Can God Do the Impossible? Teaching High Schoolers the "Limits" of Divine Omnipotence in Iyov

Length: 2 hours 19 minutes
Synopsis: This morning (5/17/26), in my last YBT Sunday Shiur of the season, I gave an updated version of my Judaism Demystified episode titled "Can God Do Anything/Everything? Can God Do the Impossible?" The shiur had three parts: (1) in the first hour of the shiur, I presented seven approaches to answering the question, "Can God create a rock He can't lift?" largely based on firsthand sources in the Rishonim; (2) I raise and respond to the two most common objections to the approach of these Rishonim; (3) I share my current understanding of why the Rambam broaches this topic as part of his discussion of theodicy. If you've seen or listened to a treatment of this topic before, I guarantee you'll still gain new insights, and if this is your first time thinking about this question, prepare yourself for a wild ride!
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מקורות:
R. Norman Lamm, Eulogy for the Rav
ספר החינוך - הקדמה
רמב"ם - מורה הנבוכים ג:יב,טו
ר' משה נרבוני - פירוש למורה ג:טו
רס"ג - אמונות ודעות ב:יג
ש"ע או"ח רל:א
מאירי - משלי יד:טו
רשב"א - שו"ת ד:רלד
ר' יוסף אלבו - ספר העיקרים א:כב; ג:כה
רמב"ן - הויכוח
Marc B. Shapiro, The Limits of Orthodox Theology, pp.
Rabbi Netanel Wiederblank, Illuminating Jewish Thought pp.232-234
שם טוב - פירוש למורה ג:טו
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The Torah content for this month has been sponsored by Meir Areman, l'zeicher nishmas Zelda bas Ziesel, his grandmother, whose yahrzeit is on the 21st of Sivan.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Alrighty. Uh welcome to the uh Sunday shear on a topic that is uh hopefully gonna be really interesting. A few uh uh um PSAs first. Okay, so uh if you want to receive an article from me every week, check out the Rabbi Substack at rubbish newways.substack.com. Um, for all of my um sheerim, they're on YouTube, they're on my Mahshava Lab podcast at other podcasts, and uh also the YPT Hashkafa podcast, which I still think not enough people know about. Um, and I also have them on yutora.org. So on my shamer there. Okay, so I don't know what I want to call this year. So the the topic, the title that I posted was Teaching High Schoolers the Limits of Divine Omnipotence in EOV, but I might just revert to the easier title, which is Can God Do the Impossible? All right. Um, this shear is a uh redux of an episode I did on Judaism Demystified on May 28th, 2023, called they called it Torah and Logic. Can God do anything slash everything? Can God do the impossible? Um, if you've listened to that shear already, this will be a good review. But this is also there's a you know 20 to 25 percent uh new material here. All right. Um and the reason why I'm giving the shear on this now is because this year I've been teaching safer EOV for the entire year to my high school students at NIJA. And uh this comes up in the Ramam's chapters on EOV. Uh and I feel like I have, in addition to going through all these sources again, I feel like I have greater clarity on why this is a necessary topic in order to understand uh safer EOV. All right, so the goals of the shear are threefold. Goal number one is to provide an overview of how to address the question how can Hashem or sorry, can Hashem do the impossible based on sources in the Rishonim? Okay. Now, this is the most uh top heavy part of the shear, or the shear is a top heavy shear. Uh we're gonna go through um seven answers to this question. And I just want to give you a little bit of a uh just disclaimer here. There will be overlap in the sources, and I've chosen to go over them anyway, because I think one of the issues that people face when thinking about this question is they think they might have heard the notion about like God can't do the impossible, but I think people will think of that as like a rationalistic philosophy point. And what I want to show by going through these Rishonim is there's a wide range of Rishonim, and they all say this, and they say this in very, very blatant, explicit ways. And I think that there is a rhetorical um purpose to showing the ideas from the words of the Rishonen themselves. So this will lead to a little bit of redundancy, so to speak, but I'm gonna try to structure it where we get a new point or a new takeaway from each source we go through. All right. Um, so and I the parts that are like the most redundant, I will speed read. And I know that some people don't like having PowerPoint with sources and speed reading, but I again I think just having taught this for many, many years, I think it is very important to hear it from the Rishonim themselves so that you cannot deny that this is a mainstream position in Armasora. Okay, so that's part one. Part two and three are gonna be very short. Part two is I want to raise two common objections to the views that are outlined in the Rishonim and uh and respond to them. And then part three is gonna be very short. This is the most new part, is to explain how this subject is necessary for theodicy. Theodicy is not the name of the new Christopher Nolan movie uh about the Greek classic, but theodicy is the study of how to reconcile God's goodness and perfection with the existence of evil in the world. All right. Um, and uh that's how I want to tie it in. Okay, so here uh is the classic form of the question. All right. Well, what's the classic form of this question? Yeah, can God create a rock, he can't lift? Okay, and for those who have not heard it before or haven't seen it spelled out, the dilemma that this puts you into is if you answer yes, he can, so now you're saying that God is limited because he's creating a rock that he can't lift. And if you say he can't create a rock, he can't lift, so then you're also saying God is limited. Okay. And when I've said this to students, I get a range of responses, uh, emotional responses. So um the first time they hear it, there is usually a sort of like despair. Um, sometimes it verges on uh a shattering of a deeply held belief about God. Sometimes it's just confusion. I have angry responses, mind-blown responses. Um, and uh and there's this whole range. And I think part of the reason why I would wanted to frame this as how to teach this to high schoolers is because throughout this year, I'm going to include just you know pro tips about how I found uh this to be effective, like how to convey this idea to to religious, you know, or non-religious kids of different minds. Okay. But I want to start with a story, all right. So uh originally I asked for this Sunday share slot because um this uh past Friday was the art site of my Revy, Rabbi Moskowitz. That's all. Um and uh I was gonna give a Mishless year, and but my mind was too much in this. But it happens to be that Rabbi Moskowitz is very, very tied to this topic because um this uh I started learning with Rabbi Moskowitz in November of my 11th grade year, uh, which was the year 2000. Um, and I first heard this question from him. And I heard it from him at a very um critical time, okay, which was that um I was on the precipice of conversion to Judaism. Okay. So in 1999, I met with the Seattle VOD for the first time, uh, and you know, and they approved me for conversion and I went through all the process. And uh this was at the final meeting with the VOD, all right. And I've taken the liberty of uh making a uh uh JGPT uh uh illustration of the scene here. So I went to the room full of the rabbis, and uh the head of the VOD was at the uh head of the table. And he said, We give final authorization for your upcoming conversion, your mikvaday is set. So I was in, okay. And then he said, Do you have any other questions for us? Now, in my memory, uh again, we're talking a long time ago, and I ever I was still new to Judaism. Um, so I'm thinking to myself, and I'm thinking that I don't know if this is a false memory, this part, but Rahman says that when you are meeting for conversion, then they should tell you the ikarim, you know, like Yifudoshem and Vodazar, and they should go on at length about that. And they should teach you also teach you some smattering of halakhos, but do it bakitzer, and not uh, you know, not go on at length about that, so as to not, you know, deter you or overwhelm you. Um, in my experience, they did the opposite. They gave me the kitszer shokanarak, which maybe might be their idea of women rahalak of kitszer. Um, and they gave me a book of the Ram of 13 Ikarim, but uh it was just like read this, you know. So this must have been the week that Rabbi Moskowitz first raised the question, uh, or someone raised the question in his class, can God create a rocky, can't lift? Because this was on my mind when I went to the VOD. And I'm thinking to myself, again, I'm an 11th grade kid, and I'm thinking to myself, oh, they're asking this is a room full of rabbis asking me, Do you have any questions about Judaism or any questions? So I say, Can Hashem create a rocky can't lift? All right. So they look at each other in I don't I in my memory, it was somewhat amused, somewhat annoyed way, like indulgent, and they said, Don't worry about that right now. Okay. And that was that was their response. And then I went back to Rabbi Mosquito, and then we talked about it, and that was my first exposure to this question. Um, so that's that's just a little story time. Okay, so here are the seven approaches that we're gonna take here. Okay. First approach is gonna be based on logic, and we're gonna go through four answers to the question based purely on logic. Then Rambam, Saji theon. I said Rishonin, but he's the one going here. N'iriri, Rajpa, Seferha Ikarim, and Ramban. Okay, so you can see a wide range of uh of, you know, pretty much if you wanted to sample all the Rishonim who write on philosophy in any way, this is a good range. Okay, so logic. All right, I've heard this story quoted many times, but I had not tracked it down. Uh, I don't know if this is the uh first printed source, but Rabbi Norman Lamb in his eulogy for the Rav, uh, in uh in uh April 25th, 1993, said Um, I'll just read this excerpt. Above all, the Rav was a man of independence. He was a true heir of his great-great-grandfather, Ruffine Velozenar, who held in uh that in Torah study you must go after the truth no matter what who stands in your way, respect to no, respect no person and accept no authority but your own healthy reason. So the Rav was his own man and often went against the grain of accepted truths and conventional opinion. Once, after a particularly original Shir, a stranger who was not used to such unusual independence, creative uh independent creativity, asked him, but Rev Solvichik, what is your source? He answered, a clear and logical mind. Okay. Um, so you know, even though I just said it's very important to ground this in sources, from a pedagogical standpoint, I think the first move you have to make is to show students that when asking questions about anything, especially about God, or even about God, depending on how you want to say it, you must apply logic and reason. Okay. And it's not just the Rav who says this. Um, it is uh the Sefrachinaf actually makes the point when he's talking about Olumhaba. I'm gonna close this and hope that no one uses the chat. Hold on. Um, he says uh about Olumhaba, these matters don't need to be reinforced by proofs and testimonies from scripture. They are their own witnesses and proofs and are in the category of first principles. First principles meaning ideas that are like inherent to the mind, so to speak. For this reason, the Torah doesn't go on at length about anything that can be known by human logic, as Khazal say in many places, why do I need a proof? Uh Lama Likra, uh svarahu. It's a logical argument, meaning to say it is not necessary to cite scripture to support that which is dictated by logic. So again, methodologically, I think you need to convey this to students that yes, we are a Masora-based religion and we have we're Talmud Torah-based religion, but there's something more primary than Talmatorah, which is the mind, which is how we access all the sources in Torah. And you have to first go to your mind. All right. So even if we didn't have any proofs from the Rishonim or sources, then this would be the way we would approach it. And uh this has to be the basis of everything. Okay, so let's go back to our question here. So, can God create a rock he can't lift? Uh, if you answer yes, you're saying he's limited. If you say no, then you're saying he's limited. Now, there is a hidden premise here that gives the question its power. What is the hidden premise that limited equals bad? Okay, so the first answer I would give is like this. Okay, Hashem is perfect. Okay, perfect meaning not having any flaws, defects, or weaknesses. It's very interesting if you ask where we know this from our sources. I find I've always found it very interesting that the safer haikaram quotes this as one of the um what's he has the ikarim and then the anathim or sharat, I forgot which his sub sub-ikarim, right? He counts this as one of his ikarium, whereas the Ramam does not. Interesting about that, but I do think that if you're talking to a religious audience, I don't think people will have a hard time with this. Uh, you know, because the question kind of stems from this idea that Hashem is perfect, okay? But here's the thing that people don't realize is perfection by definition implies limitations. Okay. And I usually give a machine gun, you know, rapid fire smattering of examples, okay? Um, to show that to be perfect is to be limited, meaning to be limited to the best. So, for example, a perfect diamond cannot have blemishes, a perfect machine cannot malfunction, a perfect violin cannot be out of tune, a perfect chess player cannot lose a game, a perfect mind cannot be wrong. All right. So you see that perfection carries with it limitations and in many ways, more limitations than something imperfect in a certain way, in the sense that perfection is a very, very, very high, narrow standard of uh, you know, freedom from defect. And so it can't have any of these many, many defects, whereas the definition of perfection is very, very specific. Okay. So you can answer simply based on logic. It is impossible for Hashem to do that which would render him imperfect or stem from an imperfection. So is this a limitation? Yes, but limitations aren't problematic unless they are flaws, and this type of limitation is not a flaw. Okay, so answer number one is, and I you could say this in different ways. I like saying can Hashem create a rocky can't lift. No, he can't because he is perfect. And I like saying no, he can't because it awakens that feeling in people, what do you mean he can't? And then you say because he is perfect, and then that creates that sort of short circuiting, like, oh, I never thought about it that way before. Okay, so that's answer number one. Yeah, I see that's okay. You know, I think people oh that's okay. I think people Ezie's question is I I thought that the limitedness is in uh contrast to infiniteness. You know, it is funny that if you talk with people about God these days, they'll use the term Ainsof, God is the infinite. You know, I'm not aware of any of the philosophical Rishonim describing him that way. I know that's a Kabbalistic term, and I'm not saying that it doesn't apply to him, but if someone brought God's infiniteness into the picture, I would have to ask them what do they mean by infinite? And I usually find that it does not really relate to this. So unless I'm misunderstanding, then I am not sure how to relate that to this. So you you can think about it and tell me if I'm missing something, yeah, Robbie. Logical, yeah. I think in the idea of perfection, I just think in the in the idea of perfection, if you give any example of something that people consider perfect, you will find that it is limited in that it cannot be imperfect. It's part of the definition. So that's that's logic in the sense that it's part of the part of the concept of perfection is not imperfect. Okay. Oh, yeah. I don't. Yeah, I don't. And that's why I'm saying this is more of reasoning from like commonly accepted premises about God's perfection. So I don't have anything that states this uh explicitly. Uh sort of right. You can you can say that this is reflected in certain things, but I don't think you get Tanakh talking in these uh in these ways, like uh explicitly. Yeah. Yeah. That's just his actions, right? Right, yeah, right. Okay. Next answer based on logic. Now, the just a little bit of a um okay, well, all right, fine. What I do here is I show them another commonly asked question, not so common, but the question is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, right? That's a question I feel like some people are familiar with. Now, what would you say about how do you answer this question? Yeah, Isaiah? Why? Okay, well, what if they say that there is? Gotcha. So what's more precise, you cannot have both. Okay, it's a trick question. Why? Because if an unstoppable force exists, unstoppable, if that's the premise of the question, then by definition an immovable object cannot also exist. Okay, and if an immovable object exists, then by definition an unstoppable force cannot also exist. Okay, so I would say here, so too. So in other words, the question, I like saying the question doesn't even start because it's built on a paradox. Okay. So so too, if your premise is that God is omnipotent, meaning all powerful, there cannot exist anything over which he has no power. And if something does exist over which he has no power, then he is not omnipotent. So the question of how can God be omnipotent and not do this or have this limitation to his power, it doesn't, it the question doesn't start. So I would say the question is irrational, it's built on a paradox. And so, as a direct answer, can God create a rock he can't lift? I'd say the question itself is incoherent because it's predicated on a paradox or contradictory terms, if you want to say. Okay. So again, this is very pedagogically, this is very important because you know, we I know different Rabem and Aryashiva have different ways of saying this. I think the most uh these days, the most off-quoted one is um is Raf Pesak's of appreciate the question. But before you appreciate the question, you have to understand the question. And sometimes you get fake questions. Things, just because it ends in a question mark doesn't mean it's a legitimate question. All right. So you have to actually think about it and and uh and and think whether this is actually a legitimate question. And it is an interesting thing that um as a side point, uh Mortimer Adler in his philosophy books talks about one of the pitfalls people um fall into in philosophy, especially philosophy of epistemology or philosophy of the mind, is they get tricked into accepting the the premises uh what do you call it? Begging the question, right? Is that the premises or some premise is baked into the question, which makes it not genuine. This is a little worse than begging the question because the question doesn't even is not even coherent. But you just gotta be aware of like, let's define our terms and let's think about what we mean. Okay. Yeah, like um, let's say, for example, um classic question that Descartes asked, I think he's the first one to ask this uh in in so many words, is how do you prove the existence of external reality? Right now, that question is predicated on an assumption that external reality needs to be proven, you know. So sometimes by even engaging in the question, you've already accepted that that premise, and you need to actually start one step back by examining the question for its hidden premises. Now, in that case, I think that's a question you can you can debate about. In this case, the question doesn't even start, but you do need to examine it. Um yes, I see. Can an omnipotent god, right? That's another right, yeah, yeah. Right. Correct. Yeah, yeah. Predicating, I think, an omnipotent god. If you yeah, yeah, right. Right, yeah, tomorrow.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

This might have been what was just asked in person that I couldn't hear. Um can you like just a little bit more what is the um incoherent or paradox indication?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

So um omnipotent means he has power over everything. So if you say can an omnipotent god who has power over everything create something over which he has no power, then you're saying that he is all powerful and not all powerful, and which one is it? But you can't have both, just like you can't have an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

So then what do you do with the uh can't create? Is that not part of omnipotence?

SPEAKER_01 18:12

I think that is just gonna be a uh that's really the um I don't know my logical terms, but that's like the that's the uh the the premise of the question is omnipotent God. And then can he A, B, C, D, all of those things can he create, those are all stemming from omnipotent God, like the subject and the predicates, right? That's so the subject of the uh of the question presupposes that the question the rest of the question can't be asked. So you know, you don't know you don't even get to the point of can an omnipotent God create? Well, once you say omnipotent God, and then you say something that would render his omnipotence um impotent, right? So then then you don't uh you don't have the question. Now you can debate about what it means to be omnipotent, and we are gonna get into what that means. But again, I'm I'm just just when when I found that when discussing this, then then just asking what do you mean by omnipotent means he has power over everything? Well, if he has power over everything, then we're not even starting. If that's your starting point, you can't even get to something that he doesn't have power over, even to entertain it. Yeah. Okay. Next answer uh is based on on logic as well. So if you ask the question as, can God do the impossible? Okay, which is another way people ask the question. So the simple answer is no. If he could do it, then it wouldn't be impossible. Now I'm gonna show you what this looks like, um, and then I'm gonna show it to you in the Ram bomb. Okay, I know I said I wouldn't rely on sources, but I think this is the proper place to deploy the Ram bomb here. Okay, um, this is another definition thing is the impossible, if you frame the question that way, the impossible by definition cannot be done. And therefore the question is a non-starter. So here's how I would depict it. Okay, I like to imagine, again, I'm a very visual person. So imagine you have two boxes, okay? A box in which we put all possible things, and a box for which we put all impossible things. So, for example, I'm picture an optical illusion there, okay, right? So if you point to that box of impossible things and say, can God do this? As soon as you say yes, what happens is it moves into the box of possible things. Well, can God do this impossible thing? Well, yes, it moves into the box of possible things. Can God do this? Yes. So it ends up being that you have no category, you like the visual, yeah. You have the you have no category of the impossible because as soon as you entertain the possibility of possibility, then the category vanishes. Now, where do we see that this is not just like me playing board games? So the Rambaum, which we're gonna go through the entire chapter later on, but I just want to go through the first sentence right now, or the first uh uh paragraph. Ramam in the Mordevukum 315 says, the impossible has a stable nature whose stability is fixed and is not the product of any agent. It cannot be changed in any way. For this reason, God is not described as having power over it. On this point, not a single thinker disagrees, and only one who fails to grasp the intelligibles is ignorant of it. Now, this the last time I gave this year, this sentence gave me a lot of grief. And I thought I knew what it meant, and I thought it meant what I just illustrated here, but I didn't know for sure. And then I think it's just because um uh Al-Hatorah now has Mufarshim on the Mornivukam. I went through the Mufarshim of Vershabis and saw, lo and behold, Ramoshan Narboni, um, which I think Rebbe says in one of the shirim, he's the one who reveals all the secrets of the of the moram. I think people didn't like him because he explained too much. But um, so he he says outright what I just said. I think you tell me this. Okay, he says that is this is a commentary right on the Rama. The truth of the impossible is that its existence is absolutely precluded and that it is impossible for it to change from its nature. For if it could change, it would not be impossible but possible. Therefore, Hashem cannot be described as having power over it, nor can his power be associated with bringing it into existence or changing it from its nature. For if he had power over it, it would not be impossible but possible. And take heed. If you are categorizing something as belonging to the class of the impossible or not, then the moment you place it within the category of the impossible, you are compelled to acknowledge the rule of the impossible and its distinguishing feature that Hashem cannot be described as having power over it. Trying to say that the definition of impossible means it is impossible. It's not impossible because Hashem made it that way, it is impossible because that's the definition of the term. All right. And then he says, uh, going back to Ram said, only one who fails to grasp the intelligibles is ignorant of it. So Moshe Narboni says, this is what he means by not one of the thinkers disagrees with this at all. Oh, I didn't include this. Not one of the thinkers disagrees with this at all, and none is ignorant of it except one who does not understand the intelligibles. I think that's just a different definite uh translation. Meaning, even the first principles of the intelligibles, which are among the primary axioms of all intelligibles, uh, here's what he means concerning the fact that affirmation and negation cannot be both true simultaneously. This is the most basic law of logic, the law of non-contradiction, that something cannot both be and not be in the same way at the same time. You know, so for the moment you say something is impossible, you have said it cannot exist. And when you say God has power over it, you have said that it cannot exist, and also that it is not the case that it cannot exist. And this is self-evident. This part might be slightly different than what I said. I was trying to say that as soon as you call something impossible, then you cannot talk about is it possible for God to do it? He is saying that, I mean, he said that earlier, but now he's saying that by saying impossible, then it doesn't exist. So you say, can God do it? So now you're saying it exists and doesn't exist at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Isn't he addressing a separate question there? Isn't it a question of the prior question, like you suggested earlier? Like, can get is does God the one who makes what's possible or not possible, or is he you know what I mean? It's like yeah, earlier, right? Is it right? Because that's the underlying you can move the question up a degree, it's not the product, and then you can't answer it.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Right. That's the that that that's fair, that's fair reading. Yeah, like I said, the the Rama is so terse in this statement here, and you do have I uh Narboni is the only of the commentaries that I saw that explains it in a way that I understand. Uh, and and uh that the the first part is really what I wanted to get out of it, which I think is is true, is that you cannot frame the question as can God do the impossible? Because once you're granting the impossible, it must mean it is impossible by definition. Yeah, Isaiah?

SPEAKER_08 24:18

Why draw is it like possible? It has a specific nature, it's the intimate thing, so why it's gonna be a next case.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

I think because he's talking about the category of the of the mind, the impossible. The Raman in many places talks about the, I don't know, I assume Aristotle articulated this, that there's three categories. There's the possible, the impossible, and the necessary, or the the necessary, the impossible, and the contingent. You know, necessary is it must be, impossible is it can't be, and contingent means it may or may not be. And so I think he's saying that that those are basic categories of the mind. And so once you are talking about the impossible, which is a basic category, then um and you're using that term in the question, then you're granting, like in other words, you can't deny the term, you can't deny the category that you're that you're asking about. So I think he just has to say it has a and so that's only means he has a stable nature that's not made by maker. Unlike, for example, we're gonna talk later on about how God created the world and certain things are impossible due to physical laws. That impossible, physical impossibility is made by maker, but logical impossibility is not. Now, I want to say there is a dimension of this question which we are not gonna get into today, although we'll brush up against it and maybe like um open that can of worms, is what are the laws of logic or who made logic? Did God make it? Does it exist? We'll talk about that a little bit. Um, and I I know some people want to read the Ramam as if saying that God did not make logic, and that's why he's talking about it in this way of like it has uh a stable nature, is not made by maker. I just don't want to get into that because I'm not I I also don't I'm not qualified to really talk about that. Yeah, yes. Oh, yeah. So so um the part of the numbone I was trying to get is just to show that he said he explains it the way I explained it, which is the moment you place something in the category of the impossible, uh then uh or he says it earlier. The truth of the impossible, I think the true nature of the impossible is that its existence is absolutely precluded. That's what impossible means, and it that it is impossible for it to change from its nature. For if it could change, it would not be impossible, but merely possible. That's what I mean by my little diagram here. So yeah, I'm just bringing him as a support that I'm reading the Ramlam correctly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's more fundamental than omnipotence. Yeah. So the way I would answer this in the one-line answer to can God create a rocky, can't lift, the question in its raw form is a non-starter. Again, that's if you frame the question as can God do the impossible. Okay, like, and again, when you're talking with high schoolers and you say, Can God let's say you're saying can God create a rocky, can't lift? Can God make a square circle? Can God do the impossible? You do need to ask them what they mean because those are they can be different questions. So this is like, again, these are all like answers I have like locked and loaded in my my my uh my my arsenal. Is if you say can God do the impossible, and a student asserts, yes, he can, you know, then you say, Well, then by definition, it's not it's not impossible, you know. So that you have to know what what to use here. Okay, now this fourth one is not really a logical answer, but I feel it must be talked about. And uh and this is the most logical place to talk about it. Okay, so the question is like this is if the answers to these questions are so simple, why does the question feel so powerful? Okay, it and it does feel powerful when you first hear it again, like like when I was in front of the VOD, I'm thinking like this is a real conundrum, you know? Yeah, it's a knockout question, right? So you could just say that people aren't thinking and like, you know, whatever. But I I just to give a certain you know very elementary psychological explanation, okay. I I think that its force stems from a childish notion of omnipotence, right? And I I might have heard Rebby talk about this uh on on a tape, but I don't remember which tape. Um, so children are powerless, okay? And that's why they fantasize about having unlimited power. You you you imagine that you have magical powers, right? And that's why Roll Dahl's book, Matilda, is such an enjoyable book because she develops powers that can like make stuff happen to the uh the adults, okay? It's not the only book like that, but uh so you just think to yourself, I want to be able to do anything. And you obviously don't think about what that means because you're you're a child. Um, and when children are told you can't, can't equals bad because it's a limit of my power, right? So what happens when you grow up, the childish notion of omnipotence becomes the model of God's omnipotence, that God can do anything, because you're just living out of this fantasy of I want to be able to do anything. But you again, you don't think about it. And that's why when people say God can't do something, they have a gut reaction of oh, bad, because because it's against what I fantasize about with with my my view of omnipotence. So this is what you know, I know Ramey Moskowitz used the term a vodazarasha belave. I forgot where he got it from. I think he he always quotes it from uh I think Raphaigaon, uh, but Remy Moskowitz's memory was notoriously uh um inexact. Um so, but there is a category of a vodazarasha belave where you project human notions onto God without realizing it. So um, so the thing is is that that people don't realize when they're thinking about this that they're actually just again, they're just living out their childhood fantasies and then projecting them onto God. Um, and so just to summarize and I'll take your question is that the again, this is not really an answer in the same category, but the force of the question stems from a childish notion of omnipotent of omnipotence. Time to grow up. You know, and again, this is like a level up that you have to guide students through about we have we can actually think now, and we have to realize when our thinking about God is being influenced by our own emotions.

SPEAKER_07 29:48

Yeah, I see what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Correct.

SPEAKER_07 30:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Right. That's right. So yeah. So just to repeat what as he's saying here is that another uh limitation of children, imperfection of children, is that that in their mind, then when a child uh parent says you can't do something, it really just is like an exercise of authority. They don't realize that there are things that the parents say you can't do because they are impossible. You know, so the whole the whole cat, like the way I would put this, I actually I I once gave a shot on the lat uh Kohellas, I forgot which puzzle it is, 12 uh one or 122, maybe that says uh kibrov chakma rovkas, uhosif machov, that with more wisdom comes more uh with with a lot of wisdom is a lot of pain, and one who increases knowledge increases uh you know pain or whatever, or increases anger. Yosiv Das, Yosim Mach. With a lot with a lot of kochm comes a lot of anger, and one who increases knowledge increases pain. And I gave a chat on that, which is that you know, Ramam says you have three categories the possible, the impossible, and the necessary. When you start off as a kid, everything is in the category of the possible, and then the more knowledge you gain, you start sorting things from the possible into the realm of the necessary. That's the way reality is, or the impossible, and there's a pain that comes from that. Yeah, I see. Correct. Right. Right, correct. So the as you saying that the the notion of of of omnipotence that kids have retains all of those things that are absurd and contradictory. And so they they begin, but the the keyword is retain. They retain that feeling, and then when they talk about this question, they they that baggage goes on to the question and they don't even realize it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so just uh before we depart from this first approach here, I just want to show what each answer is doing uniquely. So the answer of can God create a rock, he can't lift, no, he can't because he's perfect. It uproots the hidden, it exposes and uproots the hidden premise, which is that limitation equals an imperfection. That's how that answer works. The second question, the second answer of the question isn't incoherent because it is predicated on a logical paradox, it grants that, okay, maybe limitations are an imperfection, but the question is illegitimate because the the notion of the impossible means it cannot be done. So you can't start the question. The the third answer that the question, oh, sorry, sorry, I got it backwards. The question of it being built on a paradox of omnipotence means uh power over everything. So so you has a contradiction in the terms here. Um, that's the impossible force and the unstoppable object. The the Rahmam's answer of the question in its raw form is a non-starter because the term impossible means it cannot be done shows the question is illegitimate because according to one of the two allegedly possible answers, the question can't be. No, sorry, I think I mixed this up. Oh, sorry, I I this is what happens when you edit a PowerPoint. I think we swap these. Yeah. Uh okay, just ignore that. And then the uh the the fourth answer is that the the force of the question stems from a childish notion of omnipotence. Uh, don't answer, it doesn't answer the question, but it reveals that there's like a childish uh infantile notion sneaking behind the question. Yes.

SPEAKER_08 33:28

Pedagogically, like you have a lot of this, and there are more answers. So do you tell us with more answers or so?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

When I'm going through this in EOV, then I go through this entire thing thoroughly. But when it comes up in a QA or something like that, I will just address it if they're asking it from one of these angles. Uh, or or if I think that this is the best way to address the question, then I'll then I'll do it. Um, and you know, again, there's there's there's an uh there's an art to QA and then uh versus like presenting this. Right now, I'm going through everything inside with them. So I do think it's it's important to go through all these sources with them thoroughly, even if they're not bothered by it. But when a kid is bothered by the question, you have to see, well, what is bothering them, or what would be the thing that most directly hits their their their uh their question. So it's not worth saying all of them. Yeah. Okay, so just to summarize a one-line takeaway is such questions are rooted in a false premise, a paradox, a non-starter, and or a childish notion of omnipotence. Okay, next, going back to the Rambam. So we read uh the first part of the Ramam. Again, later on, we're gonna go through the entire parak, but I just want to skip down to um, I think the Rambam is the earliest source that says these examples that I found, which is, he says that later on, likewise, that God should bring into existence one like himself, or annihilate himself, or become a body, or undergo change. All of these belong to the category of the impossible, and God is not described as having power over any of them. Now, if you um uh I didn't put this in the PowerPoint, but if you'll remember the first sentence year I gave this year, I think, no, was that last year? On uh on the first bracha of um the Amidah, we I gave my one sentence definition of God, which is the the uh one independent existence uh that is non-physical and outside of time. Okay, that's based on the Ram, that's the Ram's definition based on the first four Ikaram or Hibosisodea Torah. Okay, so so the definition of Hashem that we're working with here is that he is one, he's absolutely one in every way, he's independent existence, that he cannot not exist, and that his nature, so to speak, is to exist, even though he doesn't have qualities, he's non-physical and he is outside of time, which also means he cannot undergo change. So Rahman is asserting that everyone agrees it's impossible for God to do these things, to duplicate himself, to destroy himself, to make himself physical, or to change himself. Now, and he says his inability to do the impossible these impossible things does not imply inability or deficiency on his part. He says that at the end of the parade. So the question is why can't Hashem do these things? What would you say? That you what you can't know why. Okay. That okay, I I I disagree with that answer. I think it's more fundamental. Yeah, Isaiah? Exactly. Okay, good. Uh Isaiah, uh yeah, okay, fine. I was gonna ask if tomorrow I had anything uh different. So these are incompatible with Hashem's nature or his definition, whatever you want to use, whichever term you want to use. So any being who could duplicate himself or destroy himself or make himself physical or change himself would not be Hashem. So for example, let's just talk this out, right? So if you say, can Hashem create another version of himself? Well, the definition of Hashem is Hashem Echad, that he is unique, he's absolutely unique, and there are not two of him. So if there are two of him, you're not talking about Hashem anymore. Okay. Another part of this definition is Hashem is high hove, he is a necessary existence. Eke Hashem Ekyh, he he cannot not exist, he has always existed. So if you say, can Hashem make another version of himself, well, if that being were made, it wouldn't be Hashem. It because Hashem always existed. So so to even speak of him making another of himself is impossible because you're not talking about Hashem anymore. Hashem, by definition, is not physical, so can he make himself not physical? This is a harder one for people to swallow, right? But that that would be again, it is like saying, and we'll get to this example later on, it's like saying, can a circle make itself not round? Well, it would you wouldn't be talking about a circle anymore. The definition of circle is is it is its circumference is equal to its uh whatever, you know, uh equidistant from its center, you know? Um, and so it wouldn't be a circle. And then same thing as can he change? Now, if you if you need to invoke a um uh a positive for this, you know, a Nihashem Loshanisi, you know, that Hashem says he doesn't change, but then you get into a whole debate of they'll say, well, he Hashem can, he just doesn't, he doesn't want to, you know, but uh but fine. But if you're working with this definition of Hashem, and by this point in the year, I've inculcated this definition of Hashem to my students because we this is the first lesson we do every year, no matter what I'm teaching, of who is Hashem. Okay. Um, and so look, if you want to debate who Hashem is, that's a different discussion. But whatever definition of Hashem you have, you're gonna run into this problem, okay? Like let's say someone didn't want to accept the Ram mom's rigid definition of of um of absolute monotheism, okay, and then they just wanted to say that Hashem is the only God. Well, if you make another one, you're not talking about Hashem anymore. You know, so everyone will have to run into this problem no matter what. All right. So the answer here that I'm again, I'm pulling out of the Ramam, Ram says many more points, which we'll get to, is Hashem cannot do that which is incompatible with his nature because to do so would mean he's no longer Hashem.

SPEAKER_06 38:36

See why that's more basic than what you're saying.

SPEAKER_08 38:51

That promotes a lot.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

You could say that, but I don't right. You could you you could right. Right. So you could say that. I I wouldn't say it in those terms because that is again assuming that limitation is somehow bad, or it's trying to assemble things from the fragments that Hashem says to us. I think if I did give the closest thing I would give to that answer is Shemaya Shem King Hashem Echad. So at the so at the very least, right, so and but but again, I think that's important and different because it's not talking about what Hashem can do, it's talking about who Hashem is. You know, and it's the clear statement we have of who Hashem is that cannot be disputed by even non-Maimonadian thinkers that Hashem is uh is a chad. Yeah. Yeah, correct. Yeah, that's so, but I'm saying I'm agreeing with you there. I'm saying that you can answer that. And if you need to ground it in the authority of Apassut, then that's a good one to do. But the move I'm trying to make here is that no matter how you define Hashem, defining Hashem, not saying what he can and can't do, but defining him, you you you cannot he cannot do that, which would be incompatible with who he is, because then you're not talking about Hashem anymore. It's more fundamental than what he can and can't do in action, and it's more fundamental than Psukin. That's why I want to stress that this is a different answer. Think about it for a second. Yeah, uh iPhone A? Oh, sorry. Yeah, whoever does. Oh, that's Arya. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:17

Just one second, Naomi.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Yeah. Arya.

SPEAKER_10 40:22

All right, it's uh it's it's Moshe. Um so I've talked to people about this before, and like when I've said like God can't um do the impossible, or God can't make like a uh a circle, a square, or like can make a non-round circle, they say um yes, he can, and I don't have to know what that means. All I know is that I can say it, but I don't have to know what it means. I I don't know what's it.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Okay, so we're gonna get to that next. That's the that's Sadiqan, which is the next answer. Uh yeah, Naomi. If you solve your question, Naomi.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

From a player.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Audio is bad.

SPEAKER_05 41:02

Um yeah, I just come from a place somebody doesn't understand Hashem. Um Okay, yeah, um, I say all the questions um that you've asked come from a place that somebody just doesn't know what Hashem is. Like all the questions assume that a Hashem must be physical because anything that could be duplicated is physical.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

Yeah, that I hear that also, right? That she said that if uh all these uh question, all these types of questions assume that Hashem is physical, because if something can be duplicated, then it's uh then it's physical because quantity, you know, is a is property physical things. Yeah, yeah. Look, there are other, you know, sometimes some years I do have to get into the weeds by discussing like what it means to be physical and why that is incompatible with certain things. Yeah, but uh we're broad strokes here. We're just saying that there is a there is an answer which I think is distinct from the logical answers before. The logical answers before are really talking about the um the the the way the question is asked, but we in Judaism have a definition of Hashem, you know, again, some and you'll you'll get people saying inane things like Hashem can't be defined. Oh, so then how do you know you're not worshiping Jesus? Like you have to have some way to say what we mean when we say Hashem in the Torah versus Baal, right? Like you have to have some definition, you know. So so I you can say all you want about we can't grasp Hashem, we can't define Hashem, but there we mean something when we say Hashem, and whatever we mean, we don't mean what we what we don't mean he is what we don't mean he is, you know. Yeah, okay. All right, let's let's let's uh let's keep the pace going here, okay? Yeah. Okay, so you can you can you you can uh okay, so you can say nature, but that has its own cost, saying that the shame is nature is okay. So we're gonna get to that later on. I'll I'll talk about yeah. Okay, all right. Uh this is why I'm giving seven answers. Okay. Yeah, all right. Sidigone is next, and this is gonna address what Moshe Levin just asked. Okay, so in Amunus Videos, oh sorry, before we do Sidigone, so the Ram, just to read the Ramam again, he says the impossible has a staple nature whose stability is fixed and is not the product of any agent, it cannot be changed in any way. Next sentence. For this reason, God is not described as having power over it. Okay, so I'm just using this to shift to the to the question of what do we say about God? Okay, so Sidigon, who came before the Ramam, says the soul lauds and praises God justly and uprightly, not by attributing to him absurdities and nonsense. Okay, then he gives a bunch of examples. One should not therefore praise him for making five to be more than ten without adding anything to the former. This is the first of the many mathematical examples we're going to talk about. Nor should one praise him for being able to put the earth through the hole of a ring without making the one narrower or the other wider, nor for being able to bring back yesterday once it has already been gone by. For all these things are impossible. Okay, now we can we we can debate about what these three examples are and why they're different. Uh, I don't want to debate about that. Again, there's we're gonna see a flood of examples here, but uh But what I want to focus on is the way that Sajigon approaches this. Okay. So he said he takes it for granted that there are certain things that are impossible for God, but he focuses on what we can say about him. And we shouldn't say that God can do the impossible. Okay, why? So I'm giving this example. My favorite example is the square circle. When a person says God can make a square circle, they think they are praising him, but they're actually not. Now, this is exposing another underlying psychological motive behind the question, different from the one I said before. Before it was, I want to be able to do everything, and I ascribe that idea of omnipotence to God. This is, I don't want to say anything bad about God or I want to say good things about God. So they think that saying God could do anything, even make a square circle, is praising God. Okay. And Sadiq's, no, that's not praising God. Okay. Now here's how I'm going to translate this question. All right. Square circle is a contradiction in terms, right? If it is a square, anyone can route off the definition of a square. Right. Yeah. I always have the relationship between square and rectangle is right. Uh uh, geometric shape of four equal sides, okay, right. And a circle, uh, a shape without any angles that the circumference is equidistant to the center, something like that. I don't know. Yeah, okay, right. Right. So, but the the the point is that they're in they're incompatible. So square circle is a contradiction in terms. So here's the here's the thing saying God can make a square circle is no different than saying God can make a God can make a has the same amount of meaning as square circle. It's just square circle feels like it means something because square means something and circle means something, whereas is incomprehensible, but it is incoherent. Now we would all, well, maybe I don't know, we would all agree that going into shul and saying God can make a br is is is not praising God, but then you get the Hasidim Bhussay the story about the kid who just went in and shouting off base letters, they have a different notion of what it means to praise God. Okay, but I'm saying, like in in the Rishonim, praising God needs to be with praise, you know, with with actual words and actual like meaning, right? So so you're not you're not praising God when you say this. Okay, now hold that thought. Oh sorry. Sadigun says this thing. Now, when you first hear this next point, it sounds like a like a like a clever maneuver. Okay, oh yes, SD. Okay. This sounds like a clever maneuver, and and it kind of is, but I hope to convince you that it's actually a a good thing. It says, of course, certain heretics often ask us about such matters, and we do indeed answer them that God is able to do anything. This thing, however, that they ask of him is not quote unquote anything, because it is impossible, and the impossible is nothing. It is therefore as though they are not were to ask, is God capable of doing what is nothing? For that is what they are truly asking. So let me just depict this again. Okay, with you got two lists, things and non-things. Things include creating the universe, destroying the universe, making it rain, making sunshine, splitting the sea, resurrecting the dead, giving the Torah, bringing the Shia, okay, and a bunch of more things. Okay. Non-things include, according to Saidigone, making five more than ten without adding anything, putting the earth through the hole of a ring without making the one narrower or the other wider, bringing back the past, okay, making a square circle, okay, is my my example. Ramam gives uh uh whatever the Rishon for some reason they don't say square circle. I don't know why they say like they give out the most complex mathematical examples. Um, cloning or destroying himself, right? The Ramam says that. So these are non-things and these are things. So when you ask, can God do anything? You're really only asking about the stuff in this list. And the answer to that question is yes, he can. He can do anything. Yeah, Tamar.

SPEAKER_04 47:36

I was gonna say that the non-things like a square circle. I think that part of why it feels like it is a thing is because you can sort of imagine, you can sort of imagine a mashup, and you're kind of pointing to that, even though that's not what you're asking about. Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Right. Um, the example of imagining a mashup, I believe I I got this from you, Rabbi Zimmer, that I think when during your your uh one of your uh early teaching days, you you said that you would give your kids extra students extra credit if they could draw a square circle. I think so I I I have used that move before. I say, if you could draw a square circle, I will give you A's on all your assignments and in every class until for the for the rest of high school. And you'll always have a very confident kid who goes up there and draws a square with rounded edges, or they'll put a square with a circle uh in inside of it or vice versa. And I'm like, that's not a square circle. Like you have to you have to define your terms here, you know. Um, so now uh um just to summarize this, if someone asks, can God do anything? We can truthfully say yes, because that which is impossible is not a thing, and therefore you can praise him meaningfully. Now, when you first hear this, it sounds like a clever word game, but I will warn you, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit later on, is that there are cases where you'll find someone saying, God cannot do X, Y, Z. And you'll think to yourself, this goes against one of the Ikarin. Okay. But you actually have to define what they mean. And an example of this that I'm not gonna dwell on, but I I want it to be on people's radars is you know, there is a famous shita of the Rah Bag that God cannot know contingencies, meaning what is going, what people are gonna choose, okay, in the future. Now, when you first hear that, you're like, oh, he's saying God is not omniscient. But if you examine it and you examine what is knowledge and what does the Rahbah hold by that knowledge is, he holds that the term knowledge cannot be applied to future contingencies. And if you ask Rabak, does God know everything? He would say yes. And he would say God is omniscient, but he has a different definition of what constitutes knowledge. Okay, so in talking about God, again, defining your terms, if there's one like meta takeaway, it's define your terms and make sure that you're having the same conversation. Yeah, I see.

SPEAKER_07 50:01

They are giving up their own sense of knowing something. They just think God knows better.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Okay, yes. Uh, we will talk about that in the two objections uh that we're gonna raise against these uh positions. Uh so yeah, that I will address that uh later on. Okay. Um and uh oh, one other point here, okay. Uh just because Sidigo mentions this example that God is not able to bring back yesterday once it has already gone by. So um just I guess if I asked you why can't he do that, what would you say? I know Isaiah has an answer already, but right. If he brings it back, then it's not it's not yesterday, okay. I think there, uh so when I when I read this, right, in other words, if he brings it back, the past by definition is what was in the past. And so if he brings it back, it's not the past anymore. It's just, you know, I don't know what you would call it, the present going forward, a copy of the present, whatever. But when I read this first, I was thinking to myself, oh, you know, I perhaps he would extend that to be that God cannot alter the past. And maybe that's in the category of the impossible. Now, I think this is an open question, okay. But what I thought about is if that is what he means, then I think you can support it with halacha. So, what's the halacha that supports the notion that God cannot alter the past? Uh tfilash. Okay, so the Shuchan Arach in Orachheim Raish Lamid uh um uh Sif Aleph says, one who prays, and in this context, Mispal means making a request about something in the past. For example, if he enters the city and hears an outcry in the city and says, May it be your will that this cry is not in my house, or if his wife is more than 40 days pregnant and he says, May it be your will that my wife give birth to a male. Uh, this is a tefilas shav, a futile prayer, and it is prohibited to say it. Rather, a person should pray for the future and give thanks on the past. Uh, I always recommend this. Uh uh Ari Bleisher, Allah Shalom, wrote an article published in Khakira, volume 12, which is available online called Tefilat Shav, the Limits of Prayer as a Means to Understanding Its Transformative Nature. Best article on Tfilah Shav that I know of. But there are these examples where something is has already happened and you are not allowed to Daven for Hashem to change it. Now, the question so the the conclusion I drew from this was well, it must be that because it's impossible for Hashem to change the past. Okay. Now, someone can argue with that and say, no, it's possible, but you're just not allowed to Daven for it, or Hashem won't do it, you know. So it's not uh an ironclad proof.

SPEAKER_03 52:19

But you have to say that, no? That's the whole layoff example. You have to say that that's you can't deny that. I mean, isn't that like Lamaskana that much you can't deny? People do.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Okay. And they I I think they, you know, in discussions of Tefila Shav, you'll find people who say, for example, like, you're not allowed to divin for a other. There are, I'm not saying this is unanimous, but there are people who hold you're not allowed to divin for a nace for a Yaqid because we're not on the level, you know. Uh, but you can dive in for a nace for the T Bor because then that maybe that's the Zoclus of the Tibor or the Zoclus of the Avos, whatever. So they'll they'll lump that into this into this discussion and say you cannot divin for these things because it's too brazen to Daven for, or you can't you don't have the right to do that. And look, I agree with you, Donnie, but I've just had discussions like this before, and people will say you you you know you can dive in, uh you can't dive into this because it's not appropriate, not because it's impossible.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

So then there's no way to explain that sequence. I mean, or that that that Mesora in a sense, you have you'd have to reject it. I agree with you, but people don't.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

So you can debate with them, yeah. Um now, so this is what I thought, and I usually mention this to my students, but again, over Chavez looking through the Narboni, and he says at the end of the parak of the Rambaum, in any case, the sages of Israel upheld this chapter of the Moria by saying that there is such a thing as a futile prayer, which is not stated regarding divine matters, as the Torah scholars who were alluded to asserted, those who said that the impossible applies only in divine matters, such as God's corporeality and his non-existence, but rather it applies to matters of existing things. So, in English, what does that mean? It means he's saying, you see, from Chazal prohibiting us to have a Tfila Shav, that Chazal acknowledged there are things that are impossible for God in the world, not just impossible for God, like making another one of himself, but things you're not allowed to Daven for because they are impossible. So at least you have one Rambaum scholar who agrees with my deduction from Sadigon that Tfila Shav is that the reason we can't do Tvila Shav is because there are things that are definitively impossible. And I think Daven for the past to be changed is in that category. So again, you don't have to accept that, but yeah. So Sadigon to summarize is we gain nothing by ascribing to God absurdities and impossibilities, but we can truly say God can do anything. Okay, so again, that's focusing on the praising of God. Yes. No, okay. Okay. This next source I thought about cutting because um it is not adding very much. Um uh and it is a little redundant, but I do want to quote it anyway, a because it's Michlei, and B because it it is a slightly different angle. Okay, so there's Pasuk and Mishle, great PUSUC, uh 1415. Pesi Ya Amin Lul Davarva, Aurum Yavin La Ashuro. A naive simpleton, I think it's the best way to um uh translate um pessy. Um, in fact, if you look up in the dictionary, naive simplon, you'll see the word pessy there. All right. Um, a naive simpleton will believe everything, but a cut a cunning person will understand his every step. Okay, so there are two definitions of pessy that I like quoting. One is uh Ray Noyona on this passo, sorry, on uh 122. He says, Pisaim are those people with weak minds who are duped by the words of those who entice and mislead, including in Pisaim are people whose opinions are confused, and similarly, those whose desire confounds them and causes them to veer from the path. So it is a combination of lack of intellectual ability, but also susceptibility to manipulation. Also, your emotions are clouding your mind. My definition, which again, I don't know if this is my definition or Rabbi Moskowitz's definition because they they blended over time. A pessy is someone who operates based on the principle what feels good is good, what feels bad is bad, what feels true is true, and what feels false is false. They're very susceptible to making decisions in what to do or what to think based on their feelings. And that's why they're easily manipulable. All right. So on this uh pass, the Mi'iri says like this Um, a naive simpleton will believe everything. Uh, he hears whether it's possible or impossible, probable or improbable. But a cunning person, which he defines as one who is mischakim bedato, one who gains wisdom with his own mind. I think our use of the word thinker fits into this for the Mi'iri, uh based on my understanding of the Mi'iri's definition of Arum. A thinker will understand his every step. In other words, he'll understand where he treads. This is a metaphor for someone who gains wisdom with his own mind, determining whether a given proposition is possible or impossible, probable or improbable. The sages of ethics, which I think is a quoting from Mivkar Happaninim, which is a book of ethical teachings, says if the uh if the speaker is a naive simpleton, then the listener should be a clear thinker. Okay, catchy proverb. And even though this is a simple lesson, it is fitting for every intelligent person to test with his mind what is proper to believe. Now, reason why I like quoting this miri is to say that I think there is a school of thought. I know there's a school of thought, uh, the Emunapshuta people that hold that it is an ideal of Judaism to davka not question things and to just believe them based on simple faith, right? And the Mi'iri, and I'm not resting this on Mi'i, I'm resting this on Shlomohamalach throughout Mishlay, but the Mi'iri here explicitly, oh sorry, the Posak explicitly says believing anything is a is is a pessy, which is a Mishlei term for a fool. So and I think the Mire just unpacks this really well that God does not want you to uncritically accept things, He wants you to uh to test every belief. And now he gives examples. Okay. Um, so this was Miri gives two layers of Mishlay, the exoteric, which is about everyday advice, and then the esoteric, which is in your own uh learning and thinking. So he says, according to the Derach Nister, the esoteric explanation of the puzzle, one must apply this to in matters of religious beliefs and matters of science. Now he lists examples. Again, this is somewhat redundant, but I want to go through the examples. In matters of religious beliefs, a person must be careful not to believe things which are definitively impossible for him, for God, and to not place in the category of the possible that which is inherently impossible. The cunning person will strive to understand which of the quote unquote impossible things it is proper to believe, even though they are highly improbable, such as miracles which involve changes in the laws of nature and the fundamental principles which derive from them, all of which are not inherently impossible and for which there's no absolute disproof, and all the more so for those ideas which require greater, stronger, and more forced reasoning to undermine than to uphold, and which beliefs are appropriate to utterly reject, such as contraries of first principles, like the transformation of a substance into an accident or an accident into a substance, or God making himself physical or changing or creating a being like himself, and other things which are nimna'us b muchlat bateva kayam, uh things which are absolutely intrinsically impossible. So he's differentiating between what we would broadly lump as miracles, which are not intrinsically impossible, and we'll talk about this more in the next sources, and then things which are intrinsically impossible by definition, either because they involve denying first principles, like without going into everything about what an essence and an accident are, there's a lot of talk in Aristotelian Mefarshium about can you make an accident into a substance? Or like, you know, red, the color red is something that is a property of something else. But is there such a thing as red, which itself is a substance that is not a property? And a lot of these like you know, categories of the mind, logic stuff, and then are examples here. Um, I'm gonna I'll summarize in a second. Likewise, so that was in matters of religion. You should differentiate between which things do we think are impossible, but really are possible, like God's uh splitting the sea, and which things are inherently impossible, like God cloning himself. Likewise, in matters of science on which religious belief is not contingent, and which we are not compelled to believe on the basis of speculative philosophy, such as, now some of these are outdated, but the existence or non-existence of demons. I like quoting this one because anytime someone says you have to believe that shadim are real, I say, Oh, look, the mobiri says you should analyze with your mind whether demons are real or not. And he categorizes that as a scientific belief, not one that is based on on uh on religion. Okay, or the non-existence and existence of atoms. Okay, uh atomism was a, we talked about this on Friday, was a belief that uh was introduced um by Greek thinkers that everything is made up of atoms and it was disputed for a while. Okay, now most people hold that there are particles, okay. Um uh the uh non-existence or existence of the void or of absolute non-existence. That was a thing that Aristotle, I think, denied that you could have absolute non-existence. Uh, belief in transmigration, okay, which is Gilgal. All right. Um uh that's another thing that uh I think it's interesting that he puts it in this category. Uh that is not a religious thing. It's is it possible for a soul to go to another body? Uh and notions about the components of the soul and its existence and other matters, which some of the early authorities mistakenly thought to be true. And then he quotes Eov uh 13.5 or he references it. If only they would fall utterly silent, and that would be considered their wisdom. So, where's the yeah? Say again. I think he uses Netflix, yeah. Um, so summary of the Miri a thinker, an Arum, will assess every belief to determine whether it's possible, impossible, probable, or improbable. This applies in religion and science, and he divides those two. Um, so in other words, don't think like there are people who will say, Yeah, when you're you're researching science, you should you should determine this, but when it comes to religion, I just believe. You say no, it applies to both. And a person who is a thinker will reject intrinsically impossible things or things that are metaphysically impossible, like God making himself uh physical. And he'll accept things that might seem improbable but are warranted, like belief in the miracles in the Torah, which we accept because of Mysora or or the fact they were public miracles or whatever it is. So the summary here is I I again I make this a distinct point. Don't be a pessy, is like an ethical injunction. And he's Iri is approaching this not from the question in metaphysics, metaphysics of can God do this, but don't be a gullible idiot who just accepts things uncritically and uh because because he thinks that his religion demands it. You should be a thinker and you should determine the possibility and impossibility and probability and improbability of your own mind for each belief. And if you're wondering how you can do that, we'll get to that later. Okay, so that's the that's uh number four. Okay, next one is very short and it is actually nothing new. I'm only quoting it because it's the Rajpa. Okay, and I I saw this in uh uh two essays. I I missed this the first time around. And the reason why I want to quote the Rajpa, how would you describe the Rajpa vis-a-vis the Rambam in terms of philosophy? Like historically, like how you you know, Ramam is branded as a rationalist. Where would you put the Rajpa on that spectrum? It's not a trick question, it's like a historical question. Okay, you say he's rationalist. Anyone have a disagreement with that? Rumban. Uh yeah, Ramban, uh yeah, he's talking about the Ramban. So Rajma was one of the ones who opposed the study of philosophy for uh for everyone. Like, like there were there were, you know, uh as Rabbi Zucker says in his essay in the beginning of uh Wars of the Lord, there were rational Maimonideans and irrational Maimonideans, and then rational anti-Maimonideans and irrational anti-Maimonideans. Uh, and then there were people like the Rashba who was not full on first of all, he was Talmud of the Ramban, and he was a Kabbalist in that sense, but he also opposed the like free-for-all study of rationalism that was going on at the time, and he upheld certain bans on on studying philosophy. So I think it is an important voice to quote because if anyone wants to say, oh, this is just the Ramban, the Rashba was opposed to the Ramba. And in fact, this Chuva, which I have not read all of, apparently is one that was uh a response to someone who was asking from my monarchy and framework. And the bulk of the tuva or much of the chuva is the raw rashba arguing against the Rambah. Okay, so he again, nothing new here. I'm gonna read it really fast. In my view, there are two categories of the impossible. The first is the necessary impossible, which is self-evidently impossible by its own nature, such as the side of a square being greater than its diagonal, okay, another mathematical example, or that which occurred having not occurred, and many similar cases. This is an absolute impossible, impossible by its own nature. Conceivability does not apply to it. The second is impossible not by its own nature, but from our perspective, arising from the absence of wisdom on the part of that which is naturally impossible. We have not found, and he gives examples. We have not found a rock bringing forth water or a sea splitting momentarily and returning momentarily, or the sun and the moon standing still, neither orbiting nor moving from their place, that's Yahushua, uh, or the sun reversing its course and many other similar cases, and the resurrection of the dead is among them. Now, none of these is impossible in our view, except on account of the limited wisdom of all created beings and the exhaustion of their power to alter what is imprinted by the seal of nature. But with respect to the creator, blessed is he, it is not impossible. Rather, it is already determined by his wisdom, to whom no deficiency or exhaustion may be attributed, by virtue of the power of his wisdom, for he and his wisdom are one. My monity. And we do not know his wisdom until we know his essence. There you go, Robbie. Can't know what God can't do until you know his essence. By this understanding, all the miracles that occurred and those that are yet to come are sustained. So, summary miracles are possible for God and are only perceived by us as impossible due to our limited knowledge and power. Now, I do think there is an important point to get out of this, which is that sometimes you will get into discussions with students about miracles, and they will think that certain things are impossible even as a miracle. And I do think it's important to uh, you know, to talk about the fact that what we have conceived of as possible or impossible in nature has been demonstrated as as being, you know, as changing, as being false. Let's say, for example, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was thought to be impossible to split the atom and then boom, you know, um, or right, or the idea that um, you know, I I think you could make an argument from a person saying, well, how could there possibly be a trias a mesin if like uh a body is dead and rots? You know, now I've heard people, I'm I'm not saying this is true, but I've heard people make the argument that now that we know about DNA, and we know that there can be elements of a person's physical existence that like remain after the body has rotted, and that could used theoretically to like re revive them. So maybe even within nature it is possible here. I'm just saying that like we we you know we are living in an age, especially you know where there have been many more technological breakthroughs um uh that that things that we think of are as as naturally impossible like our sense of that is not so good like we have we're limited by our own knowledge of nature and uh and God can do stuff within nature that we can't think of yeah that's the ability to classify so is that is that for that one see with it that's what we're gonna talk about next so the one who really impacts this is the is reviews of Alba okay all right so um let's go to reviews of alba so say for you karin all right so he starts just the rashba is the rashba though conflating the natural impossibility and logical to some extent or just saying that we can't really discern meaning that so he's definitely acknowledging that there is a category of inherently impossible things which are logical and he's definitely saying that there are things that are possible by way of miracle but he does mention that that they um that there is these are due in part to a lack of understanding or a lack in our mind. So he does open the door there and I'm not sure it may be that the way that he classifies what goes into which category is going to be slightly different than what we're about to see in the seferim. Okay so I think what let's do let's actually defer to uh to the sefer harikarim who states it very explicitly um oh no hold on a second did I change the order of the presentation seifarium we'll deal with that okay but let's let's address that question when it comes up in the seferim okay who puts it in terms of our own mind's ability to conceive stuff so seferim is going to be in two sources one will do now one we'll do later 122 so it's interesting he starts off similar to sidigone he says not all beliefs bring one to flourishing flourishing is how I translate Hatzlacha uh success is a little weird but you know human a human doing what they're supposed to do okay success as a human being for belief in that which is impossible does not facilitate flourishing. No person doubts this for the belief that causes a person to flourish is a is belief in that which is true because it is true, not belief in that which doesn't exist that it does exist, nor in that which exists that it doesn't exist. So I think this is a first principle okay which is that anyone who admits that there's such a thing as truth and falsehood would say that it is good to hold that which is true to hold as true that which is true and hold as false that which is false. And it is not good to hold that something is true if it's false or to hold something is false if it's true. I don't think you need to argue with that. So he's saying like so just because you can believe something does not mean that it is good, that there are beliefs that that are conducive to flourishing but to being at sell and elukim that can apprehend truth and there are beliefs that are not. If so it is proper for one to ask how we can tell whether something subject to belief is true and should be believed with complete conviction or is not true so that we can avoid believing it. So you should figure out what is what you should and shouldn't believe this is a difficult matter which we must endeavor to solve.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

So his premise belief in the impossible oh sorry sorry yeah belief in the impossible does not facilitate Hatslaka okay here yeah yeah yeah right belief in the impossible does not facilitate real isn't he sneaking in though that beliefs are instrumental isn't that kind of his instrumental right isn't that his key point meaning beliefs actually have a role have a function they're they're available you're the envisioning bringing about I wouldn't put it as instrumental even though I I see you're getting that from the his use of the word flourishing but I would say for example like when the Ramam defines the Shema as uh in tokli sa ms el a la dash who ms you know that there's no purpose of truth other than to know that it is true he that's what he's talking about by flourishing that knowing that something is true is true that is something that we should we should embrace those beliefs not the ones that are contrary to to that that's how I take it you're you're conflating the beliefs and truths though you know I mean like they're the the truths are not category of beliefs they're what you believe to be true but you can't prove truths are actual you know for sure to be true. The Rambaum has there are they are separate categories and beliefs shape you and they're transformative and they fit into what he was saying in the sense that if you're imagining something it's not real well you're not gonna bring it about you're not gonna work towards it and it can't change you or you can't do anything with it and you can't make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

I I mean I agree with you that what you're saying is true. I don't think that's what he's saying. I don't think that's what he was by Hatslach I don't think he's using it instrumentally and you can you could look you could look at it inside and we could we could we could think about it but that's not how I'm reading it. Um all right so the question though is how do you know what's possible or impossible? So he so he again makes the same move that the Miri and the Rashba make says we say that there are two types of impossibility. Some things are intrinsically impossible though his Hebrew term is Nimnaos Kayams baatmam intrinsically impossible about which it cannot be said that Hashem has the ability to do their opposite for example uh here's another favorite one the whole is greater than the part and the diagonal of a square is greater than the side it cannot be said of Hashem that he has the ability to make the part equal to the whole or the diagonal of a square to be equal to the side or the angles of a triangle equal to more than two right angles or the contradictory propositions to be true at the same time about the same subject or the affirmative and negative to apply at the same time to the same thing in the same relation. So again denials of mathematical impossibilities and denials of of uh first principles in logic okay um belief in such impossibilities or either or those of their kind cannot even be accredited to the Mysora cannot be accredited by this received tradition nor can our senses ever testify to the reality or to the reality of anything similar because the intellect cannot conceive their existence. Okay now just pausing here Raman I think in his letter on astrology correct me if I'm wrong says that there are three sources of of of you know beliefs you know that the of true beliefs your senses your mind and masora okay so so he's saying the mind can't conceive of these things but also you your senses can never testify to them. And even if it says so in the Mysora I can't believe it. Okay. Why? Because the intellect cannot conceive of their existence. For this reason it is not possible to believe in this or in anything like it just as it is impossible for the received tradition to compel us to believe that Hashem can create another being exactly like himself for then one would necessarily be the cause and the the other the effect and they would no longer be similar in all respects. So again example why Hashem can't clone himself okay so so first category I'll summarize later first category is intrinsically impossible things. You cannot believe it even if the Mesorah tells you to um because the intellect can't conceive of it. Now again this is the first time that we're seeing someone um explicitly use as a as a criterion can the mind conceive of it all right there is another type of impossibility which is it is conceivable that God may make possible namely that which is merely impossible according to the laws of nature. Such things are not impossible for God even though they are impossible according to the to the laws of nature. For example, resurrection of the dead a human being who can live forty days and forty nights without food and drink and other such wondrous things of the same kind which are impossible by the laws of nature. The second kind of impossibility may be believed, since the intellect can conceive of its existence. Therefore we say that anything which can be conceived by the intellect even though it is impossible by the laws of nature may be believed to have existed in the past, to exist now or to exist in the future. This is particularly true if experience testifies to the existence of the thing even though the intellect denies its existence because it doesn't know the cause such as the property of the magnet by which it attracts iron. The intellect cannot give a reason for it and is inclined to deny it, but since experience testifies to it and it is something that the intellect can conceive even though the intellect lacks knowledge of its cause it is true without doubt right so you you see magnets work and even though it sounds seems impossible for something to affect something else without touching it, you know, we know that it works because we have evidence. Yeah. Oh no it can it can happen uh it is one of the miracles that God can do. Resurrection of the dead Moshe having 40 days and 40 nights without food and drink uh yeah okay and then last part and then I'll summarize similarly those things to which um the senses testify among the wonders stated in scripture. So now we're going back to Mysorah or Tanakh such as the resurrection of the dead by Elisha during life during life and after death during life and after death remaining 40 days and 40 nights without food and drink as Moshe and Eliyahu did, the descent of fire from heaven, the presence of the Shina in Israel uh I don't know what his view of Shina is, and other wonders for which there exists testimony from the senses in the past and which the intellect can conceive even though it is not able to know the nature of the reality of their existence all these and similar things like them may be believed and fall under the omnipotence of he whose ability is unlimited. If uh Rabbi Fistel were here I would ask him to uh do the impression of uh James Walker by saying about airplanes uh I don't know I don't know how airplanes fly I I was I I just get on and fly right like so there are things that the intellect cannot conceive uh or not cannot conceive sorry that you cannot know how they work but you can conceive of it or you testify to it with the senses okay so summary how can we tell what is possible or impossible so he says there's two types of impossible logical or intrinsic impossibilities which the intellect cannot conceive and then natural impossibilities impossible according to the laws of nature but conceivable by the mind okay and he says intrinsic or logical impossibilities can never be believed even on the basis of tradition whereas natural impossibilities may be believed even if they're not comprehended yes I don't I don't know if you explain I don't see that how do you create that as thing how do you know uh okay okay no no so so uh in my original giving of this year I address that question now but I'm gonna push this to the objections okay uh this is the first of the two objections which is how do you know which category something is in okay um so we'll we'll do that momentarily okay um so to summarize Sefer Ikarim says Hashem can do whatever the mind can conceive and he cannot do that which the mind cannot conceive okay and he's using the mind as the measure and if you have another objection to that we'll deal with that in the objections also okay this is an objection that is a powerful one. Okay last source on this first part of this year and then we're gonna move to the short parts this year. Ramban in the Vikuach the desk disputation of Barcelona so it took place July 20th through 24th um in 1263 uh um there was a guy uh uh um uh prior paul but what was his name in uh um yeah public christianity what was his Hebrew name um I don't know Fray Paul I don't know whatever um who uh who was debate uh an apostate Jew who was debating with the Ramban about the tendency of Christianity and the very end of the debate they're debating about the Christian the sorry about the trinity so basically Ramban is trying prior paul is trying to say that the the Trinity is true and is a legitimate belief and you know uh and Ramban is is arguing with it but he tries to pin him down and say what do you mean by trinity do you mean that God is three like three members of a family and he's like no do you is it three parts of a whole no you know he goes through all these possibilities and at the very end he says uh it says uh then um friar Paul then arose and declared that he believes in the real oneness of God oh and Ramban is disagreeing also because it contradicts God's oneness okay Friar Paul then arose and declared that he believes in the real oneness and nevertheless they are three he said further that it is a very deep matter which even the angels and the ministers on high do not understand. So then I I am I like quoting this in Hebrew because it's more epic. Amartiva marty I rose and said Ramban said Dover Baruhush in adamin mash eeno yodea it is clear that man cannot believe that which he does not know in kinham enam amin in bashilos if so even the angels cannot believe in the Trinity uh Vishasku Khabira and Friar Paul's pen uh Friar Paul's friends silence them okay so that line man cannot believe that which he does not know question is why not okay now I don't know fully I don't know if the Ramban ever formally states what he means by emuna but the my favorite definition and I'm I'm not just cross-pollinating definitions here but uh I I I do think that this is what the Ramban means in this case is the Rambam's definition. So in the Morat 150 he defines uh the Arabic term itikad which is translated by many Mufarshim as or translators as emuna he says emuna or itikad is only possible after comprehension it consists it consists in the conviction that the notion apprehended by uh by the mind has its existence outside of the mind in reality exactly as it is conceived in the mind in other words that the there's a certain proposition that the mind holds to be true and for an Amuna to be true it would mean that it corresponds to the external reality. Okay so for example if I if my mind if I have a belief that the world is round that the the roundness of the world in my mind corresponds to the external reality of the actual roundness of the earth. So that's what what we say is true. And if I believe the earth is flat we say it's false because the idea in my mind does not correspond to the reality. Yeah it's saying if belief is a judgment of your knowledge of whether you could say that also it is okay that's that's true also I think I think that is amounting to the same thing that it has to be but the point is is that yeah it has you have to conceive of it in the mind in order to even be able to talk about whether I believe or I don't believe or it's true or it's not true. So what I what I think the Ramban is saying here is belief pertains to the content of the mind. If it doesn't register in the mind it cannot be believed so for example you can believe in unicorns and in ufos because they can register in your mind. Even if you have never seen a unicorn unicorn or ufo you can conceive of it and therefore you can say that thing that is a a mental construct there is something in reality that corresponds to that thing. Okay now just because you can it doesn't mean that it's automatically true you can conceive of things that don't correspond to reality um uh but fine but in order to believe that in something it must be conceivable so therefore you cannot believe in square circles or the trinity because they cannot register in the mind. Okay so you in other words you you the the the to even say I believe in square circles once again like you're just uh uh like someone said earlier you're just mashing together two terms nothing is registering in the mind because you cannot have in the mind uh something that's an inherent contradiction same thing with I cannot believe that a part is bigger than the whole okay it just doesn't register in the mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:17

Yeah yeah so I don't know if this is an obvious uh question but uh would that imply or maybe illustrate uh the limitations of what we can even believe about God himself since we can't fully conceive him right of him so I because I mean I've always struggled with like uh the tension between saying you believe in God but at the same time feeling like almost like there's a an intellectual dishonesty in that like like I don't know exactly know what I'm really saying here or to what degree and then also what's if there's like principles of like um a karim you know if there's certain things we're supposed to believe well then what exactly are the parameters around that that are actually enforceable on our based off of our mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:04

Yeah so I'm gonna I'm gonna reframe your question slightly and just to address uh to to talk about it um but I don't want to delve into it too much uh tell me if I'm addressing it correctly here is let's say we hold that you cannot have positive knowledge of God right as Motra Bin have said which means show me give me knowledge of your essence and Hashem said man cannot know me and live right so how can we fulfill the mitzvah of Anuchia Shemalukecha of knowing that God exists right if we cannot you know why don't we say no yodaya man cannot believe that which he does not know and you can't know you can't know God so how can you how can you know that so the answer to this requires knowing what is it that the Torah does demand that you know or believe and what what does not so for example the Torah is not demanding that you have positive knowledge of God. That is impossible right but the Torah again depends on who you ask the Torah is saying you must believe or you must have knowledge you know that a being we call Hashem who has this definition you know created the world or is the cause of existence or took us out of Mitsrian you know so so knowing being able to I'm gonna use I don't know if this is the best word being able to infer or deduce that a being exists like this like let's take a modern example of the fine tuning of the constants you know uh listen to um physics to God okay for uh for a uh a good uh thorough um uh presentation of this uh or check out Kakira right in Kakira there's an article about this so what arguments like that are doing or Aristotle's prime movement argument are basically showing you a compelling rational reason to infer or deduce the existence of a of a being that matches the Tord's definition of Hashem to to one degree or another. But in other words so you're not you don't know positive knowledge of God but you know that a being who brought the universe into existence you know exists or again with with the miracles of Mithrayan you know that a being who has mastery over the laws of nature exists you know and that he's non-physical and that you know the the being in the Torah there. So yeah I don't know if I'm addressing your question but but I I know that that's something that bothers a lot of people when I present this is how can you there are a lot of things we can't know about God. So how can Ramban say in adamami mash in your yodea and my answer is you is you have to know what it is that the Torah is expecting you to believe or to know and you can know that something is the case without having positive knowledge of of God. So you're you're basically not giving into the details of it we just know that there is such a being without and the details are subject to maflokas about what are you obligated to believe or not you know and uh or to know so yeah there are a lot there's a lot of mah lokas there. Yeah. Uh yeah Robbie I mean God can cause life and we don't understand how that happens so yeah yeah exactly yeah exactly yeah right in another right so so what what I'm the move I'm making here is when he says Masha ino yodea I mean man cannot believe that which he cannot conceive and I'm getting that from the context of the descriptive no no you you you you can conceive of someone dying and then coming back to life. How how it works you cannot conceive you've seen so many movies Robbie where someone like you know like yeah right yeah but but we will get into this about what about stuff that we can't conceive of okay but this is the end of this part of this year and again this next part of this year is gonna be shorter. Ruban says man cannot believe that which he does not know is to believe something it must register in the mind and the impossible cannot register in the mind therefore you cannot believe it. Okay so these are the seven approaches very much overlapping that that I think you can take when someone says that God could do the impossible or says something about that. Okay. All right any questions on these seven before we go into objections okay there are in a as whenever I've taught this all the objections boil down to two. Now there may I'm sure there are more objections but there are only two main ones a minor one and a major one okay so again what you see from here is the Roshonim differentiate between that which is intrinsically impossible and inconceivable by the mind and that which is only naturally impossible. Okay question is how can you be sure which is which how do we know that what we find impossible actually is impossible okay what about something or what about if I think that something is intrinsically impossible and you think it is possible and we get into an endless uh debate about that okay so here we're gonna read a Rambom and this is the Ram that we've been reading parts of up until now um and this is going to disturb some people okay it disturbs me. All right um yeah Isaiah why does it matter because um it matters because in the particular if someone says I believe that God can create a square circle even though I can't conceive of it you know and you say well you know um uh okay I'll give you that so someone someone said some one of the students asked me he said what if a person is born who can conceive of it does that change the entire definition around you know like or again you you you you you'll see why there are debates about what is conceivable and what is not which sounds inconceivable but okay yeah all right so what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna read the entirety of the Ram Mams chapter here. Okay and again I'm teaching this to my high school students now and having them read the whole thing. And I'm gonna read it kind of fast because I only want to pull one point out of it and we could talk about all the the the the details but I want to keep this big picture here. Okay so he started off again I'll reread it the impossible has a stable nature whose stability is fixed and is not the product of any agent. It cannot be changed in any way. For this reason God is not described as having power over it. On this point not a single thinker disagrees and only one who fails to grasp the intelligibles is ignorant of it. So first point is there is something that all think all thinkers agree that there is something in this category. Okay and the only reason person who does not think this is someone who does not understand what we mean by impossible. Okay all thinkers agree with this. Then he says the point of disagreement among all thinkers concerns a particular class of things that can be imagined. Some thinkers say that such a thing belongs to the category of the impossible with respect to which God is not described as having the power to change it. Others say that it belongs to the category of the possible which God has the power to bring into existence as he wills. So this is the area of Mach Lokus things that can be imagined um but uh and then they debate. So he's gonna go through examples. For example, so here are things that uh are everyone holds are impossible. For example the coming together of contraries at the same instant and at the same place the inversion of essences that is a substance becoming a quality and a quality becoming a substance or the existence of a physical substance with no qualities at all all of these belong to the category of the impossible according to every thinker. Okay and I'm taking his word for that right fine every thinker holds this. Likewise we read this already that God should bring into existence one like himself or annihilate himself or become a body or undergo change. All these belong to the category of the impossible and God Is not described as having power over any of them. Okay. As for whether an abstract quality, one not present in a substance, can come into existence, I'm not even going to talk about what that means. One group among the thinkers, namely the Mutazillah, imagined uh Islamic theologians, imagined this and considered it to fall within the category of possible, while others said it belongs to the category of the impossible. Yet those who maintain the existence of a quality not inheriting in a substance were led to this view by philosophical thinking alone. Sorry, were not led to this view by philosophical thinking alone, but rather by their concern to safeguard certain religious doctrines that philosophical thinking pressed very hard upon, and they extricated themselves by means of this assertion. In other words, this this debate about whether an abstract quality can come to existence is something that is debated, but he holds that the debate came about for theological reasons, that that those who said that this is possible were forced to by other theological considerations. It was not a pure debate, so to speak, where they were just debating just for fun, you know, or just for trying to understand. Similarly, now this is the controversial one, the bringing into existence of a physical thing from no matter at all, what we call creation yeshme ayin or ex nihilo, in our view belongs to the category of the possible, and in the view of the philosophers, to the category of the impossible, the logically impossible. Okay. And then he goes on. The philosophers likewise, actually, I'm going to stop on this for a second. Okay. So we again, most Jews, mainstream Judaism holds that God created the universe Yeshme'ayan. There is a subset of Jews like the Rah Bag who hold that God created the universe out of an eternally existing primordial matter. Okay. And that they deny creation Yeshme'ayyim. And the Rah Bagh holds that, and he holds that all Kazal held that. Now, why does he hold that? I I asked someone who's more expert in the Rabag, but it boils down to he held it was impossible for there to be creation Yeshme'ayyam. Okay. And therefore, the what must Breshis mean? It must mean that God created this out of an eternally existing matter. And he, again, he brought Rayas from the Psukim that Breshis Barakim Suspanis arts, you know, and that, you know, in the beginning there was Tohuad Bohu, or there are Madrashim about how God created the universe from the Kisea Kavod, you know. Um, and so, so, but but the the point I'm trying to make here is it's not like Ra Bagh is defecting from Judaism and just like saying, Well, I'm an Aristotelian, so I'm gonna deny what all the Mesora teaches. No, he held it is impossible. So getting him to accept that God created the universe, uh universe out of nothing is like saying God created a square circle to him. Okay. Um again, same thing with Ra Bagh's view of God's knowledge of contingencies. It's impossible, according to him. All right. Um, I I once had a debate with a uh a philosopher, uh philosopher, a professor of mine, who said um talking, he he disagreed, he he was an atheist because he held that non-physical existence is a contradiction in terms. Okay, now I think that that is just a dogmatic assertion that the only things that exist are material. And I don't think that it's a contradiction in terms, but he was convinced that it was a logical impossibility. Okay. He goes on, Ramon goes on. The philosophers likewise say that bringing into existence of a square whose diagonal is equal to its side or a solid angle bounded by four right plane angles, this is the complicated example, and the like, all of these belong to the category of the impossible. Yet some who are ignorant of mathematics and know nothing of these matters beyond the bare words without any grasp of their meaning suppose them to be possible. Okay, so again, just to summarize here, there are things that everyone holds are logically impossible, that all thinkers agree to, but then there's this category of things that are a debate whether they are logically impossible or not. So, how do you know the difference? Now listen to this disturbing Ramba. If only I knew whether this gate stands open and unguarded, so that any man may claim of whatever notion enters his mind that it is possible, while another says, no, it is impossible by the very nature of this matter, or whether there is something that closes this gate and bars it, by which a man may decisively rule that a given thing is impossible by its nature. Okay, in other words, I wish I knew a way to answer this question definitively. Okay, and he goes on. And is this the standard for evaluating and examining this a matter of the imaginative faculty or of the intellect? Meaning, what tool do you use to resolve this question? Is it like the mutazila that if you can imagine it, then it's possible? Or is the imagination not the right tool to use? Like Rapezak has used examples, like you cannot imagine a mathematical line or an asthmatode that goes on infinite infinitely. You can't imagine it, but the mind can conceive of it, right? You know, so are we using our mind or our imagination? And then he says, and by what means do we distinguish between what is imagined and what is intelligible? How do you even know whether you're imagined using your imagination or using your mind? Because the intellect that we have works through the imagination, which is derived from the senses. So sometimes it's not always clear. For at times a man disputes with another or wrestles with himself over a particular matter that he that he finds possible in his own view and therefore declares it to be possible by its nature, while his opponent says this claim of possibility is the work of the imagination, not a judgment of the intellect. And further, is there some criterion by which one may distinguish between the imaginative faculty and the intellect? How do you even know where the line is between imagination and intellect? And is that criterion something external to both of them, or is it within the intellect itself that one distinguishes between what is intelligible and what is imagined? All of these are points calling for the most careful investigation, but this is not the aim of the present chapter. Okay, in other words, these are open questions. Okay, one more paragraph, then I'll summarize. It has thus become clear that according to every view and every school, there are things that are impossible, whose existence is precluded with respect to which God is not described as having power, and that his not changing them entails no inability or deficiency on part on power on his part. In other words, like I showed you with all the seven, there are things that everyone holds that God cannot do, and they they they agree there, and it doesn't imply a lack of omnipotence, because God can do anything, and this is not a thing. They are accordingly necessary in themselves and not the product of any agent. That's the idea that the impossible is a natural category. And it has become clear that the point of disagreement concerns things about which one may hesitate as to which of the two categories they belong, whether to the category of the impossible or to the category of the possible. Understand this. So, going back to our objections, how can we be sure which is which, what is intrinsically impossible or what's just naturally impossible? Or how do you know that what we find impossible actually is impossible? Or or what do you do when you have a disagreement? How would the Ram answer this in a word, in a sentence? If only I knew, that's his answer. Okay, there are notions that the inherent possibility or impossibility of which is disputed, including fundamental things like creation yeah Shme'ayin, where Aristotle will say that is a contradiction in terms, and we will say that's what the Torah requires us to believe. And I find this disturbing because if, and I see why the Ram says, if only the mind knew 100% what is impossible and what is not, and you could say this is impossible for God because of that. So it is very, a very interesting place that we end up in is that everyone agrees, according to the Ram, everyone agrees that the mind can be used to say that square circles cannot, uh you know, God cannot do it because it's a contradiction in terms, but there are things that feel like that, which people say are possible, and we don't know the differences. And if I knew more math, I'm sure you could find oh, actually, examples. Okay, sorry, a few examples. If I if I knew more physics, I would say examples of this. But the only example I know, and I'm speaking as a big layman here, is the moch locus on randomness in the universe of God does not play dice with the universe, is what Einstein said. And Niels Bohr said Einstein stopped telling God what to do. You know, um, I uh, you know, I'll just say here, I just made a list, which I'm not even talking about here. In non-Euclidean geometry, there are things that are possible that are not possible in Euclidean geometry. And I think some of the examples that the Rahm gave in math or that the Rishon gave in math, people said this is inherently impossible, but then it deter it really depends on what your axioms are. You know, same thing in quantum physics. I think there are things that that seem like contradictions. Anyone have an example of one that I could just share? Things that either they did or didn't happen depending on uh say again, the double slit experiment? Yeah, right. So what's what's the uh right? So it's something a particle or a wave, it they contradict each other, but depending on is it's how you know it or how you look at it, then it has this property or doesn't have this property. Right, but it seems that the thing in reality has actually contradictory properties, which sounds like a big violation of basic logic. Okay, yeah. So there are so again, this is like this is an open question, according to the Rahim, as I understand him, and we're just stuck. Okay, now what do you think the biggest objection to this idea is about saying that God cannot create a square circle because our minds can't conceive of it?

SPEAKER_06 1:37:04

Okay, therefore. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:10

Anyone have a else one okay, good. That's another angle. Is that why you know, yeah, our minds can't conceive. God made logic. Okay, right? Yeah, okay. Okay, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:23

Can you repeat all the things people said?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:25

Yeah, I'll I'll I'll just I'll just uh read it the way I'm presented here. So I I first read this in The Limits of Uh Orthodox Theology by Mark Shapiro, um, quoting um uh he says like this it is worth noting, however, that there have been Jewish thinkers who reject Maimonides' basic assumption and believe that God can do the logically, can do the logically impossible. They argue that this is only impossible from the human standpoint, and there is no reason to posit that, quote, now he's quoting from the Ramban, which I think I was not able to track down this quote. Ramban apparently says, because the human intellect cannot conceive the existence of something possessing simultaneously contradictory properties, such existence is necessarily impossible in reality. End quote. Against those such as Maimonides, who argue that God cannot do the impossible, and in particular asserted that God can have no physical movement, the Tosavist Ramoshitaku uh wrote, quote, they are issuing a decree to the creator as to how he must be. By so they are degrading themselves. So this is kind of like the Boer's equivalent of who are you to tell God what he can and can't do, right? Going on, Ravnachman of Bratislav also argued that God can do the logically impossible, and that to claim otherwise is to restrict God's freedom. One of his disciples reported, quote, he mentions that it says in their in the philosopher's books, is it possible that a triangle can be a rectangle? Again, no one no one says square circle. I don't know why I just like square circle. Um, our our master, Ravnachman, said, I believe that God can make a rectangular triangle, for the ways of God are hidden from us. He is omnipotent, and no deed is beyond him. Uh, as uh end quote. As Arthur Green puts it in summarizing Rivnachman's position, faith is to exist even in the face of logical absurdity. The tradition of Tertullian has here found its Jewish parallel. Tertulli was the one who said, uh, I don't know the Latin, but I believe because it is absurd, right? So objection number two is how can we limit God based on human logic? And there are different ways to ask this. You could say, didn't God create logic, or who are we to tell what God what to do or what not to? Or how can you just say if just because I can't think of it, then God can't do it? But this is the this is a thing that I uh that I think is a weighty problem. Yes, uh Rivka.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:20

Um I just wanted to like clarify wisdom and logic, I think, are different, and logic is almost like a filter for wisdom. Does this actually ring true or not? Can I organize it in my brain? Right. But they are different. So like God's wisdom is definitely higher than human logic.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:36

Right. That's true, right? But but what what the objection is is about logic, which is that just because I cannot, just because something is a logical contradiction for a human mind, to say I can't think of it as one thing, to say God can't do it because I can't think of it seems to be putting a limit on God. So to make a to limit God based on what the human mind can and can't conceive.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:55

Yeah, so that's it that's a logical issue. Did you have a question? Okay. Okay, so yes, I see.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:10

Okay. Okay, good. That's gonna be one of my answers. Okay, good. So I'm gonna start with the strongest answer, and the only one I know in the Rishonim who addresses this directly is the Sefer Haikarim. And I have not seen anyone talk about this, but um, so you you can feel free to you know argue with my reading, uh, but I I think this is pretty clear. So later on in the book, in 325, he goes back to this topic and starts off the same way. He says, Before I respond to his statements, we're gonna need the context, I will make an introductory statement which no man of intelligence can doubt, namely, that anything that is the subject of belief must be conceivable by the mind, though it may be impossible according to the laws of nature. Such natural impossibilities as the splitting of the sea of reeds, the turning of the rod into a serpent, and other miracles mentioned in the Torah or in the prophets can be conceived by the mind. Hence, we can believe that God has the power to produce them. But a thing which the mind cannot conceive, for example, that a thing should be and not be at the same time, or that a body should be in two places at the same time, or that one and the same number should both be both odd and even, that's a fun one, and so on, cannot be the subject of belief, nor is it proper to believe that God has the ability to do it. So again, same distinction we've seen until now. For example, we cannot attribute to God the ability to create another being completely like him, or to make a square whose diagonal is equal to its side, or to make now what has happened not to have happened. For since the mind cannot conceive of it, God cannot do it, as it is inherently impossible. Therefore it cannot be the subject of belief. For belief in impossible things does not give perfection to the soul. Now here's the line. If that were the case, if belief in impossible things gave perfection to the soul, reason would have been given to man for no purpose, and man would have no superiority to animals, since the mind would not have a basis for believing anything. So what is he saying there?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:51

Also, it wouldn't have a basis for disbelieving anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:54

Correct, correct. So why why? So just let's boil this down to why do we have to say that if the mind can't conceive it, then God can't do it. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:11

So okay, good, good.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:13

All right. So this this is I I debate about this about whether to um I'm gonna give you two answers. Um sometimes when I present, I present it as the same answer. Okay, so uh your language is gonna be like Galileo, okay, which is my second answer. So here's here's my understanding. He's uh I I would summarize it like this belief in logical contradictions undermines human reason entirely. If we accept such beliefs as valid, there would be no way of differentiating between true and false. In other words, the only tool, so I'll start expressing the way Estee did. The only tool we have is our mind. And the mind works by rules of logic. And we accept things that conform to those rules and we reject things that don't. If you were to admit into the realm of validity things that are logical contradictions, you're essentially destroying the entire tool of logic and saying that there the entire tool is null and void, and there's no basis for accepting or rejecting anything. And if you'll tell me, oh well, but we accept stuff that the Torah says, well, once I'm accepting illogic, I can also believe that the Torah does say this and does not say this at the same time, or that it is true and not, you're you're destroying the entire thing. And in fact, um, if you want to read, I'm a big fan of um fiction that presents ideas in ways that only fiction can do. So there's if anyone is in the uh looking for a good book to read, uh good fiction book, Ted Chiang, T-E-D-C-H-I-A-N-G, uh wrote two books. One is the the the oh man, I don't know what Story of our life or the stories of our lives, um, and an exhalation. These are collections of short stories that involve ideas and thinking. First book he uh first story he wrote is uh fiction that takes place at Nigdal Bavel. Amazing story. Um, but he wrote a book called Division by Zero. Okay. And it's a book about a woman who is a top mathematician, and she arrives at a mathematical proof that any number can equal any other number. Okay. And at first she figures this must be a mistake because the laws of of logic and math like have to work out, but she she checks it and she checks it, and she realizes that this is it's a valid proof. So she tries taking it to a bunch of other mathematicians, and they assume she's like the greatest in her field. So they assume, like, okay, we'll work it out. There must be something that is a mistake here that we're just not seeing. And what ends up happening is she ends up, you know, falling into a depression and going crazy because her entire life in math is built on the notion that mathematics is cachema and must work out. And now she's arrived at something that her mind cannot deny that shows that the kachma of math is inherently absurd, you know, and it's about what happens to a thinker when when they grapple with that. You don't need that to understand this idea, but uh again, it's a thing where like we our thinking is built on logic, and the law of non-contradiction is a fundamental law, and and and that's how we sort out the true from the false. And so if you were to accept this, you're essentially saying that the Tel Melakim is a completely faulty mechanism, and you're throwing all logic and knowledge out the window. Now, the second way you can express this is the way that Eliezer was saying this, which is I don't know if this is a real quote, but from Galileo, I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. Okay, so that is saying God gave us reason for a reason and he intends for us to rely on it. If God didn't want us to rely on reason, why would he give it to us? The reason I don't like that line of argument as much is because it kind of is hinges on God's intention. So you could say, well, maybe God gave us the mind, but he wants us to override it with faith, which by the way, a bunch of Jews say, you know. Um, and so I don't think that's as compelling of an argument there. Um, similarly, uh I recently was uh shown this uh book called Illuminating Jewish Thought by Rabbi Natano Wiederblank, who addresses he gives three answers which overlap with this.

SPEAKER_07 1:46:06

Uh he says, firstly, so he's explaining why it is that we must uh uh yeah, uh it's like whether or not what we're saying is that which is necessary that we can see whether it's necessary to think or not. Some other real that we don't understand. Yeah, but we can't think about that. We're not saying that's a good idea. Right. We're just saying okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:39

So to to to to uh say what as you just said, I'm gonna say it in my way, which is which is if it make I'm not saying this to you, if it makes you feel better to say that God can create a square circle, you can say that, but I I can't believe it. In other words, the the the the tool that God gave to me to determine truth and to have beliefs is the mind. I cannot believe that God can create a square circle. I can just say the words that if God created logic differently, then he could make a square circle. But the logic that I am using is the logic that God did create. And and so, yeah, in another realm, in in God's realm, he could do whatever he wants. You could say all these things, but at the end of the day, I cannot don't get me to accept a logical contradiction because that would undermine all logic, all knowledge. Yes. Oh, yeah, ST.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:31

So in that, you're still consistent.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:34

Yeah, I I still am going to reserve that because my mind conceives of that as a different answer, which I and then you'll tell me which one, which one is in. Someone said something, yeah, Naomi.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:41

Yeah, I wanted to say, okay, so um basically, um, I think you have to say that you have to go by your logic, but you have to also keep in mind that your logic is not the ultimate because um, you know, we we say elu but elu, and by the way, uh you could you could conceive of a square circle. What if it's like something where um something is traveling in space and because of time dilation it looks like a square to one uh time reference, and it looks like a circle for somebody else. And then like also the whole the whole thing, we always thought that uh time moving for different uh, you know, if you're traveling at the you know, okay. Time dilation, we thought it was impossible, but we see it's possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:17

So good good points, and the the the excerpt I'm about to read from Elu V Elu, uh uh the that's the uh the subtitle, uh uh is gonna say this. So this is again, this is gonna overlap. This is read by Wheaterblank. He says, firstly, if we question our logical conclusions, meaning rejecting contradictions, then we should also question the basis of our belief in God. So that's an interesting argument here, which is that once you are questioning the reliability of the apparatus of the mind, then you're you're you're undermining your basic belief in God. So for example, again, Revi makes this point in Toromissina that God gave uh Mosha Bino is always telling Ban Israel, your eyes saw, you know, Atah Resaladas, and all we have to know are is through our senses and our mind. So if you're gonna undermine that, then then you're you're undermine the very basis of this belief. I'll tell the anecdote, I'll force the anecdote in here because it's it's a fun anecdote. That's the um the like the anecdote that uh apparently Rabbi Chate was uh was talking about how like you know you have to um go with your mind when and what your mind tells you in science, even if it contradicts chazal, because chazal could be wrong, right? And then some guy was objected and said, like, well, you know, if you know, but I believe in chazal, uh, you know, if chazal say it, then I believe that over over my my my mind. And so Rebbe said, Well, what if I did an experiment and showed you and you saw with your own senses that that you know, let's say, I don't know, like uh that uh what's an example that the atom could be split. I don't know, whatever, right? That you I show you something empirically with your own senses that that's all says impossible, and I'm showing you that it is possible. Would you would you deny your senses to affirm the chazal, or would you accept your senses and and and uh and and uh disagree with the hazal? The guy says, I would, I would, uh, I would believe what chazal said, even if my eyes told me otherwise. And Rebbe said, How do you know you saw the hazal? Right? In other words, if If you're undermining what your eyes see in order to hold Kazal, like you can't, you can't you can't do that. Like, like your your eyes are the tools. Same thing here with the mind is that that the mind is our basis for all beliefs. So if you are now denying your mind, you're denying the basis of all your beliefs. For anything, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:26

But what about Losas or Yamanu Small?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:29

I gave a share on that also. You can listen to that as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:32

Plus Kasha plus answer. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Chris Go.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:36

Yeah, I think maybe you were saying this to a degree already by saying that you might be able to say it, but you can't believe it. Um, but it it it also feels a little bit almost like the objection of how can you limit God is a little bit it's like, well, it's not this isn't about limiting God. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:55

It's about on that thought one second, Fizcale, because I think this is going to be what Estee is saying, and also what I want to say. Okay, so I'll if I don't cover it, you can you can come back. Uh being Rabbi Weeder Blank here. Accordingly, we may suggest that since the laws of logic have been deduced and universally accepted using the intellect granted to us by God, we can see these laws as being taught to us by God, a form of quasi-revelation, and trust that he is not misleading us. This is another interesting thing here. This is a whole other avenue you can take, but there are um there are Rishonim who say that basically they treat the mind as an agent of God, you know. And you look at the Ibn Ezra in the Hokdamata Torah, it says, Hamalk bin Adam ubin alokab husikhloh, that the reason why we don't accept logical impossibilities is because the mind is an agent of God. Or you look at the Radak's Derek Nister interpretation of Khan in Hell and say that whenever it's whenever it says that God is speaking to Khan, in the Derek Nister, it means that God is speaking, that God Khan's intellect is telling him, and that's God talking through the intellect. There are a lot of reasons on them who say this also. That's another can of worms. Uh, but in other words, God gave us the intellect to use, so that is a form of God telling us what to do. Or you could say with the the um in the Rumban on the flood that the reason why the generation of the flood got destroyed for doing uh Hamas, even though they weren't warned by a navi, is because the mind can see that this is something that is disruptive. And so you don't need God to tell you that which the mind says. Okay, fine. Then he says, just as we are meant to act based on our intellect to determine that which is right or wrong and to correctly interpret the Torah, and in doing so, we trust that our intellect is not misguiding us, so too we may presume the laws of logic are necessarily true. Thus, now this is the point that Naomi was making. While we can never be absolutely sure that we are not erring, after all, certain rules of mathematics that were assumed to be inviolable have been shown to be false. We may confidently presume that what seems logically impossible is in fact impossible. Oh, sorry, hold on. Oh, I think I did not have there's more to the quote here. Okay, I think he's maybe I'm imagining it. He says basically, you have to have the humility to know that your mind might be wrong about this, but that does not invalidate the ability of the mind to be reliable in stam, you know. So his answer, right? Wheeder blank, or his new answer is questioning our minds undermines our belief in God, you know. And then same thing with Galileo and same thing, say for Alicarin. Now, one more answer. This is finally the point that Kiskio and uh ST are saying. Let's go back to the Ramban here. So um Ramban says if it doesn't register register in the mind, it can't be believed. Or that's my summary of him. Okay. So let me ask you a question. Okay, people are bothered by saying, How are who are you to limit God based on your mind? Okay. Because the so if we think about it, the mind is a certain tool with certain limitations, like any tool. Okay, now let's talk about the eyes. The eyes are what God gave us to be able to perceive things visually, okay? We can see certain things, but certain things we can't see. You can't see things that are a certain size, you can't see certain wavelengths, uh wavelengths of uh of light. Okay. Now, if I said I can't see infrared light with my own eyes, would you object and say, who are you to limit God? No, I'm not limiting God. I'm saying like I can't see because the tool that God gave me only allows me to see certain things. It's not a limit on God, it's a limit on the apparatus. Okay. And me saying that God gave me a tool that can't do certain things is not at all impinging on God's ability. So too with the mind. Just like the eye can only see certain things, the mind can only work within the laws of logic. And that's the only means by which we have knowledge. So to say that I cannot believe in something if it's illogical is not limiting God. It's saying that the tool God gave me works only by logic, and I cannot have knowledge or belief that is outside of that tool. I cannot have truth in my mind outside of that tool, and it's not a limit on God, it's a limit on me. So that's how I would say that again, slightly different answer, that this stems from our limitations, not God's. I can't believe what my mind cannot know any more than I could perceive what my eye cannot see. So you can tell me from here to low tomorrow, God could have created a world in which squares can be circles. That's very nice, but I cannot believe it because the tool that God gave me works by logic. Uh hold on a second. So Sienhis Giahu, is that does that encompass what you were saying? Either in any of these four answers encompass what they're what you guys were saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:17

Or maybe Yeah, that was pretty much okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:19

Good. Uh yes. Yeah, but I think they're saying that because uh either side of the point that saying God can do it is meaningless, or because we can't believe it, like the Savory Carms argument that if I believe it, I'm basically destroying all of reason and logic, and it doesn't add perfection to my soul. So for all intents and purposes, God can't. You know, there's no universe that we can talk about or think about in which God can. Ah right, you're not saying anything about God. You're saying in you know, yeah, I I uh you know, in terms of the apparatus I have, the speech I have, the mind I have, God cannot do it. And he wants me to believe that he cannot do it because that is what the mind he gives me tells me.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:02

Yeah, because you know Yeah, I mean, I also feel like even if I grant that, like, oh, something is possible that I can't conceive, uh, I mean, this might be more of a social like issue, but like it feels like discussing it for somebody to posit it as the case while admitting that they also can't conceive of it, yeah, seems to me to be well, suspicious of some kind because it's like, well, if you're agreeing or if we can understand that Hashem gave us we're only responsible to do that which our mind is capable of handling, what would be the purpose of even believing in that? Like right.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:40

And again, that's why I like the the the um the side-gone thing. It's like he's addressing saying you want to be able to say that God can create a square circle because you feel like you're praising God by saying that, and you feel like it's insulting God or degrading God by by saying that he can't. That's a very nice feeling, and I don't just mean that sarcastically, like we should want to praise God, but we don't praise God with absurdities, you know. Like, so that's there is something like like uh underlying feeling, but it's really hiding arrogance.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:11

I would it sounds a little bit more. It sounds a little bit more like you're you're not hurting God, and that's a uh right.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:17

Um, I know there are other questions. I'd like to give a one and a half hour shear, so I'm gonna just really quickly move on to the very last point, and then I'll formally end shear and then I'll take whatever questions are left. Okay. So uh I said that I set out here to explain this in relation to theodicy. Okay, so here are the problems I'm going through with my students in the morning. Okay, really quick overview. And you want to listen to this, I've all of my shear are posted that I'm giving over to my women's shear group. In three eight, Ramam talks about how matter is the cause of all ra, all harm, all evil, all badness. 3-9, matter as the barrier to knowledge. 310, Ramam's theory and definition of Ra and God's relationship to it. 311, ignorance as a form of Ra or a cause of Ra. 312, the types of Ra in the world. 313, the purpose of the universe and of God. 314, the size of the universe. 315, God in relation to the impossible. That's where our parak comes in. 316, denials of God's knowledge, 317, first half, four false views of Hajjgaha, 317, second half, and 318, Ramam's view of Hajjgaha, 319 through 21, God's knowledge, and then 322 through 20, 323, Ramam's commentary on Safer Eo. So the question is what is this parak doing here and exactly here, and why is it necessary in this entire topic? Because this entire topic is Ram trying to explain Hajj Gaha. Okay. And the frustrating thing is the Ramam sometimes will tell you why this is relevant, but here he doesn't. Okay. So the question is, how does this fit into the sequencing of the Ramam's chapters on theodicy? Okay. Oh, okay. I couldn't have you're answering the question. All right. So I have had a theory for many years. Okay, this is the eighth time I've taught Eov. Um, so I I I this has been my theory. I'm gonna tell you my theory, and then I found support for it in the the Mufarjim of the Ramam. Okay. So in 312, the Ramam goes through the three types of Ra. And I think that there are Prakim and the Mora that stand uh independently that everyone should know because just how you view the world, it's very important too. And this is one of them. So I'm gonna read an excerpt here. He says the first kind of Ra is what befalls a person by virtue of the nature of generation and deterioration. Okay, things come into being and they pass away in the physical world. Uh that is by virtue of his being endowed with matter. Okay, you know, things made of matter on earth, or now we know all matter, undergoes change. For on account of this, some people are afflicted with great disabilities and defects from birth, or these arise due to changes that occur in the elements, such as bad air, which I assume he means malaria, because that's what they thought, that's why they call it malaria, because it was bad air, uh, lightning, landslides, etc. We have already explained that the divine wisdom has determined that there be no generation except through deterioration. Were it not for this individual deterioration, the generation of the species would not continue. Thus, the absolute beneficence and goodness of overflow and the overflowing of good are made clear. If you want to understand this, listen to my share. Now, here's the line: to wish one had flesh and bones, immune and impervious to all the raos that matter undergoes, is to unconsciously wish to unite opposites, to be both affected and unaffected. But what is unaffected does not develop, and it can never be more than one individual, not a species with many members. Forget that last sentence. Let's just unpack this sentence here. So the examples I give to my students here are that matter, by definition, has properties. Okay. Different types of matter have different properties, and matter has limitations. Matter has dimensions. Okay. However, you define dimension, matter has dimensions, and dimensions are limitations. All right. And part of the nature of matter having limitations is that they cannot be all things at all times in all ways. So again, clear a simple example. I asked my students, if you have a chair made out of plastic versus a throne made out of iron, okay, there are advantages, advantages and disadvantages to each. So the iron throne is more durable, it's sturdy, uh, you know, it can hold more weight, uh, you know, it is, you know, uh might look nicer or whatever, but it's also heavier, harder to produce, you know, um, subject to rust or whatever. Plastic chairs are easier to produce, they're light, but they're not durable, right? They're, you know, they might look ugly. You know, if you wanted to have a chair that has all the good properties of iron and plastic and none of the bad properties, you can't, because that's the nature of iron and plastic. And if you show me a material that has all of those properties, it'll have other defects because it has limitations. That's the nature of the physical world we live in. Or another example I give is you know, what makes chocolate such a good thing is that it is solid, but it melts in your mouth, you know. But one of the downsides is it melts when in the sun. And if you make chocolate that doesn't melt in the sun, well, it's not gonna melt in your mouth in the same way. You know, do we like it when our uh our our our we skin our knees? No. But if flesh were made impervious to to being to being skinned, you know, being skin, flesh, then you would not be flexible, it couldn't grow, you know. Do we know do we like having pain? No, we don't, but pain alerts us that something is wrong in the body or that it prevents us from injuring ourselves. So all physical things have inherent limitations because they're matter. Now, do you do you understand why these limitations must exist? Not necessarily, but by nature of matter, these things do exist. Okay, and again, I gave a whole shear on this. You can listen to my shearing on 312. Okay, but just hold this point on for a little, uh hold on to this point. What Galen said in the third part of the book, the utility of the organs, is correct. Do not delude yourself with the vain thought that it is possible for there to be generated from menstrual blood and sperm. That's what they thought that you know how conception works. A living being that does not die or does not suffer pain or is perpetually in motion or is as radiant as the sun. Galen was stating specific examples of the general truth that whatever arises in matter develops as fully as the matter of its species allow. The disabilities afflicting members of a species reflect the limitations of its matter. The most that can develop from blood and sperm is man, who has the nature we know, alive, rational, and mortal. It is therefore impossible that this kind of rot uh not exist for this species. And then he says, you will find that the raos of this kind that befall human beings are exceedingly few and occur only rarely, for you will find cities standing for thousands of years that have never been flooded or burned. Likewise, thousands of people are born in complete health, and one with a disability is born only as an anomaly. And if one insists and refuses to say an anomaly, then it is still exceedingly rare, not one in a hundred or even one in a thousand of those born in a state of soundness. So, context in 312 is that one of the three types of rod that afflict us is due to the inherent properties and limitations of physical matter. Okay. Now, there is a commentary on the Mornavuchim that it says Shemtov. And when you click on the allotor thing, it takes you to Shem Tov ibn Shemtov, who it says was a Kabbalist and a fierce opponent of rationalistic philosophy. I thought the Shem Tov on the Mornavuchim is Shem Tov ibn Falkara, but I don't know. And I look back there and it says Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov. So if anyone knows what Shem Tov this is, it's not the Bal Shem Tov for sure, okay? Um, yeah. So Shemto, so this is the answer that I've been giving for a very long time, and it was just nice to see him say this. He says, so this is his commentary on 315, which we've been reading. The impossible has a fixed nature, it is not the product of any agent. You already know what the master, the Ramam, said it is impossible for a being of flesh and bone not to receive corruption, pain, or any of the afflictions of matter, for this would be combining two opposites, which is inconceivable. And he intended in this chapter, in the chapter about the impossible, to clarify that the combination of two opposites is impossible according to all opinions. And therefore it is necessary that many evils befall the righteous without Hashem being described as unjust in any way, or without saying of him that he is not providentially attentive. This is what he began and said the impossible has a fixed nature, the meaning being that even if a person were not per permanently existent, it would be fitting for Hashem to make him in such a way that he would not be subject to corruption, or in such a way that afflictions such as befall him would not come upon him. And he responded to this by saying that this belongs to the impossible, and Hashem cannot be described as having power over it, since it is an agreed-upon ruling among all the sages that the impossible has a fixed nature. Okay, and I'll summarize in a second. For this reason, Hashem cannot be described as having power over it, it is not the product of any agent, and it is impossible for it to change. And not one of the thinkers disagrees with this at all, and none is ignorant of it except one who does not understand the intelligibles, who are, as the Raman said at the beginning of the work, like quote, the foolish, rash, and empty-headed person who lacks knowledge of the nature of existing impossible things. So, what's the answer? Why does the Raman put this here? But my my answer, which I I see in Shem Tob, I think Ibn Falkara, is unless we know that certain things are inherently impossible, even for God, we will be bothered by the question: why couldn't God have made physical matter without these limitations? In other words, you I could have said that differently. Hold on a second. Oh, fine. I wrote that at the end. Here, let me say it clearer is at the end of the day, there is a category of Ra that occurs due to the nature of physical matter and that matter has limitations. We may not know those limitations, and I get many arrogant students who think, well, I could design a better universe. And I say, Really? You know, now they don't say that overtly, but ultimately when they're asking why does it have to be, let's say, for example, we talk about controversial things like cancer, right? And you talk about cells mutating, right? Which is and and cancer results from that, people feel, well, God could have made a universe in which cells don't mutate and you don't have cancers. The contention here is like this. And the Ram says this in 312 is that God made the best possible physical world that he made, but it is a physical world, and physical things have limitations, and this is an inherent property of matter. And ultimately, if your question boils down to why couldn't God have made a physical world that's that has no limitations, you're essentially saying, why couldn't God have made a physical world with no physical properties? And that's impossible. Now, why did God make a physical world? That's addressed in 313 about why God made the universe and why we can't understand that. You know, why are there ra'os that are caused by human free will? That's addressed in 312. You know, but at the end of the day, you have to realize there are things that are impossible for God, but do not imply lack of power on his part and do not imply lack of hushgacha on his part. They are impossible. And one of those things is that physical matter, by definition, has limitations, and there is raw that comes from those limitations. So that's how it fits into the theodicy. So I think if you if you have a student or any person who thinks God can just do anything, you'll they'll always be bothered. Why couldn't God just magic it away? You know, and there is going to be uh there are going to be limitations, and you have to understand this. Again, I if you want me to unpack this, listen to my Shirmanyov, but this is the point uh of why he he brings it here. So just quick summary at the end here. So we went over uh seven approaches to how uh uh to the question can God do the impossible based on the Rishonim? I think it is very good to be aware of these answers, but also to be aware that the Rishonim discussed this, and it's like a dover push it to them that anyone who raises this question, if you can find me any Rishon who raises this question and says that God can do the impossible or disagrees with any of this, please show me, because I would love to show that there are disagreements to this. And then we have a Mach Lokus going, but I'm not aware. I I think I've found all the sources and all the Rishonim, and none of them say this. And if you want to practice the Judaism that the Rishonim didn't have, you can do that. There are there are there, you can hold by Renachan of Braslov, who says that God can make a oh, sorry, that God can make a square circle. But that's not the Judaism I practice. All right. Second point is the two objections, which are problematic and disturbing, are how do we know if we distinguish and say we God can't do what we can't conceive, what is intrinsically impossible, how do we know whether this is really intrinsically impossible? Rambaum himself says there are things that are in that category definitely, but there are things that we don't know if they're in that category. And there's no way for us to know how, including things that touch on the fundamentals of Torah, like creation Yesh Maya. And we don't know. Airstal says it's impossible, and we say it's possible. So we don't know. And then how can you limit God with your own mind? Well, this is the only tool we have, the mind is the only tool we have. And if you accept beliefs that violate logic, you're throwing all reason out the window, and you're saying God gave us reason for no reason, and um, and you are gonna undermine your belief in God. And the thing is, it's not this is not a limit on God, it's a limit on the tool that he gave us, and God we can only believe what the human can believe, because we're humans. If angels believe other stuff, that's why I don't know why the Ramban says even angels can't believe it. I don't know how he knows what angels can and can't do. Maybe they can, but we're not angels, so we can only talk about what we can do. And then how does this fit into theodicy? Because at the end of the day, there are things that are impossible for God intrinsically, but that does not imply a lack of power on his part or a lack of a Hajj Gaka. Okay, that's the formal end of the year. If you gotta go, you gotta go. If you have questions, I'll take them. Yes, SD.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:41

God knows what the things we have, he gave to us our definition of what we can know about God for making God's faith comes with that. And if not, I think it's not God, if not, even though we're gonna think our concept of God is whatever we can do with this tool.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:56

Right. Okay, good. Just to repeat this is our uh our concept of of God is based on this tool. So if there exists something outside of it, it's just it's just not our business. I mean, like it's just this is the tool we have, you know. Yeah. Um, any other questions? Oh, yeah, Robbie Zimmer.

SPEAKER_08 2:10:17

Yeah, like it's a little bit a little different because it's not really logically impossible for God to be on the world and putting your cancer on this thing. Right. It's that's what God was assuming people. I think you can't do this by physical game assuming the world with Hawkman.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:33

Okay, correct. Right, world with Hawkman, right.

SPEAKER_08 2:10:39

Right. That's how that's how nature works, then we can have physical cancer.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:45

Okay, that that's that's a fair point. Ravisimir is saying that it's not I was saying that a physical world must must have limitations. Yeah, yeah. But Ravazimmer's saying a physical world that operates according to Chachma. I have to think about it. I have to think about if that's what I really mean. I mean, I agree with you. I agree with you that that is true, but um uh the yeah, the way my mind is is conceiving of it now is I see, I don't understand. Let's say you had a world that didn't have that wasn't governed by Chachma, that was just occasionalism. Could you still have could you have logical contradictions?

SPEAKER_08 2:11:20

Right. You could have like nobody ever gets sick, nobody ever sneaked every time.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:23

Okay, right, right. That's true. That's true, yeah. Yeah, and and that is more see, yeah, that's interesting. I mean, that's the Ramam's uh objection to the Asharia, who's the third group about Hajjgaka that holds that God is doing everything directly and there's no Kochma whatsoever. Um Right, it's not logically impossible, correct? Right. Yeah. Okay, I hear that. Yeah, I I do have to think about whether I would say it that way or not. Yeah, Rivka.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:48

Um I'm curious how you would logically explain a flint stone, like the ability to strike a flintstone and bring out fire, like logically.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:57

Right. Well, so that's something that I mean, I I I can't explain it because I don't know science that well, but like like you know, anyone know how how flint works? I mean How can you explain a flint like flintstone? You know, like logically. I mean, it's it's a scientific explanation. I mean, the closest thing I have here is I did um hold on. Yeah, uh, yeah, hold on a second. I I I I prepared for this. I prepared for this. Hold on a second. I have here, uh let me yeah, it's not it's not logically impossible. Just to give you a flavor here, I have on my what I call my Hestadlus rant, um uh an exclamation of a hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Striking a match. When a match head is dragged across the striking surface, friction converts mechanical energy into heat, just enough to trigger a cascade of chemical reactions. Red phosphorus on the striking tip initiates the process, converting part of it into white phosphorus and generating heat. White potassium chloride releases oxygen to fuel the reaction. Sulfur and antimony sulfide then combined with the oxygen, producing a self-sustaining flame that quickly ignites the wooden stick. The simple act of striking match unleashes. Okay, fine. Now you can understand each of those as well, but like it's gonna, you know, there's gonna be a certain amount that we understand and a certain amount that I maybe we don't understand at this point. But there's the point is that there's nothing that requires accepting a contradiction in order to understand how this goes. There's understanding cause and effect and how the causes contribute to the effect. But the I don't understand, I don't see there being a problem with the logical contradiction here. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:32

Yeah, well, a match is different. A flint is like it looks like any other rock, right? But it has that innate potential that's a specific kind of rock that God made, that when you strike it, you get a flame. So, you know, the same thing, like we don't know everything, and even in nature, in a very structured thing, there are always things we're surprised by and we're discovering. Right. So they're not always logical.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:54

No, but see, that that's that's a misuse of the word logic, right? So so that's like the Rajpa's example of we don't know how a magnet works. What I'm saying, and what these Rashonim are saying, is accepting something that violates the laws of the mind, that it requires accepting a contradiction. Not understanding something is not the same thing as illogical. There are many things that we don't know, which is what you're trying to show with your example, but it does not mean that we have to accept a logical contradiction. So we can accept the if we have evidence that something works from the senses, like a flint stone, or from the Mysorah that God has parted the sea and will resurrect the dead, and we don't understand how it works, we can still accept it, but we can never accept a logical contradiction. That's the distinction.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:38

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:40

Um yeah, uh SD, do you have a question?

SPEAKER_07 2:14:44

Okay, so I was asking about something like I mean, you do have said that this year about you know we discussed it on Friday about the nature of matter in something that is always changing. It's not a question of hot law, it's a question of it being like incapable of saying in the right.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:58

Right, but I think Rabbi Zimmer is cutting, undercutting beneath that and saying that even matter in a universe that was an occasionalist universe, you know, would there would be no such thing as matter that has properties, right? Like there would just be God just doing everything directly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So so in other words, our our discussion has been presupposing that we're talking about this universe that has matter, uh, because that's how the wrong has has taken it in some point. Yeah. Correct, yeah, right, exactly. Right. So so we can believe that God can resurrect the dead and bring to life someone who was alive then died, but to for someone to be alive and not alive at the same time in the same way is a logical contradiction. God can never do that. Um, I also wanted to mention that um, you know, there are things like the what's the what the the um uh miracle of the bade haaron. Right what what's the uh what's the miracle there? Yeah, that they don't take up space. Right. Yeah, right. Or everyone had room to bow down, you know, um that that like is, you know, and there was ample room. So those are examples that people quote from the Mysora to be like, oh, well, you can believe that God could do something that violates logic. Yeah, right. So you there are people who who who say that that violates logic. So there are two approaches to take. One is that the miracle is not literally what it seems, like the Ram saying that it just it felt spacious, you know. The other is to say that it doesn't violate logic, it's that there's something physical going on. Like Sidigoon says you can't make the eye of a camel, uh camel go through the uh hole of a ring or whatever without making one bigger, the other smaller. So God can trick people, you know, like you can you can believe that also, but but for it to be and not be at the same time, I I only think the Mesora could compel us to believe that. Yeah, because Gail.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:49

Uh yeah, uh this isn't really on believing in something that's illogical, but um is there an idea that there is some form of perception that you could that you can call belief that's accessed through another faculty beyond that maybe seemingly okay. I guess the the example I'm trying to think of is something like Moshe's experience of like you know, seeing a Chev's back. Like I can't explain what that is. I don't understand what that I just know that that's apparently he did that. Um and it must be that I assume and maybe I'm wrong about this, that that was not done through Moshe's own logic. It wasn't he didn't access that perception through a logical means, but somehow he perceived it, whatever it is that he perceived. Um, and so even if I can't necessarily uh achieve that particular thing, maybe there is some realm of other experience too for that the people in general can achieve that is not through the pathway of logic.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:50

Without addressing the question of Moshis Nibula, which I don't know how that works, um the closest to Ramam says is he does entertain this possibility, uh at least the possibility of something existing like this. Uh, in the chapter we read, he says, further, is there some criterion by which one may distinguish between the imaginative faculty and the intellect? And is that criterion something external to both of them? Or is it within the intellect itself that one distinguishes between what is intelligible and what is imagined? So Ram entertains the possibility that there might be something that plays a role in your knowledge that is neither the intellect nor the imagination, or neither entirely in the intellect nor entirely in the imagination. But to my knowledge, he holds that Navua, at least non-Mosaic Navua, operates through the intellect, and even Mosaic Navua does. So I'm not aware of there being another, another like faculty. So again, this is the this is a closer this slide is the closest I could see to there being something outside of that. But I I I don't know of anything wrong with saying that there's a faculty outside of that, the imagination and the and the intellect and the senses. And you know, he lays out the faculties in the beginning of Shimona Procan. So could there be? Maybe. I don't know. AI. No. Okay. I think it's a good stop important today. So thank you for coming. Uh and if you have any questions and other sources, please share them with me. Because uh, again, this is hopefully not the last time I teach this, but this is the clearest I have it right now. So always room for clarity. All right, bye.

SPEAKER_06 2:19:07

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:07

Thank you. Thanks.