SPRING BREAK NEW JERSEY 2007
Yesterday, I got back from my two-and-a-half day outing into the exotic locales and tropical climes of New Jersey, staying the nights over at Howard Prospect's house.
The highlight of the trip was the conversation H.P. arranged between the two of us and his high school friend who I will call Jake Halevi for lack of a better name. According to H.P., Jake has ran through a number of different ideologies in the past: (in order) Marxist socialism, American transcendentalism, Randian objectivism, New Left hippydom, Buddhism, New Age spirituality (including Ken Wilbur). Unsatisfied with New Agery and disillusioned with other religions, he decided to explore his Jewish heritage (having been raised secularly), and wound up in a Yeshiva in Israel where he has been able to pursue his spiritual question full-time within the constraints set by Torah Judaism.
According to Torah (or Haredi) Judaism, the Torah was given to Moses on Mount Sinai by God. And, like most religions that have miraculously come into possession of an infallible text, everything else is supposed to follow from that. Many people in Jake's life find his new-found commitment to these beliefs upsetting, since he cannot, for example, converse with old friends of his who are female, and he is engaged on a fervent quest to bring people of Jewish ancestry who have strayed from the path back into the fold. This includes people like H.P., who is half Jewish.
H.P. was eager to have me meet Jake partly so that I could help him handle Jake's arguments. I felt a little strange being used in this way, but upon our sitting down to lunch Jake immediately started questioning my background (presumably to discover whether or not I was Jewish) and beliefs (out of interest and, as I discovered, the sort of compulsion to debate the heavy stuff that I'm familiar with). After about twenty minutes of keeping things slow and scoping each other out, we launched into a good two to three hours of good humored argument, secular naturalist vs. fundamentalist Jew.
It was very good exercise; I had to articulate, probably for the first time, my current opinions about epistemology, morality, metaphysics, etc., as a coherent whole (as opposed to fragmented lines of argument) under the pressure of argumentation. Some of this was recently formed as of the last couple weeks (growing attachment to virtue ethics). And I think it was a small victory for my current position that I had an answer for everything he threw at me.
Slowly, I moved from the defensive to the offensive, as he started defending his recent conversion. To the credit of the Haredim, they have a rich intellectual tradition. And it appears that in their efforts to draw Westernized secular Jews back into that tradition, they have developed arguments that do not require a leap of faith, but are rather meant to be logical and empirical. The particular teacher whom Jake had found convincing was Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, who I didn't realize until I recently looked him up is himself a convert, whose book, Living Up to the Truth, purports to give a rational, empirical justification for belief in the truth of events described in the Torah and the Chosen-ness of the Jews.
I think H.P. and I were able to address those arguments from Gottlieb that Jake threw at us, but, as happens anywhere, he was able to retreat back to the text. Despite what he had said, he still found the argument and counterargument in Gottlieb's book, which we haven't read, persuasive. So we parted with him beckoning me to go through Living Up to the Truth with him paragraph by paragraph, making arguments along the way.
Now I'm not sure what to do. On the one hand, I don't think the arguments are likely to be promising enough to land me into that odd category that Jake claims exists: Gentiles who accept Torah Judaism, and so happily live their lives waiting around living by a reasonable moral code while the Jews do all the hard work of saving the world. It probably would not be the most efficient use of my time, especially since in order to effectively make an argument against Gottlieb I think one would have to probably engaged in a huge cross-cultural, empirical study.
On the other hand, a brief look at Living Up to the Truth tells me that it is a rigorous and honest work. Picking it apart would be a hard intellectual exercise. Meanwhile, the arguments Jake gave sounded just plausible enough to make me worry that if I don't engage them, then I would be guilty of intellectual cowardice. Furthermore, I saw in Jake a kindred spirit. However much he hung out on the wrong side of the intellectual tracks, he's a guy who clearly searches for the truth with all his heart. I admire his piety, even now. And if I am to take seriously some of my more recent conclusions about the importance of both compassion and engaging in inquiry, then perhaps I should look on saving another person from dogmatism as a kind of moral duty, a way to directly contribute to another's flourishing.
So if I have time, I may find myself with yet another project and intellectual sparring partner. We'll see.
The highlight of the trip was the conversation H.P. arranged between the two of us and his high school friend who I will call Jake Halevi for lack of a better name. According to H.P., Jake has ran through a number of different ideologies in the past: (in order) Marxist socialism, American transcendentalism, Randian objectivism, New Left hippydom, Buddhism, New Age spirituality (including Ken Wilbur). Unsatisfied with New Agery and disillusioned with other religions, he decided to explore his Jewish heritage (having been raised secularly), and wound up in a Yeshiva in Israel where he has been able to pursue his spiritual question full-time within the constraints set by Torah Judaism.
According to Torah (or Haredi) Judaism, the Torah was given to Moses on Mount Sinai by God. And, like most religions that have miraculously come into possession of an infallible text, everything else is supposed to follow from that. Many people in Jake's life find his new-found commitment to these beliefs upsetting, since he cannot, for example, converse with old friends of his who are female, and he is engaged on a fervent quest to bring people of Jewish ancestry who have strayed from the path back into the fold. This includes people like H.P., who is half Jewish.
H.P. was eager to have me meet Jake partly so that I could help him handle Jake's arguments. I felt a little strange being used in this way, but upon our sitting down to lunch Jake immediately started questioning my background (presumably to discover whether or not I was Jewish) and beliefs (out of interest and, as I discovered, the sort of compulsion to debate the heavy stuff that I'm familiar with). After about twenty minutes of keeping things slow and scoping each other out, we launched into a good two to three hours of good humored argument, secular naturalist vs. fundamentalist Jew.
It was very good exercise; I had to articulate, probably for the first time, my current opinions about epistemology, morality, metaphysics, etc., as a coherent whole (as opposed to fragmented lines of argument) under the pressure of argumentation. Some of this was recently formed as of the last couple weeks (growing attachment to virtue ethics). And I think it was a small victory for my current position that I had an answer for everything he threw at me.
Slowly, I moved from the defensive to the offensive, as he started defending his recent conversion. To the credit of the Haredim, they have a rich intellectual tradition. And it appears that in their efforts to draw Westernized secular Jews back into that tradition, they have developed arguments that do not require a leap of faith, but are rather meant to be logical and empirical. The particular teacher whom Jake had found convincing was Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, who I didn't realize until I recently looked him up is himself a convert, whose book, Living Up to the Truth, purports to give a rational, empirical justification for belief in the truth of events described in the Torah and the Chosen-ness of the Jews.
I think H.P. and I were able to address those arguments from Gottlieb that Jake threw at us, but, as happens anywhere, he was able to retreat back to the text. Despite what he had said, he still found the argument and counterargument in Gottlieb's book, which we haven't read, persuasive. So we parted with him beckoning me to go through Living Up to the Truth with him paragraph by paragraph, making arguments along the way.
Now I'm not sure what to do. On the one hand, I don't think the arguments are likely to be promising enough to land me into that odd category that Jake claims exists: Gentiles who accept Torah Judaism, and so happily live their lives waiting around living by a reasonable moral code while the Jews do all the hard work of saving the world. It probably would not be the most efficient use of my time, especially since in order to effectively make an argument against Gottlieb I think one would have to probably engaged in a huge cross-cultural, empirical study.
On the other hand, a brief look at Living Up to the Truth tells me that it is a rigorous and honest work. Picking it apart would be a hard intellectual exercise. Meanwhile, the arguments Jake gave sounded just plausible enough to make me worry that if I don't engage them, then I would be guilty of intellectual cowardice. Furthermore, I saw in Jake a kindred spirit. However much he hung out on the wrong side of the intellectual tracks, he's a guy who clearly searches for the truth with all his heart. I admire his piety, even now. And if I am to take seriously some of my more recent conclusions about the importance of both compassion and engaging in inquiry, then perhaps I should look on saving another person from dogmatism as a kind of moral duty, a way to directly contribute to another's flourishing.
So if I have time, I may find myself with yet another project and intellectual sparring partner. We'll see.