The Chazon Ish’s struggle to explain the ancient kind of good jew – Transcript

The Transformation of the Jewish Ideal: From Torah and Mitzvos to Dveykus and Middos

Introduction: Continuation of Previous Discussion

Instructor: Let me see if the rabbi, what’s his name, wants to hear. This sheet is an exploration of something that we started in here. You said that it’s a barf, I think. It was a Lakewood thing. The last sheet here that gave the historical theory of how everyone started the thing, the main thing is to feel good, have the correct feelings, I said that it seems like Rabbi Karelitz wrote a book called *Chazon Ish* [referring to Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, known by his work’s title]. In the back, he wrote a few chapters about his ideas about theology, called *Emunah Bitachon V’od* [Faith, Trust, and More] — it’s really *Emunah Bitachon V’Mussar* [Faith, Trust, and Ethics], I don’t know why they skipped the last word — that’s about the subjects. I don’t know what he called it.

And I noticed that he was trying to express the pre-Baal Shem Tov, or pre-Immanuel Kant, or pre-David Hume — same idea — theory of how to be a good person. That’s what I said, remember?

Now, what you were saying, what you were telling me back today is, and what I say is, that it’s very important to notice this. And this is something you should notice. And this is another way of saying the same thing that we discussed then. We discussed one detail of it, or one instance of it.

Chapter 1: The Classical Ideal — The Talmid Chacham

The Old Version of the Good Person

Instructor: How there is this — let’s say it in the way the *Chazon Ish* would say it, or the way the Litvak [Lithuanian Orthodox Jew] would say it — which is that there’s an old version about what a good person is, which is the same thing about what a good Yid [Jew] is, right? Who is the ideal person?

All the Jewish tradition, up to a certain point, all agree on it, or almost all agree on it. I think it’s more complicated than that, but okay, everyone agrees on it. And that ideal person is called a — hmm — he said it’s called a *Talmid Chacham* [Torah scholar, literally “wise student”].

The *Chazon Ish* — everyone knew until the Baal Shem Tov, or the Baal Salanter [Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founder of the Mussar movement] — everyone knew that the greatest guy around is a *Talmid Chacham*. That’s what it says in the Gemara [Talmud], in the Midrash [rabbinic homiletical literature], everywhere.

Clarifying the Term “Talmid Chacham”

Student: A *Chacham* [wise person]?

Instructor: Yeah, a *Talmid Chacham* is a weird… we could go to the *Shein* [possibly referring to a specific text or source] and I’ll find out about that.

Student: Not a *Navi* [prophet]?

Instructor: Not a lot of things. No, I don’t know. That’s why I said it’s more complicated when you start saying, not a philosopher, not a *Navi*. I’m not sure that that’s correct, because that might include those things. What’s not is some event.

You have, very clearly, I think that this can’t be disputed and I don’t think there’s even a debate about it. You could ask something else. You could say, *Talmid Chacham*, or *Talmid Chacham* would also be that, or there’s another kind of good Yid, good person, which is a *Baal Maisim* [person of good deeds].

The Two Poles: Chochmah and Maaseh

Instructor: Either you do Torah or you do mitzvos [commandments]. That’s the two things. Either Torah or mitzvos. Called in Chazal [the Sages] generally *Chochmah u’Maaseh* [Wisdom and Action]. Either you do Torah, learn Torah, *Chochmah* [wisdom] — you can include *Nevuah* [prophecy] and philosophy and everything in that if you really want. I don’t think *Talmid Chacham* — although the *Chazon Ish* might, yes, think that’s complicated — and or mitzvah, someone who does mitzvos.

That is what every Yid ever thought is a good person. And ideally both, but okay, sometimes people emphasize this, sometimes they emphasize that, okay.

Chapter 2: The Modern Breaks — Chassidus and Mussar

The Chassidic Revolution: Dveykus as the New Ideal

Instructor: Now, suddenly comes the Baal Shem Tov [founder of Chassidism], or comes *Baalei Mussar* [practitioners of the Mussar movement], the Mussar Movement, so-called, and they come up with new ideals of what is a good person. Very explicitly, not this ideal.

They say, no, a good person, what does the Chassidim say? Who is a good person? Someone who has *dveykus* [cleaving/attachment to God]. That’s what the Chassidim say. If you don’t have *dveykus*, you can do as much as you want. We don’t care about you. That’s what they say, very explicitly. And they’re very conscious, actually, of this, that they’re going against what everyone until before them and after them, like, didn’t think that.

Clarification: Misnagdim vs. Old-Fashioned Jews

Instructor: [The Chasam Sofer] was an old Yid. He wasn’t a *Misnaged* [opponent of Chassidism]. You see, this doesn’t mean being a *Misnaged*. It’s very clear. The Chassidim have this weird thing that the world divides into Chassidim and *Misnagdim*, but it doesn’t. It divides into normal people and Chassidim and *Misnagdim*. *Misnaged* is also a weirdo, like he’s already against.

Student: Against.

Instructor: *Misnaged* is another… it’s such a…

Student: Another new kind of thing, right?

Instructor: It’s such a mean word.

Student: Yeah.

Instructor: You exist to go against us.

Student: Right.

The Old-Fashioned Framework

Instructor: So there’s old, just old-fashioned Judaism, or old-fashioned ethics, which is, a good person is someone who does Torah and mitzvos, ideally both. Of, maybe Torah is more than mitzvos, maybe mitzvah is more than Torah, there’s discussions about this, but that’s what it is.

Chassidus: A Conscious Break from Tradition

Instructor: Then comes the Baal Shem Tov, and they say, no, a good person, an ideal person, the best person, is the one who has *dveykus*. Who knows what *dveykus* is, but it’s something that’s not Torah mitzvos, that’s for sure. Yeah, Torah mitzvos lead to that, Torah mitzvos are for that, all kinds of *nashtatik lech* [possibly “we’ll say to you” in Yiddish], Torah, but it’s not that.

Same way, in a similar way comes, in a similar way comes, if anyone that was born by Chassidim has a *smagdus* [possibly “smugness” or a Yiddish term] when I say this, but it’s because they’re very used to all these that kind of, it’s like, therefore, there’s nothing more clear than this, that Chassidim come up with a new way of defining who is the best person.

And they even admit it, it’s just Chassidim are very used to weird apologetics. They’re like, yeah, but there was some *Tzaddik* [righteous person] once we could find in the Mishnah [earliest codification of Jewish oral law] that was, didn’t know how to learn, but is still a *Tzaddik* and so on. This is all a distraction. I can’t get into this, but it’s very clear, and there can’t be anything more clear than this.

Now, they might be right, see, they might not be wrong, but it’s a very clear break.

The Mussar Movement: Middos as the New Ideal

Instructor: The same way, or a different way, but in a similar way, the *Talmidim* [students] of Rabbi Salanter, Rabbi Israel Salanter, and some other Salanters, they came and said that they don’t care if you’re not a learner, they don’t care if you do mitzvos, they care about something new called being a mensch [decent person]. That’s the *Baal Mussar* thing.

We don’t care about it. I mean, of course we care. Of course we care. But in the end, who do we respect? Who do we think is the ideal person who gets praised? Someone who’s a mensch, who has good *middos* [character traits], acts like a mensch. And they come with all these stories, that learning is not enough, blah blah blah, you have to have *middos*.

They mean that he has *yiras Shamayim* [fear of Heaven]. Even something the *Baal Mussar* actually do emphasize. Some of them at least, they say, *yiras Shamayim* and has good *middos*. Okay. But it’s still a very different story than the old story about someone who — that’s the fact, okay?

Chapter 3: The Structural (Not Merely Historical) Thesis

Acknowledging Precursors

Instructor: Now, of course, there’s like people like [unclear] who come and try to say very, like, now, so now, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s explain this. That’s the story.

Now, in my, in my version, this new thing, and these are both modern movements, right? There might be, they all say they have precursors, there are pre-modern movements that say similar things. I don’t know, maybe yes, maybe not, and I’m not really [concerned] by that because I don’t really believe that this is a historical story. I’m just really giving a structural story. There’s ideas about this. It’s not just a historical fact.

Although, ideas do get more and less popular throughout history, but that’s not about that. You’ll find someone, the *Chovos HaLevavos* [Duties of the Hearts, medieval Jewish ethical work] maybe said that. OK, so he’s the same problem. I’m not denying that there might have been people before that said similar things.

The Core Structural Problem

Instructor: But what’s important is that we have to understand both of these modern movements. I’m giving it in the modern version, instantiation of this kind of problem, as responses to the same issue, which is that the old fashioned way of like a good person, someone does Torah mitzvos, that’s the Jewish version of it, right, or the ancient version of it.

The Aristotelian Parallel

Instructor: I don’t know how we were discussed. How did Aristotle say, don’t Torah mitzvos? Having intellectual and practical virtues, right? The same thing. The same thing with slightly different details about what the intellect is and what the good actions are, but the same idea.

Chapter 4: The Crisis — Loss of Teleology and Moral Realism

Why the Old Framework Collapsed

Instructor: And now, since for various reasons, people stopped understanding that, stopped being able to say that, stopped being able to live that, stopped being able to believe that. One of the reasons we discussed has to do with teleology and so on. But I think there’s even more reasons. Therefore, that’s one very basic reason. Stop seeing goodness as a real thing, something that isn’t a property of people or activities in the world.

The Search for New Solutions

Instructor: So therefore, we end up being stuck and looking for some new way. Now, either you could be an idealist. That’s the real, like, flat line here, like the real default now. You could be some guy that thinks that he knows what he’s doing, that he can do whatever he wants. That’s one option, of course. Since we’re all pretending to be religious, that’s not an option. So we have to find a different solution.

The Chassidic Solution: Dveykus and Over-Internality

Instructor: So one of the solutions was to say *dveykus*, whatever that means, which is definitely not the same thing. It’s something very internal, right? All the criticism that I have of over-internality applies to that.

The Mussar Solution: Middos and Practical Internality

Instructor: Or something also, in some way, internal. But in any case, I think we also get up mostly stuck in internals, even when they talk about being a mensch. At least the people that I know that are working in their tradition mostly end up thinking that the guy that feels, has empathy with someone is a bigger *tzaddik* than the guy that actually raises money for him.

So they seem to end up in a very similar place, but with different things. They don’t really believe in God. That’s the very different *malchus* [kingship/sovereignty]. See them, other people, right?

Chapter 5: Jacob’s Broken Ladder — The Metaphysical Crisis

The Ladder Metaphor

Instructor: Since another very weird way of saying this is the very old way that we said this once about the ladder being broken, right? Jacob’s ladder. Jacob’s ladder broke, which means there’s no *malchim* [angels] anymore. Nobody believes in *malchim*, right? There’s a sign of this, which means there’s nothing that makes the world and God work together as some kind of unit, as some kind of coherent, intelligible thing.

The Three Responses to the Broken Ladder

Instructor: So now, you have basically, either you could be a nothing, that’s what I said, or you could cling to God anyways, then you destroy the world, that’s Chassidus, or you could cling to the world, whichever perfection can be found in some weird way internally in the world, and destroy God, which is what the *Baalei Mussar* do, they don’t really believe in a God.

A Possible Third Way: Divine Command

Instructor: Or you could find a third way which is the idea of divine command which I’m not sure which one it is, it’s one of these.

The Problem of One-Dimensionality and the Challenge of Authentic Articulation

The Common Thread: Disbelief in Substantive Goodness

Student: It seems to me that people, the common thread that you’re saying, they don’t believe in any real goodness. They don’t believe, they don’t seem to believe in any real substance in it.

Instructor: Yeah, there’s nothing that exists. Nothing exists. There’s no, it’s just, they’re addicts, whatever, something like that. Like, they’re not, there’s no…

Student: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Therefore, if there’s a goodness, it could be only imposed from the outside, that God gave it a meaning, or God told you to do. It doesn’t mean…

Instructor: Yeah, yeah. *Chochmat ha-Kalam* [Islamic theological philosophy/dialectical theology] is this, exactly, in some way. This is the story. That comes as the basic story that we have.

The Critique of One-Dimensional Frameworks

Now, back to where I am. There are certain people that very much are trying to tell the people, they’re all stuck in their own circles, getting stuck because they have this very limited amount of options and very limited picture, very limited view of the world, and therefore get stuck in one of these extremities.

Like, everything is just about *dveikus* [cleaving to God]. I’m not only saying that *dveikus* is a bad thing, but you sort of deny, you become like a *misnaged l’olam* [perpetual opponent], you become like what Schelling said, you can’t have a table standing on one leg, it’s going to fall very quickly. The same way with being a *misnaged* [opponent, particularly of Chassidism], things like that. They all become very too small things, things that don’t really encompass the richness and variability of life.

That’s the real big criticism of one of the big problems with this kind of thing is they become very one-dimensional, like everything becomes about that, and then every other dimension is evil, not the case, usually. That’s usually what happens. And we’ll see, if we’ll get to it, we’ll see exactly why this happens, but that’s what happens.

The Difficulty of Articulating Opposition

And now, some people, very few people, actually managed to articulate an opposition to this. It’s very hard to articulate an opposition, especially when you’re working within a world structure, a worldview, which is already the cause of most of these problems. This is the problem.

Student: Also, what you just said, because it’s not that they’re necessarily wrong, but they’re one dimensional. So what you’re going to say is, no, there’s more. And they’re like, it’s harder to make that up.

Instructor: Yeah, that actually makes it easier, because then we’re back to what wisdom has always been doing, which is finding how what you’re saying is only part of the story. There’s ways, but you have to do a lot of work.

So like I said, we could see all of these ways as trying to keep alive or to re-make alive, make to whatever the ancient story is, whatever the true story is, but having a very hard time since most people don’t even have the words within which you can speak it. So you end up either translating yourself into them and then losing a lot, or fighting with them, which is also a very big problematic thing, right?

The Problem with Fighting the World

To be very clear, to fight with the world is also not a perfect way of living. Like to be the one that is always explaining everything is corrupt and everything being a *misnaged* is in itself a way of life, being the one who is against everyone. And it’s not a good way to live. It’s generally evil. Generally, also, because it’s one-dimensional, also, because it doesn’t actually account for how people really are and why they really are the way they are. You just dismiss them by saying, oh, you’re one of these modern people. You’re a heretic. That’s not a real way of understanding what that person is. And therefore, you lose touch with people. There’s a lot of evils in that. It’s itself not a very useful way of living.

So you have to decide what to do. I actually have a very weird…

The Dilemma: Translation vs. Confrontation

So now, all the *tzaddikim* [righteous people] basically, everyone who doesn’t want to just submit to nihilism, is looking for a way to solve this problem. Most of them do, I mean, there’s so many ways to deal with it.

Option One: Translation and Its Costs

But, one of the things they do is to try to speak in the new language and then you lose a lot and some people even forget. Like people don’t realize how much of, people say this about the Rambam [Maimonides], right, famously, and in some sense it’s true, and in other sense it’s not true because people think this only to understand whatever happened, but in some sense, you know, people say this, you know, when the Rambam translated, that’s what they say, it’s not true, but they say the Rambam translated Jewish thoughts into the language of Greek Muslim philosophy, and that was his doing the *yeridat ha-tzaddik* [descent of the righteous one], right? It was *yeridat ha-tzaddik* who goes into the *klippot* [husks/forces of evil] in order to save the other people.

But if you don’t have this problem, then people can make a conclusion. Therefore, if you don’t think the language or speak Greek philosophy, then you have no use of the Rambam. Like Rav Kook [Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook] said, *kafsa ein tzarich l’hadlika* [once extinguished, there’s no need to rekindle it]. There’s some *mitzvot* [commandments] that if they’re *kafsa* [extinguished], we don’t have to reignite them, because it was anyway just a way of speaking in a language of some people.

This is not a correct account of what the Rambam did, but it’s still a true structure. If you do that, I think many people don’t realize how much of the things that they believe. Like, this is the true Judaism. It’s not. This is the true way in which some guy tried to be *machzir b’teshuvah* [bring back in repentance], you want to speak to you in your language. But someone doesn’t have that, it’s even better. And then, that’s one option. Okay?

Our Approach: Rejecting Unnecessary Translation

We’re not trying to, we’re trying not to do that option. That’s my, my thing is to stop doing that, because, mostly not for Jewish reasons, right? Mostly because those *shitot* [approaches/methods] are silly. Why would we try to push ourselves into very stupid ways and very incomplete ways of understanding the world just because everyone thinks that way. That’s not a good enough reason.

Student: What do you refer to? Why we shouldn’t talk in the language that we’re talking?

Instructor: Yeah, like there’s an option. There’s an option like this.

Case Study: Moral Therapeutic Deism and Its Jewish Versions

Nowadays everyone believes, remember what do American people believe in? There was a sociologist who said all the people in America, no matter what religion they are, believe in something called moral therapeutic deism. What does that mean? They believe in a God who’s not really involved in the world. He mostly makes you feel good about yourself, and he makes you a good person. He makes you a good person how? I don’t know. He believes that you’re a good person, at least.

Student: Yeah. He makes you think that you’re a good person.

Instructor: I don’t know. I don’t know. Give *tzedakah* [charity]. Sometimes help your neighbor. Basic things. That’s what everyone, basically, in America believes. And if you look at all the… and one of the books written was called *Catholic, Protestant, Jew*, right? The three kind of religious people in America, they all basically believe this. They just sing different songs in their churches. And sometimes they don’t even sing different songs. But basically, that’s all they all believe.

Jewish Examples of This Accommodation

And then one of the things that many rabbis do, and every version, like you could say, came and told you that the power of positive thinking, wow, half of Chabad is this. Half of Chabad, like outreach, when they get to the content. I’m not talking about the *mitzvot* or things like that. Like that *Bitachon* [trust/faith in God] guy, the *Bitachon* guy, the *Bitachon* guy.

Student: *Bitachon* guy, so *Bitachon* guy is a very American, it’s called toxic positivity, a very American trait.

Instructor: Yeah, you know the *Bitachon* guy, they put it in the sheets. *Bitachon Weekly*, that’s what it is.

Student: No, no, that’s not radical, that’s different, not radical. He just says, he just talks about it. He’s not radical.

Instructor: That’s what he’s trying to say, he’s saying that he believes in toxic positivity.

Student: Possible, but I think that he’s more sincere.

Instructor: Okay, he’s a really religious guy. I used to think what you’re saying, I just, I read it, I’m like, this is just secular.

Student: Yeah, all of this, it’s the power of positive thinking. You could find Oprah believes in the same thing.

Instructor: And many other, basically everyone in America believes in that. She’s not around anymore, whatever. I don’t know. All these people, I mean, now there’s new things that’s ready. But this is something still very much accepted. And therefore, that’s what you teach. And you say this is Judaism. It’s not not Judaism. I mean, yeah, I’m sure there’s some sources for that and somewhat true. But it’s a very great watering down.

Different Versions of the Same Pattern

And it’s a very great thing so that’s one thing you could do or you could even people think that’s the whole *Yiddishkeit* [Judaism]?

Student: Try to design it as the whole *Yiddishkeit*? One idea or end of *Yiddishkeit*?

Instructor: What did we say, don’t be *misyayesh* [despairing], remember? Basically that. That’s basically what the revelation of *Yiddishkeit*, yeah. Not *misyayesh*, it’s like to be hard on yourself. Now you’re saying, *tracht gut vet zein gut* [think good and it will be good], this is all one, it depends, it’s different from the rest of us. The American trust is that everything is good, Hashem loves you, and He needs you, and all of this. But kids, this is just an end of doubt.

I’m not talking about you. You’re not the customers for these kinds of things anyways ever, so you don’t even understand it. But there’s more sophisticated ways of doing it that do stick to you. Slightly more sophisticated ways. And every generation, and every group of people, whatever they really believe basically, or whichever framework they really believe.

Important Qualification: The Value of Basic Goodness

By the way, it’s a very great thing to make people good people within their framework because it’s hard enough. It’s hard enough to just keep on being normally good people that provide for their families and don’t steal and don’t kill. And more or less, it’s hard enough. It’s a great achievement if you can do that. I’m not here to denigrate anyone that’s doing that. I think that’s real work.

Student: Is that considered a low bar, though?

Instructor: No, it’s not a low bar. I think it’s a lot. I think it’s a lot. I think it’s a lot. I don’t think that, as I said, you have to remember that the default is something much worse than that. All the clichés in the world are better than whatever they’re doing in Brooklyn, okay? I don’t know where it’s now, like, hipster central, whatever. All of that is, all of that is, it’s still, it’s a great achievement, it’s a lot, I don’t think it’s a little.

The Seriousness Critique: Modern Jewish Thought, Therapeutic Culture, and the Angelology Test

The Insufficiency of Therapeutic Judaism

And secondly, because I think that there is a real criticism to be made, not because we’ve inherited this tradition that says other things and so on. No, no, not because, look, if you follow that, you end up saying that half of the real things in the Torah are—you end up having everything being a problem, and all the things in the Torah were good are really bad, and all the things that are said are bad are really good, and why we end up making every sermon is about reinterpreting what the Torah says is good. I really meant to say that it’s bad. When the Torah says something is bad, it really meant to say that it’s good. And who told us what is really going to run is really bad? The New York Times editorial board.

So, that’s—I’m not even saying that, that’s something I say sometimes, but that’s not, I’m not even saying that. Even that is still better than being a horrible person which already full, but I’m saying something different. What I’m saying is that *betor goy* [as a thinking person], not *betor yeled* [as a child], very important, *betor goy*, *betor guy* [as a person] that likes to think critically, or even that is a word that they’ve stolen from us, but that likes to think, this basic worldview within which all these people are working—it’s very silly, at least incomplete. It’s even worse than that, but it’s at least incomplete. And it’s not serious. It’s very basically not serious.

I give you all the reasons why I think it’s not serious, but it’s basically not serious. I mean, that’s what I do every week. I give you the reasons why I think it’s not serious. It’s not serious. So, forget about if the Torah says it, or if it matches, or it doesn’t fit in the Torah, the Torah fits into it, the Torah doesn’t fit in the Torah. Right? Forget about the question.

The Therapy Example

Should the solution to every question that comes up in the education of your children be that there’s a therapist that knows the answer? Besides for that not being well, you know, we have experienced education of children and teenagers and adults for like 5,000 years or however long, and somehow we’ve managed to live without all these people. That’s one silly argument. But besides for that, it’s just not serious. They don’t actually solve anything.

You should call the—this is not that rant, anyways, right? You should call the school, the *menahel* [principal], that every time he has a problematic kid sent to a therapist, then you should ask them for the how many kids that therapist actually helped. They give you numbers. Like out of the 70 people that had problems, they saw it. I’m not trying to help. You might be off for a minute.

Okay. Now you’re giving other questions. I’m just saying the kids are not serious. It’s basically not serious. That’s the main problem. So I have a different problem that’s just not serious. These people never really thought about what real problems are, never thought of what solutions might be. It’s just not serious.

The Purpose of This Project

But that’s a problem that I have with our *mensch* [person/people]. Therefore, where did I get into all of this? Therefore, and now I have a pile of people that say, well even if it’s not serious, but the Rav said, the Rav didn’t say that, I was trying to help you. Don’t be so silly, don’t be so not serious, and let’s try to listen to when the Rav *hacks on you* [criticizes you]. Maybe he’s trying to say something better then. How about you listen to the Rav when they’re *hacking* [criticizing]? Of course, they don’t really understand either, but at least they’re representing something that’s like much older than your thoughts, right?

I mean, that’s like one of the basic conservative intuitions, like something that most people in the universe thought for the past 3,000 years, probably they said something. They were crazy, maybe. But it’s probably worth to think about what they said. That’s just one heuristic, not really an argument.

But my point is more that since this is not serious, like you see that it’s not serious, there should be a way to present this serious way, not because of the need of the Judaism. Judaism doesn’t need it. Judaism will survive very well with all the silly people teaching clichés. And that’s already good. I can think of worse things than that. So that’s not my problem. I’m not here to save Judaism. It’s going to serve us much better with those other people. I’m just here to, for me and the people like me that are trying to be serious, trying to have serious thoughts, to be able to do that in a serious way. That’s all.

A Taxonomy of Those Standing Against the World

Now, going back to the *Holy Chazanish* [unclear reference]. Now, we find that within the people that are standing against the world, there are various kinds.

The Screamers: Reactionaries Without Content

Now those who don’t really know why and what, and they’re just talking, okay. They might be helpful in some sense, just by creating space to like, not automatically accept whatever it is.

Student: Yeah, like questions without answers, basically?

Instructor: They don’t even have questions. Because they can’t even explain to you what’s wrong with the world. They can only like scream, which is not even an argument. It’s socially somewhat useful, but not more than that.

The Rare Serious Thinkers

But then, there’s some very interesting people, people, very few of them, that actually do think. There are such people that they actually do think. And they do try to articulate what is wrong with the world, or try to at least give their alternative version of how things should make sense.

I don’t know. In the Jewish context, there’s basically none that are really good at it. They might be like Catholics and people like that. Even, yeah, let’s not get into this *lashon hara* [evil speech] on the *Eden* [unclear]. Anyways, even some of our enemies have better, more complete theories of the world and of what’s going on than any of us do. That’s *baruch* [blessed/unfortunate]. We have more value than any other enemy. Enemy is just people that want us dead. It’s easy to be. That’s the simple definition.

But even some of them have more complete understandings of how everything works, though they might have their own fallacies and problems. But they do have some understanding of what’s going on, which basically no one in the Jewish context says. It’s very weird.

The Two Kinds of Jews We Know

The Jews that we know, there’s only two kinds. One of them is the reactionary people, people who are like, just do whatever we’ve always done. And they’re not doing whatever they’ve always done, but that’s a different problem. And everything outside is bad. They don’t really know what the outside means and what bad means and so on. Those are the one kind of people.

Student: Why are they called reactionary?

Instructor: Because they’re just reacting against modernity or against whatever it is.

Student: Oh, they’re against the, yeah.

Instructor: Yeah. Like, I don’t know, my great grandmother didn’t drive because there were no cars in her town, but I think my wife shouldn’t drive either for the same reason. Those are the people. And if you ask them why, they start saying, they just don’t even say it. Then, that’s just one version.

And then there’s the smart people. We call them the dumb people. Everyone thinks that my whole *shiur* [lesson] is already three times more advanced, so we’re already supporting that. But everyone thinks that those are the dumb Jews.

Then there’s the smart Jews, like all the—who? Who’s the smart Jews? The sophisticated ones, right? The ones who discovered that the Torah’s ethics is precisely New York Times’ altruism. That’s one kind. There’s even ones that now, now that we have, like, Breitbart or some of the discoveries that is actually that, which is not a very dumb thing. It’s also reactionary and very not deep usually, but that’s one other thing.

The “Sophisticated” Thinkers Who Accept Modern Metaphysics

And then there’s all these, like, sophisticated people that, in all kinds of various ways, still 100% the people that are thinkers. I don’t know who you know and who you read and so on, but as far as I can tell, all of them basically accept every single metaphysical commitment of this nonsense theory. They just try to work within it. Non-metaphysical, anti-metaphysical commitments, right?

The Angelology Test: A Diagnostic for Seriousness

In other words, do you know of a modern Jewish thinker that believes in angels? Because I don’t know of one pre-modern thinker that doesn’t. That’s my, my, my *siman* [sign]. If you, angelology is an important part of your Judaism, then you’re an ancient Jew. If it’s not, if you have a kid when he asks instead of angels, we could consider you. But other than that, there’s no modern Jewish basically.

The modern are totally not *mekubalim* [kabbalists]. They don’t really believe in the existence of any of these things. They just think it’s all psychology, which is nonsense. So there’s no modern Jewish thinking that believes in angels.

What Does Believing in Angels Mean?

Student: So therefore, they’re all not serious. When you believe in angels, what do you mean by that? I’m trying to know.

Instructor: No, exactly, because psychology could also be a real thing, right?

Student: No, what I’m saying, I really just want a definition.

Instructor: Not enough real angels.

Student: No, no, no. This is all the sophisticated people convince themselves it’s nonsense. Angels are intermediate beings. Do you believe in causation? Do you believe in causation, basically? That’s one *nimshal* [analogy/application]. When Burton says that, he means that.

Student: No, when I say angels, I mean *malachim* [angels]. *Malachim mamash* [actual angels]. *Malachim mamash*, like it says in the symposium messengers from God to man and from man to God.

Instructor: What does that mean?

Student: Oh when you say messenger what does messenger mean?

Instructor: I think with wings.

Student: So not with wings?

Instructor: I don’t know that’s a different question there’s a lot of wings there’s God listen there is God there is God psychology or—

Student: Yeah of course psychology meaning something that’s only in me for sure.

Instructor: Yeah, sure. Yeah. Something between… You mean it comes to me in that way?

Student: No, no. It might come through that. Nobody disputes that. But it’s something real. Something external to your soul. Yeah. That’s what an angel is. An angel is not a part of your soul.

Instructor: Is a thought also… Hold on. A thought is also part… Let’s move on. I’m just wondering if you’re saying, is it the same thing as a thought?

Student: No. When you say a thought, usually you think something that exists because of you. Not exists… Maybe you exist because of it. Not because it exists before you. Greater than you. External to the mind. Has an independent existence. That’s an angel. Otherwise that’s not an angel. Doesn’t do what an angel has to do.

So, anyone that believes in *malachim*, that *Rambam* [Maimonides] believes in *malachim*, he doesn’t think *malachim* are things in your head. I’m just wondering what this belief is.

The Nature of Angels as Real Entities and the Chazon Ish as a Rare Genuine Thinker

Clarifying the Ontological Status of Angels

Instructor: What is this entity? We’ll get into discussion. When we’ll do angelology, then we’ll start having discussions what they are. But now you don’t even have room for such a thing in your world. Do you understand my problem?

My problem is not that you don’t think *maluchim* [malachim: angels] do have wings, and I’m saying they don’t have wings. No, they’re just intellects. Okay. But when I say intellects, you think something in your head. It’s not something in your head, it’s some real thing. Something that the world doesn’t make sense without. And it’s not God and it’s not us thinking about God. Okay? Something in between those two things. Okay? In between, in the central.

And also not in our thoughts, which is our world. Right. Not dependent on your thoughts. Everything can come in your thoughts. Human thoughts are straight, this crazy weird thing that can somehow touch everything. But not only about, because of your thoughts. Okay?

Why am I saying this? Those things think by themselves, those without you.

Student: Yeah, of course.

Instructor: Right. Things that don’t go away when you close your eyes. Remember? No, don’t not going to do with you at all, even if you’re dead, it’s still, it’s existing, it’s… Again, we can get into discussions. Maybe, maybe it needs you to give it food to continue to live. I don’t know. You understand? We can have discussions. But the existence of a space in the world for such a kind of being, you understand what I’m talking about? That’s something that we lost, that we don’t have.

The Two Types of Jews and the Eliyahu HaNavi Joke

Now, why am I saying any of this? Because that’s the second type of Jew, that doesn’t believe in the angels.

Student: Oh, very good. So, it gets it.

Instructor: So, there’s only these two kinds of Jews. The Jews that say they believe in angels, but they don’t know what angels are. They’ve never seen any of them. No angels will talk to them because they’re too stupid for them. And, yeah, you know? You know why the only one who doesn’t come to the *Fremi Eden* [Frum Yidden: Orthodox Jews]? Because he doesn’t like to talk to *Mishigun* [meshugaim: crazy people]. The other guys, he doesn’t come because they don’t believe in him. It would be very hard for him to come. But the *Fremi Eden* doesn’t come because the *Mishigun*. So, who should he talk to? Only to me, basically.

Now, this is a very very deep joke. So, this is the *Bayat* [Beis Yaakov: a religious educational movement], so we don’t have any one, right? We basically don’t have that.

The Conspiracy: Creating a School That Genuinely Believes in Angels

So now, what we do have, so this is a very sad situation, and we’re here to solve the situation. This is my conspiracy. We’re going to solve the situation and create this whole school of people that believe in angels. Finished. Not because if you believe it will start the…

If you ask a writer, I’ve told you many times. If Peter and the Lakewood, everyone believes in *Chayadim* [shedim: demons]. Why? Because they don’t believe in *Chayadim*. They believe in the *Gemurah* [Gemara: Talmud]. They believe they have to say it because it says in the *Gemurah* and we don’t pass on that grammar. OK.

And you want them to say, if you remember, you said once that the biggest lie that they don’t believe in *Chayadim* is because someone says, I just saw a shade. Everyone laughs at you. No one believes you. Right. Because they don’t believe in *Chayadim*. I’ve said this for a long time. I think you should say you believe in *Chayadim*. You never walked into that dark alley like, oh my god…

That’s one of the solutions, right? That’s one of the solutions, weird modern solutions of saying that everything is about the text and it says the mitzvah, it’s a *khir* [chiyuv: obligation] and so on. So the kids said, this is the *mahal* [mashal: parable/analogy].

Identifying the Chazon Ish as a Rare Thinker

Now, what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do this, I don’t know why I’m saying this, but what we’re going to do or one of the things we can do is that there are some very, so out of all the Jews in the world, all the Jews living in the mountain, there must be more. I’m thinking, I don’t know. It can’t be. Maybe there’s very few Jews and the few Jews don’t really realize. I don’t know why there’s so few Jews even trying to do this? I don’t know why. Or maybe there are, there aren’t, it’s just Michigan. I’m not sure.

So, we have to try to find a few people that have enough courage and enough independent thought, they basically just think for themselves, and are able to tell us how to think about the world and how to go about this.

Now, I think that this [the Chazon Ish] was one of the only people that actually thought in like the last 100 years. Of course he was also a *frum* [religiously observant] and also therefore *Mashiach* [meshuga: crazy]. So when you read it, sometimes like for one line he’s thinking and then the next line he’s just saying, and you have to know, this is a big word, it’s hard for me to know because I don’t know myself. Maybe sometimes when I think he’s just saying that, he’s really thinking, I just didn’t get the thought. Because because it’s one of the shortcuts people always use, like even me. I say, as it says, you have to believe it. That’s not a reason for anyone to listen to what I’m saying. But that’s a shortcut that people that have authority and that are used to the world of authority and speaking in authority do always. So it’s very hard to understand when they’re doing it.

The Incomplete Nature of the Chazon Ish’s Work

But what you could notice, I think, is that he is trying very hard, and he wrote this little book that’s very incomplete and very not fleshed out. I think it’s a very… Many of the things he does are like this, not only in *Alecha* [Halacha: Jewish law], also he has this problem. But it’s very not fleshed out, and there’s a lot of things where he noticed the real problem and then just closes it with some weird, like, an *imam* [Ani Ma’amin: “I believe” – statement of faith]. But…

Student: I mean, isn’t it his thing to not go for verity in some schools?

Instructor: Yeah, but he also usually doesn’t have enough. It’s like, he very often realizes something very good and then gets stuck somewhere. Or like, his argument could go both ways, and he doesn’t even realize that the same good thought that he has actually proves the other side also just as much as it proves his, things like that. He just seems to be very, very quick to jump off that. I’ll give you an example, a very concrete example that I found last week about what he reads here.

What Distinguishes Thinking from Scholarship

But one thing he does that most people don’t do is actually think. Like he actually tries to do this activity called thinking. And yeshivas don’t teach you to think. They teach you to do what *Chachikdi* [chakira: analytical inquiry] does, to mix up a bunch of thoughts that other people have and put it in the right order. He actually thinks sometimes. He uses books. He looks to think, he uses authority to think, but he doesn’t only repeat what the authority does. He thinks. He tries to also identify. He tries to think until he agrees with what it says or until he believes it. Okay? And he talks about this explicitly in his little book, I think.

So, and therefore it’s very valuable, extremely valuable just for this. Maybe there’s some other people that did this. I don’t think there’s other people because, like I said, either they’re *Mishigom* who just say, *shtetn alegatoid* [standing on the Gemara] and go to heaven if they don’t believe, whatever, or they’re… They’re just already accepted upon themselves the yoke of everything that whoever is the professor of their study believes. And they’re just trying to make something work within that.

The Question of Other Thinkers: The Meshech Chochma

Student: Didn’t [the Meshech Chochma]…?

Instructor: No, I don’t mean that you should come to the… You don’t find that he thinks like in the…

Student: I don’t know. I don’t find him thinking.

Instructor: Really? He says very good [pshatim: interpretations]…

Student: [Pshatim] are not thinking.

Instructor: No, he’s not. It’s at least not revealed. He had a thought. I can’t say they didn’t think.

Student: No, but it’s very hard to know if someone’s wrong.

Instructor: It’s one of the secrets. I think he thought it was real problems. That could be, but that could be not. Because he’s smart and he read a lot of things. But you don’t know, as far as I’ve read his book, I haven’t found him ever thinking. You can’t prove this. It’s not possible. If you could read *Mordechai* [a medieval Talmudic commentary] in a very textual way, you’d be able to call this a trap.

Student: No, *Mordechai* was very explicit.

Instructor: Yeah, that’s true. Also, *Mesh Chachma* [Meshech Chochma] is basically wrong in most of the *Ashgafas* [hashkafos: philosophical/theological perspectives]. But that’s different.

Student: What’s the proof that Lebowitz liked it?

Instructor: So, no, he’s also very modern in his thinking and he doesn’t ever think through it. Most of the things that people know of him he’s saying, he’s very stuck in certain dichotomies. But I can’t get into this. It’s not, you can’t prove that someone thought that. It’s a very important thing. Nobody could prove if someone else thought. It’s a secret. You could just say, you could write the same without thinking.

Student: Yeah, of course.

The Moreh Nevuchim [Guide for the Perplexed] as a Book That Thinks

Instructor: The *Moinu L’Vechem* [Moreh Nevuchim: Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed] actually is a book that does think. And in that sense, it’s different than most other, even the *Shainim* [Rishonim: early medieval authorities], because most of them don’t do thinking. I haven’t seen any other ones.

Student: Yeah. There are other ones that think.

Instructor: I know. I know when you’re talking about that, there are other ones. But the *Moinu L’Vechem* doesn’t, does a lot of, does thinking and, obviously, one of the ways to see it is that he has open questions, right? Sometimes he’s *Megamkem* [megamgem: hesitant, stammering]. Sometimes he’s like Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our teacher]. Sometimes he’s *Chabad Per, Chabad Leshem* [heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue – referring to Moses’s speech impediment].

The Diagnostic: Open Questions and Tzarich Iyun

Now some people they always every *shaykh* [shiur: Torah lecture] they say is beautifully wrapped and finishes and ever you know he starts with 17 *kashas* [kushyos: questions] on the *post* [posuk: verse] and at the end he finished he finished all 17 *kashas* that’s a bluff maybe there’s one *kasha* this one actually no I don’t know that shows you that he’s very otherwise you’re saying a nice Torah okay no problem it’s backwards so *Meshach* [Meshech Chochma] will never stand with *Tzarechim* [tzarich iyun: requires further study] like *Tzarechim* is a basic thing like this I’m puzzled by this and it’s very hard actually that’s the whole book.

He doesn’t openly, but I think it’s very, his themes of his thoughts are way more obvious than anyone else’s, which shows that at least for one line, yeah, explains how hard it is to ask questions. *Ghazalij* [Al-Ghazali: medieval Islamic philosopher] doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, but I think that when you read him thinking about basic stuff, you’ll notice that for one line he thought, and then the next line doesn’t actually answer that thought, which means that he got upset at himself and he’s like…

Defending the “Frum Retreat” as a Form of Wisdom

He’s like, I don’t know. That’s, I know that, I know I actually have many teachers that act in that way, and I respect them very much. Because they’re not lying to themselves. They do lie. They do, they are *frooms* [frum: religiously observant]. They’re afraid of, and that’s not only *froom* kind. There’s also a certain wisdom. Because the other people that are like, take one thought and then just run with it are seriously dumb. They’re one dimensional also.

You know, most of the people that you know, write blogs about how rationalist they are. They basically have one thought, or a quarter of a thought in their life. And they just like, follow through all of them, all the conclusions from that. But that’s not very smart like basic wisdom is to there’s another side of that so if someone says well this sound seems to be correct and he has a line of that real thinking and then he’s like so okay so he tapped to me interpreter saying okay but I’m not the first one to think in the world much of any or whoever thought also also from now I’ll just move on right.

Pushback on the Ancient-vs-Modern Framing

Student: But it seems that you do the same thing with the ancient versus the modern like you don’t see so much like the modern, out of serious thinkers.

Instructor: No, it’s not true. It’s just because you people are so that I have to hack enough to get it out. What were the balance lines? Yeah, it’s just balance. I’m not sure. They’re very serious. Not only are they very serious, all their arguments are already saying Plato. Saying Plato? Yeah. They didn’t really invent any new arguments. They just did exactly that. Just take one side of the argument. They’re on with it.

So that’s why I said in the beginning of the sheet, this start of the story is not really the best framing. I should stop doing it. But it’s hard enough to get people to understand what I’m saying we’re going to do it with this clutch of this.

The Chazon Ish’s Critique of Mussar: Halacha as Deep Commentary on Human Nature vs. Simplistic “Toras Hanefesh”

Methodological Disclaimer: The Historical Framework as Pedagogical Scaffold

Instructor: But if I do it without it, you’ll really go crazy. But it’s really, all these theories are worth their forever. Like the sultan, like I told you, the sultan that spoke to the Adam HaRishon [Adam: the first human being] already said all those arguments. It’s not anymore. Freud and Jung and everything was different. Yeah, all of it. Really? Yeah. If you actually read ancient texts, you’ll find them, all the arguments. And if you read some like modern academics, they’re always doing this. Like, oh, people say Descartes invented this. But really, it’s some guy from 1,000 years before. This is what we have. This is what we have. Yeah, that’s only the ones written down. It’s a whole society of people who thought about all the time, but also that. Correct.

So nothing is really new. Or describing things historically is not the best way, but I’m doing this this way because it’s at least a framework that people have in their head that at least helps you to be able to grasp what’s going on. But that’s very important. I don’t do it very well. I always attempt to finish up shiurim [Torah classes] in a way that it makes it seem like it’s closed up.

The Chazon Ish’s Intellectual Signature: Clarity Interrupted by Default Thinking

But that’s the sign. The sign is when you see him thinking very clearly and then suddenly, where did his clarity go? Oh, he woke up. Okay, no problem, I get it. So that’s what I think about him. And I think, that’s the general thing that I noticed, that he has these very clear thoughts, and then also does not, by default, when he thinks, and many people that I know think that they think for themselves, but they really just repeat themselves what the New York Times wants you to think. Because that’s naturally, or by default, what people end up thinking. Or if you’re the opposite, you say everything the opposite. Slavery is good. Slavery is bad. I don’t know.

Aristotle wrote three chapters about if slavery is good or bad. There are good arguments on both sides already in that book, The Politics, and even more ancient books. So, if you decide one of, if it’s obvious to you one or the other side, then you’re not serious. So, that’s the thing.

The Two Fundamental Problems with the Chazon Ish

Now, the problem with the Chazon Ish is two things that I shouldn’t really do is I should tell you some things that he says and to show this to you, but the general thing, problem I have is two problems.

Problem One: Lacking the Full Ancient Picture

One is that he doesn’t really have the full picture, the full ancient picture. He’s still missing a lot. He ends up getting very frustrated. He’s still getting frustrated because he doesn’t have the full picture. He doesn’t have, he can’t really account for everything in the full way. That’s one thing.

Problem Two: Weak Kludges to Preserve Old Beliefs

And the second thing is that the clutches that he uses to hold up his old beliefs are very dumb. So, the dumbest one being this idea of tzivui [צִוּוּי: divine command], of God’s commands.

Return to the Core Problem: “Rachmana Liba Ba’ei” and Modern Interiority

Because, for example, and get back, now we’re going to back to where we came from, and we’ll try to continue a little bit, but we can go back where we came from. Where we came from is that there’s this modern belief that what matters is only what’s in your heart, right? That’s what it means, right? It must mean that, right? That’s what we think, and there’s even a three-word statement from Chazal [חז״ל: the Sages] that obviously matches all our biases, that says Rachmana liba ba’ei [רַחֲמָנָא לִבָּא בָּעֵי: “God wants the heart”], right? That’s not a serious way of thinking, obviously, but—

So we have the best hearts, or the different version of what a heart is, but same idea, right?

Chaim Grade’s Novel as a Window into the Chazon Ish

And now comes the Chazon Ish and he’s looking at these people and there’s this book, famous book, wrote, what’s it called, the Chazon Ish’s friend, what?

Student: Yeshiva.

Instructor: Yeshiva. And many people have said that if you want to understand the Chazon Ish, he does a somewhat better job of explaining the characters that he’s fighting with. Because the Chazon Ish is not a very good writer. He tries to be a writer, but he’s not very good at describing characters and stuff like that. He was a novelist. He was his friend. He was his chavrusa [חַבְרוּסָא: study partner], Chaim Grade. And he wrote a book or two about, basically about the Chazon Ish. He doesn’t say his name. He calls him something else, but it’s basically about him and the characters around him and how the different ways of living life.

And one of the things you see is how the Chazon Ish is living in this world. And he’s just living with all these people with different radical ideas or different concepts of what a good person is. And he’s very much trying to hold on to this very ancient thing. But he also thinks that it’s a lot more sophisticated. And this is the important thing.

The Devastating Critique of Ba’alei Mussar and “Toras Hanefesh”

The Repetitiveness and Emptiness of Mussar Literature

He realizes, and this is, I gave a very important class last week. You should listen to it. It’s [unclear reference], but you should listen to it, because I can’t repeat the same that I gave there.

Student: Yeah, I started listening to it.

Instructor: That you notice, if you’re smart enough, most people are not smart enough to even get to the first step, and they’re so excited about the first step, they never move on. But if you notice, if you read all these matters, all these people, right, you read Chassidus [חֲסִידוּת: Hasidic teachings], or you read Mussar [מוּסָר: ethical/character development teachings], or you read, what else do people read? Nobody here reads anything, so.

Anyways, if you read Chassidus, you read the, and you notice at some point that all these people are crazily simplistic, they’re repetitive and boring, in a very significant way. Like the sefarim [סְפָרִים: books] you open on the Mussar shelf, one of the Mussar shmussen [מוּסָר שְׁמוּעָסֶן: ethical discourses], they say nothing for pages on end and they consider themselves the smartest, wisest, truest people on God’s given earth, right? What is going on here?

The Self-Delusion of Those Who Claim to Understand Human Nature

And they’re like, we, the Yeshivas, they’re just talking, they’re just talking, they love this, we’re like, we don’t understand humanity, right? That’s what the Ba’alei Mussar [בַּעֲלֵי מוּסָר: masters of ethical teachings] claim, right? All of them, every single Ba’al Mussar worth anything, I’m not going to give names here, right, they all have this thought that we got, we understand the human being.

And nowadays, it’s called something else, Toras Hanefesh [תּוֹרַת הַנֶּפֶשׁ: psychology/teachings of the soul], you read the guy’s theories. He doesn’t understand nothing. He has like a half of a quarter of a theory. And he’s like, wow, he’s so impressed by it. It’s like now, right, the same idea. He’s a psychologist. He gets people. He gets people.

The Chazon Ish’s Vantage Point: Quick Mind and Intellectual Courage

And then the Chazon Ish is looking at these people, and he’s like, he’s very smart, Chazon Ish, you have to realize. He’s a really talented guy. And his mind works quicker than most people. And he’s ready to think. Two very important ingredients they need for anything to make sense. You have to both have a quick mind, because it takes you forever to get to a thought. It’s just going to take a very long, and you have to have a lot of courage, you have to actually think.

And he’s listening to these people, and he’s listening to the shmoozen [שְׁמוּעָסֶן: ethical discourses] and the Torah of blah blah blah, and he’s explaining to you how people fool themselves sometimes. And then he writes 14 volumes about how people fool themselves. And you’re listening to this, and you’re like, yeah, okay, and now, what are you getting to with this? Like, what are you trying to tell me? And he’s like, yeah, you should always remember that people fool themselves, okay? And it seems to me that you’re fooling yourself pretty well while you’re doing all of this. You didn’t really get past. This is not just an argument of like, oh, you’re the same thing.

The Central Claim: Halacha Contains Far Deeper Understanding Than Mussar

The argument is that Choshen Mishpat [חוֹשֶׁן מִשְׁפָּט: the section of Jewish law dealing with civil and monetary matters], look, I learned Choshen Mishpat with Shach [שַׁ״ךְ: Rabbi Shabbetai HaKohen, major 17th-century commentator] and Ketzos [קְצוֹת הַחוֹשֶׁן: “Ketzos HaChoshen,” major 18th-century commentary]. I want to tell you something. The understanding of humanity that’s in the Shach of Choshen Mishpat is 10,000 miles deeper than your understanding of negius [נְגִיעוּת: bias/self-interest]. They literally wrote 14 volumes about Choshen Mishpat negius, Choshen Mishpat shochad [שׁוֹחַד: bribery], whatever, not exact. But things like that. The whole Choshen Mishpat is about people deluding themselves, right? I think that’s collusion. You think it’s collusion. What do we do?

And it happens to be that Choshen Mishpat seems to have a much more sophisticated and detailed understanding of humanity than the Ba’al Mussar, who thinks he’s so much smarter than halacha [הֲלָכָה: Jewish law], that’s for naval birshus haTorah [נָבָל בִּרְשׁוּת הַתּוֹרָה: “a scoundrel with the Torah’s permission” – someone who technically follows the law but violates its spirit], that one with the Torah. I have understanding. And then he says, well, I’ve been to the Torah with you, Ba’al Mussar. It is all good. Because you’re going to—

The Reality of Engaging with Ba’alei Mussar

And there’s a story. I told you the story. I’m not going to read the stories. It doesn’t matter. When you go to the Torah with Ba’al Mussar, any time, you have in your yeshiva those mashgichim [מַשְׁגִּיחִים: spiritual supervisors] who are Ba’alei Mussar, you have an argument with him. He’s the stupidest guy, not only stupid, he’s the most self-righteous rasha [רָשָׁע: wicked person] that you can think of, and he’s some—he would be a real good rasha, like, you enjoy his iron signs and that. He’s stupid, he’s like simplistic, and the guy walks around as if he figured out humanity. And nobody else figured out humanity.

The General Sickness of Claiming to Have Discovered Human Nature

And there’s something very funny here. The general sickness of people who think they’ve discovered human nature. Right, true. Some of them did discover something. These people didn’t discover something. No, I’m not, I’m not kidding about that. Come on, I’m going to get at it.

The Chazon Ish’s Approach to Learning: Halacha as Commentary on the Human Condition

The Chazon Ish is this guy that spends hours and hours every day reading, you know, Tosafos [תּוֹסָפוֹת: medieval Talmudic commentaries], Rambam [רַמְבַּ״ם: Maimonides] and Shachs and these complicated things and he learns halacha lemaaseh [הֲלָכָה לְמַעֲשֶׂה: practical Jewish law], right? It’s not a Brisker [בְּרִיסְקֶר: referring to the Brisker analytical method] that makes everything into philosophy. He reads it as commentary on human condition, right? What do you do? Not only what do you do in the sense of the psak [פְּסַק: halachic ruling], it’s much deeper than that, right?

Halacha is really about life in a much deeper sense than Mussar is, right? If you learn about halacha in the halacha way, right? It’s not theoretical. It’s about the complexity of human relations, when I’m not talking about tzitzis [צִיצִית: ritual fringes], I think that he gets stuck when he talks about in this way. I think it’s a little confusing. Although maybe I’m the one wrong, because I’m limited here from [Chassidish background]. But think about the other day, think about Yoreh Deah [יוֹרֶה דֵּעָה: section of Jewish law dealing with ritual matters], Choshen Mishpat. These are things, really getting into the kishkes [קִישְׁקֶעס: Yiddish – guts/innards] of what it means to be a human being.

The Transformative Nature of Learning with the Chazon Ish

And it’s never, and you never, and the important thing is you never come out of the way you went into it, at least from the [Chazon Ish’s approach], right? Many people, they just end up with the same biases. But he doesn’t, because not only because people think that this is very important, whoever learns or things like that should realize. But people that have this story like this.

The Two Standard Models of Psak—and the Chazon Ish’s Third Option

Option One: The Intuitive Posek

There’s two kinds of [poskim – halachic decisors]. One of them, whenever, before he even opened any book, he knows already what the psak is going to be. He just has to find it out, right? And why? Because he has a basic—he has an understanding of those things. He has an understanding of what you need, and he gives it to you. No problem. Usually those people make a lot of sense, or at least for the people that think in similar ways to them, right?

Option Two: The “Objective” Litvak Posek

Then there’s the people, the Litvaks [לִיטְוָאקִים: Lithuanian Jews, referring to the non-Hasidic Orthodox tradition] say that seems false, right? That you’re just putting your own biases in the Torah. No, the correct way is that you don’t know what halacha is, and you ask the Torah, you look in the Shulchan Aruch [שֻׁלְחָן עָרוּךְ: the authoritative code of Jewish law], and you pasken [פּוֹסְקִים: rule] what the Shulchan Aruch says, that’s what people think of the Shach, two options. And this is a very good notion of the story, these are the two options that people think of in general about humanity.

Option Three: The Chazon Ish’s (and the Speaker’s) Third Way

Now I think the Chazon Ish teaches a third option, and I always try to teach a third option. And third option is like this. Of course, I have an opinion about what should be before I read it. Otherwise, I don’t know a person. And of course, authority of the text is one.

The Third Option in Learning: Sophistication of Halacha vs. Simplistic Frameworks

The Limitations of Authority-Based Learning

Yeah, it’s true. Authority is important. We can’t go against somebody that says clearly in all the Persian and so on. There’s a Latin word for this. And so on and so on. Okay.

But now the main thing that we’re doing when we’re learning is not either of these two things. For the first thing, we’ll just do what Rabbi Something does and just say the psak [halachic ruling]. And if he has time, write a teshuva [responsum/halachic essay] for him because he’s smart enough to write a teshuva. If you’re doing the second thing, also you just ask the bottom notes of Piskei Teshuvos [a contemporary halachic reference work] and do whatever it is. Both of these things don’t make you learn.

The Real Point of Learning: Expanding Your Understanding of Reality

You Think You’re Smart—Then the Gemara Opens Fourteen Angles

What’s the point of learning? The point of learning is that you think you’re so smart, and you have this intuition, this svara [logical reasoning/understanding] of what halacha [Jewish law] should be, and then you open up the Gemara [Talmud], and you say the Gemara also thought of what you thought for one second, and the next time they thought of the second thing, and the third time they thought of the third thing, and they finish the sugya [Talmudic passage/topic] with the third svara, you have 14 different ways to think.

Not 14 different ways that the Rambam [Maimonides] says, so what should I do? He actually opened up a different way. He said, wait, could you think about it from a different angle? And now you’re like, wait, now I really don’t know what to do. Now you have to actually count, figure out with—all these angles are just complexity of reality, right? They’re not svaros [plural of svara].

Svaros Are Descriptions of Reality, Not Things in Your Head

When people think that svaros are things in your head, that’s the same problem, right? Svaros are not things in your head. Svaros are descriptions of reality, right?

Someone, what was the—right? He’s [one party in a dispute], and the other guy wants to be the Rav [rabbi/halachic authority] also, and of course he’s right, because, okay, but did you think about another way of describing this story in which the other guy is right? Did you think of a third way, and a fourth way, and a fifth way?

How the Chazon Ish Reads the History of Halacha

That’s the way the Chazon Ish [Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, 1878-1953] reads halacha, and he reads the whole history of the law in this way, and he tries to learn from each one. If he doesn’t agree with some, he says—but he’s not someone that believes [in simple faith in authorities]. If he’s wrong, he’s wrong, no problem, but usually the people that he trusts enough to make him think, right? They’re making him think.

And he never comes out of the sugya with the bias that he went in. Even if he does, he’s now much more sophisticated about it. He now understands the reality a lot clearer, a lot better. Not worse.

Many people, they start off with a good theory and then they end up all confused because they put in all these eminences [authorities], all these katharsis [possibly: categories/distinctions]. He has a clear understanding because in the reality, every shita [legal position/opinion] is because of a certain viewpoint of reality that you missed because you were so smart and you knew how it is.

This Is Basic—But Most People Don’t Do It

Now, this is very basic to anyone that actually knows how to learn ever. But most people don’t do it. And especially those people that are mizavlan [dismissive of] learning, they’re like, wow, they’re learning people that just—because they think that the only way to learn would be to learn in the authority way. And therefore, they’re like, no, but we’re just good people.

You’re not good people. You understand a quarter or about a quarter of a percent of what it makes a person tick when the Shulchan Aruch [the Code of Jewish Law] understands. So the Shulchan Aruch is just a lot better.

The Shabbos Example: Halacha’s Sophisticated Understanding of Rest

A Protestant Thought About Bein Adam L’Chaveiro

By the way, I give this mashal [parable/example] for—because I do have this, like, Protestant thought, always, that bein adam l’chaveiro [interpersonal law/ethics], it doesn’t really matter. But in a certain sense, it’s the same thing, right?

Do You Really Know What Rest Is?

Like, I know how to keep Shabbos [the Sabbath]. You rest. All right? Do you really know what rest is? You can do what Socrates used to do to people and try to make them tell you what rest is, and you’ll notice that they don’t know.

Does Hilchos Shabbos [the laws of Shabbos] know? I don’t know. In Hilchos Shabbos, at least, there’s a 14-fold more complicated understanding of what rest is that has something to do with the reality.

Now, are we applying the reality correctly? Do we understand halacha correctly? And is the world different? Those are all legitimate questions. But it definitely has a much more sophisticated theory of what means the rest. And not only what means—that not means in the sense that I could give a shikel teyit [a logical argument] and explain to you. No. Understanding the actual reality.

Halacha Examines Reality Deeply

What happens? Look around. What are people doing when they work? What are they doing when they rest? Which ones are resting? Which ones are working? What would cause you to work even if you think you’re resting? But within your head you’re working. That’s another point. I don’t know. Things like that.

You’ll notice that halacha has a lot more sophisticated viewpoint on reality than all these other olamos [worlds/spiritual systems]. All these Chassidus [Hasidic teachings] work together.

The Arizal Example: Complexity vs. Simplistic Nimshal

People Read Kisvei Ari and Find It Boring

That’s why, for example, I want to give you an example that’s close to me, because I think this is true. People read Kisvei Ari [the writings of the Arizal, Rabbi Isaac Luria, 1534-1572]. Okay? This is my shade from Tira [possibly: my example from the Arizal], but I’m not repeating it.

But people read Kisvei Ari. And then it was all technical. He’s describing the 17,000 levels of Olam HaYetzirah [the World of Formation in Kabbalistic cosmology]. Okay? And now everyone who’s 17,000 levels has combinatorics with 17,000 kinds of those. Turns out how many? Right? And people are like, well, this is boring.

They Turn to Simplistic Interpretations

What do they do? They go to their mekabalim [Kabbalists]. People like him [the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto]. They say, oh, the Arizal is just a mashal [parable/metaphor]. The nimshal [the lesson/meaning of the parable] is that he should be a good guy. Oh, the nimshal is that sometimes God has chesed [kindness], and sometimes he does things that you like. That’s called chesed. Sometimes he does din [judgment/strict justice], which means he does things that I don’t like. And the Arizal was just complicating this with a mashal, because of the Rambam’s theory of visions of prophecy.

The Speaker’s Response: You’re Just Stupid

And I look at this guy and I tell you, I don’t know if your mashal l’nimshal [parable-to-meaning framework] is good, but I want to tell you one thing, that he’s a lot smarter, much smarter than you. Because your theory of the world has three variables. There’s only two variables. And the real theory of the world has 17 million variables. It’s just much more close to reality.

The reality that we know about, all of it, of course, the great hope of the, like, theories of everything that, like, reduce everything to five principles and somehow that will explain everything. And Arizal doesn’t disagree with that. But then we have to spell that out and it turns out it’s a ten-thousand-thousand-variables. That isn’t the way of calculating the real world without all these millions of variables.

So you’re just stupid. You’re just simplifying everything all the way to an extent where it’s not even interesting in some sense. Like, oh, that’s why we needed Kabbalah [Jewish mysticism] to tell us that there’s chesed and gevurah [strength/judgment] in the world? Wow, amazing. I’m so impressed. And you’re convinced that you’re the smart guy and he was the dumb guy.

Caveat: Maybe the Variables Are Different

Now again, maybe that picture is all fantasy and the actual 17,000 variables are different ones. I don’t have a proof to say that. But the way in which he’s going about it is a lot more sophisticated than anyone else, than all these people that are so smart, they think they have an inyan [a concept/understanding].

The Chazon Ish’s Rhetorical Problem

The Speaker’s Claim: I’m Explaining Him Better Than He Did

So that’s the same argument that I would make in that sense. And this is one of the Chazon Ish’s big things. And he’s starting to show you. The problem is that I think that his problem is that when he gets into saying this, he doesn’t say it like—I’m doing much better job of describing what I should have said than what he actually said.

What He Says vs. What He Means

Because what he said was, you’re an apikoros [heretic]. You think that you’re going with your sechel [intellect/reason], but it’s the opposite of your sechel. And because he doesn’t have patience to explain to you why your sechel is kind of basic, he just says that.

But what he really means to say is you’re dumb, not you’re an apikoros. It’s much worse to be dumb than to be an apikoros anyway. You thought that not only you’re dumb, you’re a dull guy.

The Mussar Movement’s Discovery of Negiah

Like, you figure out humanity because you figured out this comes from the negios [biases/personal interests]. Like, Mussar [the Jewish ethical/character development movement] is so proud of it. Like, you realize that we started there. That’s where we’re coming from. Like, yeah, people have the negios. Thank you very much. Is that all of it? Does that explain everything? No, it doesn’t explain nothing. It explains something.

But you’re taking, like, one little thing and applying it to everything in a really weird way. Of course, then [the Chazon Ish] talks about the negios and explicitly attacks them and says very funny things. And maybe that’s why it fails, by the way, is that when older—when people who are a certain seniority discover a simple thing like that for the first time. It’s mom, she’s thinking about the world and then they talk to a young guy and they’re like, okay. And then he moves like, what now, what else? And it just like burns out of it. Could be.

Modern Bias Research

Student: Yeah, there’s something in all these movies. I think the same you’re talking about. I read whatever someone’s saying about the bias and I’m like, whatever you want. And they’re like, whatever, it’s very good. I’m like, we’re done. Like I wouldn’t be able to structure my life around it.

Instructor: Maybe if I was a psychologist who wasted 30 years studying biases came up with a more sophisticated theory of human bias than about the Mussar. And it turned out that theory was wrong also.

The Point: Halacha Is More Sophisticated Than You Think

The point is that this halacha that we’re all happy to make fun of, as if it’s not serious. Now again, the Chazon Ish here is where I’m disagreeing with him, because he gets stuck.

Where the Speaker Disagrees: The Theological Claim

He says, like, halacha is what God wants from you. What? Where do you get to that? Why do you need that even? You don’t need that. Halacha is just people thought for longer time and in a more serious way about these cases than you did. Why do you need more than that? Where does it come from in general? Maybe it also has to come from God. I get it. But you don’t have to get to this stage.

When he gets to it, he’s just doing a lot of demagoguery, like, very often.

Transition to a Specific Example

I want to give you one example and I’ll finish. I want to show you where you could argue with the Chazon Ish. And we are, I would do the same—I can’t think the Chazon Ish does it to him, so it’s over here in the Sefer HaKadosh [the holy book], there’s a story over here, where is it?

He talks about—I have to tell you I forgot where it is. He talks about a Yid [Jew] that thinks he has good middos [character traits] but he doesn’t listen to the halacha. Where is it? Remember where it is? I have to find that I can’t say it in the well-to-done because that’s gonna be—gets me. I thought I was here.

Oh, yeah, here. He talks about the concept that he’s trying to get at something. I’m not going to get into exactly where he is. And maybe there’d have to be another shiur [class/lesson] about this. Because that’s really what I want to talk about. And I repeated that demo again. He says—

[Text ends mid-thought]

The Chazon Ish’s Aliyah Story and the Complexity of Halacha: Why Using Halacha for Mussar Arguments Backfires

The Chazon Ish’s Example: The Man Who Refused an Aliyah

And this is about the unity of the virtues, but I’m going to get to it. But he gives an example. I want to give you an example. I want to tell you that he’s not going to believe it wrong.

He says that this guy thinks he’s such a *tzaddik* [righteous person], he understands that he has a problem with sometimes he has bad *middos* [character traits], but he thinks that at least *Yirat Shamayim* [fear of Heaven] — that’s what they’re going to use as a *tayna* [claim/argument].

And he says, this year, this is the story that he saw. It happened that they called him to be *oleh la-Torah* [called up to the Torah]. They said, yeah, I’m *shlishi* [the third aliyah]. And I didn’t go to *aliyah* [Torah reading honor]. Why not? Because he’s *chashuv* [important/distinguished]. And doesn’t ask him to get the *vav* [sixth aliyah], whatever *aliyah* was. He only goes for *shlishi* [third], so he didn’t go.

So you think, I’m a *tzaddik*, if the *Ribono Shel Olam* [Master of the Universe] wants something from him, I’m always giving it to him. A *mentsh* [person], sometimes I won’t say it, I’m proud. You’re not a serious person, *b’chlal* [at all], you’re *b’chlal*, you think that everything you’re just doing with your *Yirat Shamayim* [fear of Heaven].

That’s Chaznish [the Chazon Ish’s] *drasha* [homiletical teaching]. It’s really a standard *mussar drasha* [ethical teaching] in some sense, but it gets, I’m trying to use it for something deeper than that, but I can’t get it to it.

The Chazon Ish’s Rhetorical Structure

Now, I want to tell you, the Chaznish, that it seems very, he seems to be, he seems to like set up this like very clear dichotomy, like if the guy would follow the *aliyah* and of course it’d be *oleh* [go up], because it’s a very bad thing to call the *aliyah la-Torah* not *oleh*, since he only cares about his own *kavod* [honor], therefore he is not *oleh*, and this is a use that’s a proof, a very big point about this guy that he thinks he’s *Yerei Shamayim* [God-fearing], he’s not *Yerei Shamayim*.

I mean, you never had any conflicts with *Yirat Shamayim*. You think you’re so *frum* [religiously observant], you think that in that sense, you’re that’s the really important point. You think that you’re not a person that because you see that when it comes to buying *matzah* [unleavened bread for Passover], he spends the most money. He said, yeah, because he’s used to that. But really, if you have any little problem that does bother you, suddenly, you don’t have any *Yirat Shamayim*. Not only you’re not *baal middos* [master of good character], but this has no *Yirat Shamayim* either.

What is saying is that it’s not true about to say that people are *mushlam* [perfected] but not *baal middos* [master of good character]. He said that that guy is not *mushlam* but either. *Baal middos* either. That’s really his goal with this story. Okay? That’s the Chaznish’s *ma’aseh* [story/example].

The Speaker’s Critique: The Problem with the Chazon Ish’s Example

Now me, *Ani HaKatan* [I, the small one/humble one], I have a *baya* [problem]. What’s my *baya*? That I, because, now he thinks, Chaznish’s way of saying this is that *Yirat Shamayim* is one of those exact words, if you care about yourself. And it turns out that you don’t have the *middah* [character trait] of *Yirat Shamayim* either, you have something else, right? That’s what the Chaznish is explaining it to be.

*Baya* [problem], what’s my explanation? I have a different explanation. What’s my explanation for why *halacha* [Jewish law] is more serious than *mussar* [ethics/character development]? That *halacha* has a lot more details, right? *Halacha* takes into account a lot more complexities of situations.

Halacha Is Not a Clear-Cut System

That’s why there’s no such a thing. Everyone has this rhetoric about *halacha* being the clear-cut system that tells you always what to do. *Halacha* is the furthest thing from telling you always what to do. Have you ever learned *halacha*? There’s a lot of *tzad b’yachid* [one side/aspect] who doesn’t know. Usually you do this, but sometimes. But if it was Tuesday after *chalama* [unclear reference]…

And then, *halacha* is the most non-dogmatic legal system that you can think of. There’s always a way out. Not that there’s always a way out because it’s not serious, because it is serious, because reality is like this. Right?

Not the Chaznish, all these people that have this rhetoric about following *halacha*, they get stuck with this. *Halacha* is way too free in reality for them, not free, I’m not saying free, way too real. And therefore it actually conforms entirely, it should conform at least entirely to reality.

But to them, *halacha* is this like formalistic system. The Chaznish understands that *halacha* is not like that. But he’s still using the same rhetoric because that’s why the Chaznish is so-and-so. I think the Chaznish understands very well that *halacha* is not like that. He lives like that. He learns *halacha* like that. But then when he has to argue this with the people that he argues with, he ends up stuck and saying, well, *halacha* is like *pshat* [straightforward/simple].

But actually, it turns out, if you actually think about learn a little bit, you find out that this exact question, what do you do when you’re a *chashuv* [important person], someone whose honor, the truth is that anyone’s honor is important. But if your honor is connected to *kavod ha-Torah* [honor of the Torah]. And you get caught in *aliyah*, that’s not the correct *aliyah*. What do you do?

The Halachic Question Is Not Simple

Because Mishnish [the Mishnah] seems to have a very clear *halacha*. The *halacha* says that you should go, but if you’re a *sheigetz* [derogatory term, here used ironically], then you don’t go. And you’re a *sheigetz*, you’re really a *sheigetz*.

Now, me, it’s like, no, I’m not so sure about this. And this is the *Rambam* [Maimonides] world. I have an authority on my side. I think that it’s possible that you should not go. I said, of course, that’s talking about the guy who should go. Well you never, you know, never done a *kimta* [unclear], you never *halacha* works that’s talking about someone that it is, he found a guy and he deserves this *aliyah*, it’s not really, he’s overestimating which *aliyah* he deserves basically.

So then, but if you’re really a person that deserves a different *aliyah*, maybe it’s, maybe that person is right that he’s, you should not go, you should not so wrong. And how do I know? I saw this. I found this. That’s why I started thinking about it, but it’s very interesting.

The Rambam’s Counter-Interpretation

Everyone knows it says in the *Masechet Sanhedrin* [Tractate Sanhedrin]. It says, there’s two things that says the same answer. What you hear it says, *”Mipnei mah talmidei chachamim einam metzuyin latzeit talmidei chachamim mi-bneihem”* [Why don’t the children of Torah scholars become Torah scholars?]. You remember this? What does it mean? You know what it means? That’s the opposite of what I’m trying to say about this. And all the Torah that everyone knows. But that’s what it means.

Two Interpretations of “She-lo Birchu ba-Torah Techila”

So, the *Rambam*, now if you look in the *Rishonim* [early medieval commentators], this is one of the, another one of my big things. When you actually read the *Rishonim*, you see that most of these funny things that there’s so many like, there’s really a basic understanding that you don’t need all these scratches for. But anyways, the *Rambam* wrote a letter to someone, or a *teshuva* [responsum/halachic answer], and he told them two *pshatim* [interpretations] that he heard, two *pshatim* about this *ma’amar* [saying], one that he heard, and one that he thinks, which is the opposite of what he heard absolutely is *mekabel* [accepts] what special is that and what are these two *pshatim*.

First Interpretation (The Rambam’s Rebbe)

I’ll tell you the *Rambam* said that they were told that he’s that the kind of *halacha* that’s the *pshat* I’m about to tell him means what has this is talking about this time the *kohanim* [priests] that he called up earlier to *Torah* but I’m the woman they usually think that they’re better things to do in their time then read in the *Torah* because then they can become *talmidei chachamim* [Torah scholars] so they’re not *oleh la-Torah* [going up to the Torah], or they’re some *oleh*, they’re not patient to go to the *bimah* [platform] read, they sit at home and they’re not *oleh la-Torah*, since there was *oleh la-Torah* and the kids don’t come to *talmidei chachamim*.

That’s what his *Rebbe* told the *pshat*, the *Rambam’s* *Rebbe*. So that’s, by the way, that’s on the Chaznisha’s side.

Second Interpretation (The Rambam’s Own View — “Pankt Fakhert”)

Then the *Rambam* said, he thinks that the *pshat* is *b’fakhert* [the opposite]. He thinks the *pshat* is *b’fakhert*. What do you mean *b’fakhert*? *She-alohi ba-akha b’tcholet* [they didn’t go up first], *tcholet* [first] means they didn’t take the first *aliyah*.

The *halacha* said, the *Kohen korei rishon* [the Kohen reads first], and that’s when it’s the *amei ha’aretz* [ignorant people], all the *amei ha’aretz*, all the *talmidei chachamim*, *rav*, *Kohen*, *Kohen* is *am ha’aretz*. Right?

The *Kohen* says, if there’s *talmid chacham* [Torah scholar], that’s the *Kohen*, and the *amei ha’aretz* is a, *talmid chacham* is a *Yisrael* [regular Jew, not a Kohen], and the *amei ha’aretz* is a *Kohen*, the *din* [law] is, says the *Ramah* [unclear if referring to Rambam or another authority], that *talmid chacham* has to be *oleh* first. That’s the *din*.

Some of the others were like this, that the water of the *rishon* [first], and there was no, they said, they were. Isn’t there *Mishnah* about this? Yeah. The *Mishnah*. It says in the *Mishnah*, it’s about when the *Natwar* is *talmid chacham*, when it’s *amei ha’aretz*. When it’s *darkei shalom* [ways of peace], it says in the *Mishnah*, when it’s *darkei shalom*.

But that’s all when they’re both the same level in Torah. The *Rambam* says, if everyone is *talmid chacham*, *Rav* was not expected. *Rav* was *oleh b’kor* [went up first], always, *mezik sheva* [unclear] at least. When he was the, everyone that recognized him as the greatest authority was *oleh rishon* [went up first].

The Rambam’s Conclusion: Torah Honor Takes Precedence

And therefore he showed everyone that Torah is more important. Because *oleh la-Torah* is the name of the King of *Malchus* [kingship]. And it’s *chidvar talmid chacham* [the matter of the Torah scholar]. But if you’re *oleh* later, you’re *oleh* by *shleshi* [third], why? Because you think that this kind of *amei ha’aretz* is better than you and don’t expect your children to be *talmidei chachamim*, they’re going to think that being a *Kohen* is better.

So the *Rambam* said is *b’fakhert* [the opposite], that the *ma’amar* [saying] is not the one that is going to gain the better. In the hand of *halacha lema’aseh* [practical halacha], it is better today. *Halacha lema’aseh*, the reason why the *shleshi* still wasn’t burnt is because still the *Kohen* was *oleh*. That’s what I’m saying.

Student: I was just like, the *Gemara* [Talmud] says, call me shall I live in the…

Instructor: Exactly. Do you expect it to come from the *Sanhedrin* [Tractate Sanhedrin] specifically?

Student: It’s connected to the *Sanhedrin* specifically.

Instructor: Here he’s talking about the different thing that it says, and *Benin* [children], that the children of *talmid chacham* don’t come out of *talmid chacham*. It’s fine, but it’s the same thing. I mean, they bring you the same *pshat* in that *Gemara*. What do you think? Yeah, of course.

We have so many ways in which the *talmidei chachamim* are not getting the honor. The *Brisker Rav* [Rabbi from Brisk] is getting the honor, the *Kohanim* and so on, and that causes the *talmidei chachamim* not to have their power and then, right? And who is *shalei* [at fault]? *Talmid chacham* himself, right? Because he should have not went when they called him for *shleshi* and only went when they called him for *shleshi*, right?

The Practical Halachic Reality

So what do I show you? Now, I don’t know if this *pshat* is practical and so on. You’re saying you already taught this. It’s time for *shalei* to start his kinship. But it’s not really practical, right? *Halacha* would be more serious. See? *Halacha* is always more serious than I do, right?

I go like, say, *Sha’ar Kedushah* [Gate of Holiness]. This is *Takwa* [piety]. But *Lama Yisrael* [why Israel], oh, *Lama Yisrael* doesn’t work like this because the world is more complicated. Okay, then she’ll see the status, right?

So I’m, and I can’t even explain why. And they don’t say it’s not apologetic for *halacha*. It’s reality. She’ll see the status, it’s reality. Yeah, we have to move home, move home.

The Mishnah’s Practical Solution: Darkei Shalom

Okay, but the matter is that that guy has a, we’re gonna be in *rafiqinah* [unclear] from now on, you know? It’s a problem. Oh, and the *Mishnah* says *nidah kashon* [unclear], right? Like Moshe said, *Mishnah* says *nidah kashon*, right? Because otherwise everyone, every week is gonna be a fight who’s gonna be at *talmid chacham* laws. The *Kohen*, everyone knows he’s not at *talmid chacham*. We’re just getting it because it’s a *Kohen* and so on. Okay.

The Meta-Point: Using Halacha for Mussar Makes Everything Worse

And then we laugh. But that’s just me showing you that it’s not simple. It’s the opposite. And you use *halacha* for your *mussar*, you make everything worse. Because *halacha* is that, you understand what I’m saying? He said it should be about *mussar* or some place that it should be *halacha*.

The Chazon Ish’s Linguistic Challenge and the Proper Argument Against Mussar

The Mishnah’s Complexity: Aliyot as an Example

Like Moshe said, Mishnah says *Middak Hashon* [Midarkei Shalom: for the sake of peace], right? Because otherwise everyone, every week is going to be a fight—who’s going to be a *Ta’am Tochim* [Talmid Chacham: Torah scholar]? Laws, the Kohen, everyone knows it’s not a *Ta’am Tochim*, we’re just getting it because it’s a Kohen and so on.

Okay, and so anyway that—but that’s just me showing you that it’s not simple, it’s the opposite.

The Core Problem: Using Halacha for Mussar

And you use *Halacha* [Jewish law] for your Mussar, you make everything worse, because Halacha—you understand what I’m saying? He said, you should be, by most words, simplistic, you should be halacha, because halacha is clear.

No, halacha is not clear.

In other words, what you have to have is something called—how do you do it—something called practical wisdom for Jesus [Phronesis: Aristotelian practical wisdom]. That’s the only thing that’s really going to help. And that halacha doesn’t give you that either.

The Chazon Ish’s Internal Contradiction

Or learning halacha, even in the Chaznish [Chazon Ish] way—you see the Chaznish himself, and it’s really weird that Chaznish gets, not only in this case, in many cases he gets into the same thing.

And on the one hand, he understands very well how halakhah is given to the mind of the halakhim [halachic decisors]. It’s not like rules.

And then when he thinks something is the rule, is the halakhah, then he thinks that everyone else is that because they don’t think halakhah seriously.

Of course, it’s true that there’s one part of halakhah that’s the list of the president, the—whoever’s the *shaykh* [judge], there should be a—but that’s another question. That’s a political question. Who’s the *shaykh*?

But in any case, that’s a general problem.

Halachic Examples of Built-In Complexity

But what I’m showing you is that there’s always a halakhah that has been *faqeet* [decided/ruled]. And really, the rabbi might also, with the *Gabbai d’Sanhedrin* [administrator of the Sanhedrin], they can do whatever they want as they see fit, right? That’s the *baalei ru’eh* [people of judgment/discretion].

Student: If a *sh’tai* [Shulchan Aruch: Code of Jewish Law] did that…

Instructor: Yeah, that’s explicitly going against the halacha. I’m saying even *betach* [within] the halacha. He’s saying there’s a halacha of *Oseh v’HaShem* [who bows first before the Torah], of *Mishikonel to l’ikrit* [unclear reference]. There’s also a halacha of *Mavach Mator Etchelav* [whose opinion is correct], of who is the correct…

That’s a real thing. The halacha, if you learn halacha, if you’re this *teshuvah* [responsum] of *Sanhedrin Ba’al* [unclear reference], that’s a *teshuvah* of the *Esken Pshat Naaguda* [Agudah], but okay.

It shows you a lot more complexity of reality than this.

What the Chazon Ish Should Have Said

And the reason—that’s why I think the reason why we should say that halacha is better than mussar is not because halacha is *b’Hashem* [by God/from God] or mussar is not *b’Hashem*—that’s a very silly thing, because *nish* [the Chazon Ish] says that because that’s his own—that’s why he says, say that.

Because he doesn’t have a way of explaining how the world is complicated and how the goodness is in the real things. Instead of saying that, he says Hashem made it good. That’s a big problem.

The Proper Argument Against Mussar

If he would have been like me, he would have said: You are mussar, you are silly. You think that goodness is in your mind, and goodness is something so simple. The world is more complicated. The goodness is something about your actions—of course they have to be in accordance with what the mind says, but the mind is more complicated than what you think. It’s not only about your will, it’s about your understanding and so on.

And then, of course halacha is about that. He’s right.

But since he doesn’t have a language to say that, or maybe he has theological commitments not to say that—I don’t know—he ends up saying something very silly, which is even wrong halakhically, because there’s also a *tzad* [side/aspect] that guy is right.

Closing Story: “The Torah Is Even Greater”

Okay, halacha. That’s the end of the *shiur* [lesson] today.

The one that asked them—I think this story on him, *takke* [indeed], they asked him: Listen, this big *kamchokim* [great scholar] said something, and it’s *knegedah* [against it], whatever, something. And he’s like—in other words, and maybe when he uses *Ratzon Hashem* [the will of God], it means God is much more complicated, right? Much more sophisticated and complicated than your mind. But it’s not *Gerasim* [unclear reference].

Student: Maybe, in other words, it’s very funny that you’re saying, by the fact that he says *Ratzon Hashem*, he means all these things that you’re saying.

Instructor: I think, maybe the point is that Hashem is smarter even than them. Right, right, that’s what I’m saying, because that’s exactly what the Chalmish [Chazon Ish] thought about these things.

Shall we shut up?

Student: Yeah, I guess.