Purification and Atonement Beyond moral repentance and guilt – Transcript

The Rabbi’s Teshuvah and the Rambam’s Reduction of Atonement to Ethical Progress

I. Opening Frame: The Communal Structure of Teshuvah During the Ten Days of Repentance

The Rabbi’s Obligation to Do Teshuvah for His Community

Instructor: So listen, this is the series of my teshuvah [repentance/return to God], ten days of teshuvah. So I gotta do teshuvah for everyone, because that’s how it works. If you’re a private person, then you do teshuvah for yourself and your family, like it says in Yom Kippur [the Day of Atonement], right? Every year it doesn’t have to say vidui [confession], but they’re gonna say—it says not as to the Pyrrhic, you remember now, let’s get more based this—but advice says not to worry about is that there’s a mitzvah [commandment] to be miss out I am Kipper [to confess on Yom Kippur], every individual for his sins, right?

But originally it doesn’t say that. Originally it only says that the Kohen Gadol [High Priest] was father [atones] for everyone since all right, everyone think good love is that I love color on his basis, so his father on this. So that’s also all the of every year. Somehow the Chachamim [Sages] decided that we don’t rely on him and we do it ourselves.

And besides for that, the Mishnah [early rabbinic legal text] understood that there’s another level, which is why he has three Purim [here: three confession rituals]. So the Mishnah understood that there’s a part of Par Shilat Smei [the bull offering of the Kohen Gadol], right? The part that the Kohen Gadol brings apart. And he says vidui for his own sins, right? Then it does another vidui and a second part for him and val echavah Kehanim [and for his brother priests]. Because the Kehanim [priests] is a group who atone for the other people, have to [atone for] their sins. And then on the story he does the vidui of everyone else, right? That’s what it says in the Mishnah.

And then they said that you can say—so what we learn from this is that the real way of doing teshuvah is that the rabbi says vidui for everyone. So you have to be true for all the sins of your talmidim [students] and all the people that you’re responsible for, so the kids are—

The Chassidic Teaching: The Rebbe’s Responsibility for His Students’ Sins

So I’m doing teshuvah for all of my talmidim, not taking my shiurim [Torah classes] seriously enough. And as the Haile Ge Chassid [holy Chassidic masters], Shitzidikim [righteous ones] taught always: all the sins of the Chassidim [followers of a Chassidic rebbe] is because the Rebbe does the same thing. Sometimes the Dake [unclear], sometimes he does it in a more subtle way, sometimes it’s the opposite—we talmidim do it in a subtle way because the Rebbe did it in a very serious, like gas, not thick, like in an obvious, obvious way.

And I’m going to take machine [unclear] more seriously. And I’m going to also take it more seriously. The basic way of taking things seriously is…

Student: It’s always the Rebbe’s fault?

Instructor: I don’t know. The Rebbe has to do teshuvah for everyone. Nobody has to do teshuvah. The Rebbe Rebbe Tuchib [does teshuvah] for everyone. If the Rebbe doesn’t Tuchib [do teshuvah], you do it yourself, you know, like ben galus [in exile], you do the ikar tziv [the essential thing], everyone does it themselves. But really, even in galus [exile], ben luch lech tziv [ideally], it should be mitzvah [the commandment/ideal way] for everyone.

Student: You just said the Chachamim didn’t trust that the Rebbe was going to, so anyways.

Instructor: That doesn’t work. The Rebbe says how things are really supposed to be. Baal Shem Tov [founder of Chassidism] said that the ikar tziv is that it’s not the ikar tziv for everyone. Like, this is not Baal Shem Tov made it up, this is the Chumash [the Five Books of Moses] that believes that. The Kohen [priest] is mechaper al avonos Beis Yisrael [atones for the sins of the House of Israel]—that’s what the Chumash says, it’s not a Chassidish thing.

The Chassidish thing is just to replace the Kohen with the rabbi, because there’s no Kohen, so someone’s got to do the job. And of course you can do that badly too, but—

So anyways, I’m doing teshuvah. The rabbi wants to take it more seriously.

Student: And what are you going to do for that?

Instructor: What?

Student: Yeah. How could you do it?

Instructor: Well, I’m telling, saying the vidui now.

Student: Why are you saying the vidui?

Instructor: I say the vidui publicly, so you understand what you have to do.

Student: I don’t know. We’ll just see what happens if it works.

Instructor: No, nothing is magic. Except I might have to have a mind to be eight, so with your bracha [blessing] now. Some things are magic, but not everything is magic. All right? So some things are magic, but not everything is magic. And we’ll find out what it is.

II. Practical Digression: The Necessity of Taking Notes

Why Note-Taking Is Essential for Learning

Instructor: I very much believe that everyone who thinks they’re listening to this shiur has to be taking notes, because otherwise you have no idea what I said. Even I don’t know what I said, since I don’t take notes. Sometimes I do. So I mentioned this here, we’ll get some people to actually take the shiur seriously enough to take notes. So otherwise, I don’t know what’s going on.

Okay, so now it’s like this. Maybe we should get a blackboard or something to do notes.

Student: Yeah, because you have to complicate everything, because a piece of paper is not fancy enough for us, right?

Instructor: These things are pieces of paperwork the best though. It’s hard to write and concentrate.

Student: No, it’s not. It’s harder to concentrate when you don’t write. I’ve tried both ways, I promise you. Everyone that says they can’t write and concentrate on listening to the glass [class] is fooling themselves that they’re listening to the glass. Just be good note taker though.

Student: Yeah, you should have learned this in elementary school.

Instructor: Yeah, they should have figured—they should have taught you in elementary school how to take notes from a class. If not, problem is that then it’s a crumbled pile with apple juice on it something you’re getting somewhere. And also I was always a perfectionist with my notes, so it took a very long time to learn how to pace the writing.

The point of the notes is because I make a lot of jokes and say a lot of shit in my class. They should keep track of what I actually say. Otherwise you get lost from there. I see people getting lost after they get the jokes over—they don’t know anything.

Anyways, that’s my old sugar [unclear]. I look on a mouse and people think it’s hard to take now. So you figure out one thing you take on only in the beginning or only in the end or only one thing—that’s the thing you’re gonna know. Everything else you’re not gonna know for the most part.

I still take notes for anyone I learn. If I go to any shiur, if I’m not there just to hang out, I’m taking notes. Always. So listen, otherwise you’re not focused.

III. Transition to the Main Topic: A New Shiur on Kapparah [Atonement]

Clarifying This Is New Material

Instructor: I was like this—I have to say a shiur about Sheila [unclear], actually not about Sheila. I have to say a shiur about kapparah [atonement]. Did we say a shiur about Israeli ones?

Student: You’re going to look at my notes in your notes. We did a shiur like two to three years ago about—

Instructor: I did? What did I say?

Student: I don’t remember. I was taking notes.

Instructor: I’m pretty sure I didn’t give the shiur that I’m saying what I’m saying now, because it’s a new shot [shiur].

Student: Wait, all the notes wouldn’t have helped.

Instructor: What?

Student: My notes wouldn’t have helped.

Instructor: Maybe one or something from that, but anyway, I don’t see here.

Okay, so what we’re going to do is like this. We’re going to try to make a comment that works like this.

IV. Main Thesis: The Rambam’s Systematic Reduction of Teshuvah, Korbanot, and Prayer to Aristotelian Ethical Progress

Prerequisites and Approach

Instructor: What is it? You’ve all learned—and if you didn’t, you should. And if you don’t understand it, which you don’t, you should listen to all the like 500 different classes in random places that explain it. You have an official series. There’s also official series, which is I guess something—never know. But there’s more than that. You should listen to all these things.

Then you’ll know one very important thing, and you’ll also notice that it’s the wrong chat [unclear]. Now, I’m very reluctant to do the Rambam [Maimonides] bashing thing that all of our friends in the McClellan [Misnagdim: non-Chassidic Orthodox Jews] like doing, so we’ll try not to do it that way. But we’ll present it in a slightly nicer way, but it still works with a similar structure.

And there’s a few complicated ideas here that we don’t generally teach them enough, so we’ll see if we could do it. If you don’t understand something, just believe it for now. No, don’t believe it. Maybe it’s going to be done going too fast.

The Rambam’s Transformation of Religious Ritual into Ethical Progress

So the Holy Rambam did something very funny. It’s not him that did it. There’s probably some precedent for doing that. But he did it in a very explicit way, and wherever you learn the Rambam in these subjects—in the questions of teshuvah, in the questions of korbanot [sacrifices], in chapter 46 [unclear reference], whether it’s the Paradox of Atanas [unclear], today we finished our morning shiur of Atanas, will be uploaded in the next couple of days—in the same thing, the Rambam does a very extreme conversion of every single thing related to even to tefillah [prayer], to prayer, specifically prayer in times of tzarah [distress], when there is some praying for something.

In other words, what’s called in English intercessory prayer, as distinct from prayer that is just praise or thanks or something like that—prayer that is about something that happens.

Rambam re-transforms all these things, and in some ways reduces all these things, to one thing which is what he calls teshuvah, what he calls repentance, which is the same, identical to what Aristotle would call just moral progress, ethical progress. Moral is a bad word. Ethical progress, which means people moving from non-perfection to perfection.

This is the Rambam’s understanding of the human being. This is what we’re studying in Shemonah Perakim [Eight Chapters: Rambam’s introduction to Pirkei Avot] in general, and this is how he puts in every single aspect of teshuvah and every single different thing.

The Rambam explicitly says in [chapters] lamed zayin [37] and lamed vav [36], I think, in the beginning, that there’s many mass [unclear] and many, many, many unvaried mitzvos [commandments] and rituals that we do, that are all about without getting people to do teshuvah.

The Inadequacy of Rationalist Reductionism: Why Even Rambamists Need to Understand How Rituals Actually Work

I. The Rambam’s Framework of Ethical Progress (Continued)

The System of Darkei Teshuva

Moral is a bad word. Ethical progress, which means people moving from non-perfection to perfection. This is the random understanding of the human being, this is what we’re studying in Shemonah Perakim [Rambam’s Eight Chapters on ethics] in general and this is how he puts in every single aspect of teshuva [repentance] and every single different thing.

The Rambam explicitly says in Hilchot Teshuva [Laws of Repentance] Perek [chapter] I forgot Lamed Zayin [37] and Lamed Vav [36] I think—no, in the beginning—that yeah, that there’s many mitzvot [commandments], many many many many and varied, many and varied mitzvot and rituals that we do, that we do, that are all about getting people to do teshuva. And he has this word for this, darkei teshuva [the paths of repentance], there’s a whole system, and you could learn this in other areas, in other places.

The Rambam is very focused on turning everything into a call for you to change yourself. And also for society to change, although the Rambam in these contexts generally doesn’t clarify that enough, but it clarifies it enough that you should realize that public teshuva is for the public to change, not for the individual to change.

Public vs. Individual Teshuva

All these things are well known to anyone that learns, and we’re not going to repeat them right now. Correct? You know this already, right?

Student: Sorry, that’s the public change and not individual?

Instructor: There are public, yeah. There are societal sins and personal sins. Like if we do teshuva in public, it means that this is public. I did something wrong.

Student: This is the shiur [lesson] you gave the Yiddish shiur last week, right?

Instructor: I don’t know what I did last week. How do you address a public? I did teshuva since then. I forgot. Talk about waking up.

Student: Yeah, yeah. That’s one example. That was one thing that he did.

Instructor: Yeah, I explained it in a certain way but that’s one, one way in which he changed things.

Student: Yeah, okay.

Instructor: Now, yeah, make sense.

II. Three Fundamental Problems with the Rationalist Theory

The problem with this whole theory or what’s missing in it—there’s really, I could start all the way at the basement—there’s really three problems that I’m going to talk about.

Problem One: The Missing Mechanism

Problem number zero, we’ll start from zero. Problem number zero is that you’re lacking the mechanism and the sort of description or even the sort of power of these things themselves, right?

The Naive Rationalist Approach

Like, for example, if I give a shiur, I saw Rabbi Alfred, the Shomer Emunim [Guardian of Faith] gives a shiur, first thing everyone knows, Hashem [God] doesn’t judge the world in Tishrei [the Hebrew month containing Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur]. He doesn’t write any books, doesn’t sign them, none of these stuff are happening, they’re all images and imaginations that we tell the simple people. There’s no real difference between the first day of Tishrei and the first day of Adar [another Hebrew month], it’s all the same thing. This was all a way to wake you up and to get you to become a better person, right?

You know what happens after this shiur? Sadly, everyone goes out and doesn’t become a better person, right?

Student: Yeah, also, he speaks…

Instructor: Because they’re smarter than that.

Student: Just even on his own terms, is he speaking to only non-simple people?

Instructor: No, the Rambam doesn’t do this. The Rambam never gave that shiur. The Rambam said that shiur because it’s for simple people. Even on those terms, you can’t say it to simple people, because the whole idea is that they should hear that. You could say it that way, but you can’t even say it to the non-simple. That’s the truth. There aren’t really those non-simple people. So physical people don’t really exist in this sense. Or maybe some, like in general, it’s not. Anyways, it doesn’t really work. So what’s the point?

So this is the first issue.

The Deeper Problem: Understanding What These Things Actually Are

What I mean to say, I’m going to be more precise. The first issue, it’s not just that, oh, you’re not such a smart person as you think, and you actually did need these things, and turns out you ruined your life by realizing that it’s not real. That’s one problem. But I think there’s a deeper problem, which is that you lack the understanding of what these things even are.

You end up saying something like, like, oh, they’re just lies. We tell these simple people they should get better. Which is not true. It’s a lie to say that. It’s not true. Because if it would be just a lie, like, I could think of 500, another 500 lies. Like, there are many ways to lie to people and to make them, to sort of scare them or frighten them or awaken them or whatever. I could think of many, many, many, many different ways of doing things like this. And not all of them would work equally.

The Arrogance of the Self-Proclaimed Elite

The naive theory that says, you see, this is the problem, when people think that they’re above the masses, like they’re the elite, they know they have this insight into the reality of things, which maybe they do have some of that, but they don’t have insight into how the people work. And you’ll remember that one of the basic things of knowledge is to know how the real world, how the world really works.

And you know how the truth is and then you have this like a very like derogatory understanding of everyone else and you say oh everyone else is just dumb whatever lie I tell them they’ll buy so you make up all kinds of random lies turns out people don’t actually buy random lies doesn’t actually work. I know many rationalists I made up all kinds of lies and it didn’t work or say well it didn’t work because the truth leaked out well I don’t know something didn’t work it didn’t work mostly because we’re not actually that smart, like it says, and there’s a midrash [rabbinic teaching] that says, it was even smarter than the crazy people.

And I was like, what do you mean he was smarter even when I showed him? He’s smarter than everyone. Of course he was smarter than the crazy people. No, to be smarter than a crazy person, you’ve got to be really, really smart, because you have to figure out how exactly the crazy person works. You think you’re smarter than a crazy person, so you just like him, you just manipulate him. No, people are not actually manipulable in the naive way that these so-called enlightened philosophers tend to think, they’re actually manipulable.

If this is true that you can manipulate people, it has, even on this level, it only works in very specific ways, and you’ve got to be really, really smart to realize how to do it.

The Example of Politicians vs. Moshe Rabbeinu

I think even most politicians, the art of a politician is to know how to lie to everyone in the right way and the right time, and some of them are actually amazing at it, but even they are not successful enough, because almost every one of them, after their death, they’re not respected for the most part so and and when you know when you talk about Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our teacher] I know for 3,000 years people still respect him although the Rambam maybe told you that he was just a big liar they figured out a lot to the masses turns out no not like to the masses is much harder than knowing the so-called abstract universal truths there’s more knowledge in it there’s more wisdom in it there’s more enlightenment in it right.

And this is another way of saying this is like one way of getting you to the point maybe, I don’t know I’m not here to say only as illustrations.

The Need for an Actual Account of How Rituals Work

This just goes to say that we do need an account, an understanding of specifically how these things, even if you say from perspective of my enlightened truth they’re lies, you still need an account of how actually they work on their level, not just—and don’t just say, oh, this is just a lie for dumb people. Oh, why this lie, not some other lie? Or why did some lies work and some lies don’t work?

They’re not actually lies. They’re actually working with specific rules, certain rules of humanity, certain rules of the world, certain rules of society.

Evidence from Structuralism

Some of these rules are somewhat generalizable. We know this from something called structuralism, where you could see that every society comes up with similar rituals. They tend to change in detailed ways, and they tend to, how do you say, to reveal themselves in different coverings, but they still have the same structure, like everyone has summer holidays and winter holidays, and changing of seasons holidays, and blood holidays and water holidays, whatever, all kinds of, there’s something in it, there isn’t anything, you gotta, the truth, but in any case, there’s structural analysis that show how there is a certain basic logic to rituals, to all these weird things that the rationalists think don’t take seriously and think they’re just lies.

Turns out those lies follow a very specific path. And like every successful culture, there’s of course non-successful cultures also, which we should remember. And success in the sense of self-preservation, self-continuity isn’t the only measure of success. But anyways, there are better and worse societies also. But all end up doing similar kinds of things or not all of them but and some of them work better than others so all these things are like we just gotta lie to the masses that’s false.

The Core Thesis: Even Rambamists Need to Be Mekubalim

We’re going to talk about something like this. Or one of the rituals that they do also don’t really make sense. My point is that even by the most rationalist, elite, I don’t know how you call this. It’s like a most like sick, noble lie kind of theory of how things work. You still need a theory of how the rituals actually work. You end up needing to be a Mekubal [Kabbalist] even if you’re a Rambamist. That’s my point. Even on that level. Because otherwise you end up being very dumb.

The Practical Irony: The Rationalist’s Self-Defeat

And you end up not having any chasidim [followers/students], and then you go around and wait. The Rambam told me that the smart people know how to manipulate the dumb people, they should be having the most sin [following]. Turns out, the dumb guy that actually believes his lies, he has all the chasidim, and you’re a loser in the back of the shul [synagogue], and he says you’re a pikoires [heretic].

Wait, something went very wrong here, right? By your own theory, not by that guy’s theory, right? And you go, oh, that’s because he’s dumb. Well, thank you very much. Wasn’t your theory that everyone’s dumb? How you… You don’t have the right, especially by these theories, which you all somewhat know about, you don’t never have the right to complain that other people are dumb.

The Obligation of the Enlightened

The job of the guy out of the cave [Plato’s allegory of the cave from Republic, Book VII] is to go back to the cave and enlighten them and if they’re mad at you because—

The Limits of Political Ethics and the Question of Human Nature: From Civic Virtue to the Immortal Soul

III. The Inadequacy of Elite Manipulation Theory (Conclusion)

Instructor: You’re lacking basic political skills.

Student: Is the basic political skills lying?

Instructor: I don’t know. Something you’re lacking. Okay, so that’s number one. I didn’t really want to get—my sheet is not based on this argument, but this is the first argument.

Student: Well, you could say the guy in the back, as we recall, should only be influencing the top dumb guy. You know, it shouldn’t be direct.

Instructor: No, I don’t—

Student: Which you would say, right?

Instructor: I could think of many, many different theories in many different ways. But one thing you could never say is be upset that the other guy is dumb.

Student: Why not? I don’t understand. Let’s say they are. What’s the—

Instructor: Everyone is dumb, including us. That’s not the point. Figure out how to communicate. But we remember that the big theory—understand. The big theory—I’m not gonna—you need context for that.

You remember that the big theory that these kind of people say is that, and therefore, the smart people have to manipulate the less smart people by telling them all these things, and that’s how they explain all these mitzvahs [mitzvot: commandments/religious obligations]. The Rambam [Maimonides] explicitly says this about so-and-so, and again, this is not my class, there’s entire areas of study and classes to be had for each of these things. And the Rambam says, yeah, we’re making people imagine that their sins are going away and therefore they get better somehow.

And all of that is very nice, but if you take it in the most naive, simple way, it stops working. I’m like, wait, did you figure out, did you make a new one of these rituals so you can get people better and you know and not in style or something? No, you didn’t. Why not? Isn’t that what your teacher Rambam taught you to do?

Student: So, but doesn’t that make people dumber by—

Instructor: By? No, makes them better. That’s another—if you make people dumber then you also did it wrong.

Okay, so that’s number one. Let’s be clear, I don’t want to ask questions on that and answers on that. What I want to say is that even by that theory you still need to have a real understanding of the actual content of these things because otherwise you’re not going to be effective. And also, you don’t actually understand the world. Your whole thing—you’re so proud of yourself for understanding reality unlike everyone else, but you don’t actually understand reality. Okay, that’s my first argument.

IV. The More Serious Argument—What Is a Person?

Introduction to the Second Argument

Instructor: Second thing is like this. There is, from a certain perspective, something very lacking in this whole theory that we have been studying. These things might explain that, they might not. I’m not saying that this is going to answer the first question. But this is a more serious argument.

The more serious argument is, and by the way, this is a different version of the argument that you were saying. It’s a very different version, and it’s a much more ancient version, and a different kind of version. The second argument is that there’s something lacking in this whole theory, and this is something that Rambam, for example, recognizes. This is why to say this at the crisis of Rambam is wrong, because this part is actually something that Rambam knew about, but also knew that it’s a hidden or higher level of things and didn’t generally talk about it.

The Platonic Framework: Goodness Depends on What a Thing Is

Instructor: But the argument is, and the point is, the point that Socrates made in a book called the *Phaedo* [Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul], where he explained that to become a good person depends what a person is. Remember, you’ll remember something very important, that we discussed that everything is about becoming a good person, successful person, right? Successful at personning.

Now there is a big question or there’s a big unknown thing to most people actually, which is what is this thing called a person? Do you know what a person is as a person? Let me just—you’ll remember that the goodness of anything depends on what it is, right? And what are the goodness is being what it is in the best way. And people think that this makes life easy, because a person just has to be a person.

Now there’s a problem here, or a big question here, which is, what is this thing called a person?

The Standard Answer: The Political Animal

Instructor: So this is the platonic way of saying it, when you say something like this, that if you actually do the research, and you actually look into what a person is, you’ll find that the things that the Nicomachean Ethics [Aristotle’s major work on ethics] thinks a person is, in most of the book, not all of it or even all of it but we’re not getting into all these details, is wrong—wrong meaning incomplete.

Because you remember, and if you go to any this style rabbanist [rabbinical] class will tell you, well the goal of everything is to have humans and their society be perfect so society will work. And then we will ask you, what is this society for? Of course Rambam gives you the closest to this answer already. But you’ll ask, what is this whole thing for? And you’ll say, I don’t know.

You have to realize that most people are going to be at this level. This is where the real elitism is. Most people’s final goal, the biggest thing that they want to be, is to be good citizens, we can call them. In other words, what is a person? A person, in this sense, it’s not only selfish, right? It’s also social. A person is something that does all the things one body and one mind does. And also, a person is a social animal, right? A political animal. So, a person lives in a city. And therefore, a good person needs to have a good city. Very nice. Then, that’s the end of the story.

Plato’s Critique: You Never Really Became Good

Instructor: Plato, in his book the *Phaedo* said that this means that you never really became good. Why? Because for two reasons which are interrelated.

First Reason: Ethics as Accounting and Deal-Making

Instructor: One is that all of your work, like we talk about temperance, for example, and you say don’t eat so much because you won’t be able to eat anymore tomorrow. So all of the ethical work turns out to be some kind of deal-making, some kind of exchanging pain for pleasures in the end of the day. Exchanging pleasures for pain and pain for pleasure, you’re still working within the same currency. In other words, you still think that pleasure or even bodily pleasure is what tells you what’s good, is what’s something good.

Problem is that if you’re going to go after all your pleasures today, if you’re going to cheat on your wife, you’re going to end up not having a wife and probably the person you cheated on, you’ll also not have a life with her either, which is usually the statistics and therefore don’t do it, right? So it’s all like a kind of accounting of pains and pleasures, right? That’s why a prudent person is someone who doesn’t overextend his credit on the pleasure side, because there’s always a price to pay for it, so it keeps things in balance for the most part, right? And if it doesn’t, then that’s true, but the end of the theory balances and accounts, pays back the pleasures for the pains, the pains for the pleasures, and stays a stable, normal human being, social animal, political animal, okay?

The Problem of Death

Instructor: Problem is, our first problem is that everyone dies. This is the *Mesillat Yesharim’s* [Path of the Just, a major Jewish ethical work] argument in the first chapter, which ripped off Zacharias [likely referring to a classical source] directly. First problem is that everyone dies, most people die at least, so that’s for the end of it. And that means that when you die, everything, all this stuff ends. It seems weird. It’s not an argument, but anyways.

Student: Life.

Instructor: Therefore, you never actually become a good person that lives forever because of this.

Student: Why would you want it forever? Maybe you don’t want it.

Instructor: Then there are many, and I’m not giving the arguments here because this is not our discussion. I’m just giving the frame of the story. So don’t ask me to give arguments because I’m not doing that now.

The Genealogy of the “Selfishness” Objection

Instructor: The second—that’s one. So there’s one argument that says that this is the source. Then you read them—I’m gonna just—I’m giving you like a very overview kind of thing here. This is the source of the arguments of—you see this explicit argument you could find a citation for them, for example, saying that people that overcome their pleasure there’s rather and but they’re they see this one called is going okay but when they say going they just need people who live—what I don’t call some rats him [possibly “some of them”]—whose end of life is this life and this body, with this soul and this body. And therefore, they get accused by Socrates for just being very good bankers, but not really being good.

This is not the same thing as saying it’s selfish, you’ll notice, but it’s a cousin of that argument, or it gets transferred into that argument by other people. Now, you understand what I’m saying? You could find an argument that says this, precisely this, and then later people who read it say okay so that means you’re just doing it for yourself and that’s the problem. Problem is not that you’re doing it for yourself originally. The problem is that you’re doing it for the lower self. But anyways, I have—that’s the genealogy of that argument.

Student: Yep.

Instructor: There’s all kinds of this sources for this. Okay, that’s one.

The Deeper Point: The Human Being as Immortal Soul

Instructor: Second problem—the second bigger argument which is why I started talking about death—the second argument is or the second point is that it’s not actually true that what a human being is is something that dies. In other words, something that lives in a society. What a human being is, at least according to Plato and according to most Jewish theories, a human being is actually an immortal soul. He might have never been born.

The Immortal Soul and the Insufficiency of Political Virtue: Two Levels of Human Perfection

V. The Human Being as Immortal Soul and the Ladder of Virtues

The Fundamental Nature of the Human Being

Instructor: Never, ever. That is what a human being actually is. And how do we find this out? By getting through all the arguments for that, which is what the Plato was about, and other books of Plato to prove you that you have an immortal soul, or really that you are an immortal soul.

That’s—to be a good human being is not to be a good citizen. It’s to be a good immortal soul, which turns out to be something entirely different, because the immortal soul is not contingent on living in this body. It’s actually maybe even bad for it to live in this body. As the tradition says, that the body is a prison for the soul.

Even if you have a slightly more positive view of life in this body, it’s definitely not the whole thing. So to become a completely good human being, it’s not enough to sort of balance pains and pleasures in order to have a good life, a good political life, what we call a good social life. You still need to be a good human being in the sense of a human being as something that has an immortal soul.

The Rambam’s Aristotelian Position on the Soul

The Rambam [Maimonides] will tell you something—the Rambam has this even worse, just to be clear. Since the Rambam was an Aristotelian and not a Platonist, so he believes in no mortal soul only one way. That’s the big difference. The Rambam doesn’t believe in a pre-existence of the soul. He believes that you become an immortal soul by achieving perfect intellect in one life, in this lifetime. Otherwise, you don’t have an immortal soul.

So for him, the stakes are even higher. If you don’t become perfect in the sense of your potential to have an immortal soul, you’re never going to become an immortal soul. Whereas for the Platonists, and for most other Jews, like Rav Saadya Gaon [Saadia Gaon, medieval Jewish philosopher], you’re not going to achieve it in this life—who knows what’s going to happen afterwards or before—but you still won’t live up to what it means to be an immortal soul. Very important.

The Irrelevance of Bodily Pleasures and Pains

Now, this immortal soul obviously doesn’t have much interest, or any interest in the pleasures or pains of this body. Totally doesn’t care whether you have pains or pleasures. It might need to have certain pains and pleasures to accomplish what it needs to accomplish in this body, according to whatever theory you have, what it is it’s even doing here. But it doesn’t believe that pains and pleasures are anything good, right?

So remember, according to the first person, it’s really good to have money. Maybe conditionally, maybe not in the totally fine way, but there’s a real goodness in it. And you’re really weighing, like, should I give away my money, or should I have pleasure, pain in my body today, or should I be able to have pleasure tomorrow, and so on.

From the perspective of the immortal soul, this is irrelevant. You might be stuck—so you might need to take care of it, but it’s actually irrelevant. It’s totally not a judge, not a criteria. Pains and pleasures of the body are not a criteria at all. Possibly even living in this body is not a criteria, which is why the ultimate test of this is self-sacrifice, right?

Socrates as the Paradigm: Self-Sacrifice and the Immortal Soul

There’s something like Socrates did and let himself die, because who cares? The only reason you don’t let yourself die is because—this is what Socrates says—is because there’s a din [law/prohibition] that you should not let to kill yourself, it’s a suicide. But the moment that you have a heter [permission] on this din, or even like a chiyuv [obligation], because the city told you to kill yourself, there’s no reason to not want to die. He never cared about living in this life anyways, from the perspective of what he really is, which is an immortal soul.

The Rambam didn’t believe in that, right? That’s the difference. If he were to be a Socratean—that’s why, this is the real reason why for the Rambam, it’s a bigger deal to do mesirat nefesh [self-sacrifice] than for Platonists, for everyone else. Because it’s true—Socrates didn’t believe that you lose anything from dying. You don’t gain anything from dying.

Socrates said, don’t ever say, when I’m dead and they clap my body to the grave, don’t say there is Socrates being buried. Socrates isn’t being buried. Socrates is having a good time with his friends in heaven. Socrates’ body is being buried, so what? Who cares about that? Socrates himself definitely doesn’t care.

So if he—that’s what he is, and the Rambam would believe that you would—just since there is a way of arguing, this would say we don’t think with the body in this life, so we don’t need the body to think, so we go on thinking as when we’re dead too.

The Rambam’s Position on Death and Knowledge

It is true that for the Rambam’s version of Aristotelianism, you sometimes do need to live in this life in order to have the next life. Unlike for every Platonic version, you don’t—that’s the big thing. But in any case, even the Rambam agrees that there are some times when it’s appropriate to give up your body. And that’s mesirat nefesh and so on. And the Rambam also agrees that there are thoughts that you can only think of when you’re dead. You will know God better when you’re dead.

Student: No, well, that will happen in due time, but you just want to be able to…

Instructor: No problem. I’m just saying. I’m just, I’m just, this is all…

The main point is, like we said, from the perspective of what a person is, according to the theory that a person is an immortal soul—and you could bracket the machloket [dispute] if he’s immortal also backwards and only forwards, it doesn’t matter for our purposes—then what to be a good person, it’s not enough to be a good balanced person.

The Insufficiency of Balance: Two Levels of Virtue

This whole balanced person that we learned about in Shemonah Perakim [Maimonides’ Eight Chapters] is maybe one necessary step for that if you’re an Aristotelian, and maybe necessary in the sense of like a forced contingency that you’re stuck to take care of if you’re a Platonist, but nothing more.

From the respect of the actual immortal soul, of what you really are, you do not need any of this. You don’t care at all about the goods of the body. You don’t even care to be balanced.

And there’s a whole question—and we’re not going to get into this—does that mean that you can become evil from the respect of the city? All the dialogues of Socrates’ death are in some sense dealing with this problem. Like if what you are is an immortal soul, then that means I don’t really have to care about my neighbor either. There’s a real question here. I’m not going to solve it today. I’m just giving you the paradigm, the system. Okay? Make sense?

Beyond Being a Good Person: The Need for Higher Perfection

So now, it turns out that being a good person is not enough. In other words, what we call a person. You need to be a good soul. An eternal, separate intellect. An immortal soul. Whatever you want to call it. Depending on your understanding of the soul. That is what you need to be.

Now, there’s many levels, like you said. The Rambam—that means understanding in this life. For a more Platonic view, what this means is, firstly, you need to know that. And this is the very important thing. You need to know that.

In other words, something like this. If we go back, and this is going to explain to you something very important. And like I said, this step is somewhat in Rambam in some ways. And you see the Rambam in the explanation of Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement]. It almost says this explicitly. Not entirely, but somewhat says this. Rambam doesn’t elaborate this in this language. You could find this language in Chassidish [Hasidic] books and others, but in Kabbalah [Jewish mystical tradition] books.

The Ladder of Virtues: Political Virtue vs. Soul Virtue

But the point is like this. You all think that you’re good people because you follow the Rambam. The Rambam, the nigleh [revealed/exoteric] Rambam. There’s many people who are not in Rambam, which doesn’t know about this. You followed what Hashem [God] had told you. The Torah [Jewish Bible/Law], in the sense of the Torah that was given to Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our teacher] teaches you how to be a good person and how to set up a good society and all of that. That is all very nice.

This is, in other words, you’re a tzaddik [righteous person] from the perspective of what we call this level one, or Plato called this political virtue, and the Platonic tradition developed this whole theory of a ladder of virtues for each level of the person, of what a person is. There’s different kinds of virtues.

So for the kind of person that is a neshama b’guf [soul in a body], a person in this life, that is, you’re perfectly legal, you’re a tzaddik gamur [completely righteous person]. But since that’s not what you are, from the perspective of a higher life, you are not even beginning to be a tzaddik. You don’t even exist yet. You barely know what you are.

Purification: The First Step Beyond Political Virtue

Therefore, the first step, which Plato and others called purification, and I think very much matches to what we call literal purification in Hebrew and at least the Kabbalistic—but I think it’s inclusive in some sense—this reading, and in the Rambam a different sense, that’s reading. What you need besides for not repenting all of your sins that you look as true as about more or less—that’s not enough. You still need to become or recognize that you are the thing that a human being really is, which is the immortal soul.

And for this end there are specific different practices, right? So all the practices that we have—most of taryag mitzvot [613 commandments] at least—are about becoming a good person. But this is most mitzvot [commandments]—that’s stage one. But Rambam causes the two perfections, right? In some sense these two things. But he’s missing—I’m giving him slightly more elaborate theory than Rambam actually has, at least explicitly has.

Practices for Changing Identity

But since this is all not enough, you need more specific practices. Now there are specific practices that are about teaching you what you are. In other words, teaching you that you are an intellectual soul or, like I said, an immortal soul, whichever word you want to call it. In the Chassidus [Hasidic philosophy], they call it nefesh Elokit [divine soul], which is something analogous to the same thing.

And these practices are not practices of making you a good person. They’re practices of changing what person means for you, right? Who you are. Change your identity. Yes, being identified.

Now of course that doesn’t change objectively—I think that there’s something subjective or in some sense about this objective meaning working on the person and what do you think it’s not working on the reality yet. But since most people are born and are taught to identify with their body, with their—

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Philosophical Exercises for Purification: Mathematics, Asceticism, and the Distinction Between Tahara and Teshuvah

VI. Mathematics as a Purification Practice

Instructor: Math is something I do if you produce the idea of it. Proofs do it. Math, the way that we teach it, is just mechanical. If you really study math, then you do it. Now, when it’s taught in elementary schools or whatever, totally not doing math. But if you actually think math, any of it, you’ll actually get there.

But I’m not, this is, again, I’m giving you a very big overview, so we should start being able to talk about these things at least.

VII. Asceticism and Fasting: Teaching That You Are Not a Body

The Question: What Does Fasting Accomplish?

Instructor: Another very simple thing, which is more familiar to you, is asceticism, fasting. Remember, there is something called mitzvah [commandment] of the fast. And the Rambam’s [Maimonides’] theory of this is what does fasting help? What is this fasting all about?

So you remember, Rambam, like simple Rambamistic theory is something like, it causes you to stop your life somehow and to realize, nobody has a good theory if you’re wired to fast according to that. Could you tell me how fasting helps?

Student: When you fast, you do teshuvah [repentance].

Instructor: I don’t know what it does teshuvah when they fast, by the way. When you fast, you’re weak and you don’t have the courage to think.

Student: When you’re fasting? You said the opposite on a different shiur [class/lecture].

Instructor: I said the opposite on a different shiur?

Student: Yeah. You said when you fast, you definitely have more time to think.

Instructor: You have more time. I gave that theory that you have more time. But it says, it doesn’t say it takes the time. So you prefer the theory that you mean being involved. There’s the theory. It says, so yeah of course so and but just to be clear all the all those theories are good for the first level but they’re not actually like they don’t explain why fast like why literally it says afflict yourself afflict your body right nafshecha [your soul/body] means your body afflict your body why would you do that okay and there’s other theories i gave other theories fasting already okay.

The Core Theory: Fasting as Teaching Non-Identification with the Body

Instructor: But like very the normalist reading of it in this context is this. The normalist reading of fasting, fasting in general of these kind of ascetic practices, deliberate anti-body practices, it’s not like just ignoring, it should lead you to ignoring it, but these are the kind of deliberate practices. The point of them is, it’s telling you something like this.

Fasting is not, you’ll notice, we’ll talk about this in the next stage. Fasting is a way of teaching yourself that you’re not a body. And remember we said, one of the big things of not only being a body is that the pains and pleasures of a body don’t count right they don’t not exist they don’t exist as long as you’re stuck in a body but they don’t they don’t you don’t have value for you right they don’t describe they don’t this they’re not a criteria for good and bad right.

So from the perspective of the body it’s always bad to afflict itself unless you’re paying for it okay we can always interpret it that way but to actually fast is to say that I do not count myself as a body which says that it counts so much, you have to go against it and…

Student: I don’t know, I don’t say it with a zakah [merit], it’s not a chassidish [Hasidic] thing, so I don’t know what that is. You’re saying that the pain, when you say that the people who are causing pain, they’re also into pain, they’re also into pain.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the opposite, there’s an opposite theory, I have a shot [class] of that. But you’re basically, this is the thing that you should be…

Student: No, the malachim [angels] thing, exactly, the malachim thing, which is the area in Shadrach, or the Zohar [foundational Kabbalistic text] says that Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] is like al-malachim [like the angels], and b’alach [unclear], Yom Kippur, all of that.

Instructor: Yom Kippur is pretending, or in other words, teaching yourself that what you are is the kind of thing that you will be or still already are and that is what fasting is and I think that this is the closest to a rational theory or a real theory of why fast because all the other things like maybe yeah maybe not I don’t know.

Multiple Practices for the Same Goal

Instructor: What ascetic practices are and there is just one practice like I said there is intellectual practice that teach you this and there is maybe like different practices that teach you this there are different practices because it can teach you this. And self-reflection, there’s all kinds of different ways of teaching yourself this.

This is like the first stage in actual initiation, like actual teaching you to become a philosopher. What Plato or Socrates called a philosopher, which is someone that identifies with their soul and not with their body, is to not care about the pleasures of the body and the pains of the body. So one very obvious practice that suggests itself is to suffer some pain and just ignore it, right? Like say okay so that’s not me.

I think this is like we could give a whole shiur to try to elaborate and describe what it means to say it’s not me and how you would live that but that’s that’s what I’m just giving is a theory this is the what we call tahara [purification] okay.

VIII. Tahara (Purification) as a Distinct Category from Sin and Repentance

The Argument from Yom Kippur’s Language

Instructor: And how do I know this this is the argument for to move it out right so very interesting and this is give us a slightly broader understanding of Yom Kippur we still have to get something even broader this gives us a slightly which is that everyone knows that we purify, because we’ll talk about this in a second, but we purify the right?

It’s the opposite of tumah [ritual impurity/contamination], so at least the subject of most of the parashah [Torah portion] it’s explicitly tumah and not chet [sin] it says also chet because chet is a kind of tumah that’s what the theory of Sefer Vayikra [the Book of Leviticus] in general but the theory is not purified in other words you would say something like the opposite of doing bad in the sense of chet or sin is doing good or doing teshuvah like not doing it or something like that and Yom Kippur is explicitly not about that it doesn’t say in the Torah it says you will purify yourself.

What does it mean you purify yourself? Of course.

Student: So why can’t you say that? Why do you have to say funny things?

Tumah as Contamination of Life by Death

Instructor: The answer is probably because it notices that in the Torah there’s something called tumah. There’s a category called contamination, right? The opposite of pure, purity, right? Tumah means mixed, contaminated. Opposite of pure. What does it mean to be the opposite of pure? What does this even mean?

What it means is literal, okay? According to this reading. What it means is literal. It means that since what a human being is, is something that lives forever, right? It’s life, and it’s one of the arguments of the Phaedo [Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul] for, literally one of the arguments in the Phaedo for immortal life, is that life cannot be mixed with death. If life exists, it can’t be something that stops, then it’s not really life. Because what something is, if it’s purely what it is, and if the soul is something that gives life, then how could the soul die? That’s one of his arguments. Of course, to make it make sense, it’s not our issue now.

But the point, like, we saw chaim [life], right? We talk about chaim in Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah [Jewish New Year], and according to many Rishonim [early medieval rabbinic authorities], it means eternal life. It doesn’t mean mechalev kisram, banan, and toi sufis [children, livelihood, and sustenance], but most mekubalim [Kabbalists] and Rishonim like toi sufis. That means eternal life. In the Ramban [Nachmanides], probably also. But not, whatever, it is complicated. Again, we’re not giving the shiur to figure out these, how exactly to figure everything out. We’re just giving the structure of this kind of thought.

So, life, unadulterated life, uncontaminated life is eternal life, immortal life. Like the life of God or life of malachim, give us life like you are eternally alive.

What tumah means is contamination of life by death. As everyone knows, the greatest tumah is a dead body. And that is the greatest contamination of life by death. And like the Kuzari [medieval Jewish philosophical work] says, all the other tumahs are partial deaths. Like, keri [seminal emission] is something that could have potentially been alive and didn’t turn out alive and so on. And all the other tumahs that have to do with bodily parts that are not alive, so that’s what tumah is.

Purification Goes Beyond Morality

Instructor: So, tumah is not a… and this explains something, I’m going to get to this more in the third part of my class. But this shows us that there is something called purification which goes beyond being a good person right because we can see this very obviously though there’s no asset to become there’s only—

Tumah and Tahara: Identity, Purification, and the Limits of Ethical Goodness

IX. The Two-Stage Structure of Spiritual Development

Tumah as a Non-Moral Category

So, Tumah is not a… This explains something, I’m going to get to this slightly more in the third part of my class, but this shows us that there is something called purification which goes beyond being a good person, right? Because we can see this very obviously. Obviously, there’s no Issur [prohibition] to be Tumah [ritually impure]. There’s only Issur to be Tumah if you go under this Beis HaMikdash [the Holy Temple]. But there’s nothing wrong with being Tumah. There’s no mitzvah [commandment].

It’s not true, by the way. I like to say this, but it says there’s a mitzvah to be pure, according to the Gemara [Talmud]. But in the Al-Pibshat [simple/literal understanding], and also after that, it’s like a mitzvah. I’m not sure. Nobody knows which mitzvah it is. The Gemara seems to call it a mitzvah to be pure, always. But in the literal understanding of even Halakhah [Jewish law], there’s no mitzvah. There’s nothing wrong with being Tumah. The Rambam [Maimonides] says there’s nothing wrong with being Tumah your whole life. You only can’t go to the Beis HaMikdash.

But, obviously, there’s something wrong in some sense with being Tumah. So how do we reconcile this? This is a great problem for people that have only one dimension of goodness and they’re under moral understanding that they have to interpret everything as ethical goodness and then Tumah is like, nobody knows.

Tumah as the Mixing of Life and Death

The answer is, Tumah is mixing life with death and being pure means being purely alive, which is why, even if you’re good in every sense, say as long as you’re going to die you’re still bad and therefore you’ve got to do tahara [purification]. Tahara means start living forever. How do you start living forever? By being the thing that you really are which lives forever anyways. It’s like a change of focus, a change of identity, a change of identity.

The Beis HaMikdash just symbolizes the eternal world—that would be my interpretation. The Rambam says…

Student: Hara qaibish [unclear reference]?

Instructor: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is another level. Yeah, exactly. So it’s a switching identity. It’s stopping to answer to yourself, “Who am I, this body, this biography,” and starting to answer, “I am eternal soul.” Okay? It has a lot of meaning to this, but that’s the word, the sentence that I have for you: Switching identity.

The I, this is what it says in Zohar [foundational Kabbalistic text], that you should start thinking, and then Chaim Vital [R. Chaim Vital, 16th century Kabbalist] has this first direction for becoming a mekubal [Kabbalist] in Sha’ar HaKedusha [Gate of Holiness]. Zohar says, it says, so we see that Adam [person/human] is not his flesh, but there is flesh of it, the body of a person. It’s a bad reading of the person, but anyways it’s a good Rashi [medieval Torah commentator] that what it shows you is that this is the first stage of like this, this will be sleep, all that purification is, that’s the first stage because there’s more things to do besides for that which we’re not talking about tonight. But all I’m showing you is that you have to go beyond and stopping to see me after something called purification. Okay?

The Prophets’ Critique: Sacrifice Without Righteousness

This also shows us, this is also very clear how it might even be the opposite. Now I want to say something very interesting. It might even work the other way around. This is where there’s a question. I’ll explain to you something and then we’ll explain it in greater detail.

Everyone knows that there’s this whole question: Is Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] mechappah [atoning] without Teshuvah [repentance] or is it not? It’s very analogous to the question that Yeshayahu HaNavi [the prophet Isaiah] had which you read on Yom Kippur. Actually, Yeshayahu HaNavi talks about fasting too, right?

But there’s a question that Yeshayahu HaNavi and the prophets are said to have, although it’s weird. There’s like five chapters in all the prophets that say this. The rest of them are about other stuff, but anyways, the prophets are said to say—it says in the Torah also in Psalm 1, Shmuel [the prophet Samuel], Levi said—that God does not need sacrifice. Korbanos [sacrifices] don’t do anything. What else? It’s being a good person. That’s what the prophets seem to say.

And everyone that reads this says, “What are you talking about?” When you read Sefer Vayikra [the Book of Leviticus], it’s all about Korbanos. And Sefer Vayikra not only about Korbanos, explicitly says that Korbanos makes you meratze Hashem [pleasing to God]. It doesn’t—not only if you say, “Oh, it’s all about you have to do Korbanos,” but you really have to be a good person. No. The Torah literally says, “How do you become purified before God? By throwing a goat down a cliff.” That is how. That’s what it says, you can’t take it away. You can reinterpret it in all kinds of fancy ways, but that’s what it says.

And how do you, if you did a sin, that’s the halakhah [Jewish law], that’s the pasuk [verse]—it says literally, “This is how you will atone,” whatever kapper [atonement] means, for yourself.

Student: Wait, we’ll talk about vidui [confession].

Instructor: It doesn’t actually say that you have to do it, it says one time, and then I made a whole title. Like, you can’t make the ikkar [main principle] of it, like, there’s something very weird here, okay? Obviously, there’s something very weird, okay?

Now, the answer is, of course, there’s one reading that says, “Yes, that’s what all, you know, holy sacred lies or something, some weird thing, imaginations that convince people and so on, but really what makes you good is to be a good person ethically.” Well, that’s not what the prophets are saying, actually. It doesn’t actually say that, right?

What it actually says is that God does not receive the sacrifices of a sinner. God receives sacrifices. It never says God doesn’t. It says he doesn’t need it, but he doesn’t need it when you’re a sinner. When you… What does it say? When you are a tzaddik [righteous person], God wants your sacrifice. When you’re not, he doesn’t want it. So there’s such a thing called God-wanting sacrifice which is separate from being a tzaddik. Otherwise, even the rhetoric of the prophets don’t work. There’s not even one… There’s some Nevi’im [prophets] that say, say things that sound more radical than this, but most of the rhetoric works like this.

The Proper Sequence: Ethics Before Purification

So what this means, in the simple sense, is something like this. Like we said, there are two levels, right? Like the Mishnah says, you can conceptualize it like this if you really want, it’s not all in that. But first you have to be a good person. If someone is not a good person in the sense of step one, stage one, being a good person in the body, please don’t start doing purification. Firstly, you’re going to ruin that also. Probably won’t work.

Because if you really think you’re an eternal soul, so why are you stealing from your friend? Wait, you’re probably a hypocrite. You probably don’t really believe that. That’s like one reason. Also, because if being mixed with the body is bad, because being mixed with the evil of the body is bad, okay? You can’t say, “Well, I’m going to go to the mikvah [ritual bath], I’m going to do purification, I’m going to tell the shed [unclear: possibly “sod,” secret] of the other, right? But I’m going to still be, you know, sleeping with my neighbor’s wife, but I went to the mikvah and I’m not even a body.” Well, if you’re not a body, well, where’s that woman? What’s going on? Right? So you’re lying to yourself.

There is an order in these things, right? Although there’s a higher level that’s stronger in some sense, it’s more important in some sense relative to what you really are than the lower level, that doesn’t mean that you could skip stages. Doesn’t mean. And there’s a big great like, people always tend to think when one, this is why there’s sequence that we don’t tell everyone. People, whenever you tell us on, we know that this whole thing of being a tzaddik, of being good person, I’m not stealing and not, let’s say it’s at least enough, they signal this, all of that is all about your body. Really what you are is an eternal soul and the way to become an eternal soul is by going to the mikvah and doing philosophy and learning Chassidus [Hasidic teachings] and going to the Rebbe [Hasidic spiritual leader] and so on and so forth and going to the Beis HaMikdash, right?

This is true, but then these stupid people have a mistake, a very ancient mistake and say, “Okay, therefore, I can do whatever I want, but an eternal soul doesn’t bother me.” Therefore, the Navi [prophet] says, “No, there’s like a guard at the entrance to the heaven, there’s like a guard.” This is literally what the din [judgment], we say that when someone dies there’s a Beis Din [court of law] and judges don’t want to do it in this life, right?

What it’s saying is, “I don’t need your purification. It’s not going to work if you are even more tamei [impure].” Like the Nevi’im said this many times: the greatest impurity is to be an evil person. It’s even a good person is still impure as long as he’s in a body, but if you’re an evil person, even worse. So you can’t do spiritual bypassing. You can’t, you can’t replace one with the other, although there’s a reason why people make this mistake, because it is more, more basic and like, yeah, once I’m out of body, then all these questions about the body are not relevant. Still doesn’t work. That’s what the Nevi’im are saying.

Classroom Discussion: The Problem of Sinning Without Caring

Student: This seems to be a problem that I still see this problem. They won’t go to the mikveh or whatever. It’s just like, you’re not…

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, that’s very good. That’s why we… You’re not… That’s why… You’re talking about… Why doesn’t it work? What’s dead about being a bad person?

Student: It’s double dead.

Instructor: Why?

Student: You said that.

Instructor: Why it doesn’t work?

Student: Yeah.

Instructor: Maybe it does work. We just don’t want you to think that it works. I don’t know. It doesn’t work. Mostly it doesn’t work. I think there’s some ways in which it does work, though. No, that’s complicated. It does what I told you. The simple reason is because if you’re not in a body, then, in other words, you don’t judge pleasures of the body as good at all. So why are you so tempted by some stupid piece of chaser [pork/non-kosher meat]? Let’s say you’re not. Then you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t be eating it.

Student: Why not?

Instructor: Why not? Because it’s bad for you. Because it’s bad for your body somehow.

Student: Bad for your body.

Instructor: The reason people… No, you cannot care. The reason people do things… Doing a bad thing is bad is caring. That’s the point. Only if it constitutes caring.

Student: Yeah, yeah. Maybe the guy that actually does bad things without caring has their…

Instructor: Because most people do bad things because they do care. Okay? We’ll talk about that guy. Yeah, we’ll talk about that guy. Maybe there’s such a guy and we’ll talk about him a different time. Most people are not that guy, so we don’t have to talk about them. Remember, we talk about most people. Most people, when they do this, they really do care about those things and that’s why. But they want to cover up by the higher things. That’s true.

If someone would really be doing the aveirah [sin/transgression] without any feeling, personally, he probably won’t be doing it. Again, it’s hard for me to imagine why he would be doing it. But if he would be doing it, then that’s a question. I don’t have to worry. For the most part, you’re bluffing. You’re not really separate from your body. You’re not bluffing, you’re fooling yourself. It’s worse than bluffing. You’re not lying to God. People are very complicated and they figure out all kinds of elaborate ways to lie to themselves. But that’s the main argument, I think.

Sin as a Source of Impurity

That’s why the Torah says that the aveiros [sins/transgressions] are also metame [cause impurity]. Even more often, stealing is metame, as explicitly. In [unclear reference] and so on, says explicitly. That stealing takes away the tahara [purity]. Stealing is confused with the body more. There’s more. Again, we’re giving a very overview level here. Can’t get into all these problems. These are problems, but that’s the basic thought, okay?

Conclusion: Tahara as a Stage Beyond Teshuvah

This is why you’ve got to do tahara, and this is why it’s a stage beyond Teshuvah. Teshuvah is a condition for that, but Teshuvah does not consist of that. In other words, that doesn’t consist of Teshuvah. Teshuvah in the lower sense, in the sense of stopping to sin.

The Nature of Yom Kippur: Purification, Atonement, and the Inadequacy of Modern Moral Categories

X. Yom Kippur as Tahara, the Theory of Kapara, and the Limitations of Our Moral Understanding

Yom Kippur Is Primarily Purification, Not Repentance

Instructor: Most of what we’re doing in Yom Kippur is not *teshuva* [repentance]. *Teshuva* is a condition in it, right? But whilst what we’re doing is done, that’s why I have to say, but I have to say this, it’s very important, there is some sense in which it is stronger. That’s why the rabbis said in Yom Kippur, and the Rambam [Maimonides] paschals even, that the surah of Meshul Eichas and Chaperon is small of errors without *teshuva*.

What that means is that there are some, though there’s many meanings in this, and again we’re not going to make everything problem today. But what it means is that since it is true what you’re saying, it is true that if you have no body, like dying literally is the biggest atonement, if you die, then all your sins go away. Why? Because all your sins attach to your body and you’re not a body anymore, so goodbye. Very simple.

And therefore, it is true that doing these atonement practices or purification practices do take away some of your sins. As long as you don’t do it on purpose. That’s that’s I think something like that, but they do and but by the way what it means is that you’ll stop doing those sins afterwards. In other words, it’s not true that there’s an order that says like you got it before him for if you keep it is a real thing, right? If it means like really like you identify with your soul. Don’t show that for the most part you can you’re not identifying with your soul as long as you’re a big gun even saw.

The Principle That the Higher Includes the Lower

Instructor: But also it works the other way around. There is a *moklam assignment* [general principle] in here. There’s like some sense in which the higher includes the lower because that has to be a rule. Everyone that knows basic a Yiddish guide knows the higher has to include the lower. So therefore, identifying with your soul includes *mikal v’choymeh* [all the more so], not bothering your wife. And therefore, identifying with your soul for one day is also a way to stop bothering your wife. Specifically with this one.

So Yom Kippur does work. Yeah, so like I said, there’s practically we have to get the detail, but in some sense it works and therefore, Yom Kippur, the kind of *tehara* [purification] of Yom Kippur does make you stop, does stop people, does get people, make people better. Not by directly focusing on them, just like automatically because they become less bodies you start being a better person. That is but don’t confuse it as the purpose of it, right? The purpose is still the other way around.

Step Two: The Torah’s Explicit Framework of Kapara

Instructor: That is my step two and that is what explicitly what it says in the Torah. This is called *kapara* [atonement/covering]. All the theory in the Torah is very clearly if you read the Torah you’ll see that the *karbanos* [sacrifices] and including the *karban* [sacrifice] of Yom Kippur which is soil whatever the whole of Yom Kippur is called *kapara* and *kapara* is very explicitly a stage after *teshuva*. Like of course like it’s obvious doesn’t even say in the Torah you have to. But obviously, if you still want to do it, you’re not bringing a *karban*, right?

You don’t really need this whole album that says that *karban* is only *m’chapa* [atones] with *teshuva*, and then you go on to think that therefore *teshuva*, if you think that’s *m’chapa*, that’s wrong. Of course, if you bring a *karban*, that means the sin was a mistake, and now mistakes even better, because mistakes, you only have them because you’re half a body.

But anyways, the theory of *karbonis* [sacrifices] is that there’s something left over after you did *teshuva*, which is that you’re still in the body, and more specifically you’re still in the body and the way that this sin makes you stuck in the body, therefore you have to do the *karban* to do *keperah* [atonement]. And Dayim *keperah* [the atonement of Yom Kippur] is the greatest *keperah*, and it’s entirely that’s why we have this idea of fasting in *keperah*.

That is my second step, okay? Very clear. Makes sense?

Now, and you’ll see the Rambam says that in Dayim *keperah* we act as if we don’t have a body. It says something like that. Anyways.

Step Three: The Inadequacy of Our Moral Categories

Instructor: The third thing is like this. All of this gets us to understand something very important. I think it’s very important to notice this. You can’t be a full human being without noticing this. It’s very important. Again, don’t make the mistakes that people make about it, but it’s very important.

It’s very important to notice that our understanding of guilt, of responsibility for sin, for crime, for being unethical, anything like that, is way too limited relative to how the real world is. What do I mean?

The Problem of Inherited Guilt

Instructor: My biggest example is this. We, everyone, all of us, intuitively think that *Yechez Klanovi* [Ezekiel] is 100% right, that a father should not die for the sins of his child, and a child should not die for the sins of his father. It even says in the Torah, maybe. And all of us think, from our theory of what it means to be a good or a bad person, what responsibility means, what choice means, and so on, this seems to be obvious, like it seems to be extremely unjust and make no sense to say that you had a sin and your father sinned so therefore you have to pay or in the previous *gilgal* [reincarnation cycle] you sinned therefore you have to pay, all these things don’t make any sense to us, right?

The Problem of Good Actions with Bad Consequences

Instructor: Another thing that doesn’t make sense to us, in the same way makes sense, right, and would be that the Torah says, I don’t know problem, because it doesn’t make any sense now. Now, another thing that we have a very big difficulty with, and you’ll notice people and all of the discourse is messed up because we don’t have categories for this, is that we think that things can only be good or bad in the moral, ethical sense. And therefore, bad things cannot be good and good things cannot be bad. That’s obvious, right?

So if someone does something that he shouldn’t have done, that they have told me to do it, it can’t be that he gets punished for it. Do we believe that? Yeah. But obviously this is not true. People do get punished, do suffer for things that they should have, that they didn’t, that they were right for doing.

Should I give you a stupid example? If someone has a bad dream on Shabbos, he should fast, and then he should fast again, because he fasted on Shabbos. What’s going to go? I fasted, okay, so I was trying, I went to the *rov* [rabbi], and the *rov* tells me you should fast on Shabbos, because okay, so what do you want from me? Well, I still might have it better. Maybe it’s worth it, but you still have the repercussion of the next thing. Okay, so was I right or wrong?

Fasting is some kind of *teshuva*. We fasted the *teshuva*. We don’t fast for magic. We fasted the *teshuva*. So if I did the right thing, how could I suffer for it?

Student: I could give another example where you don’t suffer. Let’s say you cook and fast for some job.

Instructor: Yeah, by the way, same thing.

Student: No, you don’t suffer.

Instructor: How do you know? You’re very sure about things. If it harms you, it harms you. You’re very sure about things today.

Student: Because if the action, let’s say the action literally harms you.

Instructor: This is exactly, I’m very good, you’re sure about this. You’re very sure about this, that if someone had to do something because of *Nebuchadnezzar* [referring to situations of coercion], there is no chance that he goes to *Yaron* [Gehinnom/Hell] for it. You’re very sure about this. I’m not sure about this at all.

Student: No, because you could say, let’s say Shabbos is a very essential thing to keep. You guys, you didn’t. I don’t know, maybe it was worth it.

Instructor: Okay, very good. So this is like a rational one way of saying things. I could give you another example. Maybe a slightly controversial example.

This is the shah that you went to where there was a mitzvah with Edom and Kippur. Where did the shah live here?

Student: Yeah, I don’t remember what the *kanduk* stand was. It was near the shah, but is it a mitzvah or not?

Instructor: Yeah, there was, I don’t remember what the *kanduk*, yeah, I remember I talked about that, but I don’t remember what. Anyways.

The Most Controversial Application: Necessary Evil and Killing in War

Instructor: Another thing we could say is something a little more controversial, but I think it has to be said, is that sometimes you have to do a bad thing. Some things are bad. You know, for example, you know what’s bad? Killing people is a bad thing, okay? Killing people, especially so-called innocent people. It’s definitely a bad thing. Killing babies is definitely a bad thing, okay?

Do you sometimes have to kill babies? Well, in my Torah, it says that you sometimes have to kill babies. Also, in my reality, it says that. If you read the news, you see. Everyone agrees that sometimes you have to kill some babies. The question is just which babies. But anyway, I’m telling you, right?

Student: Whose babies, right?

Instructor: Right? That’s the reality. We can have all these nice discussions and justify the means. The reality is sometimes you have to, right? Anyone that tells you the right moral thing is to kill the whole city, all the *Amalekim* [Amalekites], their children, their animals. Kill them all. Oh yeah, YouTube is going to take off my video. Anyways, that’s what it says in the Torah. Right?

No, but this is the reality, okay? Therefore, now we have a real difficulty with this, that that means that it’s a good thing. So the people go around and say, I did all these things but that’s why I’m happy. Well, maybe you should be happy. But does that mean that you’re a pure person now? Did you become a better person? So now a lot of people know, so no, you became the other *Nechama Kodesh* [unclear reference]. Oh, so you became an evil person now. So now you’re an evil person. Wait. We’re very confused about this. Okay? We are all very confused about this.

The Two Wrong Positions

Instructor: There’s only two opinions that I could see in my social media feed. Either it’s a big mitzvah that kills certain people or it’s a big *avedah* [sin/tragedy]. Either you become a big *tzaddik* [righteous person] for doing it and you should do it *b’semacha* [with joy], because every mitzvah you have to do *b’semacha*, right? Or you should do it *b’atzvah z’godlan* [with great sadness], even after that you become a bad person, like *Yishai Lebovitz* [Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Israeli philosopher] said. Those two options exist, and both of those are wrong.

The Torah’s Solution: The Paradigm of Milchemes Midyan

Instructor: Because I have a *chemesh* [Chumash/Torah], and my *chemesh* says like this, it’s a very big mitzvah to do *melchemes Midyan* [the war against Midian], you gotta go and do a big whatever over there. And then you gotta come back, and we don’t let you into into our camp, literally. Stay outside. And the Yiddish murderers don’t enter. We don’t let you in.

What’s going on? You killed a bunch of babies? We’re going to let you into our camp? Stay outside. You guys don’t know what I mean. You sent me there. Very nice.

I have a solution for this. What’s the solution? Ritual purification. Okay, the solution is we’re going to take a cow, a red cow, we’re going to *shecht* [ritually slaughter] it outside the *Besamikdash* [Beit HaMikdash/Holy Temple]. We’re going to burn it. We’re going to take its ash, somehow, I’m going to spritz you on that water, and I’ll do that for seven days or twice, whatever, then you could come back. That’s what the Torah says.

When you read this, I’m like, ah, it’s paradigmatic, it doesn’t make any sense. It makes total sense. Why does it make total sense? Because we have to start being a little bit more realistic with our morality.

Nowadays we have moralists, like, either nihilists or moralists, those are the only kinds of two people that exist, and the moralists are really dumb.

Objective Badness, Inherited Sin, and Ritual Purification: Beyond Moral Categories

XI. The Reality of Inherited Moral Consequences

But turns out that there are many things that are good and still bad. And many things that are bad and still good. And there are many people that suffer for sins they did not commit and they suffer in a moral way. They’re bad in a certain way and it’s not their fault. And unfortunately or whatever, factually, this is how the world works.

It’s very cool to say, it seems unfair to punish a child for his father’s sins but people do actually inherit their father’s sins in all kinds of funny ways that’s the reality and the Talmud that said basically said this he said you’re doing because your father did it but is it my fault that I did it no yeah gets punished for his father’s sins it’s not your fault personally we should love you and try to help you as much as we could but there’s still some kind of thing.

Yeah, okay, that’s little kids when they totally don’t have agency. But even people that do have agency get big children.

XII. Expanding the Concept of Badness: Identity-Level Deficiency

The reason is that we have to broaden our understanding of what good and bad is maybe even further than this second level that we did that said that there are badness in which the badness exists on being in our body. And what this means is that it’s sometimes bad to belong to a certain group of people, even if you didn’t do anything wrong, for example.

What kind of badness is this? How are we even going to call this badness? It’s not like politically, morally, like moral evil or like ethical evil in the simple sense, you did something wrong, I did nothing. Well, on the other hand, are you this kind of person? Yeah, definitely. So, something with your identity is broken. Are you or you’re not? Well, if you’re not, then okay, you’re not. But as long as you are, sometimes I say things like…

The Inheritance Argument: Good and Bad Together

Like, to anyone that tells me that you shouldn’t be punished for your sins, Father’s sin, so I say, okay, so you believe that all inheritances should be 100% taxed, right? That’s fair, right? There are actually people that say this, right? Nobody should inherit anything from their parents. Wait, when your parents is alive also, they shouldn’t be allowed to give you anything. It’s not enough when he dies, right?

What do you mean? Oh, so you get everything, all the good things you get from your father, but not the bad things? That sounds fair now? So if your father has a gun, and he steals, and he gives you food, you’re allowed to, it’s not your fault, you didn’t choose to steal, and then we can’t even take it back from you because it’s not your fault. And sometimes we literally can’t take it back from you because you ate it already.

There’s a big moral crisis about this, about feeling bad when people go to jail. It’s like, yeah, you took the thing and now you’re at the jail, now you can suffer.

That’s one example, but I’m showing you, there’s a real issue here in which there are problems that are not solvable by normal moral categories.

XIII. Beyond Individual Moral Agency: The Reality of Relatedness

The reality is that people are related. We do have more than this, like very narrow moral identity of I just chose to do a bad thing or I didn’t choose to do a bad thing. Not all of it is true. I acknowledge this sense. That’s the primary sense of which we say you’re a bad person, you did a bad thing. But could you be bad in some kind of objective way? Not your will is bad.

This would say something like this. There’s badness in which your will is bad. You chose something bad. And since modern people think the only way to be bad is if your will is bad, then that’s the only category they have. But there are kind of objective bad. Like your body is bad, your mind is bad.

Returning to First Principles: What Badness Really Means

Remember bad, going back all the way to the beginning, remember, that badness and goodness are not some weird category that we superimpose upon the world. Badness or goodness just means things working or not working, or being well-being means badness.

Now it’s very easy to understand once you have that in your head, that I could be bad, remember there’s no special moral about it, I could be bad, a kind of badness that I inherited from my parents, or I could be bad because I did something that I had to do, or even if I did something by mistake.

XIV. Halakhic Examples: Korban [Sacrifice] and Tumah [Ritual Impurity]

Remember, korban [sacrifice] you bring for a shogeg [unintentional sin]. If you’re a maizid [deliberate sinner], then you’re beyond korban. You need some other solution. But something did happen. Sometimes we even need a kapparah [atonement] for something that happened by oness [compulsion, unavoidable circumstance].

Literally, you become tamei [ritually impure], right? Oh, it’s not my fault. It’s like primitive people they thought that even if you touch the dead body, it was a mitzvah [commandment]. You go to levayah [funeral], it’s a mitzvah. Or even if it’s not a mitzvah, it’s just out of oness, and you’re still tamei.

What do you mean you’re tamei? What’s wrong with it? You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s true that you didn’t do anything wrong, but you’re still bad.

Introducing Tumah as a Distinct Category

We’re going to call it a new word, instead of saying you’re bad, you say you’re tamei. This very much clarifies you have some kind of defilement on you, which is not the same thing as moral badness. Moral badness is one of the biggest things that causes it, by the way. It of course causes it. And many of these defilements trace back to some moral badness in the first generation when they started in some sense.

But you’re left with some kind of taint, some kind of shmutz [dirt], some kind of dirt, which is a kind of badness which is left in you, in your society, in your friends, everyone that talks with you gets tainted by it in all kinds of different ways. Contamination.

Instructor: Wait, we’re going to talk about that. I don’t know. First, I’m telling you the problem, then it’s still dressing. The best way to look at this… Anyway, there’s a bad moral outcome even if it’s not from a bad moral process. This is a good question. We have to address that, but that’s the question. That’s the problem.

Student: What? Is this also like looking back, everyone who died from infection, you didn’t have antibiotics, you never suffered from this since your generation, you never became an antibiotic.

Instructor: You could say that. Say in some sense like this. Yeah, that’s an even broader sense. That’s an extremely broad sense. But everyone always suffers. It turns out everyone was always suffering because you didn’t think enough or whatever. Yeah, that’s even broader. Not you, whatever. You just lived. You lived in that world. Yeah, you could say that. I didn’t do anything to live in this world.

There’s so many things where we suffer for things that are not our fault. There’s no question. Those are the things that we sort of enjoy the fruits of things that are not our fault in the simple restricted moral sense. I do believe that’s bad. Right. We live off the backs of our parents. Right. That’s exactly.

XV. The Problem of Residual Badness and Its Solutions

So now, all of these things are, all of these things are, how do we say that? All of these things are things that go way beyond our normal categories of what it means to be good and bad. And in a certain sense, you can see them as like a residue of being good or bad. There’s some residue that’s the simplest version of it, at least, right? If your father did something bad or your great-great-grandfather or something good and there’s a residue of that exists in as long as your city exists, as long as your…

Two Solutions: Destruction and Structural Repair

Now, there’s different solutions by the way to this, okay? One solution is to destroy it, okay? If a city is destroyed, if a culture is destroyed, nobody suffers from their sins anymore. That’s why destruction is a solution. It’s a very bad solution but it’s a solution, okay?

If you don’t want to get destroyed, of course you have to do teshuvah [repentance] but teshuvah is not enough. You have to somehow solve this like structural damage that you have. You gotta fix the damage okay now the so at least some of them some of these damages are supposed to be fixed by some kind of by throwing goats off rocks okay or sending them to the desert as the pasuk [verse] says how does this work you got to figure it out that’s what we need a theory of how these things work but some of them work.

XVI. Ritual Purification: Trauma, Moral Injury, and Parah Adumah [Red Heifer]

And one of the ways that they work is precisely by the thing that that the Ramban [Nachmanides] said was in other words like this something like nowadays people talk about something called trauma it’s an interesting thing which says and there’s something also how do they call it and the military people start talking about something called moral injury and sometimes you kill someone and you have to do it, assuming that you have to do it you have trauma, like it hurts you and by the way it’s true that it hurts you, it should hurt you otherwise you’re not a human being like you’re not a good human being and there are solutions for this.

The Ancient Solution to Combat Trauma

You know the solution would be I’m pretty sure this is like a real issue you know if you talk in the context of war everyone knows soldiers go to war and it’s like some kind of weird situation where you where your job is to kill people every day and then you come back and you’re like that’s bad just to be clear it’s not it’s bad in the sense that you can’t have a society based on war right when the war is over we got to somehow transition from that to peace.

So I am pretty sure that if you would take every warrior when he comes back and give him a parah adumah [red heifer purification ritual] it would solve the problem he wouldn’t need trauma therapy how am I gonna show this literally what you used to do and work that’s what it wasn’t PTSD in those days because they have parah adumah very simple as that you ask me how it works I don’t know we’ll figure out the science there you parah adumah ease of solve this problem and then what is how that from I don’t know how it works I don’t have to give you a theory hear about works it probably works it probably works by using those imaginative things that are arms that are just imagination probably but it works.

Purification of the Mikdash [Temple]

Or the same way if we had him kept if we do this whole aside the rabbi didn’t get there which is some sounds saying that you know all the sins of the Jewish people contaminate the mikdash [Temple] somehow and then by purifying the mikdash by spritzing some blood of something on the parochet [curtain] and so on that is symbolically and symbolically means really right removing this it’s not removing your sin obviously it can’t remove your sin you gotta have stopped sinning before that or maybe you didn’t do something it’s not even a sin or maybe it’s a sin but you sin because you’re a human being and there’s no way out of it you know in some sense all of our sins are like that right we’re only sinning because we’re human in the sense of in this body and we’re stuck with all kinds of system so that’s how that goes away that part goes away.

XVII. How Ritual Works: Beyond Moral Translation

How does it work other solutions for explaining how it works I don’t think we I don’t think we have time right now to explain how how it might work and give theories about how it might work. But I’m pretty sure it works specifically by not, I’m going to tell you how it works.

It works specifically by not being translated into moral sense.

If you say, well, this is teaching you to do teshuvah. No, it doesn’t teach you how to do teshuvah. That’s what Ramban said. Yeah, we could say that the pshat [simple meaning] of the kemanos [like us] is that you imagine that you should have been, that doesn’t work.

If it works by saying, you did already teshuvah, right? You said vidui [confession], very good. Now, you’re still a bad person. Still a bad person in which sense? And these like mystical things I don’t know how you want to…

The Non-Moral Mechanism of Ritual Purification: How Kapara Works Beyond Behavioral Repentance

XVIII. The Purificatory Function of Ritual and Its Resistance to Moral Translation

The Core Mechanism: Why Ritual Cannot Be Reduced to Moral Instruction

Instructor: I’m going to tell you how it works. It works specifically by not being translated into moral sense. If you say, well, this is teaching you to do teshuva [teshuvah: repentance/return to God]. No, it doesn’t teach you how to do teshuva. That’s what Ramban [Nachmanides, 13th century Spanish Torah commentator] said. Yeah, we could say that the pshat [peshat: the plain meaning] of kemanos [k’manos: as if] is that you imagine that you should have been… That doesn’t work.

If it works by saying you did already teshuva, right? You said viddui [vidui: confession], very good. Now, you’re still a bad person. Still a bad person in which sense? In these, like, mystical sense. I don’t know how you want to call it now. In that sense we’re going to solve it by acting on that level by doing this whole process of purifying the Mikdash [the Temple] and doing all of that.

Student: Can you say something along the lines of you have to do teshuvah, you still, you affect that person that’s still dead essentially, so that’s what you’re solving?

Instructor: Yeah, that’s the deadness that is with you, right?

Student: Yeah, yeah, the deadness that is in you somehow.

Instructor: Yeah, I’m saying, but because you killed someone.

Student: Yeah, for sure.

Instructor: You didn’t go away, you still killed someone.

Student: For sure.

Instructor: That’s like the most simple sense. But there’s also like, that’s what some people seem to struggle with, is the fact that the effect is still here. And every many hyperbolic statements we can make about this, it’s still, in terms of the first step which you’re saying, he still did it.

Student: For sure.

Instructor: Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. Sure. That’s one aspect of it. But there’s many aspects of it. And I think that the stories of Yom Kippur [the Day of Atonement] are very explicitly focusing on some of these aspects, which go beyond the simple thing of stop being a bad person. And there’s different ways of how to explain how this would work, and I don’t think I have a good theory for this right now. But I think it works. Who said it doesn’t work? Some things work by being not explained, you know?

The Ramban’s Paradox: How Articulation Ruins the Spell

Instructor: That’s what I’m saying. It works by saying something so close. That’s him, right? The fact that he said it, it ruins the spell.

Student: About what? The Ramban?

Instructor: Really, the Ramban. You should be killed, but whatever.

Student: No, no. Then he says, then he goes on and says, that’s not the real reason. But really, kapara [atonement/purification] said something else. Really, that is the reason. But if you say it, then it’s not.

Instructor: No, it’s not really. It’s really in a different sense, a different level. You could say that. Or we could say, that’s the secret. That’s why we don’t tell everyone the reason, because if they would know the reason, then it would be something like, oh, so I’m just becoming a better person. No, it’s something different. That’s the basic theory of these things.

Intelligibility Beyond the Moral Framework

Student: Does it need to be not intelligible, or does it need to just be outside of a moral framework?

Instructor: Oh, there’s a whole, well, it is outside of, not a moral framework. It’s outside of what we call a moral, like the ethical moral, like the lowest sense of moral.

Student: Behavioral moral.

Instructor: Yeah, it’s intelligible in this sense. That’s why it would be intelligible. We could talk about it, but this goes into different questions of what intelligibility is.

The Rambam’s Position and the Multi-Tiered View of Humanity

Student: Did you see the Rambam [Maimonides] not saying this? Did the Rambam not say this? Just to get back to what you said about the Rambam, did he not say this?

Instructor: It’s hard to say. This is not our question. The Rambam explicitly has an explanation of Sotah [the suspected adulteress ritual from Numbers 5] and Sa’ir HaMishtale’ach [the scapegoat of Yom Kippur] as an imaginative show for the people. So that definitely doesn’t say this.

It’s a more complicated question, just to say. The people that read the Rambam generally, for some reason, end up with this very limited view of morality. But the Rambam didn’t have that view, because the Rambam definitely had the two-tier view of humanity. What I gave you was a sort of three-tier view, because I talked about the separation of the body, and then I talked about these moral pains, which are not exactly the same thing. They might attach that, but they’re a different thing. And we could call them a third level. It’s a whole discussion on how to explain it exactly.

The Rambam’s not even… that’s something that doesn’t really talk about like… of course the Rambam knows about social… the Rambam doesn’t isn’t like a simplistic person that thinks if you didn’t do anything wrong personally nothing wrong can happen to you. Obviously he knows that the world isn’t like that and everyone knows it’s very funny. Everyone knows the world isn’t like that but like, you know, modern people pretend that the world is like that. That’s like the moral thing to say, although no, the world doesn’t work for them on any level. But we just like go around pretending because that’s like the correct thing to say, because our moral concepts are very limited.

Reframing Good and Bad: A Quasi-Moral Concept

Instructor: That’s why it’s like a quasi-moral concept. Or in other words, if you abandon the idea of good and bad morally being that looks very special meaning, and understand good and bad as being generally things not good, then you could easily say that it’s bad, even though it’s not bad in the same sense.

XIX. A New Theory of Punishment: The Purificatory Model

Student: It exists as a new theory of punishment.

Instructor: Of course, part of punishment is this. Part of punishment. There’s a few… Because a lot of people have the struggle about why punishment and I’ve heard that. One of the reasons we punish, as the Torah says why we punish murderers, because the land is defiled by murder. And one of the ways, there’s different ways, like if we don’t know who the murderer is we can do this ritual [eglah arufah: the ritual of the broken-necked heifer from Deuteronomy 21] to purify the land. But the real way to purify the land is by killing the murderer. Literally has this ritual or purificatory theory, even for the sinner himself. That is obviously he’s dead, but I’m saying maybe that’s just for yourself to and so on, yes, in different ways.

Instructor: Okay, that’s my theory.

Student: You said this, you didn’t close it, you did say this.

Instructor: [Acknowledges]