Music. Thank you for joining the
Judaism Demystified podcast. We're honored to have Doctor
Roslyn Weiss with us. Can you give us a a little bit
of a brief overview on the Rishon Haste Crescas we are
doing this series? This is the second episode in
the series of getting to know the Rishonim.
And before you even get into that, we would like to know a
little bit about you and your book.
So please take it away. OK.
Thank you very much for having me.
I feel quite honored to be here. I've looked at the list of
distinguished guests you've had and I, I feel very flattered to
be among them. Our pleasure.
Thank you. So I'll tell you a little bit
about myself. I'm have have a Modern Orthodox
background. I'm going to Yeshiva Flatbush
High School. That's where I learned my Hebrew
that I still rely on today. I could never have translated
this light of the Lord had I not gone to Yeshiva Flatbush High
School. That's all I can say.
That was also my first introduction to Jewish
philosophy. So I I have yet another debt to
Yeshiva Flatbush and Doctor Joel Wallowski, who was my math
teacher but nevertheless also taught Jewish philosophy.
I I went to Brooklyn College as an undergraduate.
My parents wouldn't let me leave home.
So I went to Brooklyn College as an undergraduate and after after
college, I went to Columbia, got my PhD at Columbia.
My field was Plato and for most of my career I wrote about
Plato. I have four books on Plato. 1/5
coming out in July. We.
Might have to have you on for. That though I'm a big I'm.
A big Plato fan. Yeah, Plato, right.
I will check those out. Yeah, if I couldn't, if I
couldn't do Jewish studies, which is just not a field when I
was an undergraduate, you know, I'm just glad that I ended up
doing Plato. He's just, he's been a
wonderful, a wonderful companion my whole life also.
And I think the only really interesting thing about my
biography is that after I got a PHDI went back to school and sat
on the other end of the teacher's desk and got a
master's in Jewish studies from Baltimore, Hebron University.
And that gave me some sense of, of Jewish philosophy in greater
depth. And I began teaching Jewish
philosophy and writing about Jewish philosophy alongside my
interest in Plato. OK, so I think that's enough
about me. So I would go on and tell you a
little bit about Crescas. He had a very important life,
very, very important contributions.
He was born in 1340 in Barcelona to a a very distinguished family
of rabbis and merchants, and he attended a a kind of modern
yeshiva where he studied not only the typical Tanakh and and
Talmud, but he also studied science and philosophy and
Kabbalah. He this his, his, it was the
Shiva of the run and his good friends were Ribos and Rashbots,
you know. So he had very distinguished
friends and he was the teacher of the very famous Halachus
Joseph Albo. He had a, an interesting life.
He was arrested at one point with with his friends and it was
a trumped up charge. I read somewhere that it was the
Jewish community that that started it but I'm not sure and
it was eventually. He was eventually released with
his friends. After the death of Pedro the 4th
and the ascent of Juan the first of Aragon, he was invited to
move to Saragosa and he was appointed Chief Rabbi by by this
Juan the 1st and his his wife violent debar.
They were supporters of culture of, of the arts sciences and
they revered him and they, they appointed him to this very
important position and he lived there the rest of his life in
Zaragoza. He had a hard life in in that he
experienced the the horrific program of 1391 and he wrote
about it. So among the things that he
wrote was a letter to the Jews of Avignon right after the
horrible pogrom. And it's very important
document. It documents all the cities that
were affected by the pogrom. It documents how many people
converted, how many people were were killed Al Qedushashim were
were martyred for the sake of of God's name.
He tells us that it was the intellectuals who were the first
to convert rather than die, to choose conversion over death
because they believe that the way to God is through the
intellect. So how important could it be of
which religion you adhere to? So that that was a a kind of
shocking and and frightening thing that that I read in that
letter. He also tells about the the
giants of Talmud, the the great Rabbis, the Cedars of Lebanon,
as he called them, who adhere to the faith and and met their
death. Women in particular were were
martyred, chose to die rather than to convert in several of
the cities. And tragically, he lost his only
son. His his patrons, the Juan the
1st and the Alante bar were able to protect the Jews of Saragosa,
but they were not able to protect the Jews of other
cities. And his son who lived in
Barcelona at the time he was killed.
So this was a tragic event of his life.
So that was the first thing that he wrote was, was this this
letter to the the Jews of Avignon telling them about
chronicling really this horrific pogrom.
It was a terrible time. They had those who converted to
Christianity were vicious in in their anti-Semitism.
There was a horrible Christian preacher named Ferran Martinez,
who was like the father Cochran of our of the 1930s.
I mean, just somebody vicious and it was a terrible time.
What can I say? So after after that and and the
death of his son, he wrote several other books.
Well, actually three other books.
One was in 1398, he wrote a book called A Refutation of the
Christian Principles. That's an interesting book
because it was the only thing he wrote in Catalan instead of in
Hebrew. And it seems therefore, that he
was addressing people whose Hebrew was weak or non existent,
probably those who converted rather than rather than dying in
the pogrom. And he was trying to bring them
back. And he wrote in Catalan.
It was translated into Hebrew not long after, but the person
who translated also put a lot of his own thoughts into it.
So we're not exactly sure how much of it is is actually
Crescas and how much is this Joseph Ibincento's work.
The next thing that he wrote is something that we didn't even
know was his until the 1980s. It's it's we, we call it the
Passover sermon, though it it doesn't have a title per SE, and
it's the only halachic work we have of crescas.
It's about Pesach. It's about the beginning of the
book of the beginning of this work is about miracles.
How persuasive are miracles, what kinds of miracles, the
relationship between Pesach and Shavuot.
It's a very, very interesting book.
And the second part of it is the halachic part.
And Crescas believed that before you talk about halacha, you have
to you have to talk about theory.
There has to be understanding that precedes, precedes the
action. So, so it's a very nice book.
It's in two parts. And we know that he was a great
halachist and that he answered response, you know, he wrote
responsa to the Jews of Spain at least.
But we don't have any of that surviving.
We know from Joseph Alba who talks about things that he had
learned from Crescas who was his teacher and his his major work
is of course, Light of the Lord, which he wrote towards the end
of his life. He died in 1410 or 1411 and he
wrote it over many years. There are changes that you can
detect as you read the book. You know, this was written later
or earlier. It's a little bit out of order
possibly. And it's it's just an incredible
book. It was meant to be the first
part of A2 volume work, but the second volume was never written.
And the second volume was supposed to be an improvement on
on the Rambam's mission of Torah.
The way this was this first part, Light of the Lord was
supposed to be an improvement on the Maimonides Guide.
So yes. So he, but he.
Set out to write a law code. Yes.
Wow. Yeah.
So he set out, he, he wanted to write, he had many objections to
the Mishnah Torah. He, he thought Maimonides should
have cited his sources, that he should have also cited the
disagreements between the, the, his, the authorities, the, the
sages in the Tomlin, which he didn't do.
And most importantly, he didn't give us principles.
He gave us a sock, but he didn't give us the principle behind
them sock. So one doesn't know in a new
case what to do. One only knows what to do in
this particular case. And from Crescas's point of
view, the the mission Toro is finite, yet the details of
halacha are infinite. So what we need is principles
and not up sock right which? He wouldn't have considered, he
wouldn't have considered the shirashim of the Seifa mitzvot
as a sort of principles. No, but he's, he's was looking
for halachic principles and his principles that you could apply
to new halachic cases that arise.
Specifically with new halacha. Right, So we, we didn't get his
reasoning wasn't clear like, so we, we don't know how to think
about the case, a new case that would arise.
And if someone would disagree with him, we wouldn't know on
what basis to choose what he said over what somebody else
said, because we, we didn't understand what was going on
behind it. So unfortunately, he, he never
got to write that second part of, of his book.
He, he died after finishing the light of the Lord.
So that that's an unfortunate occurrence, but light of the
Lord is is just a a masterpiece. I don't think anyone who's
studied it could say anything less about it than that it's a
masterpiece. The English speaking world is
indebted to you greatly because you, you know, took on this big
project and, you know, we, we, we really want to, you know,
revive interest in these important figures who kind of
been lost in history. I'm just curious what initial
what initially drew you to light of the Lord and what challenges
did you face in capturing the philosophical nuances in
English? Right.
So this is, you know, one of these stories where you kind of
fall into something without really having thought it through
adequately. I I when I was a a professor,
when I was teaching, I often took a court courses from other
professors, both to improve my own teaching and just to see how
how else something else the same thing I teach might be taught
and also to learn new things. I took a course with a professor
Daniel Reinhold from from Yu. It was a course on free will and
Jewish thought so sound like a very interesting course.
And I I enjoy taking courses from other people, even as I was
myself. And in that course we came upon
him. But I didn't know much about
him. And this was my first serious
exposure to Hasta Crescas. And what I read about his view
of free will was so astonishing that I thought, wow, you know, I
would really like to teach Kasai Kreskas in my Jewish philosophy
class. So I thought, if, if what he
says about free will is so interesting, he must have
interesting things to say about many other things.
So I tried to find an English translation of Light of the
Lord, and I found out that there is no English translation of
Light of the Lord. There are only bits and pieces
that had been translated. And I check to see if anyone was
working on it. And I found out no one was
working on it, so I foolishly decided that, well, it had to be
done, so I would do it. I say foolishly because I had no
idea what I was getting into. None.
I tell you, I had no idea.
I thought, well, I can read my Farsham, no, So what could be
the big deal? And I found out to my chagrin
that that wasn't sufficient. So, so all I can say is, you
know, as far as rendering this into English, that was the least
of my problems. I really every sentence, every
word was challenging for me. And, but I was determined to do
it and to determine, determined to do it quickly because it had
to be out there, You know, there needed to be a translation of
this work. So I just decided I was going to
do it. I spent only a year, I got it
out. It has errors because I, I
rushed. So if, if anyone is interested
in buying it, I would advise buying the paperback, which is
at least a little bit better than than the original.
And then when when it came out again in the edited volume that
I did of all Crescas works, there are more corrections in
that in that volume. So that might be even better.
When you talk about the difficulty in the translation,
are you, you're not, you're, you're not referring to just
straight up translating words as much as being able to capture
what he's trying to say and and kind of put that in in English
terminology. Right.
So actually there are two problems.
One is figuring out what the heck he's trying to say.
You know which, which wasn't easy.
First of all, you know, medieval philosophical Hebrew vocabulary
is a whole, a whole thing. You think you know what this
word means 'cause you're familiar with the word, but it
means something completely different in medieval
philosophies. So when you're reading it, you
say, well, I know what this means, but this can't be what
it's saying. And then you have to figure out
what this word means meant then, which is different.
Just a, a simple example. This, this really tripped me up.
The word yadua, which we would say isn't means known means
certain, a certain something, a certain something.
That's what yadua means. Well, I didn't know that, so I'm
translating. No, known doesn't make any
sense. So, you know, it involved going
back and then trying to learn really a whole new language.
And once you, you get the words right, then you have to figure
out what, what Crescas is trying to say.
He, he wrote very laconically, very fair, very hard to figure
out. And it was important to me
because I thought he was such a brilliant thinker.
It was important to me to understand what he was saying
and then to render it into English.
And I'm still working on it. It's, you know, it's still not
perfect. Well, we appreciate that you're
putting in so much effort into getting this, like, perfect,
which is amazing. How does his life and historical
context of his work influence the way we should interpret the
light of the Lord? So I think a major a major
influence on his life was the loss of his son.
And I think the the fact that he lost his son caused him to
identify very strongly with Avraham and the Al Qaeda.
And he actually refers to his son as the the, the unblemished
lamb that I sacrificed as a burnt offering.
That's how he refers to his son. So he identifies very strongly
with Avraham. And I think what's very
important to understand is that he thinks that as a result of
the AL Qaida trial, that Abraham's devotion to God, his
love of God, his attachment to God, was enhanced rather than
diminished. And what one feels when one
reads light of the Lord is that this is exactly what happened to
Crescas. The loss of his son, instead of
diminishing his attachment to God, actually increased it.
And that's because the way he understood trials was that
trials are a way in which God brings you closer to him by
putting you through something that has that effect.
OK, so to maybe to make this a little bit more clear, this the
purpose of commandments is also that it that through doing them
through serving God, through caring for God, doing what God
asks, you draw closer to him through a trial, through doing
what God asked, no matter how hard you grow closer to him.
And and this was this was Christmas's experience that he
grew closer to God. When he talks about the
Achaidas, it's really quite interesting that he he talks
about this Attayadati. Now I know that you are your Ray
Elohim, that you are God fearing.
When he talks about Attayadati, what he says is it's not that
God didn't know in advance that. Abraham would succeed.
The whole point of the trial was to get him to do this thing that
would then draw him closer to God.
That was the whole point of the trial.
Every trial is for that purpose. So what does it mean that he
says Attaya dati? I'm I now, now I know.
It's that the level of Urat Hashem, the level of God fearing
this that Abraham achieved as a result of the Al Qaeda was far
greater than the level of God fearing this that he achieved
before. And since he had not achieved
that level until this moment, God could not say, I now know
because it wasn't yet true. OK, so, so at the moment that
that Avraham reached that level, then God could say, now I know
because now it's true that you have reached a level of God
fearing this that you had not reached earlier.
I think, at least for me, the way Crescas feels about God as a
result of this tragic loss that he experienced, it puts me in
mind of of people like Ravi Akiva, who was smiling as his
skin was being flayed by the Romans.
How is that possible? Nobody could understand it.
But he said, now I get to do to love God with all your soul,
right? He he could.
He said, I never was able to do that.
And here I think Kreskas is, is feeling that he's able to love
God in a new way that he wasn't able to love God before.
I also think of Socrates. Socrates was perfectly sanguine
at his at his own execution. How is that possible?
It's possible because what mattered to him was being a just
man. No one could take that from him.
No one had taken it from him, and he was happy.
And what we learned from this is that death is not the worst
thing that can happen to a person.
Death is is another chance to be close to God.
If you believe that after after you die, you and and you've been
exotic in your life, then you you bask in in the shrina.
You know what, what could be better?
And interestingly, in the letter to the Jews of Avignon, Crescas
says, well, I I could quote it. He says ustiq alai hadeen I
accept the justice of of God's judgment, the Edna Haim latouf
helko ulanimat Goralo and I'm consoled by my sons for good
fortune his his good fortune. So you know, Kresgas didn't
think that death was the worst thing.
He didn't think that that suffering was the worst thing.
The worst thing is distance from God.
And if no one has affected your distance from God, if in fact
your distance from God has been reduced, then things are good.
Wow. Yeah.
That is, that's. Crazy.
Yeah. He, he was just, he was really
in, in my view, really, truly, really, truly exotic, really a
righteous person. Wow, he was intense.
He was intense. He was intense, yes.
I mean, he was, he was able, you know, when he talked about
things like reward and punishment, he was able to say
that physical suffering is, is just an illusory bad thing.
You know the the really bad thing is is distance from God.
Incredible. Bensi, you want to take the next
questions? The next sections OK, so we want
to talk about the structure of the book, The Light of the Lord.
Can you elaborate on the organizational structure Crescus
chose for his work and how it serves the development of his
philosophical arguments? OK, so I think it's important to
note that Crescus was very, it mattered, that structure and
clarity mattered a great deal to him, which might be ironic
considering how difficult his work is, but it was clearly very
important to him. So the idea that I already
mentioned about theory preceding practice, you know, those were
important things to him. And one of the things that that
he always insisted on was that when somebody is writing, they
ought to aim at three things. One is that it'd be easy to
understand. Second, that it'd be easy to
remember and, and preserve. So, so those things, those
things were very important to him.
Very important that when somebody writes those things
happen and and those who are reading the work can benefit
from it. So, and this of course was one
of his complaints about Maimonides mission Torah, that
it wasn't well organized. That was one of the things that
troubled him about it. So he really did organize light
of the Lord very well. It was it's very clearly
structured just to give you a basic outline.
He begins with the most fundamental beliefs, beliefs
that are common to all believers in God, existence, unity,
existence of God, His unity and His incorporeality, right?
Those are kind of the basic things.
He goes on to what he calls P note he has 6P note 6
cornerstones that are our Jewish beliefs, OK, and they are three
of them have to do with God, three of them have to do with
man. But such things as God's
knowledge, God's power, prophecy is one of them.
A choice, a free will is one of them.
So those are are very fundamental and he he has an
interesting way of characterizing them.
They are the truths without which there could be no Torah.
Then he goes on. So they're axioms.
They're axioms, right? They're axioms to the Torah,
right? Without them, there could be no
Torah. He goes on to beliefs that are
true and that one must embrace, otherwise one is a heretic.
But they don't rise to the level of there could be no Torah
without them. OK.
And he's got a lot of those. And finally, he's got things
that are a little doubtful where he tries to do his best to think
what the rabbis and, and our tradition would say about them,
as well as what philosophy would say.
In each of in each of these areas, he talks about what other
people say. He shows what's right and what's
wrong about them. And then he presents his own
view. It's very methodical and and
quite quite easy to follow. You know, when the first part
you were mentioning how he doesn't like how Maimonides
wasn't very structured in the writing of the Mora.
It is a little bit surprising to me.
I wonder because even in the introduction the Rambam kind of,
you know, shows his cards here that by design he's doing it
like that. Yeah, so I I'm sorry, maybe I
wasn't clear, but in the mission of Torah, he was complaining
about the mission of Torah and its structure.
I don't know, but but right now with or or a sham because in the
Mora you were saying how the ideas weren't was so you meant
you meant. No so so in his introduction to
Light of the Lord, he's the introduction is really the
introduction to the bigger work, the second volume of which he
didn't write and his complaints are about are about the mission.
Oh OK OK OK OK. I thought I heard more in a book
from the beginning so that a little bit surprised me.
OK sorry about that, my bad. OK so actually getting into more
and it will come now. What ways would you say that?
Chase Crescas caste Crescas's work deviates from other
medieval philosophical works, such as, of course, Morine
Vuhim. And What significance do these
differences hold to their respective intended audiences?
So I would say that it's it's fair to say about the medievals
generally that truth is truth. There's only one truth.
They're not relativistic. They don't think you have your
truth and I have my truth. They think truth is true.
So certainly for the Jewish philosophers, the Torah and
philosophy had to be saying the same thing, because if the
philosophy is true and the Torah is true, they have to be saying
the same thing. So the question then arises,
well, which kind of yields to which, OK.
That is, do we read the Torah in light of philosophy or do we
read philosophy in light of the Torah?
And this is where I think the the main difference between the
Rambam and Kreskas comes in, because I think that the Rambam
really reads the Torah in light of philosophy and his his
recourse to metaphorical readings of the Torah that has
to do with that he prioritizes philosophy.
He certainly is is a great advocate of Torah, but only in
so far as Torah can can be made to conform to philosophical
truth. And I think Crescas is the other
way around. I think Crescas thinks that
philosophy has to yield to Torah, that philosophy, since
Torah is telling us the truth, philosophy will say the same
thing. Speculation will get us to the
same place. But he would take, he would give
pride of place to Torah over over philosophy.
At least that's my take on on the difference between them.
Maimonides tells us in the Guide who his audience is.
His audience is the perplexed. It's those people who have been
steeped in Torah and in Judaism and then come across philosophy,
and all of a sudden the Torah isn't looking so good and
they're perplexed. And my monies give them a way
out, gives them a way to continue to embrace Torah while
they accept philosophy. OK.
But you know, I don't know if you hear in that, but I hear in
that. But it's almost as if we, we
really need to redo Torah so that it, it doesn't sound
foolish to people who have embraced philosophy or have have
come in contact with philosophy. He tries to to make Torah sound
more like philosophy so that it's appealing to those who who
are fans of philosophy, who have come to appreciate philosophy
and maybe are a little bit embarrassed about at least the
literal Torah. And so he he introduces a
figurative Torah and makes it conform to his philosophical
ideas. Prescott I think if you ask me
who his audience is, I would say his audience is those who have
been seduced by Maimonides. They're the people he is trying
to bring back. He sees Maimonides as having
been seduced by Aristotle and he sees Maimonides followers as
having been seduced by Maimonides.
And he's, he's concerned about that.
He's concerned. He, he says, he says that
Maimonides, he says, he says things that are astonishing.
Duvarin must be him astonishing things.
And he he says something that is that echoes something that
Plato's Socrates says in the Republic about Homer.
And then Aristotle says in in the Nicomachean Ethics about the
adherence of the Forms. You know, Socrates says, you
know, Homer is beloved to us, but the truth is more beloved.
And Aristotle says the same thing about the adherents of the
Forms, that that they are beloved, but the truth is more
beloved. And then Crescas says the same
thing about Maimonides, that he is beloved, his works are
beloved, even his secular works are beloved, but the truth is
more beloved. And then as if that isn't
enough, he then quotes the Talmud.
Talmud says this in several places, that wherever there is
Hilo Hashem, wherever there is desecration of the name, one may
not accord reverence to the Roth.
He says it straight out in his in his introduction that I mean,
you don't really have to read between the lines.
He's worried that Maimonides has said things that at least cause
Afil Hashem, even if Maimonides himself was not was not
intending for that to happen. They cause Afil Hashem and one
has to set the record straight. So I think that's his audience,
and I think that drives his book.
Yeah, that makes for a fascinating, fascinating almost
confrontation between between Kreskas and Maimonides.
It is worth it is worth noting for for the audience that there
are other ways to understand Maimonides in general.
Kreskas for sure believed exactly as you're saying, just
there. There are different ways of
understanding Maimonides, and of course Kreskas's understanding
puts him squarely, squarely opposed to Maimonides.
I think it's it's fair to say that he's opposed to Aristotle.
And to the extent that Maimonides embraced Aristotle,
he was he he was disappointed. It was a, it was a, it was a no
fly zone. Yeah, yeah.
So I want to get into the metaphysics and physics he
challenges, as you mentioned, Aristotle.
He challenges Aristotelian physics and metaphysics
extensively, and I'd like to know why was he so critical of
this. I would say that Aristotle
believed and, and certainly Kreskas thought Aristotle
believed and, and Kreskas thought Maimonides believed that
Aristotle believed that the way to metaphysics, that is the way
to know about the divine, what is beyond our physical universe
is through physics, that physics, once you understand the
universe, you will know what God must be.
And the only way to know what God must be is to study the laws
of physics. And that's what Aristotle
dedicated his life to. And, and I, I guess I would say
that the only way for Aristotle or Maimonides as Crescas
understood him to under to know the truth about God is to get
your physics right. I think this is something that
Crescas found wholly objectionable.
I think first of all, he wasn't such a fan of Aristotelian
physics. He thought Aristotelian physics
was full of question begging full of assumptions that were
not proved that were I don't know, perhaps struck him as
commonsensical, but very often Crescas as well.
We don't know if that's true. OK, so he he was always accusing
him of question begging. So if if his physics is bad, we
certainly don't want to to have our view of God depend on
Ricetulian physics and that whole approach troubled him.
It's interesting in in book four of light of the Lord.
One of the issues that he raises is whether we could say that
masabre sheet is what we, what we call what we translate as the
account of creation is physics and massim Merkava the account
of the chariot. If that is metaphysics, that is
what Maimonides maintains. Crescas discusses that in book
four and he says no way, no way is that true.
Massimbraicid is the account of creation and the Massim Merkava
is the account of the higher things and they're not related
to one another. And he quotes a very interesting
passage. I think it's in it's, it's in
the Tomlin, I think in the Hagiga.
It's a very interesting passage, an anecdote about two sages.
One was an expert on the account of creation, the other was an
expert on the account of of the chariot, and they were going to
teach each other the one they didn't know.
So the first thing to notice, even though Kreskas hasn't
pointed out it's, it's super obvious the person who knew the
account of the chariot and didn't know the account of
creation was obviously someone who got to let's say metaphysics
without going through physics. So right away we see from that
that Talmudic story that physics is not the way to metaphysics,
and that's not what's meant by creation and and the chariot.
And so the the one who knew creation taught creation to the
one who knew the chariot. And then when the chariot's turn
came to teach the other one about the chariot, the other one
said, I'm sorry, I'm not old enough.
So he clearly didn't think that one could go from physics to
metaphysics. This is not what was going on
there. And Kriskuss is very insistent
that these are not what these what these terms mean.
And the way to know about God is through Torah.
It's not through Aristotelian physics.
And, and, and you know that all the fuss that Maimonides made
about we shouldn't tell these things to people, you know, we
should tell them Aristotelian physics and metaphysics.
Christ, I said, what's the big deal?
So we tell them about God's necessary existence.
We could tell women and children about that.
What is the big secret? The secrets that he thought
there were were really the mysteries of the higher realm,
which we were not going to know through physics, so.
What's really interesting to me is that he singles out
Maimonides with physics and metaphysics.
He was not the only reason to believe that.
I by chance I was going through the run.
You know the run. Ron was his teacher.
Who's who's teacher? What's Chris cast his teacher.
But doesn't the run hold that Massa Bershida, Massa Merkava is
physics and metaphysics? I, I I don't know the answer to
that so. That's so interesting because I
I was actually reading what the Drashota run and I could be
mistaken, so I guess I shouldn't say it on air if I'm not 100%
sure. I'll check it out again, but I'm
almost positive that I remember seeing that the run understood
it as physics and metaphysics, so that makes it so interesting.
Yeah, this, this was something that that troubled him very
much, that that people were were embracing this idea when he
thought it was totally not Jewish.
You know that there was something not Jewish about that,
that we don't learn about God from studying the universe.
In fact, you know, I guess I, I guess I could talk about this
now. He quotes at the end of of book
one, he quotes another, another passage.
This one is is the famous one about Avraham being compared to
a traveller on the road. And the traveller sees an
illumined palace and he says, could it be that there's no
manager, no, no master of this palace, you know, asking it
rhetorically. Obviously if it's lit up,
obviously there's a master. And then the master shows up and
says I am the master of this palace.
The way Kreskas understands that story is that Abraham used his
speculation, used his philosophical reasoning to
imagine or to to conclude, I should say, to conclude that
there is indeed a master of the universe.
But he wasn't sure he was inclined in that direction.
And it wasn't until the master announced himself, that is until
there was a prophetic revelation, that he could really
be sure. And Crespus is trying to tell us
philosophy can give us an inclination, it can give us good
reasons to believe, but ultimately the Torah is our
source. It's the experience, the
experience. Experience or or you know, or or
the Torah itself For him was was very reliable.
Going back to Maimonides, I think it's clear that he, when
it, when it comes to Aristotelian physics and
metaphysics, I don't think he felt like the matters were all
settled. I, I believe from my
understanding is that even my monies makes a astonishing
statement that if Aristotle were, you know, Aristotle, he
disagreed with Aristotle on, on the eternality of the universe,
right? There had to be a beginning
because he relied on the Torah on for that.
And he says, if Aristotle is proven to be, you know, right
without a shadow of a doubt, then we might have to know, we
will have to look at Bereshit as as as a metaphor.
But the fact is he sides with the Torah.
So I don't know if it's so fair to say that he was like, you
know, Aristotelian, you know, to the extreme.
But I I also for. Sure, I.
Just sorry. Just say that.
I think, I think the round one believed the world was eternal.
I think that was that was the cover, yeah.
Wow. Yeah, I I had no doubt about it.
Just. You guys cut out for a second,
so could you? Yeah, I, I said that in my in my
understanding of my manatees. That was a cover that he, I
don't, he protests too often, but I don't believe that.
But I don't believe that, but he does.
He he believes the world is eternal.
I don't see any other way. So when you say you don't see
any other way, I'm just curious to pick your brain.
What do you mean by that? How do you see that?
Well, I mean, you know, I, I give you this, you know, just a,
a quick, a quick analysis. I think Maimonides thinks there
are two possibilities. Either the world is completely
natural or the world is miraculous.
And I think he rejects the latter.
So if the world's completely natural, he would understand it
as not having creation cause creation is miraculous.
He would understand the Torah is completely natural, which I
think he does. He understands prophecy is
completely natural, that that's the way it seems to me.
So. The natural, the natural, the
the naturalism that runs through the more F in for for you.
It leads you to conclude that OK, I understand.
OK. Yeah, that that that's a very,
you know, common understanding of Rhumba.
Everybody has their kind of take on because they speaking
different audiences and you know that that for for the purposes
of this podcast, you know, we we want to understand what the
other viewpoints were at the time as well, like, because
obviously Rambam was not the only person to think a certain
way. We want to know what, you know,
Crescas thought and the contemporaries of Crescas.
So let's get to them because what did what was their view on
metaphysics and physics Jewish non Jewish at the time and also
their the views of God by other medieval thinkers.
OK, so I, I, you know, I, I want to focus on Crescas.
So I, I will talk kind of in general terms about the others,
you know, instead of, instead of speaking about them
individually. I think Crescas's main criticism
of these thinkers was that in their embrace of the idea of
God's oneness, which they understood as internal
simplicity, I think God is not divided in any way.
They sacrificed a whole lot of things that we would want to say
about God. So I think this was his biggest
complaint that for example, the knowledge of particulars, you
know, those kinds of things that they deny to God because, you
know, he can't have many pieces of knowledge 'cause he's one,
right? So that those kinds of things,
those are the things that he thought we really got tripped up
on by embracing certain certain philosophical ideas that that
aren't, aren't established. So, you know, we we say
Schmeisser, OK, no schema had what does the had mean?
So it could mean God is the only God.
It could mean God is unique, but the philosophers tended to
understand it as God is undivided that he's completely
simple. And from from Kris Kuss's point
of view, that was that was the death knell, OK, of of the God
that we know and love. What Kris Kuss did instead was
to just simply say that God is infinite.
He's infinite in every way, like your local handyman.
No job too big or too small. OK, so you know, he could know.
He can know everything. He can know the future.
He can know everything. No particulars.
Once you can know particulars, you can have real prophecy.
You can have real miracles, all of these things that really are
difficult to explain. Once you deny God any kind of
knowledge of particulars, you can have prophecy you can have,
you can have, and this is especially interesting, I think
you can have an anteriorly that is at the, at the outset,
eternal world. Because God is so powerful, He's
so infinitely powerful that he creates out of nothing forever.
So he, he, he has been, how could he not be created?
He's all powerful. So he's creating for all time
out of nothing. So he, you know, Kreskas
preserves the, you know, creation of nothing.
Yeshmayan. And he also says there's no
problem with saying the universe is eternal.
There's no problem with that because God is constantly
active. God, God is completely powerful.
He can do what he can do all the time.
And so, you know, if you say, well, what you know, what about
Grati, you know, he says, yes, this current world, this, this
is one of God's worlds. And he, he finds Talmudic
sources that will support the idea that God makes worlds and
destroys them, makes worlds and destroys them, you know, these
kinds of things. He always finds some kind of
Talmudic a source. Was he?
Was he a literalist with Agadot? I would say he was not a
literalist about really about any about it.
He wasn't wedded to literal interpretation of anything.
He was not as simplistic interpreter, some of his
interpretations of Mahomash just astonishing.
But but he was a traditionalist. I mean, he, he, you know, the
tradition, what the rabbi said meant a lot to him.
What, what the sitter says, you know, all of those things.
He, he, he talked a lot about what the sitter says, what the
rabbi said, and it mattered a great deal to him that he not
strayed from traditional points of view.
The main, the main difference between Chris Coss's view of God
and everyone else's is for him God's essence is love, infinite
love, not intellect, infinite love.
It's, it's totally different from what you, what you read,
you know, in the other, in the other philosophers.
Everything that he says has to do with God's love.
Everything comes back to that idea.
Punishment. Punishment is out only out of
love. God doesn't even punish you
because you deserve it. He punishes you like your daddy
would. You know, to make make you
better. You can see that, you can see
the psychology behind his thinking because it's almost as
if he's projecting in a way what he that the world ought to be
because that's what he suffered. You know, his son died.
He needs that to be the truth. That's true.
But you know, this is this is his understanding of God and you
know, it's not far from the Taurus, the Taurus view of God.
He, he, he says about God that his, his love is infinite.
It's not like any other love, he says, he says the word Ahava
love is used for how people feel about God.
But the word phasic, a kind of more ardent, more passionate
love. It's the kind of love that God
has for for the Jewish people and, and in particular for the
forefathers and he, you know, they're up Sookin that use the
word phasic that show that God had this passionate love for
people. And of course, because his love
is infinite, of course it's going to be stronger than any
love that we could have for him. Avraham is called Avraham Ohavi,
you know, the one who loves me. But the word kaishak is a word
that is used for God and he says something that I love.
He says the Jewish God is a jealous God.
Well, of course he's a jealous God.
Anybody who loves passionately is jealous if if his beloved is
stepping out on him. And this is exactly you know it.
It's not contradictory to talk about a a a God of love and a
God of jealousy. They're two sides of the same
coin. Amazing.
That is fascinating. That is fascinating.
What are what are the implications of oh, OK, what are
the implications of Kresgoth's views on free will for the
concept of moral responsibility in Jewish thought?
OK, so this, this is really quite, quite where he's an
outlier. This is the first thing my first
contact with him was, was his view of free will.
And I thought, what the heck is this?
He's, he believes that there's causal necessity that given,
given the causes, there will be certain effects and it can't go
any other way. The stronger 'cause will cause
the effect. And he he really doesn't deviate
from that. So the question is, so where
does free will come in? And it can't not come in, OK,
for the simple reason that it's one of the P note, it's a
fundamental. So it has to come in.
So you know, it, it took a little digging to to try to
figure out what he was saying. He doesn't really back down from
the idea of causal necessity that of course, you know, if
something happens, there were things that caused it, and if
other things would have caused it, where other causes would
have been there, other things would have happened.
In fact, the very basis of commandments is that their
causes, their causes. And if if there were no
connection between cause and effect, we wouldn't have
commandments, God wouldn't bother with it.
So, so where does, where does free will come in?
And I think there are really two areas where where Cresccus
identifies free will. But what we would mean by free
will, we're really, we're not caused.
One is our attitude. Do we love something or are we
disgusted or do we hate it? And the other is effort.
If we put effort into something, I think it, it may not make so
much sense. I'm not sure it makes perfect
sense. But this is what he seems to
think that what what you do is caused, but how you feel about
it is not caused. Are you are you happy doing the
mitzvot or are you unhappy doing the mitzvot?
Do you resent believing in God or not believing in God?
You know those are things that are within your control.
And also do you participate? Do you do you want to encourage
what what is happening anyway? He, he talk about how I don't
want to get too much into this, but Yaakov was promised certain
things and nevertheless he did, he did things that would, would
bring, it would, would cause this, this thing to happen.
Well, he was, he was participating.
He knew it was going to happen, but he wanted to be part of it.
So he participated in it. So also interestingly for
Crescas, we have no control over our beliefs either.
Our beliefs are totally outside of our will.
Otherwise we could believe that 2 + 2 = 5, but we can't.
OK, so the things we believe we are also caused.
But how do we feel about what we believe?
How much do we want to understand?
How much do effort do we put into investigating what we
believe? We can't change what we believe,
but we can love it, we can hate it, we can resent it.
All those things are possible for us and that's that's where
our moral responsibility comes in.
And he quotes, you know, the famous thoughts of transgression
are worse than transgression, OK.
Because thoughts of transgression, that is how you
feel about your transgression that is within your control.
So there's an element over here that even our service of God is
not in our control. It does seem that way.
Whether we are joyful about it or resentful about it, that's
within our control and that's what we're held responsible for.
This this reminds me a lot of ishbits.
Are you familiar with? Ishbits.
Yeah, he was in that course as well.
He was in that course. That I took with President
Vinyl. That was my introduction to him
as well. Yeah, I remember, I learned, I
learned, you know, there's there's elements of that also
with the way you react. I kind of I think if I'm not
mistaken, if Dessler adopts some of that, some of that into his
not completely, but a little bit of it.
And what you're saying about, you know, the train is moving,
if you want to kind of join the train or not, meaning your
effort that you're to to help the cause or not.
Yes. So that kind of reminds me of
the Ramchal's understanding a little bit of how you know
everything is, is leading to certain places.
Just a matter if you want to, if you want to contribute to that
or not, if you want to be part of it or not.
Kind of seeing all these contemporary kind of voices.
And now I'm kind of learning that they're all kind of getting
it from. Yeah, I I think that's that's
true. I mean, he quotes this, this
other famous thing in in Shabbat about how you know this, but but
at, at, at at harsh Sinai that, you know, God put, put the yeah,
so you put the ha on them. OK.
And, you know, and then the one of the rabbi's complaints, you
know, well, then what choice did they have?
You know, where's their free will?
And the answer that's given in the Talmud in Shabbat is that
this was all rectified in the time of Esther, when the Kimuva
Kiblu, when they took it willingly, because the miracles
they, they embraced their Judaism with joy.
And that made-up for this coerced kind of acceptance of
the Torah where they really had no choice.
So the joyfulness that they experienced at the time of
Mordechai and Esther, which of course we just experienced, that
was their willing embrace of of what they embraced unwillingly
for not completely willingly. The first thing that into the
whole beautiful. OK, gotcha, gotcha.
Really interesting, so I quickly want to go through books one
through 4. Book one, Kresgas sets out to
prove the existence of God. How does his approach to God
differ from other medieval philosophers such as Maimonides
and Aquinas? So I think just the simplest
thing to say is that for him, no proof is decisive.
There are better proofs and worse proofs, but no proof is
decisive. The the true source, as I as I
tried to indicate earlier, the true source for God's existence
is the Torah is prophecy. Without that we are not certain.
It's interesting though, that Spinoza mentions mentions
Crescas by name in in one place in a letter that he wrote.
And in that letter he says that Crescas was the only one who
understood properly the proofs for God's existence of the
ancients, and everyone else misunderstood their proofs.
And I think probably this is the proof that Crescas thought was
the most convincing of the proofs, though none of them is
decisive. And that is that we don't prove
God's existence. Because of the impossibility of
an infinite causal chain, we can only prove God's existence
because of the impossibility of there being only contingent
beings. So that the the need for there
to be at least one necessary being was was his proof.
His proof for God's existence, but again, not a decisive proof.
And jump into his next book focusing on the commandments and
their underlying beliefs. How does Kreskas justify the
commandments and what does he see as their role in Jewish life
and thought? OK, so I think I, I already
indicated, and I'll say it again, that commandments for him
are causes. They are causes that will have
the effect of bringing people closer to God.
That is their point. Just like trials.
That was the point of trials. That's the point of
commandments. And they work as causes.
Of course there are competing causes, but they are at least
one set of causes that whose whose point is whose purpose is
to bring people closer to God. And I think most certainly the
way I understand it, so I don't want to speak too broadly, but
the way I understand this is that when you serve someone,
when you care, care for someone by doing things for them, things
that they want, things that they ask, you grow closer.
I think about taking care of of an elderly parent, for example,
it increases the love. It's it's hard work, but the
caring increases the love. Taking care of a young child,
the more you do for someone, the greater the love.
And I think the point of the commandments was to give us
things to do for God, to increase our attachment to him,
our devotion to him, our love for him.
Crescas says that Avraham needed only one commandment to bring
him close to God. That was circumcision.
But we need many commandments. We need, we need to be
constantly working for God in order to achieve that kind of
level of closeness to him. I'm also reminded of, you know,
what we say after each parrot of Kirkea vote in the summer?
You know, we say, right? So God wanted, wanted what's
best for us. And so he gave us many
commandments, Torah and many commandments.
So I think I think that's the idea of what's behind
commandments. What would be his view of, let's
say, the people who obviously there's many more people in the
world besides Jews? What would be the purpose of,
let's say someone who doesn't have the commandments?
Yeah, so I I think they would have a harder time.
I think you know when, when he says Shiloh Hasani Isha and
Shiloh Hasani aved, the fact that women and slaves have fewer
commandments makes it much harder for them to achieve the
closest closest to God. And similarly it would be for
for non Jews. I mean, he he's quite open about
God's love being for all humanity, but especially for the
Jewish people. So there is, there is that,
there is that particularism that we are, we are his people and he
loves us and that's why he's jealous when we go elsewhere
there, there is that motif that runs through crescas.
So not impossible to grow close to God, but you don't have these
causes pushing you along, and you don't have.
The head starts. Yeah, it makes it.
It makes it much harder. So this is this is a case.
This is a case. So, well, sorry Benji, you were
saying? No, I was just going to say this
is very beautiful thing that he says about Moshe.
Why did Moshe begged God not to kill him and, and you know, to
take the people to the to the land of Israel and the people
were so irksome and so difficult.
And he was, he was clearly getting irritated by the end.
But when God wanted him, wanted him to die rather than crossover
and and take care of these people, he begged to live.
And Crescas says, why did he do that?
Right. He could have he could have died
and and basked in the Shrinath with all the other Sadiqam.
Why? Why would he beg to to continue
in this, in this hard job? And Crescas's answer was the
most important thing for a human being is to serve God.
He didn't want to give up the service of God, which is the way
to get closer to God. And this is what what human
happiness is about. It's about serving God.
And he would rather have the happiness of serving God than of
just sitting around and basking in the sunlight.
Exactly an hour of good deeds in this world, In the entire world.
Exactly. A fascinating kind of most of
the things that Crescas advocates for seems to be seems
to have been adopted by the mainstream religious culture
today. But when you mentioned how you
know, he admits when it comes to well, not admits but and
according to his understanding of mitzvot, he must admit that
for a woman, it's harder to come closer to God than a man.
That is actually so funny in that for the most part, the way
today women are generally educated in their teenage years
in seminaries. You know, when they are, when
they're, it's usually that God. The what's, what's being told
is, you know, women have less mitzvah because they don't need
as much in order to get closer to God.
Right. That was yeah, he only needed
one. I know that's what we say, but
he says Shaloh hasani Gai shaloh Hasani avid Shaloh hasani Isha
that those are those are, you know, they make it harder.
They don't make it impossible, but they make it harder.
Maybe they do need fewer, but from his point of view.
The fact that he said it about Avram, he said that about Avram,
right? The fact that he said it about
Avram, I'm surprised that he wouldn't simply adopt it into
into into saying it about like, you know, females like, you know
what I mean? Like it's interesting that he
actually chose not to go that direction where you kind of, you
even showed here look that from boom, like, you know what I
mean? Right, I think I think that the
problem with that is he would have to also say it about non
Jews to. Say it about the black.
OK, it's not so. Simple, although it's different
because Boeing, but you can say show that's.
That I think that would be the problem for him.
I gotcha. I I think he also.
I think also we have to understand, you know, people as
brilliant as they are, they, they, you know, they are
products of their time. And yeah.
It's makes me think of like the Balatanya, you might say
something disparaging or let's say consider a goy lesser.
Even though tradition, we don't really have so much most most of
the traditions that we follow today is all about, you know,
like Hashem loves all of his creations equally and we have
different roles. But you, you see something like
from the Balatania, for example, not, you know, you have to
understand where he's coming from because, or even in the
Talmud, there's some statements, let's say that that maybe we
might look at it, you know, sideways, because they were
dealing with brutal, vicious, you know, non Jews who were, who
were, let's say that comes Brahms in their time.
So obviously that that I would think that that influence.
That plays a role, yeah. Must play a role and, and I do
I, I do want to touch on the next thing, but I think the next
thing we kind of discussed, which is book 3, tradition
versus, you know, the balance between irrational inquiry and
adherence to tradition. I think you've kind of explained
that, but if you want to touch on that a little bit, I.
Just mentioned one thing in that connection that, you know, we,
we do find that if, if he found in the Talmud that the rabbis
believed in something, he would tend to believe in it.
So amulets, you know, the power of amulets or the power of or,
or the, the existence of demons, you know, these kinds of things
that we find in the Talmud. He said, well, you know, the
rabbis believed in it. So I'm, I'm accepting it as
well. So, you know, he, he was very
traditional in, in certain respects.
So the, the, you mentioned that, you know, Kabbalah was something
that he was also familiar with that obviously played a role as
well in his thinking, which is there, there were some obviously
who championed Rambam, some of the early capitalists and some
of them who did not. So I think that is also very
apparent here. Very, very interesting.
I, we're learning a lot about crescas, which we, I, I didn't
know a lot of this stuff about him.
And I wanted to, I'm just curious because you mentioned
that he was like, he wrote, he wrote something against a
Christianity or a Christian polemic.
So it's interesting because I would say the highlight of, of
Christianity is, let's say like God's love, right?
But they don't have the commandments or some would
actually observe the commandments still.
So I'm wondering how he kind of saw that, you know, dynamic.
Good question, SO. You have to understand that he
was facing a Jewish community that was decimated by conversion
to Christianity and fought very, very hard to bring people back.
The Lord, I think and certainly of this Bhitul E Carrera not
three in the reputation of Christian principles.
He he wrote a very straightforward book showing
that all these Christian doctrines are nonsense.
You know, that was that was the point of the book.
He thought the way Jesus was treated was unjust.
Why should he suffer for all mankind, You know, these kinds
of things. He, he was just adamant about
the superiority of the Jewish view to the Christian view of
God and, and everything else. And, you know, those were the
days of debates and, you know, forced debates and all these
kinds of things. And he he stood his ground and.
Yeah, well, there there is a natural appeal to this God of
love, right? Emphasis on love and an
intellect, which is which. I guess he was responding to the
the threat of Christianity and all the forced conversions and
everything or people being coerced into being Christian
that he almost had to. I'm, I'm, I'm just giving my own
ideas. I could be wrong, but it almost
seems like he's showing that, hey, Judaism has that too.
That's what the essence of Judaism is.
But we also have the mitzvot, so.
You don't have to look there, you can have it here.
Exactly right. I, I, I think that for him, our
God is the God of love. We don't need him to become a
human being in order in order to, to have his love.
So I think for him, you know, that was an important, an
important point. And I think one of the big
objections he would have to Maimonides slash Aristotle is
that their God can't love anybody.
So I think for me, the big difference between Maimonides
and Aristotle, it is that Maimonides loved God.
It was an intellectual kind of love, but it was a kind of love.
I don't think Aristotle had any love for God at all.
So I would say Maimonides was a religious person, Aristotle was
not, But neither of them could have a God who loved you back.
So I think Crescas really was pulling away from that notion of
goddess and intellect, intellecting himself.
And what else could he intellect, you know, And
substituting a more Jewish God, a God of love, a God of
relationships, of prophecy, of caring, all that.
My understanding, at least from Maimonides, is that even if a
person's not going to reach the supreme levels of prophecy or
whatnot, there is, there is, there is still something there
for every single person. It's a it's a longer discussion.
But I don't think what no, I agree with.
I agree with that. I mean that there's something
for everyone else but but the the end of of human existence,
the bonding with God that's reserved for a very tiny
minority. I mean this.
Is this is a podcast where we litigate, you know, different
perspectives on rumbum people. People have, you know, they say
my manatees, your manatees people are like Len Goodman and
kind of Seaskin. And.
Kellner and or different. There's different understandings
and I think that it's important for us to know that when we're
talking about the Rishonim that even though there's a lot of
common, there's a lot of commonality, There's also
differences of opinion. And there's the influence of
Kabbalah and there's the influence of, you know, the Jews
who lived in, in, in the Islamic parts of the world or they lived
in, in Christian parts of the world.
All of that plays into a lot of how people thought.
And I think that that's why this is a very relevant, this is the
last point we wanted to get into was why is this a relevant area
of study for the modern day reader?
I think the simple answer to that is that it's a deeply
philosophical book, and as long as philosophical questions are
relevant, this book is relevant. The big, the, the big reason
that the biggest reason that I would recommend reading Crescas
is because of how inspiring he is.
He's inspiring in the way Rabi Akiva was.
He's inspiring in the way Socrates was.
You, you get the sense of someone whose life really is
devoted to God and to the Jewish people.
Not the only one, of course, but someone who for whom that was so
important that really nothing else mattered.
And I I find that utterly inspiring and and completely
relevant. Absolutely, Absolutely.
Well, this was really a pleasure and we learned so much from you
and. Thank you.
It's my pleasure. We we hope to have you on to
discuss Plato whenever your book comes out.
I would love that. And this was really amazing, so
thank you so much. You're very welcome.
Thank you for having we. Appreciate everything, have a
great evening. Thank you to you.
Bye bye.