Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Anti-Orthodoxy (was Re: O-C-R debate)
From: rivk@quads.uchicago.edu (nora gayle rivkis)
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 22:40:55 GMT
Reply-To: rivk@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Jul27.183841.657891@locus.com> hayim@locus.com (Hayim Hendeles) writes:
>In article <1992Jul25.211027.7040@midway.uchicago.edu> rivk@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>
>>Basic argument I have with Orthodoxy is one I've already stated: who 
>>decides what the Law means. I don't accept Talmud as being handed down
>>directly from G-d, nor do I accept the decisions of rabbis, ancient or
>>modern, as definitive. I accept the results of my own logic as definitive,
>>with all the rest being advice -- maybe very good advice, but only advice,
>>which I can weigh as my judgement dictates and take or leave according to
>>my own reasoning. In a lot of cases, the conclusion I come to is the same
>>as the halachic conclusion; but that's not because I'm "following" hala-
>>cha. I don't *follow* anything.
>
>I have tried to understand your comments from YOUR perspective, but am
>having much difficulty with it. First of all, while I have no doubt you
>are quite intelligent and bright, I suspect that even you will admit
>that you do not know it all, nor are you infallible. So isn't it quite
>presumptuous for you to claim that you have no need to follow
>anything, since your logic is definitive?

No. See below for details.

>After all, the "religious Christians" were following the dictates
>of their logic when they conducted the Inquistion. Why is your
>logic any better then their logic? Or, are you G-d forbid implying,
>that what they did was "correct"?


The problem you are having is that you fail to recognize that the word
"logic" has a meaning. It does not simply refer to the product of who-
ever's thought processes, which are often messed-up beyond belief, pro-
ducing the results you describe. Logic is a mathematical construct for
the analysis of propositions, that will accurately determine whether a
set of ideas is self-contradictory or contradictory to other ideas and
premises, sa well as whether a set of ideas necessarily follows from a
different set. When I referred to "my own logic" I didn't mean "a variety
of thinking that I thought up myself" -- I meant "applying the technique
of symbolic logic to the premises in question myself, and deducing any
contradictions or necessary associations by that method." This is distin-
guished from the method of authority. Example: a kid who memorizes the
multiplication table is relying on authority. A kid who, instead of mem-
orizing the chart that's handed to him, learns the mathematical technique
of multiplication and applies it, doing the math himself on each problem
he sees, is relying on logic.

[I inadvertently deleted a line, referring to the Jews for J*]
>will support their philosophy. If you ever want to take the time
>to talk to them, G-d forbid, they will be happy to give you hours and
>hours of "logic" proving that what they are doing is proper.
>Erego, by your logic, this is "Judaism".

I've talked to them. They are not applying logic; they are applying
faulty mechanisms, the same as if you tried to multiply by adding ten
to both sides instead of by taking one of the numbers a repeated number
of times determined by the other number. The GIGO effect applies here
in spades: if you use incorrect math, of course you're going to get results
that are trash.

>In fact, why stop at Jews for J*? Christian missionaries have been
>applying their logic for years, proving that their philosophy
>is the correct one. Therefore, they must be "Jewish" also, by your
>logic.

Okay, first of all, I think the supposed logic of most Christians is also
faulty by technical principles, and have proven it so to them on a number
of occasions by translating into semantical symbology and back out again
after analysis. Doesn't change their minds; they go on faith, which is
one of the main objections I have to Christianity. However you're also
raising a different question here: not just what is accurate, but what
is Jewish.

Logic is a tool. Like all tools, you have to apply it to something. If
you use pure logic and no premises you can get as far as Descartes' Theorem
and that's about it. And premises can be anything -- this is where you
get the remainder of the Christians, and why I part company with them.
Their base assumptions are things I find to range from vicious to silly
to merely highly improbable.

Choosing one's premises is a trick in itself. I mostly go by a couple of
rules-of-thumb already mentioned (Occam's Razor and the like; Humian
skepticism; my own sensory perception, a few other things) to try and
pick the ones that seem most probably true. This is always a risky
business; as most of the pure skeptics have demonstrated, probability
is a highly subjective concept, but there's no alternative, so I do my
best, as you do, as everyone does. I suspect you and I have different
opinions on what base premises are probable, but not as far different
as, for example, eithe rof us have from the Christians.

I define my premises as Jewish ones in that I accept as starting axioms
that G-d exists, that Written Torah is G-d's word, and that the Jewish
people have committed themselves to obeying it. From there, anything I
am to accept has to either follow logically from one or another of those
without contradiction and without undue leaps of reasoning, or has to
follow from some of my other, nonreligious base premises (there are, of
necessity, a lot of them; even the concept that the world you see with
your eyes really exists is an axiom) while avoiding contradicting those
premises. 

>You have previously identified yourself
>strongly with the Reform movement. After everything is said and done,
>even the official Reform movement does take a stand on some issues.
>It is certainly conceivable (at least in theory) that their official
>position may differ from offical "Nora Gayle Rivkis-ian" philosophy.
>Therefore, you should have the same abhorrence to Reform as you do
>to Orthodoxy. Yet, you did imply in a previous post you would
>consider sending your children to a Reform school. Is this not
>self-contradictory?

Please don't call it a "Reform school" -- it conjures up images of
juvenile prisons. :-)

Okay; I've answered much of this one by explaining that, by 'my logic'
I mean my application of standard mathematical logic, not whatever-I-
may-happen-to-feel-like. For the rest:

My objection to Orthodox Judaism is the reliance on authority rather
than on logical reasoning. The Reform movement, while there are plenty
of areas in which I disagree with it, recognizes the value of logic as
a deductive tool (as does Talmudic Judaism, but it's something all too
many of the Orthodox have forgotten about) and teaches students to use
it as a way of determining accuracy and extrapolation in the study of
Jewish Law. It's not the Reform movement's results that makes me accept
them, but their methods.

>Furthermore, according to your philosophy, there can be no such thing
>as Judaism. Assume there are 20 million Jews in the world (for the sake
>of argument), if every Jew were to adopt "Nora Gayle Rivkis-ian"
>philosophy, there would be 20 million opinions as to what is "correct"
>--- I think even you will agree that not everyone thinks the way you
>do.  With 20 million different variations of Judaism floating qround,
>one for every Jew in the world, how can there be anything such as
>Judaism?

By a joint agreement on premises and method. Of course there will be
individual varioation, but isn't there individual variation now? If not,
where did the line that if you get two Jews together you have three opinions
come from? We can share some, but not all, of our conclusions and still
be a nation and a family.

>In conclusion, it was human logic that brought upon us the Inquisition,
>Nazisim, and hosts of other evils. 

My Truth by Blatant Assertion meter just broke from input overload!!
Where in the h--- did you get *that* little concept? Back it up or drop
it, please -- *now*.

>In view of the deplorable record of
>the application of human logic throughout history, I find it
>inconceivable that G-d to have given us (in some shape or form,
>depending on your O-C-R viewpoint) a set of Laws, and left it up to our
>logic alone - without any guidelines - as to what to do with them.

Symbolic method *is* a set of guidelines -- it insures that you cannot
read into the law what was not in it in the first place. Seems like a
pretty good way of avoiding the worse evils of human history to me --
provided that the premises, the thing you're analysing (in this case,
the Law) is worthwhile to begin with -- which is an axiom that you and
I hold in common.

>Hayim Hendeles

	-Nora