Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb - Jewish Philosophy: Questions and Answers - 25

thank you all right far away with a new discussion of Sucker yeah so on the face of things I've heard the features I've heard your lectures on it and my questions I suppose are twofold first of all what's the approach to say there's nope suck there isn't there's no suck when it comes to Scotland because it seems very um seems very intuitive to think that well you can't have an opinion on reality of God I can't have an opinion that God does have a form of God doesn't have a form things like that seem to be that they would have to come to a consensus meaning in the individual person doesn't have the intuitive right to make a claim to what he thinks God's nature is so I suppose the thing would be discussed and then a consensus video right that um first of all I mean let's let's start at the beginning and could one have an opinion on what God wants from you how would you know what God wants from you how would you know what his desires are our preferences are how do you know what his plans are surely we're not competent to figure out for ourselves you know what God wants from us and from the world and so forth and so on of course we are how can we can do that with us well he told us about himself also so then what's the difference intuitively there's no difference in the starting point whatsoever everything we want to say about God is something that he told us about himself of course without it telling us we are totally incompetent to say anything at all he told us rules that he wants us to follow he told us values that we should pursue and he also told us about his own characteristics and how he runs the world so when it comes to Obsession it's is it equivalent to when it comes to obser I think so I can tell you where the mistake started but this absolutely no difference you want to know what is the truth what is the truth and the only way you know the truth told us and he gave us a vast body of information somebody has to sift through that information and decide what the truth is and when the difference of opinion then you vote on it but down to today not the best my God all and then it was cut or when they were shining well we had differences today just as we have differences in Ashcroft I mean without without a Sanhedrin so then you can't have a binding there's no particular institution of 71 people who can make a decision and vote and then bind the whole of Christ well that's true also there's still no difference systematically between Holograms and uh with arrivaled know what godolin in the world who deal with fresh cup of issues whole and sometimes you'll have Regional consensus which you had in also people in a certain region will be bound by the regional consensus if it's not a worldwide consensus uh the correct position my miceman has a chapter that's in in his book and I have nothing to say beyond what he said I report what he said but um it's all written out all sources are there so you can take a look at it the problem started when Aria Kaplan in 17 gave a speech and wrote it up where he found three places where the rambam refuses to give up soccer now those three places are written in Arabic so we are subject to the translations and the translations vary in one case he says one does not poskin or it's not appropriate to pass through or uh one place he says I will not passion and um and then there are a couple other places which are a capitalist um they're in the perishables they're in the safer midsoles which as I say we're written in Arabic unfortunately for this thesis three out of the five he does the very once he says isn't abstract he gives up Zach now at this point there are three possible ways out one is that even though he wrote down in the mission Torah the disposition of this issue maybe it wasn't up shock well it could be what it might be where he says the function of this safer is to tell you what themselves okay the second possibility is they changed his mind okay changed his mind obviously we go with the later opinion the later opinions and he did basket but then in the environmental tradition which he wrote at the end of his life even after them he cites this policy that he had going all the way back to the barrel she was nice so then it doesn't sound like he changed his mind the one possibility is one of the places the translation what he says is I will not pass it was written for people whose Jewish background was very very limited that's why he wrote it in Arabic because they wouldn't be able to read it and his systematic introductions to whole areas of Jewish law presuming that the reader doesn't know what they are doesn't know what the basic terminology is doesn't know what their function is or comment or content is now in all of the cases where in those five initial places where he doesn't give him sock they are all cases of where it's a question of how God deals with the world how does God punish certain types of crimes and how does he deal with the world in every one of the cases he says where the item does not come to a matter of practice I mean again it's Arabic so it knows exactly what the words mean uh but um he says every time does is it a matter that doesn't come to a matter of practice so but they all deal with how God deals with the world who gets to share in the world to come and what penalty does a non-going get if he eats truma and um what are the Muslim offerings on the various times what particular types of crimes do they atone for I mean there's nothing to do with what you and I do and nothing to do with foundations of belief nothing to do with foundations of philosophy they're only to do with how God deals with the world so to build out of those examples a general rule that in all matters of Jewish thought there is no deciding opinion is just beyond belief no basis for such a general uh conclusion at all furthermore the Rama himself in the in the guide rules on matters that are clearly matters about for example you may you certainly know there is an idea that the Irish phase of History will last only thing six thousand years don't remember Jack said he says it's wrong it doesn't say everybody has a right to an opinion and I just I just you know woke up one day and over coffee I decided this is what I'm going to believe he says it's wrong and he says why he says I'm not bound by what the talmud says because it's the opinion of a single individual now that's the language of Allah if it's a single division meaning if it had been consensus I would have had to accept it and the rashford says you do have to accept it you have to accept it because raveena ravashi put it in they meant that it's Allah so they're dealing with this the way you would deal with Travis or the way you would deal with Shabbos or with with any any other area Rama says that God's justice is absolute there's no uh no one who suffers who has not committed a crime and even though that's uh and uh even though that opinion According to some is rejected in the Murray in in Shabbos and there's a suffering this word about by God's love to increase your reward in the world to come he says I don't accept that because I have many verses against it and many statements of kazal it gets into other places and here it is stated as the opinion of a particular scholar and therefore I reject it the nowhere is the language anybody can think what he wants this is what I think the language is always if it's in if it's in the Gamora it has to be dealt with according to the rules by which decisions are made I'm matters of uh of anything that that has to be regulated uh there's a famous case in the in the Gomorrah which everybody knows where the Sanhedrin by basil bashamai debated whether or not man's creation was successful it's appropriate and uh ideal something Noah and the mother says they discussed for two and a half years and then they voted that the shama is right so to speak whatever that means so cilantro what that means but nowhere do you see any difference whatsoever in these matters the 13 nicoria Muna called the principles of faith that I'm gonna write the parish nice a Jew who doesn't believe all of them is not a truth is that a Jew don't save his life if he's in danger you don't give him a charity you don't treat him with any of the benefits of a Jew you have to believe those things and if you don't believe those things then these are the consequences is Judaism really yes one student told me the other day this is something which reform made made popular I know because I was brought up reform that Judaism is a religion of actions not an action not a religion of beliefs no dogmas in Judaism that's how reformed Judaism sought to differentiate itself from Christianity in particularly Catholic Christianity but it's just has no basis whatsoever no basis whatsoever Judaism requires beliefs about about monotheism for example a person who believes there are many gods is out the idea that that philosophical ideas and beliefs are different from anything else you need to know how to live part of living is thinking part of living is believing the daughter has rules for believing just like the Torah has rules for for acting and thinking and and and believing become very very important in the sum total of a Jewish life they're on bond rights in the end of this introduction to his commentary Book of Job an atheist has no mitzvos is this anything he does doesn't have doesn't count he also writes in his personal homish that a person who doesn't believe in a creator has no Torah he has no too period whatever he does is just worthless so the idea that that belief in philosophical ideas is something which this was started by that thing that speech and an article that was written but it has absolutely no connection to reality the sad chapter yeah okay on today this is q a in case you wonder what's going on here what was the question yeah the question was is there such a thing as a definitive ruling in matters of belief suppose so loosely called Jewish philosophy foreign and it's just a mistake there are definitive movements and there aren't everything else okay number two on the list the next two uh your well if there's nothing here it's more of a proposal type question if you agree with the circle yeah from my experience when dealing with discussing people with with people ideas about science and a person would pick a random respectful a obscuration to support a certain opinion that fits in today with today's science I'll say that's not really an appropriate thing to do to that's not necessarily accepted and generally speaking I get a lot of resistance from that from people because science has a very big impact on people's lives I when you get examples of how do you give examples of dartsychos you generally speak English nowadays that's clear so I thought a parallel philosophy and I may be out so I'm taking this Temple today suppose I was a big town with a damn devil oh yeah okay I will restrain myself from laughing for the rest of the hour yeah it shows him specifically okay I'm not sure well either way he's a materialist he's a determinist to a certain extent let's say I believe that I believe that is the way of the world today because of cognitive science I've been completely convinced it there's an opinion amongst the Australian because they cursed us who I recently found that held a similar view so either way would that be an equipment say well actually I see it within our sources at least it's part of our tradition to a certain extent I think there's there's there are two fundamental issues here and the one that you you have not mentioned and I think it's the one which needs to be examined um with great care and that is let's suppose you have two different opinions among our sources genuine authoritative sources and science agrees with one of them contemporary science the science until tomorrow morning agrees with one of them right so are we allowed to use the scientific position to decide which one of them is right do you find anywhere in history of our tradition where you had this sort of situation whether a difference ahead and then science came down on the side of one and then said okay so scientists show that distribution is right that vision is wrong I don't know of any such case only when the reason stated that because the reality is this way I hold this and when the gamara said it that way often they were not telling you the whole reason they were not telling you the reason that's that's operated but if he said but if he didn't say that and you have a scientific finding we don't use scientific so now what are you going to accomplish you have the two the two Jewish sources one says a it says b science says hey oh well we have Regional says hey but you're going to have to show why the reason it says b is also Justified he's also Justified so you can't escape the conflict the science by saying we have a ratio which agrees with science because the other reason of disagrees is also going to have to be justified so you're not coming to accomplish much now you can you can in education and if I dare say this because I'm being recorded but but it is true in education you must alter education you must always tell the truth you must always tell the truth but you don't always have to tell all of the truth as somebody who's coming in from the outside someone who's uh disposed to be very intolerant of Jewish sources every talented Jewish ideas and he says I heard ABC it's appropriate to respond I believe is what I've been taught look the rambam says what you want to be said the robot actually agrees with you right now that's not the end of the issue there are other sources as well and maybe someday when we have six or seven hours to learn together without interruption we'll be able to go through all of them and try to but just you should know that your idea isn't outside the tradition entirely because all right okay so I don't I don't think that's unfair you told them you haven't told him everything you told them there's more to be studied and you told them one which is a genuine a genuine truth if there are moles that way and I I don't think there's anything wrong with that but um you have to know from the from the point of view of settling the issue that it it it will not help to uh to do that now I should say that um yeah well it depends about you when you're talking about the issue of where an authority has stated something about this about the the physical world I also know that I appreciate that and I hadn't actually thought of that for your point of view deciding issue I meant it more as a counter to people meaning a better example so to speak oh I see because the beauty about this is people people want to be able to say science is true there's an intuition to want to do that people don't want to go to maternity and to determinism people don't want to do that I see that's why I find this example better because people don't want to go there and people don't know philosophy so people when people hear that they go well that's not legitimate of course you're like well be consistent but then the other thing is that time passes by certain opinions so the peas get outvoted by time don't think of the of the chain because they're probably this unhedron voted him down either if I'm not mistaken at a time when the Hedge was still functioning but think about someone today who burned his heart I'm sorry let's burn the motorcycle the rabbis of Paris burned the more of the guide of the perplexed in public they were great people they had a position that it was heresy and that was about voted down over time the ramban worked very hard to convince the scholarly Jewish world that the god of the perplexed is not heresy you don't have to agree with it you could disagree with it like people disagree with with anything but it's not heresy someone today who burned the guide is perplexed on the grounds that the rallies of Paris did 900 years ago will be a heretic and he himself will be uh punished for it I there happens to be a certain hold out group from Yemen who rejected and Diane Fisher was asked by my son whether he could use one of their synagogues to to study in during the day when nobody was there and Diane Fisher said it's ushered to have any benefit from them to have any contact with him so I'm not using the name because I don't want anything to be mentioned and they and they should just have to because the fact that they reject his art their rejected so hard I was guessing yeah so the sentence truth rejecting the Zohar there was there were some decades when it was controversial that controversy has been settled but someone who appealed to one of those rejected the Czar 700 years ago is making a mistake he can't do that certain opinions become voted out by the consensus of of Israel so as I've I summarize it this way you could write a book and the book could be full of footnotes and the footnotes to every one of them is a footnote to a genuine valid source and the book could be completely wrong completely Force false because that particular opinion of that valid source was abandoned over time but meisman told me or someone in the brisk School brought a very striking example from um last week's Parsha Miriam and Aaron criticized Moshe Robin for separating from his wife on the grounds that prophecy doesn't require that we're also prophets we didn't separate from our spouses so why did he do that what does the coach That Was Then You Dare to Compare yourself to motion Moses prophecies are unique utterly beyond anything else that any other prophet including them aside how did you do it compare yourself now if you look at the 13 principles of the rambam one is that Moses prophecy is superior to the prophecy of every other prophet and our American failed that they failed that they believed the wrong thing does that mean that they were Heretics no it wasn't settled yet because Russia hadn't revealed it yet but once he revealed that it's out sorry sorry you know because Brooklyn rejected their their opinion so the fact that a great person said it doesn't mean that today it's available and just as it is in Sac now we're coming full circle where if the consensus of today's authorities say you can't rely on XYZ so it is in her scuff that something may be may be uh rehearse said it or maybe I remember didn't say it but maybe you thought he said it um but if the Contemporary authorities if that brings all them say that that opinion is no longer available for us then it's not available for us period And the fact that uh 10 years from now they might change their minds or something to change his mind also have to hurry this talks about that in the meantime look at all them are the leaders of our opinions in all areas and we proud of them period I used to have two positions on the age of the universe and then when the McDonald's came out against one of them I just abandoned it that's all it's not to me to you know my job is to give an intelligence as I can exposition of the positions that the third requires and they are the ones to determine the positions left the tour requires in a synagogue where the rabbi believes that the laborator revenue was Michelle five houses down for myself from my house yeah I I I first of all I'm not trained in sakaloka so I I I can't answer you in in detail but there's a little it's a little tricky now you put it one way um I'm sure you're aware that there are various different ways to put this question you use the past tense there's the past tense that the love is ready was oh the Messiah that's what you said right yeah if that's what you're asking I I can't imagine why it would be uh forbid we have a tradition that in every generation there's someone who could be Messiah the vikiva when he pledged allegiance to Barca didn't make a mistake he didn't make a mistake the Romper is very clear about this there is such a thing as having what he calls Jessica means he is a person who's qualified as the personal qualifications and he has the abilities and if he will complete certain historical tasks then we will know in the end that he's mashiach if he has custom he has the qualities you're required to follow him you're required to to support him as rabiki was supported by kafa in the end Markov didn't have the accomplishments and in that way we know that he was a messiah so now if someone wants to say in the previous generation was um and that was the woman you see anything wrong with that someone was and he was certainly a great leader and and various other groups is was common to think that your leader you're already the one who could be mashiach does anybody know that it's wrong nobody knows that it's wrong I don't know anywhere that anybody would regard that as a as a uh a a crucial failure so if that's the way he felt about his rabbi join the club with uh with other the groups that have thought that their leaders were the ones who could have been the Messiah that's not the same as saying he's still alive not the same as saying he's God and there are people who say both of those things I'm not exaggerating I wish I were so that's why I say the way you put it I can't imagine that there's a problem it's a family prominent about your family two or three of them are pressed as a philosophy and one of them wrote an article for Jewish action anyway you arrive with Jewish action sometime after Charlie was after and he outlined the various things that allowed to say and he was very straightforward about it those who say or God or happy coursing and they're to be just thrown at all together and those who say he's still alive are crazy but don't throw out all crazy people you know I have crazy beliefs and those salesman she actually said many people thought that they're represent and they based it on a a good morning said the Rashi which they miss me okay so they're guilty of misreading of Rashid that's their fault that's their crime their misunderstanding arashi said okay okay you don't throw people out of out of your describe because they misunderstood a Rashid so uh I think that uh that that particular you know that particular thing that's all it is um I I can't find that a very serious problem yeah why is Allah um and even if that can be explained as like the path to Allah has to be a process but like even something I sure am almost all sure and I couldn't think of any show which isn't a matter of argument why couldn't it just be imagine I mean we have SI units you know such an argument about everything let me give you a historical perspective on this which I think is useful I'm going to back up to a parallel which I think is also useful and I don't think it's either of them is is appropriately um registered I this is brought home to me by one of my former tal needin who made this remark to me and I realized that I was not aware enough of it enough and take it why is there a world why did God create a world with death and sickness and injury and and uh and uh accident and pain and paralysis and broken limbs why did God create a world like that short answer is he didn't he didn't he created garnado created the Garden of Eden God didn't mean there was no death no injury no disease no broken bones not even a requirement to work in order to provide for yourself that's the world that God created and he gave them a challenge they failed the challenge the result of failing the challenge was a gigantic demotion degradation of the world to the conditions under which we live could ask hypothetical why did God set it up so that if we fail we fall this far okay that's interesting question but until you know the nature of the failure and the resources that they had and the impact of the failure had on the resources and so on the question is not a very pressing one it's not in the in the form of an objection that it should have been better it's just there's so much lack of information I don't know why God did it that way now the truth is we are in a similar situation Pizza Alex says talks about this I think in the idea who gave the Torah what we call the oral Torah was visible in the written Tower you could just read it right off because I'll say we're not for the golden calf God would have only given the five books of Moses the Book of Joshua and that's all but the what we call the oral tradition is a great measure of wisdom to repair great anger had there not been the the golden calf it would have been open obvious apparent the Zohar says that when when you have a question that you can't answer that's a blockage it's a blockage of the flow of divine energy that's bad shouldn't be that way shouldn't be that way so the tourism the oral tradition and all of its processes and all the struggles which a lot it's written about they are written for the point of view of failure it's not the glory of the turrets how we're dealing with failure just like we have tayak mitos and it's a Haram we're born as children with only yet so all of that as a result of the failure of garnetin it's failure so one shouldn't idealize it now if it's so we have to see it as a crutch which if you ever I'm gonna listen if you break a bone you'll be thankful for crutches but you'll pray for the day when you can put them aside I know because that a broken leg and I was on crutches for a couple of months ah it's wonderful I could get around but boy was I looking for the day one walk on my own two feet the idea that it is so obscure is a matter of blockage a blockage of a Divine flow and that blockage is because of the failures that we commit maral says quotes the famous uh statement which of which a certain paraphrase is in the Zohar but the exact phrase that we use is really around How uh Jewish people are one and he says that means they're bound up together and they're they're circumstances affect one another and when the Jewish people are disunified so the Torah is disunified it's disunified because the people are disunified and somebody says why can't the golden the great sages agree with one another because we don't agree with one another we the people on the street we the people on the street are fighting each other for no reason whatsoever we put each other down and we criticize each other and can't get along with one another and that causes disunity among the sages the Torah it comes to us in a disunified competitive Style which shouldn't be the better of it weren't you probably all know the those you know the statement of of Kennesaw from but I bet no one here knows what the martial says in that statement not sure says suffering is not the highest level is the highest level if you're on level two a lower level than indeed you may need Kennedy may need fighting you may need competition in order to get at the truth but the words of the I spoken calmly peacefully and several places because in Arizona so if you're in brother then you're stuck that's what you have to do uh but but bubble isn't ideal bubble is Godless everyone with it because this is associated in my mind this is where they're talking about cities and the discussion of glazing bubble they're discussing what Allah should be and then one makes a comment and it shows that everybody else is wrong and he has the truth and the other ones are embarrassed they say you know but he got it right we all got it wrong so the rav says why are you embarrassed the speaker is Ravina he's from married to Israel is this from here to throw it's expected and he's going to get it better now I read that tomorrow and I thought to myself hey wait a minute Ravina is one of the editors of the talmud pavli the Babylonian that means one of the editors had his education in Israel and move down to bubble that means the the Babylonia Palmer has a dual input it of course has the Babylonian input but it has an input from Earth as well as well that may be I thought one of the reasons why the Tama babli is the last word not only because it's later because the last word I said that to someone who's at Tom and cloth and he said to me one of the goal in him actually says that sorry the room says it okay so that so um but that's the superiority of Arizona because no concealers so what you're describing the difficulty and the blockages and the and the differences of opinion we have to look at that as a symptom of a failure not a glory but a symptom of a failure had it had it not been for the golden calf it would not have been that way it would have just glowed right out of the uh right out of the written and the house says by the way there's the hold of the Hebrew Bible all the rest of Judaism is a commentary on this enough the commentary right sometimes it's very very difficult to see those other things in the in the words of of the verses that's right it's very difficult for us because we live in a crowded Atmosphere by the way in Babylon when you want to invite someone to a discussion what is the invitation hazi one is coming here the others come and see you know why it says come in here in Babylon because God put me in a dark place in a dark place you can only talk you can't see because it's dark place with this light you can see come and see there's Israel where there was still light it's a different a different and had a different approach and bubble where it was dark there's a gigantic difference when you look around you get an enormous amount of information all in one shot simultaneously when you're when you're communicating orally it's communication over time that requires memory it's a different type of experience altogether at any rate I'm just saying that what you're asking about is a symptom of our failed Condition it's not what the ideal of Torah was supposed to be huh we ain't talking about a failed condition which we're responsible for so then you could talk about it as but not something that's that should be considered as an ideal when talking about factors I mean why does that matter if like everyone's you know sort of judged from their personal experience okay this is a crucial question this is a crucial question not only in in General philosophical terms but people ask it about about parental responsibilities judge only on his own effort no matter where you start so if there's a ladder of achievement from zero to 100 a person starts at 23 and makes it to 33 went up 10 steps person who starts at 77 made it to 87 went up 10 steps what difference in mind if you end up at 33 or at 87 if you took 10 steps you could credit for 10 steps so why should it matter where you start and then the question will be in terms of parenting why do I extend myself to put my children on as high a platform as I can when it makes no difference in terms of their Personal Achievement and the way God will rate them and what God will will reward them I because they came from no background went through a period of time which I had to struggle with very hard Mitzvah because it comes the middle of the afternoon especially in the winter and they have students are busy you know I'm not sitting around doing nothing I'm doing it stop it's a struggle took years I got used to it my children don't have that struggle foreign comes the end of the afternoon the world could stop the world could fall off a cliff medical time period nothing else to talk about their struggle is pay attention to every word that's the difference from but whatever this is a bank I'll get rewarded for my struggle starting from November they're gonna be worth it for this struggle paying attention to every word the answer is it makes no difference to the person who's doing this struggle it's the difference to what God wants done in the world God needs input on all levels of the scale the higher up you go on the scale the fewer people are to make input so when I train my child to put him at a higher starting point on the scale doing it because God wants that done now because I'm putting my child in a position where he'll get more reward or have more accomplishment but that's what God wants from us to promote people to the higher levels of of address of Challenge on the say carefully it's not more and less difficult to hire runs on the ladder for the achievement to be in that area that Locus because that's what he wants done that's all that's all the difference it makes is only that God wants that work to be done and the higher up it is the less people it will be to do it so our job is to push people up as much as we can to have us make a contribution to that level so that level will get addressed appropriately we're done with that yeah yeah it's very old book uh it was about 40 years ago I didn't read too much of it uh what I read of it I felt was not entirely correct in in scientific terms and I thought it was pretty obscure I did not find it clearly written so I did not explore it in great detail he obviously tried to discuss important issues but I I come from in philosophy was called the Anglo-Saxon tradition as opposed to the Continental tradition um that's a Great Divide in contemporary philosophy I remember when I was teaching there was a conference organized in Canada where they had professors from both sides of the of the of the Divide conference to try to talk to one another and communicate with one another and share with one another it was a complete flock complete flop they couldn't talk to one another people in the Anglo-Saxon side want to speak clearly they want to speak exactly they'd like to find reasons that any intelligent person in the end could understand and would be uh would settle issues and because of the desire for speaking clearly and precisely and settling issues there was a great tendency to to look at small issues because it's a gigantic issue like you know what is life or what is meaning and so on and so on it's just too big into amorphous to chop down to little sizes so the people on the continent said you guys have abandoned philosophy we made philosophy trivia and then Zach said back to the continent you're doing poetry you write things but they don't convince anybody there aren't any reasons there you know you write in Flowery language nobody can understand and either I'm Swept Away by your rhetoric in which case I might agree with you or or not but you haven't got anything that convinces anybody that you have to be right so that was the that was the divide and I was brought up in the end of the second side of the thing he's very much you can't explain opposition and doing a lot of that yeah but then you know I studied those guys and I taught those guys and I was not I was not uh I was not impressed so it could be my fault he was considered to be a genius and I'm not a genius so maybe I just missed out on it but I I was not I was not important yeah like the existence okay no we're showing them can be wrong no one held it we show any were infallible and even the Gamora Rabbi meizum is very careful about this he was criticized there's a there's a I fell in South America I think baby from Brazil his name is Louise Borges b-o-r-g-e-s Argentinian okay great writer great writer philosophically very uh or cute and and deep um great imagination and he wrote a story called reviews of non-existent books pretending through a review of a book that doesn't exist but in that way laying out the summary of a position and weakness and strength of his issue it's a very clever idea I told Robin meisenmann he should respond to the unbelievably fallacious reviews that have been written about his book as you know these are reviews of a non-existent book because they just either there they don't know how to read I don't know how to carefully or they lie one of the things but the critiques are not of his book there are anything that he wrote and one of the critiques that's mentioned over and over again is where my husband says every scientific statement in the topic must be true and he says the opposite of that he says there are two types of statements in the topic one is what he calls um authoritative which by which he means it goes back to prophecy in some way or other it goes back to prophecy it's absolute and it cannot be uh it can be attacked or rejected and as a quotes from if you have what looks to you like Bonafide scientific finding that's against what it says in an authoritative statement in the talmud then the thing to do is to say I see it as a contradiction I don't know the answer but that is right that's what you're supposed to say be honest don't blink it away don't pretend don't falsely misinterpret to get out of the contradiction no recognize it and and acknowledge it honestly as a contradiction and say the Thomas right I don't know why the show name um we don't even have that commitment Irish could be wrong in anything that he says that's one of the reasons that we should be shown to disagree with each other sometimes quite sharply and they simply say no it's not right um quoting a talking clown that's just definitely wrong it's not right at all okay so that means we hold no brief that everything that every Mission says has to be true now however advisement points this out I think he quotes it from reverse and uh and others the gemara talks about the mission talks about a thing that's half it goes out of the ground and it's half ground and have half mouse or something right and talks about the two mothers of such a thing um there's a fact that the mission mentioned such a thing mean that the Mr believes that the thing exists not necessarily there were Travelers Greek Travelers who were trained in science and they traveled regions of the world and they brought back observations of what they saw and they discussed them and so on and so on one of these respected Travelers came back and reported such a thing the camera said okay if there is such a thing what's a salahan status how would you classify well with its laws bees with respect to tumor attire and other things right it was just applying the law to hypothetical that's all so that being the key that being the case the fact that the richon mentions it if he says I saw one I I I dissected it I found its wings it's over there so that's one thing but if he says this is the law for such a thing he could be following the same tradition there are people who report these things as far as I know these people are reliable has to offer an opinion on it so the luck will offer an opinion on we we are I mean I'm including myself now we are so blinded by the enormous unearned Pride of contemporary information sources and and contemporary scientific speculations that we tend to reject out of hand when I read the gamora's discussion of a person who has two heads and two-headed animals and picked in a bend and all the rest of it I was really I was just you know what to say I don't know what to say but that was stupid the camera talks about it so it's real we now of course though you know what conjoined twins are join twins are the one body two heads coming out from where the shoulders are a five chambered heart uh three kidneys and so forth and so on and the two body the two heads have to learn how to get a look one head controls one side of the body the other head control the other side of the body that means each head controls one leg can you imagine learning to walk and they live there's a a couple of you know two a female conjoined twin and a Time Magazine had pictures of it I thought to myself wow wow how stupid can you be questioning the gemara questioning the gamara there is pictures and Timex now I believe it or the pictures in Time Magazine kill the talmud who said that is talking about the gems that will be available and when the machine comes oh look at the beach impossible then he went on a trip and he saw the gems and he came back and said you're right I saw them and he looked at him and he made him into a pile of bones I taught it to you as thorough you didn't accept it you saw it you stepped it you believed your eyes you're not worthy of being in this world so the the attitude I think has to be one of humility Robin meisman has a number of cases where the tomorrow said something and the whole of the scientific World laughed at it until turned out to be right yeah I saw people today and criticized because of certain mistakes and when it goes through their arguments in great detail and he shows that the arguments don't hold water uh I I would say that as the rashford says if if it's a statement that goes back to prophecy sometimes because I didn't do that sometimes hazal used the Contemporary scientific information I don't know if I'm repeating myself to you guys but remember points out something fascinating what is a tracer 18 conditions which an animal is called a Trade Fair and we Pascal I've been Australian they can't live for a year trade is also used for human beings I'm sorry where do those traits come from Revelation that God gave to Moses that sign what about person person is a traitor what makes a person trade for the Rumba passkins whatever contemporary Medical Science says is a fatal Condition it's a trait for a person the halach is determined by contemporary medical science not the Revelation to Moses there was no Revelation most about people only about animals so now you'll have the hamitoki this condition an animal is a traitor this position in a person is a traifa the two entirely different statements the one can't be challenged because it goes back to Moses the other could be challenged and say in our times it isn't so because Medical Science in our time says something different so you have to classify each statement separately to see what the basis of hazal was the gestation period of a snake is is seven years so they said the Greeks did an experiment and it gave birth after a year did you see that it wasn't disseminated six years before that did you check that no then how do you know he learns it from apostle Tyler learns it from a person and he will not look any any opposition to it now guess what they discovered in the last couple of years some snakes big snakes are hermaphrodites it's unbelievable some snakes can fertilize themselves they have male and female organs and can fertilize themselves and then they can give birth is that the gestation period that khazar was talking about maybe they're only talking about it where it wasn't done in hermaphrodite fashion but science didn't know that until two years ago remember that is supposed to be the either insects or tiny tiny creatures no one thought that snakes big snakes could be him after that the natural world is full of things that science doesn't know pretense I got a letter from a man Isle of a of a religious school in Canada he said what am I going to do a 15 year old walked into his class and said scientists explained everything so we don't need God ignorant can you be he thinks science has explained everything so on my blog I just made a list of you know 10 outstanding problems with science hasn't explained and more have have arrived in the system but a kid like that is obviously in trouble he you know he wants cheeseburgers and other things like that and uh he's going to use something which he thinks his Robbie can't answer but it has no nowhere else anyway I'm drifting over question next question yeah yeah he's quoting yeah the answer to a question like that not sure if you were answering these questions okay let's say we get to a stage where science is explained everything it doesn't that doesn't mean even if you're right it doesn't mean God is irrelevant now if anything God will be more like it God will be more obvious I think there's a problem here all right we have a few minutes there are two different levels of discussion one is can science proof that God doesn't exist it's quite obvious that it cannot whatever science finds whatever the science discovers whatever science can explain it's always possible to say that that's the way God is running the world my second question is what evidence do we have in the world of God's activity and the more science explains the less of that we have that's not zero that's not zero for millennia life a fact of life was a sign of God's activity in the world if you could fully explain life in scientific materialistic terms then that whole area of evidence becomes deleted I don't think that's worthless depends upon upon whom is the burden of proof If you put the burden proof on them to show we're wrong they can't do that but if they put the burden of proof on us to offer evidence that we're right anything that they explain in in materialistic terms would be a loss for us in terms of evidence now the oldest question in philosophy and the most difficult question of philosophy is why is there something rather than nothing and there already agrees except the one raving idiot everybody agrees that sorry philosophy has never made any progress in that question and there was a clue how to make progress out of this a cosmologist named Lawrence Krauss probably one of ours all right scratch wrote a book why is there something rather than nothing science can explain it quantum mechanics can explain it you know it's over the song well there's a wonderful fellow named David Albert who's a professor at Columbia he got his PhD in physics and then went into philosophy of science so he knows both sides well he's published in research physics he's published a great deal in in philosophy of science he wrote a scathing review of of krause's book The scathing with you and uh but if if indeed it could be a natural materialistic scientific explanation of why there is something rather than nothing of the origin of everything I think that would hurt I think that would hurt that's why having noted that the theory of evolution could do nothing to show that God is behind the whole of life I'm at pains to show that the theory of evolution has gigantic weaknesses in scientific and philosophical terms so that there's actually no reason to accept it as true I think that's a game and I think those two have to be kept distinct people take the easy way out by saying we could always say God did it that way we could but not only defend us against being refuted it doesn't provide us with positive evidence that we're right foreign