in terms of the
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: internal scientific categories themselves. You might give all types of
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: explanation openings were in the air, or you know, things
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: would developed because war had pressure and economic and that
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: may all be true in terms of the background, but
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: in terms of if you really want to understand what
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: science is about, you have to understand science and science
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: in terms of the internal processes of science and external influence.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Is very nice that belongs to maybe sociology of science.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: So you see here the similarity between what salivation and
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: the britsk method is doing in terms of Jewish law
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: alaa and what Herman Cone is saying in terms of
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: science that you really have to look at the internal logic,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: the internal coere of these systems to really understand you're
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: not denying. It might be external factors, but that's really
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: that's really a side point. Now, of course one can
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: question and you might want to argue that science, by
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: its nature maybe is more objective, more than he with
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: more external factors. But this is basically the claim of salivation.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: There are other It also seems that he's also influenced
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: by certain disciples of hermont com Earns Cashier, very important
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: thing in terms of the counsel of a priori. Another
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Paul natorp And maybe we'll come back to this, the
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: idea that you have to start, particularly in the area
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: of religion, with objective truths and then move to internal ones.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And sometimes we've seen this already the examples I gave before.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: The whole idea of the act of the commandment and
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the inner fulfillment is a movement from external objective reality
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: to internal He probably got that idea obviously applied in
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: his own way from his philosophical studies of the time.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: So this is really rather scanty presentation, but at least
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I think it covers some of the basic aspects and
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: as say, particularly important what saliv ancient saw as the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: link as as what he explicitly said is a link
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: between the two. Right.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: I think it's actually very interesting in a way that
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: magic was obviously as a leading light of Yeshiva University
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and the whole philosophy of that institution and others like
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: it is the synthesis of let's say, learning traditional Jewish
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: text and also learning external wisdom, science, history, philosophy, etcetera.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Except Arisolovegric himself never attended such an institution. Those you know,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: his his gamar learning he undertook, say with his father
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: and with private tutors, in a very intense and pure manner,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: and philosophical studies he undertook also in Berlin in a
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: very pure academic manner as well. And therefore they synthesize
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: not in the any education he underwent, but rather I
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: suppose in his own mind that that synthesis took place
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: of two very different worlds, very different experiences, and he
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: sewed it together.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: It's always interesting, I mean, if one does a can trare,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: so it compares the Rabbi Salivation's writings with that of
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: his son in Lhom I referred to before a Rabbi
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Aaron Lithenstein. In some ways his successor who also developed
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: the Bushka method and passed away a number of years ago.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Really maybe the great rabbinic scholar of our days, so
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Rabber Aaron Liethtenstein has many articles about the relationship of
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Torah in general culture. Already as a young man, he
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: had one in nineteen sixty one on a consideration of
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: synthesis or general culture from a total point of view
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: of various other at least three or four articles in
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: that way salivation. He never wrote one one of that,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: and in some sense, but he did it. He did
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: it namely in all those articles. I mean, he starts
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: with the talmudical biblical sources and where it's relevant, where
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: he feels it's relevant, he quotes, uh, you know, he
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: quotes not yeah hermon Coone or Max Schell of various
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: figures or very scientific works. If he feels us relevant,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: he will quote them. So in some sense he actually
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: he practices it. And the truth is with his idea
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: what what why you should be? With his idea why
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: you should be is I don't think he necessarily believe
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: that these type of courses, uh somehow of courses somehow
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: bring together and mad that his idea is what Yeshiva
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: College should be as a college. It should be a
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: very rigorous type of college, not like Catholic colleges. He
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: actually said that where some of Catholicism somehow colors the
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: whole tone of the secular studies, it really should be
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: mad that and Towers should be the old brisk method,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the traditional methods, and really the student should make the
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: synthesis in his in his own mind. Now you could
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: say that's very nice of you a Rabbi Salivhik or
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: a Rabbi Lichtenstein or Norman Lamb or Walter Wurzburg or
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: various other figures where the average student could do it. It
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: does maybe these little guidance along the way. So perhaps
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: he had two are expectations. But this is new. I
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: mean he had a student, Stanley Boiler and Schmall Boiler,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: who was outstanding students, got a pH d in mathematical
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: later on became dean of Touro University. And once doctor Boiler,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: together with the president of Rabba Landa, were visiting Rabbi Salvation.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: He was asking him about Turo and said, what do
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: you have in Touros is? Oh, we you know more
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: practically of courses in psychology, of courses in computers, of
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: courses in social work. He said, that's a college science philosophy, right, mathics,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: that's that's the college. And we we you know, we're
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: having the mother. We want the pure proof mad as
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: they were.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's I mean we can move on to again
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: another very unforgivably bored question, which is what were the
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: major questions or issues that animated results, let's say, philosophical writings.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Because many appointed out that there are sudden classic issues
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: which or challenges to faith. The Resulvation didn't really addressed,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: didn't really look at, didn't really didn't seem to be
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: interested in whether there whereas there were some concerns or
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: some questions which took up a lot of his time
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: and attention. So what were the central points of the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: hearts of his philosophy and why?
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, So that means interest. He actually in the beginning
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: of The Lonely Man of Faith he actually says, I'm
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: not interested in theoretical issues. What I'm interested is the
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: place of the man of faith. So he he felt
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: that what I spoke about before that a Jewish philosophy
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: of man, type of philosophical anthropology, which by the way,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: was very popular in in Germany at the time he
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: was studying. I mentioned Max Shit, Max Scheller and the
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: various other other other figures, and he actually wrote a
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: letter to one of his students that this is really
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: a undeveloped This is really an undeveloped area, and therefore
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: he felt that we should focus more on type of
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: the Jewish philosophy of man and the idea. Then I
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: guess back to what I said before, the type of
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: he applied now his conceptual cometic analysis to areas of
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: religious experience like prayer, like rejoicing on festivals, like honoring
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: one's parents, et cetera, as well as developing a more
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: general philosophical terms. I mean this part this is also
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: part of what he basically accepted cons of view that
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: you can no longer prove the existence of God, you
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: cannot prove the existence of life. So what you have
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: is you have again is influenced by phenomenology, which is
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: a study of the structures of conscience. So what it
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: was really interesting you see this in all of his
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: works is a man, but in other works as well
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: is different modes of consciousness awareness of God. So let's
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: take his essay it would be conscious to Michaud. From
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: there you will seek. So the classic medieval discussion of science, philosophy,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: and religion, reason say, reason and revelation are reason and
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: revelation as two modes of knowledge, it's more of a
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: abstract and then the two different modes of knowledge, how
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: do you harmonize them? How do you synthesize them? How
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: do you you relate them? Salivation also speaks about reason
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: and revelation, but he speaks about the rational religious consciousness,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: the revelational religious consciousness. He's speaking about the consciousness of
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: man who even God in terms of evidence, the cosma,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: or the consciousness of the individual who has is commanded
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: by the law. And how do you put together those
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: different modes of consciousness. Now, in this connection he seems
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: to be both an alotic command and then it will
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: be Kashmishem responding to criticisms of traditional religion. So there's
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: the whole idea, beginning with Spinosa, and then we have Kant,
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: and then we have Nietzsche, and then we have the
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: early Boober. They speak about Christianity but also about the Judaism.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: That Judaism as a religion of law as a religion
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: of the Commandment is a Slavish religion. It doesn't it
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: crushes or creativity, that'steronymous. It creates crust, crushes all innovativeness. Uh.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: It relies on the fear of God as opposed to
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: the love of God. It's only interested in obedience and
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: not in knowledge. So salivation really pretty clear is responding
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: to this and his he wants to have a portrait
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: of the Halachic man and Alackic modes of consciousness, which
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: are the one hand, have the authority of the tradition
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: at the same time allow for, not only allow for,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and some says, demand or help cultivate a type of
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: creativity and freedom, which he speaks about in these essays.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: So these different aspects I think feed into one another.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Interesting would you say there's a possibility that that, because
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: of Seagric was alive to these you know, the Spinoza
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: and Kanton critique of attempting to of attempts to discuss
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: or attempting to come to grips with the metaphysical, trying
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: to analyze it, let's say, and trying to understand it.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Because of that, he turns the to an analysis of
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the human being rather than any of the traditional grave
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: theological questions is that And I suppose the biggest example
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: of this would be his line on theodosy on the
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: problem of evil, which he addresses in his book called
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Called a Fake, where essentially he says that to try
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: and understand any reasoning behind God's actions is futile, and
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the only thing we can do is turn our attention
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to what we can do and how we can respond
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: and what is the correct halak and human response to
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: two great catastrophes that have visited upon us. I mean,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: would you say that this turning away from traditional theology
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: towards the human condition is a recognition of the problems
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: brought up by let's say, can't of attempting to analyze
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: anything metaphysical.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it goes together, and namely on
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: the way and I think, you know, there are three
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: things we could say. First of all, he feels that
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: the area of philosophy a man of the human being
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: is undeveloped in Jewish philosophy. Secondly, say he's influenced by
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: the currents of his day with this, As I say,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: philosophical anthropology was a major subject and in line with
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: that the criticism of traditional religion only so you know
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: it used to be the criticism or traditional religion is
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: it's false, right, So this is the only way the
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: true knowledge and revelation is just myth or whatever. But
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: now the criticism becomes a type of moral criticism, or
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: rather a criticism of the personality fashioned by traditional religion
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: and revelation, particularly revelation of the law in Judaism. So
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: here his argument again is not to the contrary. He
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: sees it requires that for a part of person. But
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: he actually the advantage is for him of tru alack
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: of judias. On the one hand, we have a type
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: of framework of revelation which gives you a certain type
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: of authority, in particularly the authority of the norm. On
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: the other hand, within it it encourages. And here we
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: get back to the britisk of method et cetera, this
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: type of intellectual creativity and sense of freedom which he
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: develops in alac Man. At one point, this is my
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: putting the pieces together. He almost says, if Judaism were
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: only the written law, then the criticism of content Spinosa
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: may be right, because written law, what you see is
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: what you got. That's it precisely because it involved the
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: oral and the ural. Is not just a body.
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: The orla is a method, is a method of innovation,
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: of deepening understanding. We can combine that sense of authority
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: and tradition with a sense of freedom and creativity.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Right, And I think this leads us fairly neatly into
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the sort of the main work, actually, you know, before
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: we get there, before we get to alakic man, because that's
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: that's something I want to dive into. His plastic And
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: there's one methodological point abar Asolovajac's writings which I really
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: must ask you try and get to the bottom of,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: which is his use of typologies, right solo A he
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: in several of his ways, a ling man, a lonely
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: man of faith. What he'd likes to do is to
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: construct an archetype Adam the first nat and the seconds
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the famous one, lacking Man's another famous one Homo religiosis,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: as he as he calls another one. Where these are essentially,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: you know, perfect perfect depictions of a perfect type, a
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: perfect character type, an ideal type exactly and analyzes that
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: ideal type in with the full consciousness that they don't
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: that no human being is fully represented in any of
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: these types. In otherwise, then there's no person who can
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: fully be said to be religious man or lacking man
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: or adam. The first time and the second that human
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: beings have an inextricable in the soluble mixture of these
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: characteristics were of an into them. And my question really is,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, why why does he use this? It was
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: this a fashionable way of doing philosophy in his time?
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Did he believe that, in a tambodic manner, that he
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: could sort of sharpen sharp at his point by applying
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: these very specific cases which he which he constructed. Me,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: why is he arguing in archetypes, especially when he himself
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: admits that they don't, that nobody could live up to
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: or represent those archetypes and actuality?
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, I think, you know, partly because it was fashionable.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know it's fashion With this again we have
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: the interesting He refers to this rather obscure work in
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: at the first footnote of all as I mean, EDWARDE.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Ranguige about topologies of human being. But actually I'm sort
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: of surprised. The one who's really influential was Max Weber.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Max Faber, the great German sociologist who speaks were ideal types.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Ideal type is more analytic. It's like a pure the
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: sense of analytic. I mean, you can speak about the
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: ideal type of hypocrite, the ideal type of the That's interesting.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I think with salivation as it speaks about the Halaki
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: man is ideal type. On the one hand, it's mainly analytic.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: It's sort of the pure idea of Han Halachi Man.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: It could be many many other things as well. But
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: because Salvation mars is figure, sometimes it slides into ideal
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: in the sense of, you know, very good and wonderful
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: and terrific of the type of normative uh idea. But
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, to a large extent, he's he's
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: working with these with these types because either because in
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: terms of phenomenology, he wants to examine the consciousness. Again,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: the point is, we can't really prove the existence of
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: God to make absolute theological statements, but we can speak humans,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: beings experienced or consciousness, different modes of consciousness, how it's directed.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: And certainly existentialism certainly speaks about different types of individual
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: in terms of you know, why he oftentimes likes to
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: have constiosts religious man and cognitive man, Adam the first
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: and Adam the second. I think to a certain extent
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: that is goes back to Bristol. Bristol you know, in
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: this in this analytic thing often speaks about Sade being him,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: which means there are two aspects to this law, and
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: then you know, you might differ as to which one
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: essential essential. So I think that's part of it. But
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I think it's also for a sense of analytics sharpness.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Although this is what I've argued. I mean, it's true,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: but the issues what is that? To begin with? He
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: sees these these different types existing more in harmony. So
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: in halachic Man he will elaborate this maybe a little
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: bit later when we come to Hella Man. He can't
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: trust like como religious as the religious individual yeurins regard
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: with cognitive man and more secular scientists. But then halachic
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Man really combines it to really combines the too in
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: what seems to me a rather harmonious fashion. On the
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: other hand, later on in his work, and maybe this
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: is the influence of existentialism, where you have more struggle
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: difficult let's say Adam the first, Adam the second, even
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: more so later essays we speak to a majestic command
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: convidental man. There the emphasis is more on the struggle
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: and it's almost not resolving it. The other greatness is
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: living with it. I mean, actually I would say three.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: I would actually make three. Post salivation, you're gonna have
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: three categories, right, So we can say the lassical man
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: of various other essays, I think it will be cash
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: should be shown as well. We establish different categories that
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: we harmonize them. On the other extreme, we have certain
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: existential essays like magest the humility with majestic man and
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: a combinentive where they're really opposed lowly manifigures. Somewhere in
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: the middle there's not opposition, but there's also complementarity. So
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: but the general move, the general move is we can
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: say from a more harmonious to a more existence to
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: an existence characterized more by tension. Is this just biographical?
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: I was Many scholars said that I was argued that
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: you have to look at the audience and the focus.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: I don't want to really go in details. I didn't
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: seem to convince too many people. I still think I'm right,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: but I you know, my assumption is that if I
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: didn't convince people it's my fault that I didn't I
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: didn't explain it well enough.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, yeah, that's possible, but it's just what
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: you say to me there about.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: That.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, he believes these archetypes, the tension between these archetypes
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: of and necessity for finding some kind of some kind
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: of synthesis or one of the synthences, a way of
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: being able to live with all of these all of
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: these different polls, oscillating between these different poles in your
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: own in your own mind and your inw psyche was
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: this also heart of his philosophical training, because because dialectical
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: thinking was was very popular in late nineteen the early
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: twentieth century philosophical thoughts this uh, this idea of of
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: having a synthesis and an antithesis. So right, a thesis,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: an antithesis, and a synthesis, arriving at some kind of synthesis,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: even an uncomfortable one, or even one which never allows
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: you to have a kind of harmonious and placiday religious existence,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: but with the point of positing these archetypes to allow
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: people to feel them, work through them, and achieve some
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: kind of balance that they can live with. Is that is,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: do you believe that was the point of writing in
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: this sort of archetype of way.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Well, again, as I say, I think kalach Man and
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: movie Cashtum be shown. From there you will seek really
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: the art you really do have at the end. It's
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: a long journey, but at the end there is a
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: sort of harmonious conjunction of the different elements. But I think,
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: in other words, I think partially is biographical. I think
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: partially is the influence of existentialism, which emphasizes struggle and division.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: For example, you mentioned see Vices into the Citizens, which
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: is sort of a simple version of simplified version of
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Hegel on one foot, as it were. So the great,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: the great existentialist thinker or precursor of existential souring Carecard
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: of Salvation quotes a lot actually criticizes Hagel. So you
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: can't you can't really put the pieces together, right, You
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: can't really put the pieces together. You have to live
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: a divided existence. So I think maybe in his later writings,
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: or the more existentialist writings that why exactly not one
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: hundred percent clear that appeals to salivation somehow, living living
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: with the contradictions. He speaks about Catharsis moving to conquest
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: and then withdraw and then back to conquest. It seems
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: to appeal to him again. To what extent people can
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: actually this way? I mean, you can write about it
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: with great power as salivation it does, but can you
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: really live this a way? Not so clear?
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Fair enough? So I suppose we've been dancing around this
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: now for close to an hour. But you know, the
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: work that obviously you've done the most work on is
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: is is famous book alackic man. This is the work
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: that you translated, you know, several decades ago, and that
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: you have now come out with a new expanded edition
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: with an introduction and annotations and appendices, et cetera. And
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: I mean it is a work to which there's been
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: an enormous amount of ink devoters are trying to analyze
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: it and excavate it and see what celebrator you're trying
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: to do. But I mean, let's start with that. What
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: is the what is the work a lacking man trying
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to do? What is the problem is trying to address?
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: And what is the solutional direction towards resolution that it
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: is trying to propose?
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so ad work, are you the cre of the
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: essay has spoken about it as brilliant, but sometimes salivation
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: doesn't actually sort of spell out an argument, and you
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: go even step by step. And therefore, oftentimes in the
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: early discussion of Halacha command and you see this with
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: the famous reform Jewish Hellos, you one of the first
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: persons to write about the early nineteen sixties mid sixties
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: usun Burwitz. And some sense of my preface as well,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: I think I've maybe fall into this is seen almost
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: as a series of brilliant ap pursuits, brilliant insights, but
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: not necessarily a sort of sustained A sustained argument, would
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: I argue in my new introduction I touched on earlier essays.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Is I mean, I think there are digressions, and it's
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: not strictly systematic, but over over the course of things,
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: there is an argument which which appears and this and here,
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: as I said, I hear the emphasis is on on
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: a type of synthesis and and and his point is
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: he wants to come This goes back to somehow the
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: response to the criticism of religion. He wants to look
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: at the halachic command. The person who's committed to the
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: study and practice of the law as this type of
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: synthesis of cognitive man. Namely, there's an element of cognition.
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: It's not just pure emotion or faith. Is actual cognition
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: as well as a yearning for God, and somehow they
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: can come together. So what he does is he starts
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: by establishing a opposition. So the the opposition is we
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: cognitive man, and cognitive man is a scientist basically, and
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: here accepts consume that science and knowledge in general is
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: limited as these a priori categories and these principles, but
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: they're applied to existence, to our concrete reality, the bounds
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: of space and time. So this is cognitive man. Then
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: we have homoverliosis in the opposite way. This is a
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: religious man who yearns for God. He yearns for God,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: he's unhappy with the world he sees. He seeks to
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: find God in some type of transcended realm, a realm
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: which goes beyond, which goes beyond our world. Salvation is
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: a vision of that, because you go beyond our world.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: What about moral responsibility, which is really part of our world?
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: And can you really go beyond the world human the
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: biggest flesh and blood. Can you really transcend existence? But
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: so then this leads to so first he established he
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: goes a great length to contrast these two types. But
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: that his point is though that halac Man would seem
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: to embody these two types, but how can it given
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: their contradictory nature. On the one hand, his argument that
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: here it compares alack of command to scientific command. And
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: we spoke about this already, starting with a priority principles,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: how the scientists the halotis to ploy these principles to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: our understanding of the world. So halach Man is a
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: cognitive person who's focused on this world. That's the idea
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: of cognition. It's also morality, who is going to go
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: to the least tomorrow, sir. On the other halo Man is
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: a religious man. He's not just a second man. He's
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: not just a second man. He yearns for God Klama
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: betokena right, you have planted eternal life in us. So
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: it would seem that lack of com man really does
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: go beyond this world to transcendence. So that's that's the
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: problem which he sets up. He's worked on setting the up,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: and here he resolves it. And here I argue that
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: he here he really breaks with the phenomenological method, because
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: after this point is being with different modes of consciousness
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: and attitude to the world. Is this worldly or otherworldly?
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: Do you focus on the world? Are you urine for transcendence?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: That's all from the situa d line is our side.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Suddenly he introduces a theological assumption from Kabbalah, from maybe philosophy.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: The answer to this is the idea of symptom, which
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: means that God has contracted his reality in this world.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: It's a look and he develops this at some at
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: rather great length. I argue that two stages he doesn't
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: say it explicitly believest that's my argument. Where God has
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: made his reality accessible, It's almost like he through an
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: active will, God by his nature transcends the world, but
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: makes his presence available in this world. So now in
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: substance we resolved the problem. Halachman is the cognitive type,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: the moral type, focused on the world. But he encounters
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: God's reality in the world and therefore his almost as
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: we could say, without symptom, his consciousness would have been
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: divided between the type of this world. Now he can
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: somehow have the religious yearning with the cognitive and moral
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: focus on a type of this world. The reality which
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: he sees a typical of Judaism and be as correct
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: and particularly had the two advandities. It really gives you
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: a type of religion is not just a matter of will,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: of ethics, of sentiment, a feeling, but it's really a
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: matter of knowledge and b as I said, the idea
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: of the morals, but he considers me the morals series
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: of Judaism, focusing on improving this world. What he does
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: throughout most of the rest of the esset, which yeah,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know as they go into details here is
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: so what's the what's the pay with what are the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: implications once we have this idea, what type of personality emerges?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: What type of personality emerges? And here we have actually
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: I do, which I already spoke about, is that God's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: symptom is that God contracts we can say, more infinite,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: unformed sort of real amorphous reality into actually concrete categories,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: concrete terms, and this means religiously. And that gets back
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: to what I spoke about before that we start with
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: the objective norms, and again we spoke by the experiential
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: commandments of there are other examples as well. Well. We
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: start with objectivity a type of objective performance of the law,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: objective knowledge, intellectual knowledge. But we moved inwardly to religious experience.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I think this is his main arg I mean in
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: the essay he actually speaks more. I mean at one
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: place he raised he's aware of the objections where he says,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: I think in section fifteen, yes, no, fourteen, okay, close enough.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: I always tell my students, you gotta give me. I
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: am not to be one orph when from the guard
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: of the perplex I can be one orf, but not
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: more than one. Right, this art man devoided the splendor
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: of that raging into pastuous, sacred religious experiences so typifies
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: the ecstatic homo religiosis. And he said, so that's the criticism, right,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: that alach Man lacks the inward religious experience. And that's
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: what we can say. That's the Hasidic criticism of the misnagniant, right,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: a cult to miss snagging right the colder people. And actually,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: when alakak Man appeared, Professor Heschel, who in some sis
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: becomes like the leading figure so opposite salivation leading, spoke
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: to him. But judicial judish Man and brill cooles my
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: godic man as opposed to hallaki Man. He said he
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: evidently he gave a lecture. He gave a lecture in
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty five. Halacha Man has just appeared and and Heschel,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: who was teaching at hebrew In College, has just transferred
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: to the Jewish Theological Seminary, and he gives a lecture
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: which a rabbi took notes that we have the notes
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: in forty five criticized the halak Man. So that and
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: what he says, it's it's a brilliant essay, but it's
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: cold feeling. Now sala Bench I think is really responding
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: to it, and it says it's no. Now, you start
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: with a type of objective emphasis on on knowledge, on performance,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: but then you move to a type of inner experience.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: He says, like, for example, if you understand your the
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: laws of your kipper or laws of pass of the night,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: the actual performance then becomes a sacred a sacred experience.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: That's his argument. Robert left this thing in one place.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: I actually referred to it a footnote criticized and so
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: what do you mean only the great alumnist can reach
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: this level of what about the average ordinary juice? So
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: you know this might again A lot of times his
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: discussions are are very inspiring, but they're also demanding, may
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: be too demanding, so that this is I mean, there's
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: much more to be said, but I think this is
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: the main the main uh for us. And the conclusion,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: as I said, is against combination. We have the tradition
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: with the authority, the objectivity of tradition, but it also
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: makes rooms for inner for creativity, freedom and a type
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: of inward religious experience. At least that seems to be
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: the claim.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Interesting, well, one of the one of the words applies
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: to Alaa is the term autonomous. That he demands that
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: it is autonomous, it must remain. So what exactly did
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: he mean by that and and why was that something
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: that he he insisted on repeatedly?
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: Right, well, I really touched on maybe I didn't use
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: the word autonomous. Autonomous literally means self governing. Now it
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: means all types of things here. But really the idea
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: is as I suggested, and this is true, and he
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: argues as science is also autonomous. Right that basically science
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: and Hallaja develop in accordance with their own inner categories.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe the direction of research might be influenced by external
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: So maybe because of economic things, because of the war, science
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: will focus on certain issues, or maybe it doesn't focus
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: on some issues because maybe those are considered to be
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: dealing with women as opposed to men more misogynists. So
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: maybe the direction of research, but that again is sociology
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: of science or sociology. But in terms of the actual development,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: the development itself, the development really goes in accordance with
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: either scientific laws or you know, halaric categories, and that's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: what brisk and therefore he's suspicious of much of the
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: historical interpretation of halaja which try to explain the development
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: of halaha in sociological terms, in economic terms, etc. So
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: ironic because one of the leading historians of how oftentimes
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: emphasizes the impact of economic pressures on the development of
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: is Rabbi Salivation Sun Professor Guyan Salivation kW The thought
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: of the sun get along on this issue is not
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: too is not too clear to me. But here one
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: could I mean I and one say I took issue
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: and others have taken issue that there may be a
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: difference between science and halaca, that certain categories of halaa
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: by nature are more amorphous and take into account external
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: realities like you have the idea of it's ways of
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: ways and peace sometimes rabbis use that and what do
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: you consider to be ways of piece So the maybe
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: a certain type of built in subjectivity at least made
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: the limited but to halaha, which might not be true
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: of science. But so at one point he says, we
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: believe it innovation, but innovation and accordance with the own
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: internal categories of allara as opposed to he could trying
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: to reform, to reform Jewish law. So again, it's really
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: a way to maintain the authority of and the integrity
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: and yet allow for development and creativity to what it
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: is that's successful. I mean, I think, I think it's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: a strong point. Again, I think certain objections could be
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: raised to it, but it's a powerful argument. Yeah.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Interesting. One final momento question is you know some of
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: it Jammaz was a staunch traditionalist, but yet he also
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: was certainly, by the standards of his family somewhat rebellious
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: right or at least did not follow the path in
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: certain ways set by I know, his father and grandfather,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: you know, defended a much more robust Western style of education.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: He became a Zionist in the nineteen forties, which certainly
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: went against the grain of his own family. You know
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and various other examples. I mean, do you think that
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: this was foremost in his mind? Did he did he
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: live with an awareness that he was charting his own course,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: or did he view himself? No, it's simply faithful to
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: the principles with which he was raised. And I suppose
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: if he was aware of just how radical in some
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: ways and innovative his ideas were. I mean, where did
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: he get the impetus from that to do that? From me?
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: An extremely traditional and traditionalist type of rabbi nonetheless trailblazing
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: entirely new or at least new justifications for a form
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: of Orthodoxy undreamt of by his forebears.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: The truth of the matter, of course, that you know,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: in the early twentieth century Eastern Europe and Germany you
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: have many outstanding Talmudic, young Talmudic scholars elujam, you prodigies
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: who really are attracted to in want to somehow exposed
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: and study all the currents of culture. Heschel is one
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: of them who remains traditional. Though I don't like Salivation,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: I mean Salavationick gets back to what we said before
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: Salavation went to the university, never went to the yeshiva, Heschel,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: interestingly enough, studies first in some Yiddish school in Warsaw,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: and then he goes and then he's at the university,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: but he also studies at the hostel of the more
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: liberal academy. But I mean there are lots of it's
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: not so you know, unusual. And ye know, Heschel came
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: from a Hasidic family. His family to begin with when
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: he started showing these interests was not so happy. So
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, Salivation, first, there seems to be opposition. They're
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: their number of stories that when he goes to university,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: some of the more traditionalists are scandalized. There's one story
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: that some traditional rabbis come to his father and said,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: sort of usnid Right, it's not befitting that the son
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: of the son of Moses Salivation, the grandson of Rabbie
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: High Salvation, such a brilliant tumbutic scholar, why is he
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: studying in the university? Right, So that at this opposition
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: there every then he's said, and evidently his favorite story.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's true or not, but it's
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: one of these stories that if it's not true, it
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: should be true. We're supposedly everything. Salivation himself is confronted
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: by certain traditionalists who are when he's at the university
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: sort of criticizing it. At the time he's devoted to
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: the secular learning. He says, what about keeping up your
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: talmutic studies, And he supposedly replied during all the time
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: that you're relating the gossip about me, that's when I'm
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: studying Arabitic studies in addition to the secular learning. So
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: that's one issue. But I think what you alluded to
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: is really the more serious issue where he shifts sides,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: and that's the movement for my good to Mizrahi. To
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: begin with, he was a supporter of Vaguda, not that long,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: it seemed in thirty nine, nineteen forty he speaks in
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: and not good the convention a year or two really,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: but the impact of the war. He said that, you
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: know the world is changing and the old foundations in
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: terms of European jewelry are being destroyed. And by the
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: mid forties already he has switched over to being a
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: spokesman for Mizrahi and for religious design And as he relates,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: I think that was more of a break emotionally, and
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: actually it got rough Shah, who was the great spokesman
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: for Haaradi uh Judaism. We actually have letters where students
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: send rav Shah some of Rabbi Salivation zion Is the
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: dresses and ask him Shah in the naive way. Obviously
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: sooner and naive. They were setting him up. It's clearly
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: he was setting him up. This goes against everything we learned.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: What do you think about this? And basically rough Shack
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: says he attacks the design, has talks and says, Rabbi
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: Salvation is a great scholar. But here you know he's
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: gone too far. He's just left. He's left the path
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: of tradition and we can't accept this period right, this
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: is no place in our world. So I think that
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: was more of a break. But as as I said,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: getting back to intellectually again getting back to the two
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: points I made. I think in terms of the Risker method,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: he was basically a traditionalist of that method. In terms
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: of the method itself, maybe polishing in a bit. The
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: innovation there is, as we've talked about already, is apploying
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: it to new areas, the area of religious experience of
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: prayer and rejoicing on holidays, a particularly prayer where he
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: has a great deal about and along with that, in
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: terms of general philosophy, that's tiny said with this is
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: the focus on the philosophy of human being, the type
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: of philosophical anthropology geez. So in that sense, it's a coon.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: It's really a combination. But sometimes I think I may
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: have alluded to this his work which appeared posthumously, and basically,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: I mean a lot of things were essays he wrote.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: This seems to have been intended to be a completed work,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: and it's called The Emergence of Ethical Man, and it's
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: really a sustained argument and it's inten it's like ten
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: different notebooks bound together. So it really seems to intended
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: to be a completed work and needed one for one
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: final revision, and for some reason it didn't appear. That's
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: a radical work because here he's very interested in science,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: that he starts with the human being as a naturalistic
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: as embedded in nature, and really it's the moral norm
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: which enables him to develop his personalities. Many people have
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: been very sort taken by the boldness of this work.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: One scholar referred to his solidation's bombs. I think it's
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: a little bit exaggerated, was still a bold work. And
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: the question then is so where's the human soul? Here?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: Where's the humans? So clear? So sometimes some of his
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: thought is radical, but said I would say, in terms
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: of his major intellectual energies were devoted to learning talmutic learning.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: Everything else was really side and there the general approach,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: as I said, with all the new innovations is I say,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: barely traditional.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: Interesting. I'm afraid that sort of we've gone over time,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: you know, quite considerably. But I do want to ask
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: one party in question, to ask many of my guests,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: which is the followers, if you if you could sit
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: down uh seb Eventric one last time to have dinner
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: with him tonight, what is it that you would be
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: asking him?
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: What would I ask him? Yeah?
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: Well, what topic would you bring up? What would be
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: something that you'd you'd like to address with one last time?
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: And of course you have sat down with him before,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: you spend considerable time with him in person, But I
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: mean one last time, if you could sit down with
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: him now, what would you ask? What would you broach?
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: What would you try and clarify?
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: I don't really know. I'd like to know to a
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: certain extent, what do he thinks about? What is going
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: on in the state of Israel. Okay, so it's interesting.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: There's a question you've got to ask. Then he asked,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: is about his view of the state. He's very positive
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: view of the state, but non messianic. It's it's a
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: non Messianic view. It's more of the status than either
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: the God's great active I said to the Jewish people,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: it's sort of laboratory. We could apploy hawaha to the
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: broader reality of the idea of sovereignty itself is the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: fulfillment of commandments. Interesting rationales, but all not Messianic. But
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: recently a part of a talk which he gave has
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: been put on a video. It's been uploaded now and
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: cleaned up with It was in Yiddish, it was as English,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: I'll remember because some of you have Yiddish with English
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: with English subtitles. Well, he goes back to the idea
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: of you hut a levy a Levi and the Kusari
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: is speaking about the Christians and the Muslims and how
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: they're addicted to power as opposed to piety and the
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: king if you remember, like the thing the king says, yeah, yeah,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: you know, that's because they had a power. But if
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: you Jews don't have a power, so you can talk
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: about being a moral but if you had the power,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: you'd be as bloodthirsty as they would be. Interesting, so
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: Salivani refers to that and actually says that he actually
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: said the during our the during our existence were stateless
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: than the power. In some sense, it was maybe easy
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: for us to be moral and to resist the temptations
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: of how we have it. And he said, and this
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: is really the challenge. It's interesting. So it almost the
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: significance of the state of Israel. Is can Judaism and
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: the Jewish people meet the challenge of power? We can
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: just be just real politiic like other nations, or obviously
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: we have to be concerned about security, but we also
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: have to have a type of moral conscious as well.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: And he says, there are things which make me uncomfortable
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: in other things which are reassuring in some sense. I
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: would want to ask him today, what's the balance here?
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: Are you more uncomfortable or are you or are you
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: more reassured? And I have no idea what Eli is
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: and I don't see that's one thing. What yeah, I
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: could ask him, but what he would say, I'm not
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: going to predict.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: And sadly unlikely we we'll ever find out. Professor Lawrence Caprian,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us on the Podcast
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: of Jewish Ideas. This has been a wonderful experience. We
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: very much enjoyed having you here, and you know, I'm
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: sure this conversation has been fascinating for me and I'm
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: sure it'll be fascinating to all the listeners here as well,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: So we are very grateful for your participation.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks very much as pleasure to be here, and we
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: have seen many of the other.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: This has been the Podcast of Jewish Ideas by Tora
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: in Motion, produced by Alisha Kellman and myself Jjkimbrie, edited
• 1:22:42
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