We have the writings of the Rambam and an ability to discuss things calmly and rationaly. What other common ground do we need?

“WADR, I am sorry, but this statement of yours: “Therefore, the adoption of Torah study and Prayer in the face of a military enemy would be anathema to the Rambam’s way of thinking” is therefore just totally inconsistent with the Rambam.”

I was not intending to say that the Rambam’s position is “don’t pray when you are in trouble.” What I was saying (and what I thought was clear from the context of that sentence) is that to the Rambam, Torah study and Prayer can never be a primary response. They could be a commanded action which instills in the nation the proper ideas and the proper understanding of the world – but they can never be seen as directly resulting in victory in any sense. Such an assertion regarding the Rambam’s position on hashgacha would not fit into many parts of the Moreh.

For example, take a look at Moreh 2:29 where he discusses nevuot that seem to contradict his philosophy regarding the Teva and his assertion that Teva NEVER changes (even when something seems like a change in Teva, according to the Rambam, that “shift” in nature is part and parcel of Maase Bereishit). To the Rambam, the understanding of how things works IN NATURE is of fundumental importance. No nation which seeks to contradict teva can have success and no ideology which pushes willfully ignoring the natural order can be called a Torah ideology.

Mitzvot and Prayer, to the Rambam, are never to generate an ontological response from the heavens – to think such would undermine his entire philosophy. Mitzvot and Prayer, to the Rambam, are in order to instill proper ideas and actions in man (תיקון הנפש ותיקון הגוף) as he writes in Moreh 3:27. This idea of the Rambam is why so many of his contemporaries (who wanted to see mitzvot as a theurgic tool) took such offence to his taamei haMitzvot.

Therefore, your quotations from hilchot taanit are misplaced. Nobody is saying that the Rambam did not pasken that Jews should fast and pray. But rather I am saying that the Rambam sees no Theurgic or ontological consequence to such actions. The Rambam says this explicitly in Moreh 3:44:

המצוות אשר כללתן הקבוצה התשיעית:
הם המצוות אשר מנינום בספר אהבה, וכולם סיבתם ברורה וטעמם גלוי, כלומר: שתכלית אותן העבודות זכירת ה’ תמיד ואהבתו ויראתו וקבלת המצוות באופן כללי, ושנאמין בו יתעלה מה שהכרחי לכל דתי להאמין, והם התפילה וקריאת שמע וברכת המזון וכל הנספח להן, וברכת כוהנים ותפילין ומזוזה וציציות ורכישת ספר תורה והקריאה בו בעתים

כל אלה מעשים המקנים השקפות מועילות, וזה פשוט וברור אין צורך לומר בו דבר נוסף, כי זה כפילות ולא יותר

In other words, the purpose of fasting and prayer (in a time of war or not) is to instill the proper ideas (which are more necessary in a time of war when a person may get so frightened they start preaching quietism and pasivity in the fact of a military foe). Nowhere does the Rambam write that prayer is the “Jewish response to war.” Rather, he seems to say that prayer is an essential component of any Jewish army.

Now, back to the previous comment:

“The letter to Marseilles is discussing studying GARBAGE, not prayer”

That was not what I was pointing out in my comment. I was saying that in the letter in Marseilles the Rambam does not say “they studies garbage instead of studying Torah so they were punished.” He says “they studies garbage and therefore thought that they could avoid the natural order of the world, they neglected knowledge of statecraft and military might and therefore the natural consequences were defeat and exile.” Again, the punishment is not some Divine reflexive lightning bolt that sends them into exile but rather the natural consequences of bad ideas and bad actions. These consequences are build into natural creation by Hashem – they are not, according to the Rambam, supernatural punishments for idol worship.

Now to the first comment:

>He does NOT reject that cause and effect are more than what meets the eye in the physical realm.

This is a bit tricky – the term physical is a bit misleading in this context. I would certainly agree that the Rambam was no Epicurean and therefore saw cause and effect as being deeper than the physical realm. He did, afterall believe in many areas of classical aristotalean metaphysics. But this is misleading because almost every greek philosopher other than epicurus believed the same thing. The real quesion is: what is our understanding of a ‘non-physical realm’?

To the Rambam, the natural world which includes physical and metaphysical components, is at its base lawful. And any understanding of Divinity that undermines the lawfulness of the world is problamatic (hence his understanding of miracles as events built into nature and not above it).

Therefore, you are right, but not in the way you initially stated. Cause and effect – including their metaphysical componenets are understandable to the average person. The acceptance of the ikkarim by that same person is not done in contradition to that cause and effect (including its metaphysical components).

ג על הצרת שונאי ישראל לישראל כיצד: גויים שבאו לערוך מלחמה עם ישראל, או ליטול מהם מס, או ליקח מידם ארץ, או לגזור עליהם שמד אפילו במצוה קלה–הרי אלו מתענין ומתריעין, עד שירוחמו. וכל הערים שסביבותיהם, מתענין;

WADR, I am sorry, but this statement of yours: “Therefore, the adoption of Torah study and Prayer in the face of a military enemy would be anathema to the Rambam’s way of thinking” is therefore just totally inconsistent with the Rambam.

Like I said, we really have no common ground here.

>> Knowledge is the key to everything. correct ideas are rewarded and bad ideas and actions are punished. This is not something that occurs through a mystical mechanism but rather is it build into the nature of a Divine and created world.

In other words, the wise one sees the order of the natural world as a revelation of Divine wisdom. To go against the natural order is, for the Rambam, to go against Divine wisdom. <> Therefore, the adoption of Torah study and Prayer in the face of a military enemy would be anathema to the Rambam’s way of thinking (as he wrote in his letter to Marseilles). <> The Rambam was a ontological and theological monist – he rejects the kind of tension the CI describes between Divine knowledge and physical knowledge of the world. <<

He does NOT reject that cause and effect are more than what meets the eye in the physical realm.

We really have no common ground for discussion here.

I am sorry, but you are quoting out of context. one reading your quote of the Moreh will attribute to the Rambam more modern conceptions of “will of God” and reward and punishment. The Rambam is pretty clear in his intro to the Moreh that the book needs to be studies as a whole.

For example later on in 3:17 he writes:

והבן השקפתי עד סופה, כי איני סובר שהוא יתעלה נעלם ממנו דבר, או שאני מייחס לו אי יכולת, אלא אני בדעה כי ההשגחה נספחת לשכל וחיובית לו, כיון שההשגחה אינה אלא ממשכיל , ואשר הוא שכל שלם שלמות שאין שלמות אחריה, והרי כל מי שנצמד בו משהו מאותו השפע כפי ערך מה שהגיע לו מן השכל יגיע לו מן ההשגחה . זוהי ההשקפה התואמת לדעתי את המושכל ולשונות התורה.

Hashgacha (and here he is talking about hashgacha davka in the context of reward and punishment) is an attribute of the intelect. According to the Rambam, to the extent that one understands Divine wisdom as it is revealed through a proper understanding of the physical world as well as how it is understood through the study of Divine revelation, to THAT extent a person has hashgacha. Further, punishment is a natural consequence of of being far from Divine wisdom.

See further down in 3:18 as well:

ולפי העיון הזה מתחייב בהחלט שתהא השגחתו יתעלה בנביאים גדולה יותר וכפי מעלותיהם בנבואה , ותהיה השגחתו בחסידים ובצדיקים כפי חסידותם וצדקתם, כי אותו הערך משפע השכל האלוהי הוא אשר ניבא את הנביאים, ויישר מעשי הצדיקים, והביא לשלמות מדעי החסידים במה שידעו.

Notice what a Hasid is for the Rambam. He is by defintion a person of knowledge. Knowledge is the key to everything. correct ideas are rewarded and bad ideas and actions are punished. This is not something that occurs through a mystical mechanism but rather is it build into the nature of a Divine and created world.

In other words, the wise one sees the order of the natural world as a revelation of Divine wisdom. To go against the natural order is, for the Rambam, to go against Divine wisdom. Therefore, the adoption of Torah study and Prayer in the face of a military enemy would be anathema to the Rambam’s way of thinking (as he wrote in his letter to Marseilles). The Rambam was a ontological and theological monist – he rejects the kind of tension the CI describes between Divine knowledge and physical knowledge of the world.

I don’t know what you mean by “mystical metaphysical”.

The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim 3:17 writes:

“It may be by mere chance
that a ship goes down with all her contents, as in the
above-mentioned instance, or the roof of a house falls upon those
within; but it is not due to chance, according to our view, that in
the one instance the men went into the ship, or remained in the
house in the other instance: it is due to the will of God, and is in accordance with the justice of His judgments, the method of which
our mind is incapable of understanding.”

This means that the cause and effect of someone dying under a collapsed roof is not, essentially, because he was there at the time due to some sequence of natural events, but because G-d wanted him to be there and die because he deserved it. This is the principle of Reward and Punishment, number 11 of the 13, and despite the method being something our mind is incapable of understanding, is nevertheless true, and an expression of that Ikkar.

ואידך פירושא זיל גמור.

I am sorry. But much ink has been spilt on understanding the Rambam’s position on this topic – all taking into account Hilchot Taanit AS WELL AS his writings in the Moreh and his letters.

In short, the Rambam denies there being a mystical metaphysical mechanism that is the engine for a cause/effect mechanism between sin and punishment. Punishment for the Rambam is the natural consequence of bad action as well as the natural consequence of neutral action guided by wrong/bad ideas. To the Rambam, human conception of a mystical metaphysical mechanism is the root of idol worship even if we substitute Torah and Mitzvot for the magical acts. As is clear from his letter to Marseilles, the temple (and he was – I think talking about the first temple – not the second in this instance) was destroyed due to a NATURAL consequence of idol worship – that is the neglect of the proper understanding of how the natural world operates and how nations operate within it.

ואידך פירושא זיל גמור.

I think we are spearking past one another.

Acceptance of the ikkarim is something that the Rambam saw as both achievable by the average person AND something that does not contradict the normal cause and effect of the observed world.

The Rambam is not the address for attributing hidden esoteric mechanisms to things that are part of the natural order of the world. In fact, when writing to the wise men of marseilles, he attributed the distruction of the temple NOT to a esoteric metaphysical cause but rather as a worldly natural consequence of idol worship:

וזו היא שאבדה מלכותנו והחריבה בית מקדשנו והאריכה גלותינו והגיעתנו עד הלום. שאבותינו חטאו ואינם, לפי שמצאו ספרים רבים באלה הדברים של דברי החוזים בכוכבים, שדברים אלו הם עיקר עבודה זרה, כמו שביארנו בהלכות עבודה זרה, טעו ונהו אחריהן, ודימו שהם חכמות מפוארות ויש בהן תועלת גדולה, ולא נתעסקו בלמידת מלחמה ולא בכיבוש ארצות, אלא דמו שאותן הדברים יועילו להם. ולפיכך קראו אותם הנביאים סכלים ואווילים.

In other words, the distruction of the temple was a natural consequence of the loss of the knowledge of war and statecraft among the Jews which happened due to the ideas they borrowed from idolotrous religions. The Rambam does not say: “they studies idol worship instead of the Torah and therefore were destroyed.” There is no mystical component to the Rambam’s view of these matters. To the Rambam, a Torah ideology that proscribes prayer as a substitute to understanding the natural world and how it works is not a Torah ideology at all!

Further, you have – through a back door – brought up a discussion of a particular view of the mechanism of providence. This is a very interesting topic – but is really a very seperate topic from the statement of the CI. The Rambam’s view of providence are well known – and he certainly never meant the 13 principles to be a means by which people knock down positions that he took himself.

This goal of the Rambam and his formulation is therefore in direct opposition to the CI’s understanding of the relationship between the ikkarim and our simple perception of the world. <<

I don’t see any opposition at all. You don’t have to be a great philosopher to understand the 13 Ikkarim, and you don’t have to be a great philosopher to understand that what you see as apparent cause and effect in the world is not necessarily the real cause and effect.

You don’t have to be an Aristotle to understand that the world is round – but that doesn’t mean that you are standing right-side up and the guy on the other side of the world is upside down – despite common sense dictating such a thing.

And you don’t have to be a Plato to understand that while G-d may act in natural ways without gross manipulation of natural cause and effect to acheive what He wants, and therefore wars have been won with armies, the ultimate cause and effect is spiritual. Anyone reading Tanach understands this.

Not sure what you mean.

The Rambam’s conception of “reason” was – like all the other thinkers of his time – philosophical/deductive and most certainly not experimental/inductive. Science as we understand it today is an anachronism when we discuss the Rambam. In the Moreh 1:31, the Rambam approvingly quotes Alexander’s three falicies that lead people to disagree regarding the correct understanding of the world:

אמר אלאסכנדר אלאפרודיסי, כי גורמי המחלוקות בעניינים שלשה:
האחד אהבת ההתנשאות והניצוח המטים את האדם מהשיג את האמת כפי שהוא;
והשני עדינות הדבר המושג כשלעצמו ועמקו וקושי השגתו;
והשלישי סכלות המשיג וקוצר יכולתו להשיג מה שאפשר להשיג.

Now, why am I quoting this? It seems to agree with the CI’s contention that the 13 ikkarim are in contradiction to the “apparent cause and effect” of the world (at least that seems to be how you understand the CI). But there is the rub. The Rambam formulated the ikkarim precisely FOR the masses – in order for them to be able to achieve eternal life in the next world (which according to the Rambam is only achievable through having the correct ideas. The Rambam’s goal was to formulate 13 principles that can be taught to average non-philosophers and readily accepted as a reasonable understanding of the world – and through this, the masses would gain entry to the eternal world.

This goal of the Rambam and his formulation is therefore in direct opposition to the CI’s understanding of the relationship between the ikkarim and our simple perception of the world. It also explains why in the Moreh, the Rambam sometimes seems to contradict his very own formulations in the ikkarim – simply put – in the Moreh, he was writing to a different audience.

You are confusing “reason” with apparent cause and effect. Scientists know better than that.

Wrong. Very wrong. The entire world, Jewish and non-Jewish, would have benefited considerably more if Disraeli had remained Jewish. Both in this world and עולם האמת, your Disraeli stands no chance against the humblest of Jews, in terms of contribution to the advancement of truth and decency, if this Jew is עוסק בתורה ומצות.

The problem with the CI’s perspective on this is that it is in direct contradiction to the view of he who formulated the 13 ikkarim. To the Rambam, the ikkarim must be born from a reason-based view of the world. Further, they could never be in contradition to it.

An even better example would be Benjamin Disraeli. He may have done more for the Jewish people as an irreligious Christian than he ever would have been in position to do as a Jew.

אגרות חזון איש חלק ג סימן סא

כל יסודי האמונה, י”ג העיקרים, והמסתעפים, המה תמיד בסתירה נמרצה עם המושכלות הקלות ושטף החיים המפותחות תחת השמש

“All the fundamentals of faith, the 13 principles, and their derivatives, are always in vigorous contradiction to easily grasped concepts (i.e. “common sense”) and the ebb and flow of life developed under the sun (i.e. “the everyday reality of the real world”).”

It’s almost as if he read your comment and responded.

The gemara in Nidda 70b sees worldly effort as a necessecarry component for success in worldly endeavors. It is a component that must be employed in paralel to prayer. prayer and spritiual pursuits alone are insufficient as the gemara states clearly. Therefore, an attitude that downplays the importance of hishtadlus in favor of tefila seems a bit wrong:

מה יעשה אדם ויחכם אמר להן ירבה בישיבה וימעט בסחורה אמרו הרבה עשו כן ולא הועיל להם אלא יבקשו רחמים ממי שהחכמה שלו שנאמר כי ה’ יתן חכמה מפיו דעת ותבונה תני ר’ חייא משל למלך בשר ודם שעשה סעודה לעבדיו ומשגר לאוהביו ממה שלפניו מאי קמ”ל דהא בלא הא לא סגיא מה יעשה אדם ויתעשר אמר להן ירבה בסחורה וישא ויתן באמונה אמרו לו הרבה עשו כן ולא הועילו אלא יבקש רחמים ממי שהעושר שלו שנאמר לי הכסף ולי הזהב מאי קמ”ל דהא בלא הא לא סגי מה יעשה אדם ויהיו לו בנים זכרים אמר להם ישא אשה ההוגנת לו
ויקדש עצמו בשעת תשמיש אמרו הרבה עשו כן ולא הועילו אלא יבקש רחמים ממי שהבנים שלו שנאמר הנה נחלת ה’ בנים שכר פרי הבטן מאי קא משמע לן דהא בלא הא לא סגי

You are in good company. Rabbi Avigdor Miller said: Common sense is not so common.

Raymond, just like you, I don’t mean to be disrespectful of you, but I don’t agree with the substance of your comment. No question, self defense is a mitzva, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that the IDF and the Mossad will tilt the balance, notwithstanding their bravery, ingenuity, military genius, superior manpower, technology, etc. etc. Our strength and destiny do not rest in military power. הקול קול יעקב. Our strength is in our prayers and learning, in knowing our purpose in this world and exerting ourselves to fulfill that purpose. That’s the way we have been programmed from the beginning of our history. When we excel in these endeavors, the savages of the world stand no chance against us, notwithstanding their savagery, money, oil, and the encouragement they get from the entire world.

Being religious does not make one iota of impact on how the antisemites of this world relate to us. In fact, the very opposite may be true: my understanding of the Holocaust is that while the nazis aim was to murder all Jews, that they focused more of their efforts on Rabbis and similarly righteous members of the Jewish community.

I think of the Jewish ideal of the ultimate way for a Jew to represent him/herself worthy of being one of G-d’s Chosen People, to be somebody who combines wisdom/intellectual brilliance, with kindness and compassion. In other words, the ideal Jew has both a fine mind and a good heart. He or she is a gentle soul. His name may even be Aryeh Levin.

This is a wonderful goal to strive for, especially if we live amongst ourselves in a civilized world. But the antisemites of this world do not really give us such a choice. On the contrary, savages such as the islamofascists and the nazis and crusaders before them, take such subtle gentleness as a sign of weakness, as something that can be easily attacked. The nicer we are, the more aggressive they get toward us. Only when we fight back, when we have the military genius and strength of the Israeli Defense Force and the Mossad, do our enemies ever show any signs of shrinking back in fear.

Because we live in such an uncivilized world filled with rotten excuses for human beings, our ideal must instead by that of King David, who was both a sensitive soul who wrote most of the Psalms, and yet was a mighty military warrior.