Land of the Infidel

No, I'm not talking about America but Kafiristan - yes, believe it or not, it's a real place. And ironically it's in Afghanistan.

Kafiristan or Kafirstan ("Land of the Infidel" in Persian) was a historic name of Nurestan (Nuristan), a province in the Hindukush region of Afghanistan. This historic region lies on, and mainly comprises, basins of the rivers Alingar, Pech (Kamah), Landai Sin, and Kunar, and the intervening mountain ranges. It is bounded by the main range of the Hindukush on the north, the Pakistani border on the east, the Kunar Valley in the south, and the Alishang River in the west.

Kafiristan takes its name from the inhabitants, the Kafirs, a fiercely independent people with distinctive culture, language and religion. In 1896 the country was conquered and forcibly converted to Islam by the Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, who renamed the people as Nuristani ("Enlightened Ones" in Persian) and the land as Nuristan ("Land of the Enlightened").


While the etymology is contested by some it was used and understood as 'The Land of the Infidel" by the neighboring Muslims.

I just think that jblogosphere tends to get a bit narrow-sighted when the only considered possibilities are Judaism (somewhere along the spectrum) or non-Judaism. From the Muslim perspective (one fifth of the planet, mind you) we're all kaffirs anyway. It seems to put things in some perspective.

Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm: Existentialist

Wow, I hadn't realized Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm was such an existentialist.

It's very interesting to me how his paper follows so many of the themes that I've been thinking through this past long while. That it is better to open one's mind to speculative truth even while the danger of falsehood may enter, for it may be worse to close one's mind to everything, thus locking truth out. And that faith-acts, like Halacha, demonstrate a key trust, a 'faith-in', even while substantive cognitive doubts may exist as merely theoretical problems.

Ironically, while all of these ideas help me to understand the most crucial of religious ideas - i.e. metaphysics and the object of faith in itself, they don't help at all when we bring simple historical propositions into the picture. Exodus, revelation, the validity of our mesorah. He glosses over these kinds of concepts at the beginning of his paper but these are not the abstract philosophical issues that can be dealt with by existentialist philosophies. For the Orthodox system they are true out of dogmatic necessity, but how can the skeptical intellectual (I flatter myself) take that as reason enough to believe?

I don't wonder how Rabbi Lamm dealt with those issues, but I wonder how Dr. Lamm does.

All Faiths are Not Created Equal

To Ben Avuyah on the matter of the equivalence of all faith claims:


"Of course, people can claim they have faith in God's overwhelming morality, but that is the end of all reasoned argument, as all faith claims, dependant on the absence of evidence, are equall, and get dumped in the same hole with healing crystals and scientology."

It's easy to disregard faith. I've done it myself for quite some time, but I think eventually one must realize that if you don't want to sink into the bottomless pit of existential meaninglessness then you need to put your faith in something.

There comes a point where so much argument is just white noise.

Naturally, evidence-based thinking is superior in most respects, but when one reaches the limits of human knowledge I believe we ought to allow ourselves a measure of guiltless speculation.

I do not believe all faith claims are equal as some are coherent while others are not. Some are internally consistent while others are not. Some conflict with the known facts while others exist external to them.

I see little wrong with a coherent, internally consistent belief system that conflicts with no known facts. That's hardly science, of course, but that is religion. It has its place.

On Fasting and the Place of Judaism

This is a response to Michelle's problem with regard to her understanding spiritual development to be the primary concern in life, specifically vis a vis her reported dislike for fasting because it interferes with regular life:


Purposefully depriving your body of nourishment and hydration is generally unpleasant. If you did like it then you would probably be suffering from some mental disorder.

Personally, I can fast for a day pretty easily, so most times I don't mind it that much - but it's not something I look forward to either.

In any case, the point of fasting is not just to 'do your duty' as is the common poor conception, but as a means to change your way of thinking. It is to understand why you fast and to grow in character and spirituality (whatever that means exactly).

Too much of modern Judaism consists of doing what you think you have to and being 'covered' rather than looking beneath the surface and understanding the messages that underline the actions and traditional rituals. See Isaiah 58:5-6*. If all you accomplished from fasting was being hungry then you accomplished nothing.

Yes, Judaism interrupts regular life - often by design - but that doesn't mean regular life is not important. Having a job, a family, enjoying life - these are all important supporting beams for life that exist complementary with personal development. A good Jew is not a monk - he is a person who lives in the real world while remaining mindful of the lessons of Jewish tradition. And an interruption now and then helps make that possible.


* "5 [Sarcastically] Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"

On Hashgacha Pratis

(As seen on XGH's blog as a recent comment:)

I tend to look at 'hashgacha pratis' in the sense that if Jews, as a community, adhere to the lessons in Jewish tradition then, as a community, life will be good and pleasant and so on. It's a simple case of causality.

The wiser ones who understand more of 'God's ways' will be all the more able to understand how best to accomplish their goals and their life will likewise be all the more better for it.

No guarantees though.

Dvar Megillat Esther

As of late I've been reflecting a bit on the fortunes of Jewish history and how the story of Purim is meant to be a commentary. My common understanding was that in Jewish history, as is well known, the Jews get the short end of the stick once or twice and that therefore Purim was meant as a statement saying that a) we Jews are survivors and no matter what our enemies try to throw at us, we'll still come through and b) that, as a sort of ironic joke, sometimes even when great calamity seems imminent and another round of kinot are going to find inspiration, things can still work out in our favor.

It then struck me, as I was reviewing Megillat Esther, that Mordechai makes an interesting statement as he's convincing Esther to use her prominent royal position to help the Jews. And he says, "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish."

What's fascinating about this is that Mordechai seems so sure that the Jews will be saved even though he himself was the product of an Exile which was one of the worst calamities in Jewish history. What makes him so certain that the Jews weren't in for another round?

Some may say the answer is because Cyrus had already proclaimed that the Jews could return to their land and rebuild the Temple and thus he'd figure that God's anger was assuaged enough that the Jews didn't deserve another whopping. Could be, could be.

But I prefer to see it more as a statement of hope and determination even in the face of apparent certain death and destruction. If you are working on the assumption that all plans are doomed for failure then you will never act - and you will fail. But if you are acting on the assumption that something can be done successfully and that you have a responsibility to act - then you will act and you may very well succeed.

The correct attitude when one approaches a problem then should be one of self-confidence and duty - that you ought to act and that your actions will lead to success.

Some hamentashen for thought.

Egyptian Conspiracies

Someone on TFSG brought up the question of whether the ancient Egyptian government could have conspired in such a way to destroy the evidence of a large Hebrew slave population and Exodus, thus explaining the apparent lack of corroborating evidence for the story as it is recorded in the Torah.

This is how I responded:


"While conspiracy theories are fun, if they have nothing behind them but speculation then there's no reason to give them credence unless you're already convinced otherwise.

If the Torah's account is taken as literal, it would, first of all, conflict with the estimated population figures that Egyptologists give for the New Kingdom which is 3-4 million - total. If the Hebrews then made up ~3 million of that number then the entire social situation would have been wacky and Egyptian history - as it is currently understood - would be mostly nonsense from that period.

Furthermore, after a series of events which lead to the death of a good portion of the Egyptian population - at least one firstborn from every household - not to mention the rest of the plagues - and the exodus of 75% of the population as it existed before Moses came back - there would have been a tiny fraction of the pauperized population still living in Egypt. That massive depopulation would have required massive societal restructuring (as virtually the entire working/servant class had escaped) as well as a huge shrinking in economic output and military prowess. Egypt would have been a shadow of its once powerful self.

None of this occurs in any historical record, nor is there any archeological evidence even remotely suggesting it.

I cannot conceive of a realistic method by which the leaders of Egypt could simultaneously destroy the evidence of millions of people living over hundreds of years, leave no record (historical or archeological) of a depopulation and subsequent societal restructuring - all the while staving off foreign interest in conquering their land with a much reduced military might.

The whole idea is simply absurd.

Mix all of that in with the up front claims of miracles and other supernatural wonders and it becomes obvious that we are not dealing with a realistic portrayal of historical events.

Now, that said, I do believe that _something_ happened and that the story is predicated on real events. The exact nature of those events I am not sure about but I suspect they hold a similar relationship to the Torah's record as the Trojan War has with the Iliad.

As I said earlier, myths were common in every civilization. Why should we presume that Israel was an exception?

Of Halachah and the Unknowable

Ben Avuyah has just written another very well written post, this time primarily about the unknowability of God or His intentions and therefore the vacuum of knowledge on which Halacha is traditionally founded and the lack of guidance offered to Halachic decision makers.

As he writes, in excerpt:

"The difficulty is that halachah is not a self contained legal system. It is an extension of God’s mind, and in that sense it is an outgrowth of theology itself: A murky tar pit with no bottom or sides upon which we insist we have built or rigorously argued a coherent code of law.

Yet the fact remains that upon such an unsteady foundation the only blueprint for construction is doubt.

I highlight but one example above…the idea that a creator being may deliver a code of law to test if its subject can follow it, to test if and when its subjects righteously rebel against it, or any number of reasons in between. Without knowing motivation or plan, there is not much more to say.

With the axiom in hand, the we are not privy to God’s thoughts, it appears equally likely that he would choose to test our ability to follow what he has clearly spelled out, as he would to test our ability to rebel, and “tell truth to power” when we “feel” our rules are not guided by moral dictates acceptable to our human sensibilities. Indeed, I weigh the second option over the first. What can God know about you character other than a willingness to follow rules, in the first scenario; it is the second case that is necessary to evaluate character."

In response I wrote this:

Very interesting post. The point is, though, something we can come right to at the start. We don't really know anything about God (meaning ultimate truth, existence, what have you) and therefore we have no means of understanding intent - or even if there is 'intent' as we understand the term.

So in what sense is Halacha the will of God? Standard Orthodoxy is simply that Israel made a deal with God. We follow His rulebook and He gives us Eretz Yisrael, the good life and protection from our enemies (and later on eternal life). But that is as simplistic as it is uninspiring for today's age.

I think an important aspect of religion is exactly the kind of internal conflict resolution you wrote about. Like the famous illustration by Kierkegaard, should Abraham follow the command he thinks is from God and slaughter Isaac or should he "tell truth to power," as you said, and refuse? What indeed is the real test here? Obedience or moral rectitude?

As I see it, Abraham had earlier stood up to God on moral grounds when he actually reproached God of the wrongness of killing the good with the bad at the cities of Sodom and Gemorrah. Yet God there assured Abraham that there really were no righteous men there and therefore the act - and by extension God Himself - was moral.

The assurance then is that God is good and the laws He gives are good laws. Personally, I believe a more correct way of phrasing it is that the laws were made by men with moral intent. They did err in some aspects, but the basic thrust is clear, even if rudimentary.

I do believe you are right on the money where you state that Modern Orthodoxy is backwards in its mechanism of defending Halachic practice through very specific dogmatic theological principles. A better way is to treat Halacha, not as commands by God later on further defined by rabbis, but as a system laid down from antiquity by farsighted men with the intent of promoting, as David opined, an ideal society as understood between men and as the individual while being cognizant of a profound reality.

The intent of Halachic Judaism then is simply to encourage individual progress, societal morality, respect for our heritage and consciousness of the divine. As a human construct, the intent is of human origin and hence comprehensible.

I believe it obvious that we are currently in a transitional age (and have been for some time). What the form Halacha will take in future times is difficult to predict, but I do believe, as David does, that we ought to stick with it through the "tough" times so that our posterity are there for the good times.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

Can you name these famous personalities?

(Hint: They're not all rabbis, in case you couldn't tell.)

Moral Ends

"And "we make our own purposes" may sound nice, but it's pretty clearly not an answer to the question.

Survival would, from a Darwinian perspective, appear to be a 'legitimate' purpose. All other purposes, from that perspective, would have to be artificial constructs. It would seem to me, then, that there could be no objective way of evaluating their relative merits beyond their respective capacities to amuse me."


'Survival' is just an urge we have inherited from our Darwinian origins, if you want to look at it that way. But why should we follow the dictates of some inefficient natural system anymore than we should insist that we cannot use technology since it was artificially created?

Artificial just means "man made" not "fake."

As I see it, pursuit of a greater human society in conjunction with pursuit of the greatness of the individual is the goal of morality. And so much of what makes us great - or can make us great - are things artificially created. In fact, the things that make me most proud of being human are things that human beings have made and done and not the powers we have inherited from nature.

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"Rather high-falutin' stuff, Orthoprax. But I have some difficulty distinguishing it from anybody else's high-falutin' stuff.

In the end, Plato, Gandhi, Stalin, Hitler, Jefferson and a host of others all sought a "greater human society." To some extent or another, each relied on exalting one or more individuals to attain his end. I need more than that kind of phrase to evaluate whether a society is great, or a philosophy is any good."


Indeed, but where they failed was in understanding the basic equality and fairness that must logically be employed for essentially identical objects. All people are essentially the same in this moral sense and therefore ought to be treated similarly.

It is only when you are operating under bias or incorrect data that you can conclude that some minority should be treated fundamentally differently - and therefore unfairly - from the majority.

This, of course, though is only a general principle and there are exceptions - like age or mental handicaps and so on where the minority is truly different and therefore deserves distinct standards.

The point is, and I think I made this clear the first time, that the greater human society is not a moral goal by itself but only makes sense with the complementary goal of the greatness for the individuals who compose society on their own terms. There is a symbiotic relationship between the individual and society and pursuing one at the expense of the other ultimately damages both.

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From here.