THE SLIFKIN AFFAIR – ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES
By Rabbi Aharon
Feldman
Probably
the public issue most damaging to the honor of Torah and to its leaders in recent
memory is what is known as the Slifkin affair. Rabbi Nosson Slifskin, a
talented young man still in his twenties, wrote three books in the past several
years in which he attempted to justify certain conflicts between the findings
of modern science and parts of the Torah and the Talmud. The author is a fully
observant chareidi Torah Jew whose intent was clearly leshem shomayim
(for the sake of Heaven), to defend the honor of the Torah. Nevertheless,
in September of last year a public letter banning the books was issued by some
of the leading Torah authorities in Israel, and then shortly afterwards a similar
ban, signed by many prominent American Roshey Yeshiva, was issued in the United
States. The books were banned because they were deemed to contain ideas antithetical
to Torah, and therefore forbidden to read because of the Torah commandment, לא תתורו אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם (“You shall not stray
after your hearts and after your eyes”) which forbids tempting oneself with matters
which might turn one away from the Torah.
The ban was
met with resistance by Slifkin who vigorously defended himself on his Internet
site on several grounds. First, he argued that there was nothing heretical in
his books; his views were based on opinions already offered in the past by the greatest
authorities in Jewish history. The ban was based, he claimed, on excerpts of
the book taken out of context by extremists who manipulated the signatories,
many of whom do not read English, into signing against them. Secondly, the ban
was unjustifiably personally cruel to him: it damaged his reputation and caused
him to lose his job as a teacher of newcomers to Judaism. Finally, he portrayed
the dispute as pro- or anti-science, with himself as a champion of truth and
his detractors as uneducated deniers of the discoveries of modern science.
Slifkin’s campaign
was eminently successful. In short time, most people were convinced that the
ban had no basis or reason, and that Slifkin had been unwarrantedly victimized.
His campaign made the signatories appear easily swayed and naive. Easily
swayed, because they had relied on the “extremists” and had not sufficiently checked
the accuracy of their claims. Naïve, because the tumult over the ban catapulted
the books into best-sellerdom. The books had been previously virtually unknown but
after the ban began selling by the thousands even at inflated prices – which meant
that the ban accomplished nothing.
Blogspots,
Internet sites (mostly anonymous) where anyone with access to a computer can
express his spontaneous, unchecked and unedited opinion with impunity, became
filled with tasteless, derogatory attacks on these authorities, at times to the
accompaniment of vulgar caricatures.
As a
result, many thoughtful, observant Jews were beset by a crisis of confidence in
the judgment of the signatories. This was an extremely vital crisis since these
authorities constitute some of the greatest Torah leaders of our generation, authorities
upon whom all of the Jewish people rely for their most serious decisions. More
important, it threatened to make any of their future signatures on public
announcements questionable. The irony of it all is that the books, which had
originally been written to defend the honor of Torah, became one of the most potent
vehicles in our times for weakening the authority of Torah.
Since very
few matters could be more serious, it is important to examine the issues of this
affair and to render them in their proper perspective.
To attain
this perspective, the foremost question to be addressed is: do the books
contain anything which is antithetical to Torah - in which case the ban was
justified, or do they not – in which case the signatories committed a grievous
error.
If the books
are forbidden and the ban is justified, then the other issues become secondary.
The rabbis were asked if the book is permitted to be held in a Jewish home and
were obligated to respond, as they are on any other halachic question. Their
intention was not to halt the sales of the books, and it was not their concern if,
as a result of their ruling, the book would sell more copies. If a rabbi is
asked if a certain product is kosher, he is obligated to rule accordingly even
if knows that there will be those who will rush out to buy the product for the thrill
of eating something forbidden. Also, as unfortunate as is the loss of
employment of the author, if his world-view on Torah is incorrect this would
indeed disqualify him from teaching newcomers to Judaism.
There are
two problematic theses in Slifkin’s books which brought about the ban. These
are: a) his approach to cosmology (the creation of the world), and b) his
approach to the credibility of the Sages. Each of these need to be examined
separately.
THE COSMOLOGY ISSUE
Most scientists believe that the world is 15 billion years
old, and that the human species evolved from lower life forms. The Torah says
that it is less than 6000 years and that man was created individually at the
end of Creation.
It is quite
obvious that the world appears older than 6000 years. One needs only look up
to the sky and see stars billions of light years away for evidence of this. On
the other hand, for a Torah Jew, because his ancestors experienced a revelation
by G-d of Torah at Mount Sinai and the Jewish People bears an unbroken
tradition of that revelation, there is no doubt that the Torah is true. If so,
the appearances which make the world seem older must have some explanation.
In truth, explanations
are elusive. Creation does not follow the laws of nature. According to natural
law nothing can come into existence ex nihilo; therefore by its very definition
creation is an act which defies the laws of nature. The apparent age of the
universe is based on observations made after the laws of nature came into
being, and applying these observations to nature as it existed during the days
of Creation is therefore illogical; for perhaps during Creation time passed at
a greater speed, or perhaps natural reactions proceeded at a faster pace.
In spite of
these considerations, several explanations have been offered by the great
commentaries of the previous generations. Basing themselves on Midrashim which
say that G-d created many worlds before ours and destroyed them, some say that
the earth upon which these worlds were built was not destroyed. Accordingly,
the world is as old as the first world created while the six days of creation of
the Torah refer to our present world. Along the same lines, sources in Kabbala
state there are seven cycles in creation and that we are in the third cycle or,
some say, in the fifth. Leshem Shevo VeAchlama, basing
himself on Kabbala, states (without addressing the issue of the
age of universe) that each of the 24 “hours” of the day during the days of
Creation was at least a thousand times the length of present day hours. In
fact, he says, longer “hours” continued, albeit at a reduced pace, until the Generation
of the Mabbul (Flood). Still others have explained that though there
were 24 of our present day hours in each day, but that time flowed at a
different, more compressed speed during the days of creation; in other words
more events occurred during the course of a day even though a day lasted from the
light of one day to that of the next. According
to all these explanations, the world could appear to be vastly old and yet would
still not be older than the age which the Torah gives it. All of these
interpretations do not distort in any way the plain meaning of the Torah.
Slifkin has
a totally different explanation. Rather than saying that the six days of
creation were literal days, i.e. periods of time extending from the beginning
of one day to the next, which is the position of the above explanations and of virtually
every commentary on Torah, he posits that they refer to actual 15 billion literal
years during which the world evolved from the first Big Bang until the creation
of man. The six days of creation, explains Slifkin, do not refer to the real
world but are concepts of creation which existed in G-d’s mind. Accordingly,
there were no six separate acts of creation, as the Torah teaches, but a
seamless evolution put into action at the first moment of Creation, a single
act which expressed six Divine concepts.
In support
of this he cites the Ramban’s statement that all matter was created from an
original matter called hyle (hiyuli). This,
however, has no bearing on the issue: the Ramban never said that there were no
other acts of creation after the creation of the hyle; only that the hyle
was the material with which the rest of Creation was formed, each on its own
day.
Another
source given for his theory of Creation is a cryptic statement by Rav E. E. Dessler,
cited by Slifkin at least twice, that before man was created the idea of time was
meaningless and the idea of “days” is simply man’s way of perceiving this pre-human
“time”. Slifkin
implies from this his theory that the days did not really occur in the real
world. But Rav
Dessler is not saying this. All Rav Dessler is saying is that humans perceive
the “time” of Creation as “days.” He makes no mention of the days as being
Divine concepts.
Furthermore,
says Slifkin, although the Torah relates that vegetation came before the luminaries
(on the third and fourth days, respectively) and birds came before animals (on the
fifth and sixth days, respectively), the actual order of creation follows the
view of current scientific opinion, that the luminaries preceded vegetation and
that animals preceded birds.
Slifkin explains that the Torah refers to G-d’s conceptual plan of creation,
not to its actualization. In reality the luminaries and the birds came first;
conceptually, in G-d’s mind, the order was reversed.
To explain
G-d’s mind, Slifkin suggests that birds and fish are more spiritual than
animals since they “fly” through their media of locomotion, and also their
habitats are blue (the sky and the sea) which is a more spiritual color. He
does not explain why vegetation is more spiritual than the luminaries.
In support
of this theory that the actual order of creation did not follow the order
written in the Torah, Slifkin applies the principle, Eyn mukdam u-me’uchar
batorah – “The Torah does not follow a chronological order.” This
application borders on the absurd. The Talmud employs this principle only to explain
why two separate portions of the Torah do not have to follow a chronological
order. In
no way can it be employed to uproot the plain meaning of the verses which
explicitly give a specific order for creation.
Slifkin
goes on to posit that the Theory of Evolution in one form or another is a fact –
only mentioning in passing those eminent scientists who have discredited this
theory because the discovery of the DNA molecule make it statistically
impossible. According
to Slifkin, when the Torah says that man was created, it means that the human
species evolved until a certain point in time when this species was invested with
a Divine spark which made it “human” in our sense of the word. He
does not explain why the first woman, who presumably evolved together with man,
had to taken from his side, as the Torah teaches us she was.
These cosmological
explanations have no basis in any commentary or Midrash and clearly violate the
plain meaning of the Torah. Like the famous archer who painted the targets
after the arrows landed and thereby ensured himself a perfect bulls-eye each
time, Slifkin uses questionable sources as proofs for his a priori
belief that the theories of modern science which he cites are indisputable
fact.
Interpretations
which have no basis in the Written or Oral Torah and which contradict the
tradition of the Midrashim and the commentaries are perversions of Torah ideas and
may be classified as megaleh panim baTorah shelo ke-halacha (distorted
interpretations of the Torah) which are forbidden to study. Even if the Torah
authorities who signed the ban based their ruling on excerpts which were
translated before them, it would therefore appear that they were not misled. They were perfectly justified in terming his
views inauthentic interpretations of Torah.
We will now
turn to the second problem in Slifkin’s books, his view regarding the
credibility of the Sages.
THE CREDIBILITY OF
THE SAGES
There are many
places in the Talmud where statements made by the Sages seem to contradict
modern science. The most common are the cures and potions which the Talmud
gives for various diseases. Our great halachic authorities have noted the
phenomenon that these cures, in the vast majority of cases, do not seem to cure
illnesses in our times.
The most
widespread explanation offered for this is nishtanu hatevaim, “nature
has changed” - cures that worked in the times of the Talmud are no longer
effective. There are
many examples of illnesses and cures, which because of environmental and
nutritional differences and physical changes to the body over the years are no
longer effective. Another explanation is that we cannot reproduce these cures,
either because the definitions or the amounts of the ingredient of these cures are
unspecified in the Talmud. It has
also been suggested that the cures had their effect on the inner, spiritual
level of the affected person, and therefore were effective only for the people
of the era of the Sages who were on a higher spiritual level than nowadays but
not for later generations when increased physicality did not permit the cures
to take effect..
Against
these explanations, there is another opinion which Slifkin uses explicitly and
implicitly in his books. This theory goes as follows. The Sages based their
wisdom on the medical knowledge of their times. This would seem perfectly legitimate,
for why should they not rely on the experts of their time on issues not
directly addressed by the Written or the Oral Law? Therefore, when subsequently
medicine indicates that these cures are ineffectual, there would be nothing
disrespectful in asserting that the scientific knowledge of antiquity available
to the Sages was flawed..
This
approach is mentioned by many eminent authorities in Jewish history. Rav
Sherira Gaon mentions
it with respect to cures. R. Avraham, son of the Rambam, mentions it with
respect to all science and the Rambam with respect to astronomy.
Pachad Yizchok says
that statements in the Talmud which seem to uphold spontaneous generation are
incorrect, even though we do not change any laws based on their words. Rav
Shamshon Refael Hirsch applies this argument to animals mentioned in the Talmud
which do not seem to exist nowadays. Finally, a conversation with R. Eliyahu
Eliezer Dessler recorded by Rabbi Aryeh
Carmel indicates a somewhat similar approach.
This
approach (henceforth, that of R. Avraham) is used often by Slifkin to explain many
difficulties he has with the Sages’ statements. With
it he explains why we have no record of certain animals mentioned in the
Talmud, and why certain rules of the Sages regarding animals seem to have
exceptions. Because they based themselves on the information available at their
time, they simply made a mistake.
This theory,
more than the first, has caused the most misunderstanding. How could Slifkin be
faulted for espousing a view stated by giants of previous generations?
The answer to this question is that although
these giants did indeed espouse this view, it is a minority opinion which has
been rejected by most authorities since then.
In Lev
Avraham Dr. Abraham Abraham-Sofer, discusses
why the cures mentioned in the Talmud should not be relied upon in actual
practice. As above, he explains that either a) the cures worked for the Sages
but not for us; or b) following R. Avraham, that the Sages erred when they
thought that these cures work. In a note to a later edition of this work, the
world famous authority R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach asked to add the following
comment: “The principal explanation is the other views; that which is written
“when the Sages spoke etc.” [R.. Avraham’s view], should be mentioned in the
name of yesh omrim.” This
means that the view of R. Avraham is a minority opinion which only “some say.”
Ten years
later, a scholar, about
to publish a book on the topic of Torah and health, asked R. Shlomo Zalman how
an opinion held by such giants of Jewish history be relegated to the position
of yesh omrim? Rav Auerbach responded in a letter stating that he
did not remember his sources (it was ten years later), but he believes one source
to be that it is the accepted opinion of poskim that we rely on the
medical opinion of the Sages to violate Shabbos even though according to modern
medical opinion the cures are ineffectual and we are violating Shabbos
unnecessarily. Thus, for practical purposes we reject the view of R. Avraham.
There
are other sources that this opinion is only one which “some say.” In countless
places where the commentaries, whether Rishonim or Acharonim
(Early or Later Authorties), are faced with a contradiction between the
science of their times and a statement of the Sages, they commonly apply the
principle, nishtanu hateva’im (“nature has changed”). Had
they held R. Avraham’s view, they would have simply explained that the Sages
erred in following whatever was the medical or scientific opinion of their
times.
The Rivash, the Rashba
and
the Maharal write, as
well, that it is forbidden to say that the Sages erred in matters of science.
Leshem
Shevo Ve-achlama writes:
The main thing is: everyone who is called a Jew is
obligated to believe with complete faith that everything found in the words of
the Sages whether in halachos or agados of the Talmud or in the
Midrashim, are all the words of the Living God, for everything which they said
is with the spirit of God which spoke within them, and “the secret of God is
given to those who fear Him (סוד ה' ליראיו).”
This is just as we find in Sanhedrin 48b that even regarding something which
has no application to Halacha and practical behavior, the Talmud asks regarding
[the Sage] Rav Nachman, “How did he know this?” and the reply given is [that he
knew this because] “The secret from God is given to those who fear him….”
The Chazon Ish, considered by many to
be the posek acharon (final Torah authority) for our times, writes in
his “Letters” that “our tradition”
is that the shechita of someone who denies the truth of the Sages whether
in the Halacha or Aggada (the non-halachic parts) of the Talmud is disqualified
just as is someone who is a heretic. He adds that experience has shown that those
who begin questioning the truth of the Sages will ultimately lose their future generations
to Torah.
Why does mainstream
opinion reject R.Avraham’s opinion? This is not because they considered the
Sages greater scientists than their modern counterparts. Rather, they believed
that, unlike R. Avraham’s view, the source of all the knowledge of the
Sages is either from Sinaitic tradition (received at the Giving of the Torah)
or from Divine inspiration. That they were in contact with such sources in
undeniable. How else could we explain numerous examples where the Sages had
scientific information which no scientist of their time had? How were they so
precise in their calculations of the New Moon? How did they know that
hemophilia is transmitted by the mother’s DNA, a fact discovered relatively
recently? How did they
know that “a drop exudes from the brain and develops into semen” without
having known that the pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain, emits
a hormone which controls the production
of semen. None of this could have been discovered by experimentation Either
they had a tradition directly teaching them these facts, or they knew them by
applying principles which were part of the Oral Torah regarding the inner
workings of the world. Thus they knew the precise cycle of the moon; they knew that
there was a relationship between the coagulation of blood and motherhood; and they
knew that there was a relationship between the brain and male reproduction.
Furthermore,
the Talmud is not a mere compilation of the sayings of wise men; it is the sum
total of Torah- she-be-al-peh, the
Oral Torah which is the interpretation of the Written Torah. It is, then, the
word of G-d, for which reason we are required to make a birchas hatorah (a
blessing) before we study it, which we do not make before studying other
wisdoms. As the Leshem cited above says, if even regarding matters which are not
related to halacha, the Sages say, sod Hashem liyerav, “G-d reveals the
secrets of nature to those who fear him,” then certainly there must have been siyata
dishmaya (Divine assistance) and even ruach hakodesh (a Divine
spirit) assisting the Sages in their redaction of the Oral Law. It is therefore
inconceivable, to these opinions, that G-d would have permitted falsities to
have been transmitted as Torah She-be-al-peh and not have revealed His
secrets to those who fear Him.
One of the
most powerful reasons why R. Avraham’s opinion was rejected by most opinions,
is the introduction of the wisdom of Kabbalah of the Ari Zal in the sixteenth
century. This cast the Sages in another dimension. Before then, many
authorities had held that the esoteric wisdom described in the Talmud as Ma’aseh Breyshis and Ma’aseh
Hamerkava was science and philosophy. After the introduction of Kabbalah it
became clear that these were the Sefer HaYetzira, the Zohar and the Tikkunim. This was accepted by the overwhelming majority
of Torah scholars since then. Kabbala made it clear that when the Sages
spoke, they based themselves on their knowledge of the mysteries of creation. This
would give them an accurate knowledge of matters of natural science as well.
In any event, R. Avraham’s opinion is a
minority opinion, one of many which have fallen by the wayside in the course of
the centuries and which we do no longer follow. Thus, on the issue of the credibility
of the Sages as well, the signatories to the ban were correct in terming
Slifkin’s books as perversions of the correct approach to the Sages’ words.
R. Yosef
Shalom Eliashiv, a signatory to the ban, was asked: if he considers Slifkin’s approach
wrong how could so many earlier authorities have held it? He answered: “They
were permitted to hold this opinion; we are not.” In
other words, they were authorities in their own right qualified to decide
matters of Jewish law. We are not permitted to do so. We are
enjoined to follow the majority opinion and our tradition as to how we are to
approach Torah.
Can an
individual on his own decide to follow the minority opinion? No more than he is
permitted to do so in any matter of Jewish law and certainly
not in matters which determine our basic approach to Torah she b’al peh
which is the domain of the poskim (recognized decisors of halacha) of
the Jewish people.
What about
the conflicts between science and the Talmud which Slifkin raised? Like all
difficulties in our Torah studies, we are obliged to seek solutions. However,
the solutions have to be within the parameters of the true interpretation of the
Torah and of the proper honor to the Sages. The fact that we are faced with a problem
does not permit us to compromise our obligation as to how to properly approach
Torah. In
the meantime we can be sure of one thing: the answers which Slifkin proposed
are not the right ones.
The opinions expressed here are totally and
exclusively the personal views of the author and do not reflect those of any
body, institution or organization with which he is associated, or those of any
of the signatories - with whom this article was not discussed.
None of these opinions apply this approach to the
words of the Rishonim or Acharonim; only to the Sages. They would
not apply as well to passages in the Sages which are allegorical.
It should be pointed out that the principle, the
majority opinion rules, applies equally to ideas as well as to practical halacha.
Beliefs, besides falling under certain commandments, affect a Jew’s status with
respect to various laws and are therefore also part of practical halacha.