R' Slifkin's defense of Gedolim

I have been having an exchange with Shlomo M [on this post] who asserts that gedolim are not aware that the majority view is that Chazal made mistakes in Science. I have asserted that they are fully aware of these views but have a different understanding of these critical views of Chazal by major rabbinic figures through the ages. Furthermore Shlomo M. assumes that only a "rationalistic" view is identical with truth - which it is not.

Shlomo M. said...

Rav Soloveitchik had no interest in these matters. Rav Kamenetzky was quite naive and probably thought that it was an aberrant (but legitimate) view. The Lubavitcher Rebbe was totally irrational in these things, he said that Rishonim who said that Chazal were mistaken in science, didn't really believe it and wrote it for kiruv! On the other hand, R. Hirsch and R. Herzog z"l, who had expertise in this area, considered that which you call "R. Avraham ben HaRambam's view" to be the normative view.

Who do you mean by "contemporary Gedolim"? Charedim? Even those who are aware of this shittah, don't realize how widespread it was. They are quite unaware of the rationalist school of thought. (The same is probably true for the view that there is no such thing as gilgulim.)

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Daas Torah responded:

In other words you are saying that most if not all contemporary gedolim were totally unaware of these mainstream sources or their ignorance of philosophy prevented them from noticing it. But that R' Slifkin was able to discern that this is in fact the majority view.

Your understanding of gedolim is outrageous. Rav Soleveitchik didn't care?! He wasn't interested in truth!? Rav Yaakov was naive?! the Lubavitcher Rebbe was irrational?? Chas v'shalom. Do you think that Rav Lichenstein would say such a thing or even think it? Does R' Slifkin think that his powers of discernment are greater than all these gedolim?

Thus we are faced with three possibilities. 1) Gedolim don't know how to learn as well as R' Slifkin 2) Gedolim are aware of this view but are afraid to say it because of fear of kanoim 3) there is an alternative way of understanding what these sources mean.

I assume your view is number 1 or 2.

I'll stick with number 3. Obviously gedolim are familiar with these sources but their understanding of them is different than yours.

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I think that additional support for my understanding is contained in an essay of R' Slifkin entitled " In Defense of My Opponents".

"People are certainly entitled to strongly oppose the views of Rambam and any other Torah scholar. This need not be at all at odds with having great respect for Rambam himself. Ramban (Nachmanides) was full of admiration for Rambam, but this did not prevent him from condemning some of Rambam’s ideas in the strongest terms. If a person is entitled to follow Maimonides in adopting his views, why is someone else not entitled to follow Nachmanides in rejecting them? The actual burning of Rambam’s books was a tragedy, but it was not wrong for them to be opposed. It is certainly legitimate for today’s luminaries of the yeshivah world to reject the view of Rambam and others that the Talmud contains errant scientific statements, and to insist upon the absolute infallibility of the Talmud. They may be mistaken in believing in the existence of spontaneously-generating creatures, but they are fully entitled to hold this belief.

Of no less concern to my opponents is that the rationalist approach is not only wrong, but dangerous. In this, they are displaying sensitivity to a very real concern. The zealots who engineered the campaign against my books attained signatures by telling the Gedolim about how my books were causing harm, and about the angelic yeshivah student who read the books, dropped out of yeshivah and went off the derech. As it happens, I investigated the case and discovered that the student in question dropped out of the yeshivah and went to YU! I certainly don’t know of anyone who was harmed by my books, whereas I know of hundreds of people whose faith and Judaism was strengthened by them. But I definitely agree that there are potentially many people who could be harmed by my books. You don’t go into Mea She’arim and start teaching them about dinosaurs and evolution – it will rock the foundations of their world. And if someone has spent his entire life in an insular community, was taught to revere absolutely everything in the Talmud as the word of God, and has no knowledge of science that would lead him to doubt this, it would shake his faith terribly to learn of great Rishonim who said otherwise. Now, I don’t believe that such people ever read any of my books, at least not before they were banned. But I can certainly understand that books which are written by a graduate of mainstream yeshivos and published by a well-known Orthodox publisher, complete with prestigious rabbinic endorsements, can be perceived as targeting such an audience.

Furthermore, the rationalist approach innately involves dangers. It opens a Pandora’s Box; while issues such as evolution and Talmudic science can be resolved, other challenges, such as those from archeology and academic Biblical scholarship, are vastly more problematic. And in the long run, rationalism can have disastrous consequences. As Paul Johnson notes in A History of the Jews, Rambam “laid dangerous eggs which hatched later… he brought a confidence in the compatibility of faith and reason which fitted his own calm and majestic mind but which was in due course to carry Spinoza outside Judaism completely.” Of course, the anti-rationalist approach carries its own dangers – people who have their questions stifled, or who discover that they are being fed false information, will be resentful and rebel – but communities are entitled to choose which risks they wish to deal with.

But even if the Gedolim personally oppose the views of the rationalist Rishonim, don’t they have to respect their right to be taught? Absolutely not. Every community has the right to choose its own educational approach, and to select its own leaders who will make such decisions. The charedi community has the right to choose to submit to the directives of the rabbanim that they consider to be the Gedolim (albeit that there is no basis for asserting that the entire Jewish People is obligated to listen to them). And they have the right to say that they oppose the rationalist school of thought and that they wish to exclude it from the curriculum. When challenged with the question that Rambam’s Guide of the Perplexed contains the same unacceptable views as my books, Rav Elyashiv replied that if someone were to publish a contemporary edition of the Guide that was actually readable, he would equally oppose it. This is a perfectly legitimate and understandable position. In the same way as Rambam had the right to oppose the mystical and superstitious approach that he disapproved of and which was harmful for his community in Egypt, his opponents had the right to oppose his rationalist approach that was unsettling for their communities in France."