Prayer

I love my (Jewish) heritage and its rites and rituals. I try to recite the prescribed liturgy, davening [praying] three times a day. But there is one prayer that contains a verse that confuses me. I don't really understand what it is saying. (There are others of course, but they are not the subjects of today's effort.) I'm fairly sure that I have, in the past, admitted to my difficulties with our prayers, but I want to use this example to illustrate one particular thing that is giving me trouble.

The prayer is called Tachanun, and one version or another is said on most days. The verse in question, originally from Samuel II, has been translated as Let us fall into Hashem's [G-d's] hand for His mercies are abundant, but let me not fall into human hands. The statement is by David, and the translation is by “Rabbi Artscroll,” a term used both approvingly and satirically to characterize the interpretations found in a series of books by Artscroll, the publisher of many books, all adhering to a fairly rigorous rendition of Jewish law. I suspect that there are many explanations of this verse in our literature, but, for me, they are all closed books.

There are many problems that can be related to this apparently simple and straightforward verse, and they are ones that are universal, but I'll focus on an apparent distinction between two types of punishment – one which is merciful and one which, presumably, isn't – and that one of the punishments, though likely to be longer, is more desirable than the other. The verse is followed by another that pleads for mercy, asking Hashem to accept our prayers and grant us compassionate treatment. The implication is that our fates are decided at the last minute and our prayers can cause Hashem to change plans for us.

It's generally accepted that, until the moment of our death, we can repent for sins we committed and we'll be forgiven. And every year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we seek the same forgiveness, in the hope that our lot in the following year will be better than it might have been. We assume that our destiny is changeable, while we simultaneously believe that G-d knows, and has always known, what is going to happen – that is, our future is determined even before we pray. And that's because He knows what we will do – whether or not we pray for mercy. It's a common construction, but it raises the issues of free will, omniscience, predetermination, Divine control, and others. The idea is comforting, however, and it's easy to ignore those issues.

But back to the focus. And that is the question regarding punishment inflicted by man and that originating from G-d. The words expressing preference from David suggest that Divine punishments are more merciful than those of man. One might wonder if a “natural” death, one often prolonged, is better than a sudden, traumatic one inflicted on us by one of our fellows. The verse, however, could be understood to indicate a belief that the latter implies torture and pain while the former is accompanied by comfort. We'll never really know David's thinking on the subject.

The proposed possibilities, though, miss the point. Our heritage teaches us that G-d controls everything – the events that we consider good and what we deem “bad.” So, if that is the case, both of the punishments about which David ponders are Divine in origin. We have learned that evil people may be made agents of G-d and used to perform evil deeds that promote His “agenda.” They do so of their own “free will” and are punished for their acts, but they are acts which G-d controls. And penalties are warranted both for the one being punished and the one doing the punishing, for he will suffer both for this act and for his other evil behavior.

But if we accept the idea that all punishments in fact reflect G-d's will and are under His control, how do we explain David's statement? Certainly he understood “the system” better than we. He surely would have known that whatever happened to him, whether by “Hashem's hand” or by “human hands” reflected G-d's will, and while he might hope for the former, he couldn't change what was to be. The only reasonable interpretation isn't an interpretation at all, but that it was a literal expression of his prayer, for, as he put it, His mercies are abundant, and David was both expressing his desire for mercy and his faith in Hashem, as he did in Psalm 145 – You open Your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

It's our hope as well. Most of us aren't masochists, and, while we know that death is inevitable, we don't want to suffer. That's our hope, but G-d has already decided, and all we can do is to act in a way that will justify it having been a favorable decision.





March 10, 2017

Square One

Square Oneⁱ

There's nothing new under the sun. So wrote King Solomon in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). And there's part of King Solomon in all of us.ⁱⁱ Molecules travel, and so do ideas. But we are not always equipped to understand those ideas. In recent years there has been an interest in “Bible Codes,” words and phrases that can be “demonstrated” in the Bible if the text is subjected to computer analysis. Whether or not the patterns exist as more than chance occurrences – or whether or not they were inserted for our guidance – we are now equipped to “find” them. They were always there, but our ability to understand and interpret biblical texts has changed.

I hesitate to say that our ability has “improved” because that would suggest that we know more now than our forebears did, and there's no real justification for that idea. What has changed, however, is our outlook. And with it our language – denotation and connotation. Our understanding of “right” and “wrong,” which formerly were based on biblical ideals and strictures, is now governed by modern sociology and science. We have adopted the cant of “moral relativism” in place of holding on to any absolutes. Is that better? Is it more accurate?” That's hard to say, but it's different. Nonetheless, science is the background of our attempt to understand Rabbi Akiba's words.ⁱⁱⁱ We demand scientific proof of everything.^iv If we can't show a scientific basis for an idea, it is obviously false.^v

It all boils down to the longstanding conflict between knowledge and belief. Unfortunately the boundaries are a little blurred. But to try to understand a religious concept we're probably better off if we use belief as our touchstone. Belief is usually part of the vocabulary of the religious, the philosopher, or the magician, although the atheist also has a fixed set of beliefs – generally the opposite of the religious, though no easier to prove.^vi,vii In any event, for the purposes of this discussion, a religious vocabulary and references to religious texts make the most sense.

In order to decipher the Bible, the reader must make some important assumptions. He must, of course, accept it. If he does not do so, no argument based on it will seem reasonable. He must also accept the idea that the language used – and it is sometimes metaphor – is that which was most easily comprehended by the people at the time it was first read. So, for example, references to the farming and the harvesting of oil, and grain and wine – as are found in the fifth of the five books of Moses^viii – are better understood now as references to livelihood, however it is earned. At the time when the words were first used, farming was the major occupation of the listeners and made the most sense to them. Modernizing the text each time there is a change in our situation would lead to chaos, since everyone would have different ideas about the new wording. And it would be historically inaccurate. Better to discuss among ourselves the meaning of terminology that may not resonate with moderns. That discussion may lead to a more complete understanding and agreement.

But most important is a recognition that however hard we try, we cannot understand everything that occurs in this world or in others. For some the lack of knowledge is interpreted as a negation of the reality of what we don't understand, or at best a challenge. For others, there is a recognition that some things are beyond us and must be accepted as they are and according to the understanding provided for us by others. That is especially true in referring to the Bible. However religious philosophers may attempt to rationalize what is there, if it viewed as the word of G-d it must be accepted at face value.

“In the Beginning everything came about through a singularity.” Maybe. But most of us, including me, don't understand this concept. I've tried. I've read about the origin of the universe in several books on cosmology, but no matter how it's phrased, the concept of a “singularity” seems to me to be supernatural. It's certainly in opposition to what I was taught in high school physics which emphasized that everything comes from something. There's no free lunch. But with the idea of a “singularity” this concept appears to be contradicted. And gravity and the other “laws” of physics had to have an origin somewhere.

If, as seems to be the case with the cosmologists, we're stuck with the supernatural, though, “In the Beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth” makes as much sense as physics. Perhaps G-d created the singularity. That would be logical for a singular deity – the source of monotheism. And since the Bible speaks the language of Man, a complex physical explanation of the specific mechanisms of Creation doesn't seem to be in order. Man doesn't speak the language of G-d, and Man cannot understand His ways. Our values and His have nothing to do with each other. Job, believing he understood G-d's plan, tried to explain it to others, but was upbraided for believing that he was wise enough to fathom the Divine. “Can one who contends with the Almighty be arrogant?”^ix Job's attempts to comprehend what was beyond him were clearly misguided.

So an explanation of the compatibility of free will and foreknowledge may be interesting, but it is only a description of a possible mechanism for something we don't, and can't, understand. In fact, the two ideas may be irreconcilable or may have no relationship to each other.^x Only G-d knows.

This will surely be viewed as a “cop-out” by those who reject religion. But no more than that of those who use a term like “singularity” and believe that it is an explanation. I can accept the idea that there are some things Man doesn't, and will never know. That, of course, leaves us with Rabbi Akiba's words,^xi unexplained and apparently contradictory.

So what do we do with these two ideas? Where do we go from here? At the end of Kohelet Solomon said it best. “Fear G-d and keep His commandments, for that is a man's whole duty.”^xii It may not answer all our questions, but it's a plan.

Next episode: “All The News That's Fit To Print” – And if you believe that ...

i      Continuation of last week's blog.

ii     The following, although written about Napoleon, applies equally to Solomon. Recycling, which we view as something new, has always existed. http://peterallport.com/molecules.htm

iii    See The Need To Know which appeared last week.

iv    Well not actually everything. If someone espouses some idea about alternative medicine or a particular social theory we're likely to accept it no questions asked.

v     Until gravity was demonstrated and proved mathematically, it did not exist.

vi    Such beliefs are usually based on a lack of scientific evidence. According to him, there is no G-d because the existence of G-d cannot be proved. Of course it cannot be disproved either and all that is left is a belief that there is no G-d. But the religious and the non-religious speak two different languages and neither can understand or accept the position of the other.

vii    Many scientists are among the religious believers, drawing a distinction between the knowledge of science and the belief of religion. Pascal's Wager is an example of a mathematician attempting to use his science to illustrate why he chooses to believe.

viii   See 11:13-17. Similar examples appear elsewhere, but this will serve as a suitable example.

ix    Tanach, The Stone Edition, Mesorah Publications, New York, 1996

x     They certainly are irreconcilable in our rational, “natural,” mindset.

xi    See previous blog.

xii    ibid.: Tanach, The Stone Edition.

The Need To Know

 

Suppose your stockbroker were right two-thirds of the time – twice as often as he was wrong. You'd make a profit. That's much better than you could do on your own. After all, just by guessing, by sheer luck, you could probably get it right half of the time. Then, however, you might only break even.

But even though you were already making a profit at sixty-seven percent, you might look for an adviser with a seventy-five percent success rate. And then even higher. It's not likely that you'd suspect your new advisor of “fixing” stock prices or controlling sales, or whatever it takes to pick a winner, but only that he was better educated, harder working and more adept at researching, possibly even possessed of better intuition than his predecessor, and would have a better chance of predicting what was going to happen. It doesn't take control to be able to anticipate the future, nor inside information, only skill and knowledge.

If someone had in his possession all the pertinent facts and could apply them to every conceivable situation, he would not need to control the future even if he might seem to know what was going to happen.

Rabbi Akiba said, “Everything is foreseen [by G-d] but freedom of choice is given.”ⁱ It seems to be a contradiction, but now that we know about DNA it all makes sense. For our DNA is the regulator of what we do. And the Giver of the DNA certainly understands where it will lead and what we will do. Our choices are predictable, but the foreknowledge of what we will choose does not imply control. Thus there is no contradiction between free will and foreknowledge. There is no predestination.

But every solution causes its own problems. Rabbi Akiba certainly didn't know anything about heredity, so he could not have based his view on that. I suspect that he, like all the rest of us, was aware that there was a lot more he did not know than what he did. But for him, there was no source better than the one he used – the Torah.ⁱⁱ Perhaps its pronouncements required interpretation, but their truth was not in question. It contained, after all, the words of G-d. The interpretation of those words, however, no matter how true they themselves might have been, often raised issues which required new understandings – new interpretations of the old. And so it is with heredity and with DNA.

The obvious difficulty is that the idea is based on the concept that G-d is the Creator of all beings, and it follows that He who gave the DNA controlled our future actions in doing so. And to the degree that our decisions are based on the milieu in which we live, and the people surrounding us – people whose actions also result from the DNA assigned to them – each of our actions and responses in this world created by G-d is really controlled and predictable.ⁱⁱⁱ So that makes the belief of Rabbi Akiba one that is difficult to understand. It's just as well that he was unaware of the science we have now. But if free will does not really exist, how can we justify a philosophy of reward and punishment?

Back to square one.^iv

 

Next episode: “Square One” – Another approach. But one that works only if you want it to.

i     Avot, 3:19. A section of the Jewish Talmud.

ii    The five books of Moses. The first section of the Bible.

iii    That's the nurture to go with the nature (DNA).

iv    Actually it's square zero. We're nowhere at the moment. “Square one” implies that we've started.