Welcome to Judaism Demystified, a podcast for the perplexed.
Join us as we explore some of the most fascinating Jewish and
Torah related topics with our esteemed guests.
By tackling some of the biggest questions you likely won't find
addressed elsewhere, we aim to shed light on important issues
and inspire a return to the fundamentals.
Enjoy the show. Thank you for joining the
Judaism Demystified podcast. We are joined by Professor Beryl
Dove Lerner, who is going to be discussing his phenomenal book
Human Divine Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures, which was a
Rabbi Sacks Book Prize finalist in 2024.
Phenomenal book. And we want everyone to get the
book, especially the hardcover. That's most important because
the hardcover, that's where that's where the money's at.
So we want to definitely promote this book because it's such an
important book. And before we begin, we'd like
to ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
What got you to write this book? And you know just how the
reception has been. All right, well, I was born in
Washington, DC into a fanatical Binet Kiva family.
And I studied, I studied at Johns Hopkins and later I've
been at University of Chicago and MA there.
And I, my wife and I and, and our first baby boy, we, we
packed up our bags and moved to Kibbutz Luhot because at the
time that's what you did in banana Kiba you, they had a, you
know, a group of people who would go to a kibbutz and the
religious kibbutz movement would tell us where we were needed and
that's where we go. So I ended up on Kibbutz Luhot
milking cows for quite a few years, eventually got back to
academics, got a little bit of a kind of a day a week to work on
a PhD, eventually finished that, got a teaching job.
And I don't know, here I am. I also somewhere in the middle
of that I studied about Kibbutz Adati and various things.
Why did I write this book? I had some ideas which I thought
were interesting and I wanted to get them out there.
And well, to be perfectly honest, I also at the time was
under the impression that I could get in one last academic
promotion from what's called a Professor Cadel to Professor
Mina Mignon, which is the highest level of professor, But
then through the various bureaucratic issues, that didn't
help. But that's really one of the
reasons why I thought I have to get this out as a book rather
than articles. And all right, was there
something else? No, Well, really, I think what
we like to do with our our guests is to get the audience
obviously excited about the books.
And usually what we try to do is get into the methodology of the
author. So I think what we could start
with is what you laid out in your introduction for the whole
theme of the book. What how did you approach every
chapter? Right.
Well, actually you asked before about reactions to the book, and
those reactions have made me think a lot about methodology
because officially the book was published, you know, by an
academic publisher in a series that, you know, that had
something to do with biblical studies.
And the, the people in biblical studies who reviewed it were
very upset that I did not follow their methodology and I did not
cite, you know, all of the endless number of academic
biblical scholars who had dealt with everything I've dealt with.
And actually, I have to say that with time, I came to appreciate
why they were upset with me because they're involved in the
kind of conversation that I barged into without
acknowledging other people in the conversation.
So they had a point, but they didn't quite understand what
kind of book it is. I think it's more of the kind of
book. There have been a number of of
books like this that came out in recent years, people whose real
background is in philosophy, who write about Tanakh, especially
Jews who do this. And I was part of a project that
started at the Shalim Centre in Israel and then moved to what
was known as the Herzl Institute run by, and this project was run
by Durham Khazoni about looking into the, you know, a, a kind of
philosophical reading of Tanakh, but also of, of Khazal also, you
know, of Talmud. He, he wrote a very well
received book about reading Tanakh's philosophy.
And I suppose it was in a way it was, it was part of that
program, but it was also, I would say if there's a
methodology to the book, it is things that could be said in a
she or in my kibbutz. You know, in a way it's sort of
like the gush method, which I know you have, you have
interviewed about. And it may be perhaps pushing
the boundaries a little more than would be acceptable.
I think maybe in the gush, sort of like gush with without,
without the banisters as much something like that.
So that that's the neighborhood of the of the methodology.
Do you would you like me to go into the the?
Yeah, the actual, the actual point that runs through the
book. All right, the point that runs
through the book, so, so, so the the basic thesis that runs
through the book is that originally, certainly God and
and human beings obviously have very different circumstances in
the world. You know, they, they have very
different existential circumstances and their moral
situation reflects this. So they end up having different
legitimate concerns. Some of the concerns they have
in common and some of the concerns are different and they
can be in conflict while both God and human beings can hold
these concerns legitimately. So how it works is I see God's
basic project is of creating a worthy world.
It did not have to be particularly our world.
And we see that in fact, when our world didn't work out so
well, he was willing to destroy it in the flood and start over
again. That's certainly, you know, the,
the biblical attitude towards God's project in creation,
whereas human beings are just essentially connected to this
world and we are connected to the human race.
We, and, and these are legitimate concerns of us, We,
we have to worry about each other, even when that concern
may, may get in the way of, of God's larger projects.
So one way that this can come up, for instance, it could be
that in, in terms of God's larger projects, it makes sense
for him for someone to suffer to forward his project of making
this world a more worthy world. But we as human beings are
concerned for each other. And so we can oppose that.
We have, no, we have no duty to make sure that divine
punishments are carried out unless it's in the context of
that we have a human court, a Jewish court, which is, you
know, is, is entrusted with enforcing the laws of the Torah.
Then it has been put into human hands.
Now the way that, that, that, that mention of Torah sort of
starts to point at how the human and the divine interests and,
and projects become intertwined. And that is following the flood,
we find for the first time God making a covenant with human
beings. He makes a covenant with Noah.
He promises not to destroy the world again.
On the other hand, he entrusts human beings with enforcing laws
and, and there you can find after the story of the flood
explicitly God saying that that that a human murderer will be
punished by human beings. And, and these kinds of
covenants between, between God and and human beings comes more
explicit with the covenants with, with the patriarchs.
And we already have a situation where God has to take into
account the particularly peculiarly human interests of
the humans with which he makes the covenant.
And on the other hand, the human beings suddenly have to take
into account divine interests that go beyond the usual
concerns of human morality. And then I read the in the book
sections of, of, of the Torah and and other parts of Tanakh as
showing how this dance plays out, that you have God
connecting with human beings. They have often the same agenda,
but sometimes somewhat opposing agendas and how the the tensions
between the two play out so. This is so let's let's zoom out
for a second or zoom in or if you want to look at it,
essentially what you're trying to say is, is that the divine
realm and the human realm, they don't, it doesn't, it doesn't.
There's no, the, the divine realm doesn't work according to
our human realm. And what, what you're, what
we're saying is that, and this is a this is a tendency in human
beings, in all religions, and it's tendency very much also in
Judaism that we try to fit our conception of God onto our own
moral values and systems. So we expect or we, we, we yeah,
we basically, we project, therefore expect that that God's
interest is my interest, or at least out in the hole, right?
That's how we kind of see it. And so that's why when we see
something that there's some sort of injustice, we need to make
sense of it on our own terms, within our own perspective of
reality. What you're saying is that this
is, this is, there's a reason for this.
And that's that's human projection, as as Benji
mentioned, But it also comes from more so the fact that human
beings and especially individuals, we see things in a
very art. We have a very individualistic
view. And we're, which is, which is,
has emotions in it and, and, you know, different effects that
have happened around us that have shaped us and our thinking
and, and, and, you know, we are, we are a collection of
experiences and, and thoughts and emotions.
And but from a creator God perspective, who, who works on a
level that we just can't, there's no, we can never truly
understand God's or the divine realm, if you want to call it
perspective of reality as a whole.
And so the answer, what you're saying, what you're saying is
the answer is for human beings is not necessarily to try to
figure out the divine divine realm.
But in a sense we have to understand that our realm is
ours and we have to work within it and it has a legitimacy
within itself. And we have to understand that
the divine realm is exactly that something that is not meant for
us to be able to, to what's the word I'm looking for fathom or
or relate with? I think that's even and I
believe that Maimonides spends a good deal of time in the in the
in the guy to the perplex, trying to in a sense, bring this
on to his on to his readers, his audience.
That that you know the the way God runs the world is not
necessarily supposed to be something that we can relate
with on our own human individual with our moral system manner.
Well, I maybe not, maybe not exactly because, you know, in,
in the beginning of the book, I do talk, I do talk about
negative theology, the idea that human beings are incapable of
really understanding God in any essential way.
But if I would add a reference that I didn't make in the book,
I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not that far in a certain
way from something that the Ramchal says that I think in in
Dara Hashem, he has an idea that God before the creation is
completely beyond our understanding.
And perhaps that can be identified with with insult in
the, you know, in kabbalistic terms.
But God, in terms of being the creator within creation is
something that we can start having some kind of handle on.
And in the book, the beginning of a handle, which I propose is
this idea of God's wanting to create a worthy world.
And I think that we can, that we can get a handle on some aspects
of that, that for instance, for I think that for people to be
moral makes the world a more worthy world.
Our problem, our problem is more understanding how God arranges,
arranges processes in order to arrive at at the worthy world
that that he would like our world to become.
That is a problem that he he from his his divine perspective,
can do things that would be completely inappropriate for any
human being to do human beings with, with their special human
real objective. It's not, I'm not just saying
it's emotions, a real objective, existential duties to one
another and that that we have that, you know, God just doesn't
have to the same extent, except to the extent that he has
entered into covenants with human beings.
And then he's he's drawn down into this.
You know, that's a lot of the a lot of the interpretations I
give. It's it's situations where God
is is drawn down into having to having to forward human
interests, which aren't necessarily part of his bigger
story because he's entered into covenants and, and and he's
stuck with it, so to speak. Right.
And the, and the, the idea that God wants a worthy world and
the, and the legitimacy of morality.
My point was never to undo that aspect.
My point was just from the perspective of trying to figure
out, like you said, figure out how everything plays out in real
time from the divine perspective.
Absolutely. I would just add that that the
Torah and and Tanakh, it keeps on telling us what the divine
plan is. And even when we have the
Torah's witness of what the divine plan is, often that
divine plan is something that would be completely unacceptable
for I say a human leader to to try to forward.
We know what the plan is and we say, wow, that's pretty
terrible, but you're God and that's how you can, you know,
get to where you want us to get. But by.
But certainly if there was any human beings involved, it would
be completely unacceptable either.
I just throw in there's there's a comparison that I bring from
Bernard Williams and an important British moral
philosopher in his last lecture. So he talked about what would
happen if we were told by some great intergalactic
intelligence, not a God, but some kinds of alien beings.
But they have done a grand, a grand utilitarian calculation,
and they came to the conclusion that for all of the beings in
the universe concerned, it would be best for the human race to
cease to exist. And he says, So what would we
do? Would we say, wow, your thinking
really makes sense, I guess you have to disappear?
Or would we say, well, we're sorry, but we're the human
beings. And I don't think that anyone
could say it would be illegitimate for us to reject
that plan as human beings, even though, you know, there was
this, you know, great cosmic and calculation that showed that
really would be better off for everyone concerned if we weren't
around. So that's that's the kind of of
tensions that can develop. So the covenant essentially is,
is God's incorporation, incorporating, sorry,
incorporating human objective, human value, yes, into, into
the, into the picture where we humans and God in a sense,
become a team in, in carrying out the ultimate plan with, with
our, our values and God's values kind of inter interplaying
together. And, and, and that's essentially
how you read a lot of these stories.
So I'd like if you could show how that plays out in the flood
and the Saddam stories. So in in the flood story you
have well first of all that you know the flood itself is pre
covenantal. Yeah.
So basically you can have a story there of God showing us
precisely how he acts as a creator God who is who is not
bound by a covenant. We can simply destroy the world.
No, So that's how I can read. If you go back to the the days
of creation and everybody celebrates that, God says that
he saw it was good after, you know, basically each day's work.
So I put it in a darker light that I say God looks at it.
Well, is it worth keeping? Yeah, Yeah, it's good.
OK, we'll keep this, We'll keep this process going and
everything is good, good, good. Keep it going until you get to
the flood where he sees things are falling apart.
Sorry, no longer good. Looks like I have to start over
again. And because he has no, he, he,
he has no special relationship to our, you know, to the
particular pre flood world, but rather his, his duty, his, his
interest is to create a worthy world so he can, he can destroy
the, the pre flood world. However, he enters into a, a
contract, a contract, a covenant with Noah.
And wow, I would say it will be. I don't know if I'll manage to
carry off the the whole interpretation now, but but what
I what I do in that section of the book, which I I don't point
out that I do it, but I basically show how what looks
the biblical critics as a combination of two fled stories
in one with with a repetition of of of of seeming repetition of
certain commands with different language.
One time you have that he should bring that, that, that Noah
should bring a male and a female of each species.
And then later that he should bring, you know, sevens of of
the clean species and, and a biblical critic would say, ah,
you see, there are different, there are different sources that
were combined together. I say, no, this is a kind of a
tango that's going on between God and Noah as they developed
this covenantal relationship. God, God gives, gives Noah
certain instructions. Noah follows those instructions.
Now God is saying, oh, you know what, so I will.
Create the circumstances for Noah to be able to give a
sacrifice later. How will I do that?
And I'll ask him to bring things are getting along.
Things are improving in this relationship.
So now I'll tell him to have a lot of the clean animals to be
able to sacrifice them. And so it builds up.
And so finally, after the after the flood, he, he enters into
this covenant with, with Noah and with the human race and
basically with the whole world that he will not discover it,
that he will not destroy it again.
And then I say God has tied his hands.
He has created a new moral duty for himself, just like anyone
can create a new moral duty by making a promise to someone or
entering into a covenant with him.
God has done this. And God, God isn't just doing
people a favor by not destroying the world.
He is creating a moral imperative for himself that he
can no longer morally, he can't, he can't destroy the world
because he's promised not to destroy it.
And that's what happens with the covenants that continue that he
keeps on sort of tying his own hands by by adding new special
duties to that to to so that to the the kind of original duty
that he had of, of just trying to create a worthy world.
Now you wanted me to talk about Noah and what else?
And and and Saddam, but before you.
So covenant by its very nature is a bilateral agreement.
So you're you're am I mean? Well, I because I think that if
we get to breedman Abtarim, right, the covenant of the
pieces, that's a pretty one way agreement, you know, a one way
covenant. God makes promises and he
doesn't really tell Abraham that something is expected of him
there. So, so there are two, there are
two parties certainly, but it does not necessarily have to go
both ways. Certainly when you get later to
the Torah, there you have each side has has list of of of
goodies and expectations, but. I guess we could fairly say in
general, in general in bilateral maybe that's I know that's an
interesting point with the benefit.
I didn't think about that. That's that's a very interesting
point. There was something else I want
to say and I forgot. You has to be wanted to know
about yes so. Oh, what I wanted, what I wanted
to mention actually was as you were saying that how Hashem sort
of ties his own hands in, in the fact that he enters his
covenants. I was thinking to myself, I'm
wondering if that could be the explanation of what the, when
the, when the sages say that Hashem keeps all the mitzvot in
the Gemara, there's a, there's an agarita, there's a, there's a
saying that God is obligated and bound by his own mitzvot, right?
Meaning that he keeps all the mitzvot, which is obscure and
very, you know, what, what, what in the world does that mean?
I was thinking to myself as you were saying this, perhaps what
that means is really that God is bound by the by the covenant
mitzvot or or an aspect of the covenant that he that he makes
with the people. Or, or perhaps I got it that
which which would say it more clearly, the idea that God also
has a feeling that he wears. Right, so.
Yeah, that we say. Yeah, right.
Feeling for it to say, you know that, that, that there is one
unique God and God wears his where's his feeling right?
That's talking about the the existence and unity of the
Jewish people. Exactly.
That is his. That is his obligation and
covenants to the people that he. Yeah, exactly.
That's very interesting. OK, that's all.
I'm sorry. Sorry for.
Yeah, So then what? Now we can get into Saddam.
Yes, sorry. So it's Dom I would say to.
I think there are two aspects of it that I have to relate to.
First of all is a famous bargaining between Abraham and
God about stone and amorah and when swaying and etcetera.
But in any case, so you know, famously in in in Viera, when
after Avraham and Sahara are told to get I told that that you
know that that Sarah will have a child.
So then God sort of takes Avraham aside and if you look
really at the sukim, he, he basically is saying, I have to
consult with Avraham about what's going on in stone.
I have to, I have to consult with him.
And they, and Abraham famously starts bargaining down God.
God has not yet said that, that he's going to destroy these
cities. But apparently you know the the
possibility is out there and Abraham is bargaining down God
about what is the least number of righteous people who have to
be found there in order for for them to be spared.
And as as I understand this God is involved God's involving Aram
in in that negotiation is is just showing us God has a
covenant with Abraham. God according to his plans would
certainly want to destroy stone. It makes perfect sense.
And I explained later that the storm is a place where people
are not even keeping the basic requirement that was of of the
covenant with with Noah, that in the government with Noah, that
there was supposed to be humans seeing to law and order, humans
dealing, you know, making sure that that murderers are
punished. And it seems that in stone this
death isn't happening. And so stone becomes a kind of
has its own kind of mini flood, mini destruction, mini total
annihilation, sort of a repeat of the flood story in a place
where even the, the requirements of of Noah's covenants are not
being kept. But in any case, so it makes
sense in terms of the covenant with Noah that soma namora would
be destroyed. But God has to God has to talk
to Avram about this because he has a covenantal relationship
with with Avram. And I think it's the Rashbaum
who even mentions in a very straightforward way, he gave the
land to Abraham. It's promised to him already by
covenant. And here he's going to ruin a
lot of this real estate, which he promised to Abraham.
This is sort of, you know, the lowest level of looking at it.
God is God's plan is to destroy a lot of the real estate
problems to Abraham. But what is he going to do?
He promised Abraham, He has to take into account Abraham's
interest. Of course, there there are more
sort of more higher ethical ways of looking at it.
You could say Abraham is simply has the concerns of a human
being with basic human solidarity that all things being
equal, human beings are not interested in seeing whole
cities annihilated. I mean, unfortunately it looks
like sometimes certainly the destruction of the buildings may
be necessary. But in any case, so as far as
Avraham's concerned, he may simply be saying I am trying to
protect my fellow human beings. Or it could be Abraham once
again has a familial ties to someone in stone Lot.
His nephew was living there. We've already seen in the past
that Abraham was willing to go to war in order to, to to free
Lot from captivity by the enemy. And so here again, Abraham also
has an interest in interest in protecting the interests of Lot
that Lot shouldn't be killed in this whole thing.
And in fact, in the end, although there aren't the
sufficient number of of righteous people in order for
the cities to be spared, we see God does spare Loth.
And as I recall pretty explicitly, God remembers
Avraham. He remembers his covenant with
Avraham. No, I can't kill everybody in
stone because he has to take the covenant with Avraham in in into
account even in in this massive destruction.
So you also brought up in this chapter, for example, the the
the deaths in the Korach rebellion right there, there are
these we're talking about the imitatio day.
The. Yeah.
So basically you're saying that there, there doesn't seem to be
that imitatio they for the justification of crimes against
humanity. And that Jewish tradition has
always been at least implicitly aware of these difficulties.
So can you just touch on that a little bit, Right?
Right, well, the idea of imitatio day is of course that a
basis for religious ethics would be to say God is just, God is
good, God is merciful, etcetera. And so we should follow in God's
path. And I have AI have a problem
with this and in the chapter I I relate to it to an essay by John
Stuart Mill who who talks about this.
Then we have a problem that both in the biblical stories and also
just in the world as we see it, God is God does not behave in a
way that we would like human beings to behave.
God has, I would say, legitimate moral license as God to be
destructive, for instance, in a way that human beings who are
not creators of worlds and and also who have special human
duties to each other as fellow human beings.
It is not appropriate for people to act in this way.
And I bring for example, that where you can see this in, in,
in Khazal is simply that, you know, every the Khazal is
willing to say mahu hanum rahum, you know that he's merciful,
etcetera, and you should be merciful, but no one will ever
say he is willing to, you know, bring plagues and earthquakes
and whatever. And therefore you should be
prepared to, you know, just just, you know, have empires,
wipe out civilizations and whatever.
But in Tanakh, in Tanakh, God, God is willing to act in that
way. And, and an example I give with
this, although I, I have a very mixed relationship with, with
Kabbalah, but in right in the, the, the Kabbalistic ethical
work. So that is basically a kind of
Kabbalistic Imitacio day that to be ethical by, by imitating God,
But he's very careful that he, he chooses the correct
attributes for for us to follow. He, you know, and so you can see
that that, that there's an understanding that there are
attributes of their attributes of God's actions which are not
appropriate to humans. And I say, in fact, that is what
tyrants do. Tyrants play God.
Tyrants think that that they are like world creators and, and,
and and that they have goals that, you know, are more
important than human morality. So they are literally playing
God. So I have I have a problem with
with Imitacio Day. I would just mention that
perhaps because of that, the Rambam when he talks about
imitating God, it ends up being imitating God as a creator of
nature. He avoids talking about history.
Maybe history isn't so nice. So, so, so Rambam talks about
look how wonderfully God arranged nature and isn't that
nice. But since the development of
modern biology and the understanding that biological
processes, you know, environmental processes and
processes within populations of animals, it involve a, a
tremendous amount of suffering. That appreciation even makes the
round bombs interpretation less plausible because it's sort of
hard to see why if if, if we're supposed to act like God, I
don't think we're supposed to set up set up societies where
this is where there's that kind of tremendous amount of
suffering that there is going on in nature.
Our teacher up in my roof actually once gave a whole class
on this. It's it needs the treatment of
an entire podcast to be able to address your your question.
But maybe we can put them in touch?
Definitely. But I actually wanted to add to
that. I think what you're saying is
really represented in the symbolism of the Mikdash, right?
The Mishkan and the Mikdash, which is God outside of the
Mikdash seems to be very forgiving, giving human beings
another chance. He's not he's not super, you
know, meticulous about like, OK, if you make a mistake, then
here's here are ways to do teshuva.
You do, you can bring a sacrifice, all these things, but
if you make a mistake in the Kodesh, there's no, there's no
leniency, right? The the world, the the realm of
the divine, there is, is run differently.
And that's to teach the way that Mikdash like functions is to
teach us that with the even even down to the, the, the symbolism
of the curtain that separates, you know, the Kohan from the our
own is that it's, there's, there's like a boundary we can't
really cross and we can't really understand.
So I, I kind of that kind of came to mind.
I don't know if that's if you agree with that, but that kind
of came to mind. Yeah, I'll tell you, I, I don't
know. I have thoughts all over the
place. I can't I can't claim to be
systematic because when you mention the curtain, the
prophet, I can't help but think of mersum kamidwinsk in the
Mesha kukma. And that says something amazing.
It says the pasuk is something like Dil lahim Ben kodesh,
kodesh shakodoshim, something like that.
And that it that it separates it for you.
And then he says, of course, in an objective sense, the whole
world is full of, of God's glory.
But for your mindset, I'm separate.
You know, you think of it as if there's really a difference
between the Kodishka, the shame and, and you know, the holy of
holies and the rest of, and the rest of, of the, of the
Tabernacle or of the temple. But really this whole all of
existence is, you know, sort of radioactive with holiness, so to
speak. I mean, that's all.
That's something which, I mean, it's not in my book, but it's
something which I've been thinking of writing about an
idea that things that we consider things that are
considered holy in Judaism, holiness in Judaism is making
the inherent holiness perspicuous.
It's like Moloko, the arts Bordeaux, the in the sort of
God's presence is, is with us everywhere and the holy place is
where we can sort of notice it. It's as if most of the time
we're going around with sunglasses on or maybe even
welders helmets on in order to be avoid being blinded by the
tremendous value of, of every existent thing and, and, and
God's presence and everything and our fellow human beings
being created in God's image. It's just, it's just too much to
take in as we sort of have to, you have to wear heavy
sunglasses to, to, to just survive with that much meaning
in, in, in existence. And the holy places are places
where we sort of can take off the sunglasses to a certain
extent and, and expose ourselves and, and, and, and, and become
aware of, you know, of, of God's presence of, of the value of
things, of holiness and the value also of fellow human
beings. So anyway, that's, I'm just
throwing that in. That's not really in the book.
OK, very good. So we want to get into chapter
3, which is called Responsible Rebels.
Saul, Jonah, and Abraham contend with God's request.
So we'd like to get a little teaser of that chapter.
So, yeah, so with Saul, I deal with his famous battle with the
Amalekites, which is often, you know, seen as a as a case of
genocide. There is there is a commandment
in the Torah to to wipe out the Amalekites.
And here we have Saul's the first king.
He's basically taking care of the immediate security issues.
And the prophet Samuel comes to him and says now this is the
time to, you know, fulfill this, this commandment of completely
wiping out the Amalekites, men, women, children, everything.
And he goes to battle the usual. Usually people who read it don't
pay attention to all the details.
I'll first say what what inattentive readers notice.
He goes to battle and they were supposed to have destroyed also
all of the Amalekites animals, but instead some of these
animals are lapsed. Apparently the troops want to
barbecue and also the Malachite king Agog is left alive.
And then prophet Samuel has a conversation with, with, with
with Saul about this and that, that this is a great failure of
you as a king. And, and you're going, but
people read, people read the story as if Saul really did
annihilate all the men, women and children.
And my interpretation of the story is on based on a close
reading that he really only killed fighting men, and that at
the end of the day, what Saul was upset about was not that he
hadn't killed the the women and children, the noncombatants.
Saul was upset that he'd given in to the wishes of his troops
not to kill the animals, which would have been a much less
morally fraught thing for him to do, and also that he did not
kill a God the king. And my, what I understand is
going on here is that Saul was not willing to kill the, the
women and children because this did not make sense in terms of
human morality. And, and Samuel speaking sort of
on God's behalf, does not bring that up.
He doesn't complain that the women and children have not been
killed. He's only upset about Saul
giving into the giving into the troops about the animals.
And this this not only didn't he fulfill God's command, which was
much less morally problematic, was just dealing with animals,
but he also gave into it because he gave into into the troops
desires. And, and, you know, it wasn't
really a true command decision, wasn't it, it, it wasn't the way
a real king leader is supposed to behave.
I didn't mention it in the book. I have a feeling that he keeps
the the Malachi king alive because, you know, we kings, we
have to look out for each other. And I think that in Tanakh,
there may be some kind of unspoken convention among kings.
You don't kill each other in battle if you can avoid it
because who knows, you know, I may, I may lose the next war.
I don't want to be killed. So we kings, we look out for
each other and we don't kill each other.
And perhaps that was, you know, the, the improper motivation of,
of Saul not killing the king, who was, after all, I know the
king at the time was, was the supreme military commander.
Obviously he was, he was a legitimate target.
So that's the way I, I read that story as being kind of a, a
very, a very tense situation where on the one hand, God seems
to give let it slip. The women and children are not
killed. Without going into the whole
interpretation, it's obvious that he didn't kill everyone
because it's a few chapters later they're in more words with
the Malachite, so obviously there's some of them.
And I want the audience to know that you actually do an
incredible job with a very close reading of the text to
demonstrate the position that you're taking.
It's beyond the scope of the podcast to go into all the
details, but you know, it, it didn't get spoken out, but the,
but the audience should know the God willing, when they buy the
book and they read it, you, you treat it very, very seriously.
The the the close reading to get to the point that you're getting
at with with like. I just wanted to point that out.
Right, I'll just, I'll just as a teaser, yes, I'll just mention
that when Samuel himself kills a GOG, he says, he says to him, I
am going to make your, your mother into a bereaved parent.
But if all the women and children had been killed, a
God's mother isn't around, but more in a God's death.
So that, that actually that was the key that I saw that, that
that originally made me start wondering what is going on in
the story. And then of course, you know, we
see there's so many Amalekites left afterwards.
And then I started, you know, going into this in depth reading
you're talking about. So anyway, the other the other
character I deal with in that chapter is Jonah.
Before we get to Jonah, I just want to finish on that point
because our rabbi explained this exact same point that few
chapters later, Daveed's group gets plundered, attacked by
Amalekites that basically they're like pirates who, you
know, attack poorly defended communities.
So they represent like a culture that thrives on injustice, that
preys on the weak. So the idea of, of, of wiping
out Amalek may not necessarily be about, you know, a genocide
per SE. It's not.
It's it's just about this ideology cannot be tolerated
because it stands in stark contrast with what civilization
should be like. Yeah, I I know that.
I know that that that the other 99.99% of people relate to to
Amalek as being some kind of symbol of essential evil,
etcetera. But I would point out that in
the Torah itself, it, when it gives the command to destroy
Amalek, it says when you have taken care of all of your
enemies around you, then go after Amalek.
So in other words, it's a very strange kind of war.
It's a war. It's a commandment to to fight a
war, which by definition is not a security necessity because
because the mitzvah says and the Torah after God has gotten rid
of all of your enemies around you, then you go after Amalek.
So, so like, what is that? All right, So should I say a
little bit about the about? Jonah, a little bit about Jonah,
yes. So, so Jonah, I would, I'll just
throw in that I, I take a line which I think the Barbonell took
and I especially build I on an article by by my father, my not
my father, my father-in-law, the late rabbi, Professor Norman
Fredman. I love a Shalom with the idea
that that Jonah is really stuck in in, in a, in a quandary, a
kind of like, and you have an A science fiction movie with with
time travel, perhaps. You know, there's all these
movies where somebody goes back in time and then there's and and
there's a baby called called little Adolf Hitler.
Wow. So I have an opportunity to kill
the baby Adolf Hitler. Am I supposed to kill him?
You know, is that is that my moral duty?
Although at at this point he would seem to just be a baby.
He's not quite that guilty yet. And we have Jonah, who is a
prophet of of the northern Kingdom of Israel.
And he is sent, he's asked by God to go to Ninva, which is the
capital of the Assyrian, where historians might say a neo
Assyrian empire and to warn them that they're about to be
destroyed by God. In other words, that they had
better repent when I assume and other I'm not the only
interpreter right by my like father-in-law.
I think also at least others that as as a prophet, Jonah is
very well aware that these these neo Assyrians are going to
eventually destroy the northern Kingdom and then they'll send
the 10, the 10 tribes into exile.
So this is quite a problem. What do you do when you were
supposed to, you know, that God is planning on destroying your
future enemy and he's sending you to see if you can get them
to repent. Wouldn't you rather let God just
destroy them? And that is that that's that's
Jonah's problem. He is really stuck between
between his very legitimate concern for the Israelite nation
and his duty as a prophet. And I forgot this one of the
Rasheem says that the don't know his his love for that for his
love for the son, for Amis was greater than the love for the
for his father, for God, you know, and yeah, so he held back.
Now what's interesting is I think I think that when you read
the book of Jonah carefully, you can see it's it's extremely
cynical about about Minve about about these Assyrians.
It describes them they're they're they're doing Chuva the
repentance in in a very stupid, crass way.
They have the animals are are wearing sackcloth and you have
Jonah afterwards wondering. So what's going to happen is
this is this very crass repentance going to be accepted
by God? And I think also we have to take
into account at the time, I think that that this empire was
already known as a kind of sort of the Nazis of the ancient
world. It was a very horrible empire
even before, even before they, they destroyed the, the Northern
Kingdom. And and so you have again a kind
of a dance Drona is waiting to see will God destroy them?
That's why you have the story of of of the plant where that God
has grows and gives Jonah shade and Jonah thinks sitting on on
the side thinking, Oh, this is great.
God has has created a place, a grandstand for me to sit here
and wait to see Nimba destroyed and the northern Kingdom in the
future saved. But in the end it doesn't it
doesn't work. God says no, no, it's a big
city. Interestingly, he doesn't really
punish Jonah in the end. It's true that there was a there
was the interlude in the in the belly of the of the fish and all
of that. But generally speaking, God
seems to accept that Jonah was working under understandable,
credible tension between different duties.
And again, I, I read the last, the last verse of the book as as
God sort of once again being ironic about it, where he said,
you know, what do you expect me to do?
You know, you look at all these thousands of people in, in Ninva
and all the animals. And I think whenever I hear that
line, when, you know, when I hear the Haftarah, you're not
red. And then and, and God says, and
the animals, I'm thinking that there should be like some kind
of drum roll or something of, of like the end of of a joke being
told that by a stand up comedian.
The God is saying, yeah, I know they're, they're crazy.
They thought that the animals who wear sackcloth, I know these
guys are idiots. Yeah.
And that's why God has to mention the animals in the end.
You know, he's he's sort of giving, throwing the last bone
to Jonah saying, look, I know I'm letting them live.
I know that that I know they're lowlifes and I know their
repentance look ridiculous, but what can you do?
Yeah, the animals. Yeah, sure.
So anyway, that's basically how I read that is another story of
the tension legit again, legitimate, legitimate duty of
of of Jonah to to the northern Kingdom.
And once again, he has a kind of he has a relationship with God,
which requires him to serve as a prophet will save these people
who are going to destroy the Kingdom.
How do you read the Kikayon part?
Again, the Kikayon I read that as at first Jonah is very happy
about it because I think he he is not sure what's going to
happen. He thinks there's still a chance
that that God is going to destroy Nineveh.
So when he's leaving Ninvea and going like, like he like he like
situates himself right within, within view.
So that's him hoping that God is going to, in a sense, listen to
what he's been. Complaining about complaining
about. OK, yeah, God will.
Get to that scene, how that whole thing plays out so you.
Have so you have there was this there's very crass repentance on
the part of the people of Minvei.
Then Jonah's not sure what's going to come of all of this
because they were horrible people.
You know we know from the historical record before they
you know they were really horrible.
You know it says that that Hamas I should be Adam right like that
terrible violence in their hands.
It was a terrible society and so he's sitting there wondering
what's going to happen. God creates the Kikayo and this
plant which gives them shade. And that would seem to be
saying, yeah, just wait, you're right.
Sit here, It's going. To be OK.
I am creating, I am creating a, a shaded grandstand for you.
Just wait till see what happens, right?
It's not just a stupid plant, right?
And then when the plant is destroyed, then that is, it's
not just that that the plant is destroyed and it's uncomfortable
to sit in the sun. It's that there's nothing to
wait for. There's nothing.
Nothing's going to happen. There's no, there's no reason to
stay in that spot. There's no reason to stay in
that spot anymore because they will be saved, you know?
Yeah, we're. We're we're taking down the
beach umbrella because you're going to go.
That's actually what do you see here.
Very interesting the way you put it, that's that's kind of yeah.
So, so the, the gourd, the kikayon or whatever, however we
want to call it, is sort of a symbolism of, of, of Yona's
expectation. So that when, when, when he gets
shaded by the gourd, he's he's sitting there and he's thinking
that God is going to follow through with, with his own
expectation of them being destroyed and then all.
Why else would he be sitting there?
Why? Else would he be sitting there
and then, and then when he wakes up the following morning and the
gourd is destroyed, he realizes that God essentially took the
Syrian the Syrian sympathies over his and and so then those
last few words with God when, when God says, you know, when,
when he starts to give him the whole like, you know, you care
about the Kion. You know, how much more so
should I? How does that play into the same
point that you're? I think it's I I would have to
take it as as God. I mean, you can always say this
is the way that you deal with problems and shot by saying that
there's some kind of rhetorical move being made or it could be,
but but so God is not directly addressing, you know, what the
Kyon meant for him, right? He's it's it's sort of a
sarcastic way of relating to the situation, right, right.
So also the Akeeda isn't that chapter.
Did you want me to say something about the Akeeda?
Yeah, you know what, Yes, and and we'll wrap up with Akeeda.
But yes, please do wrap up with Akeeda.
That would be. Fantastic.
All right, so with the Akeeda, I argue, you know, you could, you
could wonder. So far we've had, I've told you
stories about Abraham arguing with God over the destruction of
stone. We've seen Shaul not willing to
kill all of the Amalekites. And apparently God was sort of
OK with that part of what he didn't do.
And we have Yonah is is trying to protect the northern Kingdom
by by hoping that that the Assyrians will be killed.
What is happening in the Al Qaeda with that?
When God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, it doesn't say
anything. You'd think that this would be
the perfect example of a contradiction between some
divine plan that, wow, this time we really can't figure out
what's going on. That would apparently it looked
like it would require Abraham to sacrifice Isaac like that.
That seems to be the request. And what is the relationship
between that and Abraham's basic human morality, which would say
you don't murder and you certainly don't murder your own
son. So this is this is a classic
text for all philosophical discussion of, of contradictions
between the divine commands and human morality, right.
And in fact, I, I, in the, in the book, I to some extent, I,
I, I even, you know, frame the discussion in terms of one of
the classic articles, not by a Jewish philosopher, if I recall,
who, you know, who is concerned with that.
Basically, the question is, what happened to Abraham?
He was willing to stand up for Stone and he doesn't stand up
for his own son. So my solution is a solution
which I already know a lot of people don't like because I
published that many years ago in the defunct journal called
Judaism of the American Jewish Congress, which unfortunately
they had. They had invested a lot of money
with Bernie Madoff and they ended up not having enough money
to keep the the journal afloat. And that's why it doesn't exist
anymore. In any event, they they were
upset about this, about this article, because they said I was
reducing A philosophically deep story into a folk tale so people
can decide. What I say is this.
Abraham had been given a direct promise by God that Isaac would
continue his line, and Abraham was supposed to have many
progeny, and it was supposed to be through Isaac.
This was God's promise. On the other hand, God is
telling Abraham, now go sacrifice it.
So my claim is that Abraham actually has no moral quandary
because he believes God's promise.
He knows that whatever is going to happen now, he's going to be
doing what God told him to do, but somehow is going to work out
that it's OK. Isaac is going to survive this,
this adventure. Because for him to think that
Isaac won't survive the adventure would mean that he has
lost faith in God's promise. And in that case, what but
Kierkegaard and before him, Emmanuel Kant and all kinds of
people saw as a very philosophically loaded
situation. I think that like, like every
other test of morality in the Tanakh, it is it is completely
uninteresting in a philosophical way.
There's nothing, there's nothing complicated for Abraham to for
Abraham to figure out here. He believes God's promise.
He can go ahead and do what goes far as he wants, fulfilling
God's command, and he knows that actually it will be OK.
So what kind of test is this? I say it's like a, it's a moral
test like every other, every other test in Tanakh.
It's like the test of Joseph in the House of Potiphar.
You don't have to have taken a course in philosophical ethics
to know that you shouldn't sleep with the boss's wife.
That was not the problem for Joseph.
It wasn't. It wasn't figuring out what you
know, what the different ways of analyzing the situation will
bring me to different conclusions.
No, it's a problem that when you're a, when you're a young
man in the prime of your life and you're a slave, and there's
this woman who keeps on propositioning you even though
it's obvious that you shouldn't give in.
It's an emotionally difficult situation to to give the answer
on the test. You don't sleep with the with
with this married woman is obvious.
But when you're there dealing with the reality of the
situation is the real test of character.
So I say it's the same thing with Abraham on paper, No, no
philosophical problem. God has promised Isaac will
live. God keeps his promises.
You believe in nothing to worry about.
But what happens in reality when you have to live with this and
you're walking and you're walking and you're getting to
the you're getting to the hell and you're taking out the knife
and you're doing all of this stuff already.
What makes perfect sense? It's hard to let the perfectly
logical and rational approach have that control your your
behavior. And I compared it to a kind of
team building exercise that people may may know about, where
you have one person stands with their back to another and the
other person and the person behind them has their arms out.
And you ask the person who's standing in front, do you think
the person behind you is strong enough to catch you if you fall?
Yes, of course. Do you think that they will
catch you if you fall? Yes, of course.
Is it dangerous for you to just keep your legs straight and fall
straight back into their arms? No, it's not at all dangerous.
Fine, let's see you do it. Right.
It it's taking it from the from the realm of of the of the
theoretical to the actual. To the actual and here it's
something we're talking about a kind of faith that it's like
it's not in the it's, it's almost it's it's in your muscle
memory almost right. It's like really real, not just
believing God's promise intellectually, but really
believe in God's promise. Just like in order for me to
fall back into someone's arms, it's not enough for me to be
intellectually aware that it's perfectly safe.
I have to convince my knees not to buckle.
And that shows as far as character goes, a much this,
this faith in the other person is much more deeply embedded in
in my in my psyche, in my character, in my body.
And here we see Abraham's faith in God is just rock solid.
He has, he has no problem. He can.
He can go through with it because he knows that it'll be
OK. It's almost like so as he's
going through, as he's walking up the mountain, he's expecting
the situation to resolve itself. He just doesn't know how.
So he just keeps going and going until that last second and he's
still at that last second. That's where it's getting, it's
getting dicey. But he's, he's expecting
something to resolve itself in a situation which it ultimately
does. And but the whole point is to
let it linger to the final second to, to, to allow him to
actualize that, that trust in, in, in in the best way possible.
Right. Exactly.
I, I actually, I'll be very honest with you.
I appreciate the non philosophical readings of that
of the whole episode. I, I think that sometimes
there's too much philosophical readings going on in the Torah.
And I think that sometimes if we can actually just read the Torah
as a text and to just just enter the characters and and just kind
of allow it to, to project it into a more, you know, you know.
Kind of simplifying it in a way where where we'll just take take
these the the stories and and go along with them and try to put
ourselves in Abraham's mind and shoes and how that would be.
I feel like we get to something a more more real than sometimes
just, you know, abstract, you know, philosophical discussions
around that K dot. Not that those are bad, but I
just, I appreciate, I appreciate this very much.
I, I would also say that that being acquainted with some of
the philosophical discussions, actually I'm not so happy about
them, right, because, you know, I think, I think it was Martin
Luther to say who said what was sacrificed on Moria.
Moria was, was human reason, something like that.
No thanks. You know, the whole, you know,
the whole Torah is telling us, you know, with all due respect
to everything I've said about sometimes God's plans and do not
fit, you know, 99% of the time what God wants, what you know,
God's plan is for us to be as good as, you know, good also in
human moral terms. And the Torah is supposed to be
a Torah, which is our wisdom in the, in the eyes of the nations.
So the idea that this great, this great pivotal story in the
Torah would fly in the face of the entire message of the Torah
that, you know, God may be doing what he's doing, you know, and
that's God. But as far as what he wants us
to do is, is basically to be moral people in the in, in a
human sense. So, you know, I think that
that's A to to try to understand all these philosophical
understandings of the story would be very dangerous and and
just. You know, just I would think
that even I was saying that even I was saying that even even the
philosophical readings that are more agreeable to what we're
saying. All right, I'll say I was
including even that in a sense. And then sometimes I think that
just projecting too many philosophical notions, sometimes
it distracts from a close reading and personal reading of
the text. That's all I was saying.
And I think that a lot of your book very much is is, you know,
we thoroughly enjoyed it. Angie, I know you enjoyed it.
I thought that, you know, we're fans.
I'm I'm a big fan of, of close reading of the text and really
just getting into into the text itself and letting it speak for
itself and letting us in a sense, draw our ideas out of the
text instead of drawing ideas into the text.
And I and I feel a lot of a lot of a lot of what you do here
really brings out the text authentically.
I think that it's very hard in a podcast, especially only have to
have an hour to to really do justice for everything that you
bring to the table with your book.
We want people to know that you know that this is a book worth
getting it. It was a Rabbi Sacks finalist
and it is extremely well done. You have you're very sensitive
to everything that goes on in the text.
And it it was just pleasure to speak to you and.
Thank you so much. So again, it's human divine
Interactions in the Hebrew Scriptures, Covenants and Cross
Purposes by Professor Beryl Dove Lerner.
This is the book. We we really urge you guys to
check it out. It's fantastic.
And where can they find the book?
You know, on Amazon and and whatever, I would just add that
I really like to talk to people. So, you know, people can, can
just like look up my name on Facebook, for instance.
I'm the only barreled old learner on Facebook.
Send me a personal message and I'll be happy to talk to you
just like I, I'll talk to individuals just like I talked
with, with you fine gentleman in a podcast.
And, and, and I, I like having the opportunity to simply talk
with people about, you know, about Tanakh and, and things
like that. If I can take the opportunity,
everybody may be puzzled by this shirt.
Check out Monty Python's Life of Brian and you will understand
the joke. I love it all.
Right. Thank you so much.
Be safe and you know all all good things and hopefully are
you do. By the way, before we go, do you
have any future projects in the works?
Well, fortunately this book came out just before the war, which
sort of paralyzed me in various ways.
And then all those everything I was working on sort of gotten as
well. And I'm soon I next week I'm
giving a lecture I'm working on about how different Jewish
philosophers have related to the question of the size of the
universe and it's importance for it's an importance for theology.
I'm also working on, I like, I'm working on, on a lecture for the
World Congress of Jewish Studies this summer, something on, on
Misha Hochman. Maybe I'll publish these things.
I've sort of, to tell you the truth, since the work I've been
spending so much time, I'm arguing with anti semites on
social media and going to funerals and getting over going
to funerals and all kinds of things that that I don't know, I
have to, I have to get my act together in in order hopefully
to write something serious again.
A. Hard time, very hard time.
And we're our hearts are with you.
And and we, you're always, you're gonna, you know, whenever
you come out with the next project, you're always welcome
to come back on the podcast. It's an absolute pleasure.
And hopefully we'll be in touch. Thank you very much.
All right, take care.