Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Derech Tevunot introduction

Paragraph# 1

The yearning for Emes 1 (i.e. curiosity) is a natural inyan 2 in the Nefesh Sichli 3. So natural is this yearning to man, that one cannot find a person of sound mind who doesn't seek to reveal Emes and banish falsehood, to the best of his ability, in the inyanim he happens to be Mashkif 4 upon.
Biur Shemot

1) Emes refers to the membership of a thing in the real world external to us. In order to understand this notion we must liberate ourselves from the notion of "truth" we are accustomed to in our education. The "truth" of education refers to facility in plugging a case into the official general formula we learned in school. We are all familiar with this phenomena in study of "math" and the "sciences". In the the case of derech tevunot, Emes refers to the illumination in the mind of one whose exploration of the observable world has achieved its end of insight. The “end of insight” presupposes true curiosity about something puzzling about some feature or attribute in the real world that triggers a yearning for insight. For example we perceive that the twin towers are knocked down by jets. This triggers real curiosity- why would the twin towers be attacked? The answer to this question, that there exists a mortal idealogical enemy to the US, an enemy so completely convinced of the rightness of his ideology that he must force conformity upon humanity by all possible means including the killing of civilians in the twin towers, is the insight that is the Emes. It is critical to note that while the formula of school are formal and meaningless to us, they were illuminations to the people who discovered them. Gravity is a formality to us, to be plugged into problems in school for no good reason. For Newton, gravity was an illumination resulting from inyanim that he had great curiosity for. Great thinkers are deeply saddened by the "dominion" serving use their beloved insights are put to by school. They seem unable to stop this process however.

2) Inyan primarily refers to a feature or “attribute” of a thing in the real world. Inyan refers secondarily to the semantic meaning of a word that allows us to communicate about these same features or attributes. For example, the actual event of destruction of the twin towers is an inyan in the real world. In semantic terms the words “destruction of twin towers” is a meaning that allows us to communicate about the event on 9/11.
3) Nefesh Sichli is the mind -that by which we know Emes. This mind has the power to utilize the lower tools of the psyche (the nefesh) to attain insight into Emes. This includes observation, using the senses to note inyanim such as destruction of the twin towers in the real world.
4) Being Mashkif is scientific observation, the minds use of the senses to identify inyanim in the real world in service of curiosity. It does not refer to idle use of the senses for appetite.
Biur D'varim


Yedias ha-Emes is an end in its own right, not an instrument of dominion

Questions:

The introduction's characterization of the Soul contradicts our experience in two fundamental regards:

1. Ramchal asserts that “yearning for Emes” is a natural property of the soul to be found in all people. If this were true, surely all students would want a life long education. Yet our experience indicates the exact opposite. Almost all people want no part of education and flee it as soon as they have earned their degrees. Where is the evidence for this foundational principle that "yearning for Emes is a natural inyan in the Nefesh Sichli" ?
2. Ramchal seems to indicate that the Soul yearns for an Emes revealed in ” the inyanim he happens to be mashkif upon"- i.e. observation. This emphasis upon a method rooted in observation seems to be appropriate for people lacking access to an intellectual heritage to build upon- such as Adam ha-rishon or Avraham Avinu. Why would the abnormal method, used by people lacking access to mesorah, be appropriate for post Sinai readers who are beneficiaries of the richest possible intellectual heritage of Moshe Rabbenu?

Answer:

If the objective of school were to nurture the soul's yearning for Emes as an end in its own right, the fact that people flee education would indeed be a contradiction to Ramchal. But is school dedicated to the end of nurturing the Soul's pursuit of Emes? All evidence points to the contrary. In this society the educational system does not see its mission as developing natural curiosity about real things, but rather in maximizing its potential for dominion in the sense of a skilled work force. Because of its false mission, education today thinks nothing of rushing students to facility in disconnected principles for which they had no curiosity. This emphasis upon facility in disconnected principles may produce armies of skilled workers and honor seeking PHD students, but it comes at a horrific price. The Einsteins and Feynman's who retain their delight in seeking Emes in observable phenomena become an extraordinary rarity. The vast majority of students view abstract principles as, at best the ticket to a career and at worst a cynical game whose value exists only in the prison like world of school.
It is therefore precisely outside the world of education that "the yearning for Emes is a natural inyan in the Nefesh Sichli". The fan delights in revealing the coach's theoretical principles-the strategy embedded in the play, not merely observing the play itself. The political junkie delights in his insight into the hidden motivations of the international incident not observing the incident itself on television. The murder mystery reader delights in revealing the theoretical framework of the killer, not the factual depiction of the murder itself. As Ramchal rightly points out, all people yearn to transcend observation into the superior Emes of theoretical principles that are proximate and therefore real and of interest to them.

The Torah world, while certainly shielded from the worst abuses of the general societies educational system, is nonetheless greatly effected. Unlike Western education whose mission utterly subordinates the student's development to dominion, Jewish education retains a real, if sometimes obscured commitment to the end of developing the soul's natural curiosity. There are subsequently a larger proportion of students who view Emes as something to be organically emerging from real world observation. Such students yearn for a reading of Torah instrumental to this organic unfolding. Yet in the Galus environment such a student will feel a disconnect of his Torah study from the observable natural world. How could a Galus Judaism, a pile of dry bones lacking embodiment in its proper political infrastructure, not be so disconnected? It is precisely this sense of disconnection of torah study from observation that had pushed the student to read derech tevunos in the first place. In the absence of a sufficiently vibrant intellectual culture in the Jewish community proper, the intellectual culture of general humanity must be adapted to the task.
It is this path that is pointed to by the Rambam. The allusion to the Adam ha-rishon experience of naming the environment purely in terms of the inyanim of observation speaks powerfully to this Rambamic reader. Only the student pursuing the Rambam's path of Torah study of utilizing the general human path, the path of Adam ha-rishon's naming of the environment, would seek out a work dedicated to connecting Aristotelian logic to Talmud study. The path to resonant organic Emes is precisely what this student has long craved and what Ramchal's introduction promises to deliver. Ramchal's treatment of Torah study as an extension of the original naming process itself, his immediate focus on supplying the method by which to connect the Torah study to the soul's natural interest in naming the observable environment speaks precisely to the educational gap this student has long sensed in his Galus Torah education, but has been unable to surmount.



8 comments:

Yehuda said...

Finally, the day has come.

Matt said...

Rabbi Sacks,

It would be most appreciated (by me, at least) if you could provide the readers of this blog with (a) a brief statement about the subject and purpose of this blog, (b) some background information about Derech Tevunot (I'm sure the Ramchal will discuss this later in the indtroduction, but seeing as how you are going paragraph by paragraph, it may take a while to get there, and I'd like to have SOME general idea about the subject and purpose the sefer before we begin), and (c) why you have selected these particular seforim, out of countless others, to elucidate; perhaps a more pointed formulation of the question would be: "Of what value and relevance are these seforim to me - as a talmid - that I should devote my time and energy to studying them?" Thanks!

Matt said...

Oh, and (d) an explanation of the title of this Blog. Perhaps I am speaking from ignorance, but the title does not intuitively flow from the material covered thus far. Why "Rambam"? What "system"?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said...

A) Provided on the header-lets clarify this as we move along

b) Rambam, as well as all the Philosophical Rishonim,views talmud torah and all human research as an expression of the souls yearning for a real Chochma existing externally to ourselves . This yearning is accomplished through use of the souls capacity to think. Much like music, sports etc the capacity to think exists both in a sort of intuitive, amateurish form and an expert form. As musical ability is developed by the art of music, the thinking ability is developed by the art of logic. As the trained musician is able to see music through the systematic understanding of the greats of the field, so is the trained logician able to see torah systematically.

This systematic understanding is the Mishne torah's presentation of the subject of the excellent man living life through the taryag mitzvos.

The systematic understanding of the Mishne Torah presupposes two things:
1) A reader trained in logic.
2) A reader who has found the Taryag in Torah shebichtav (see Rambam's intro to Mishne Torah at the end)

These two gaps are filled in by other people.

Ralbag is as far as I know the only meforesh to systematically show the way to applying logic to finding taryag in torah shebichtav


While many works on logic have been written,Ramchals has two distinct advantages
1) It is oriented for a relative beginner.
2) It is specifically oriented to torah study as opposed to general Aristotelian research.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said...

I think I morphed the answer to b,c d together. Tell me if I need to add more clarification.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said...

Heres the end of intro to Mishne Torah courtesy of Mechon Mamre

40 In our times, severe troubles come one after another, and all are in distress; the wisdom of our Torah scholars has disappeared, and the understanding of our discerning men is hidden. Thus, the commentaries, the responses to questions, and the settled laws that the Geonim wrote, which had once seemed clear, have in our times become hard to understand, so that only a few properly understand them. And one hardly needs to mention the Talmud itself--the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Sifra, the Sifre, and the Toseftot--which all require a broad mind, a wise soul, and considerable study, before one can correctly know from them what is forbidden or permitted and the other rules of the Torah.

41 For this reason, I, Moshe son of the Rav Maimon the Sephardi, found that the current situation is unbearable; and so, relying on the help of the Rock blessed be He, I intently studied all these books, for I saw fit to write what can be determined from all of these works in regard to what is forbidden and permitted, and unclean and clean, and the other rules of the Torah: Everything in clear language and terse style, so that the whole Oral Law would become thoroughly known to all; without bringing problems and solutions or differences of view, but rather clear, convincing, and correct statements, in accordance with the legal rules drawn from all of these works and commentaries that have appeared from the time of Our Holy Teacher to the present.

42 This is so that all the rules should be accessible to the small and to the great in the rules of each and every commandment and the rules of the legislations of the Torah scholars and prophets: in short, so that a person should need no other work in the World in the rules of any of the laws of Israel; but that this work might collect the entire Oral Law, including the positive legislations, the customs, and the negative legislations enacted from the time of Moshe Our Teacher until the writing of the Talmud, as the Geonim interpreted it for us in all of the works of commentary they wrote after the Talmud. Thus, I have called this work the [Complete] Restatement of the [Oral] Law (Mishneh Torah),for a person reads the Written Law first and then reads this work, and knows from it the entire Oral Law, without needing to read any other book between them.

Yehuda said...

Great! By the way, there are a couple of punctuation marks missing in the header.

Matt said...

Rabbi Sacks,

Thank you very much. You have answered the four questions to my satisfaction. I look forward to learning these works with you and the others.