Podcast Episode

The Living Jewishly Podcast

Reading Sinai: Tamar Ross and the Ethics of Cumulativism

May 31, 2022 Episode 79

Living Jewishly / Tamar Ross

“If the Torah is to bear a message for all generations… its revelation has to be a dynamic process, a gradual unfolding that reveals its ultimate significance incrementally, only through time.”

— Tamar Ross

The giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai reads something like a fairy tale, and to take the story at face value requires a high level of credulity. How is it possible for an invisible, unknowable, and divine force to communicate with human beings? How are we to accept not only this narrative, but the sacred laws and teachings that derive from it?

When it comes to the Torah, how do we find the core of “truth” beneath and behind the layers of subjective human interpretation — and is this “truth” still relevant in our contemporary world?

This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is an instalment of What Would You Do?, a podcast about ethics in the modern world. Dr. Elliot Malamet speaks with Tamar Ross, Professor Emerita of Jewish Philosophy at Jerusalem’s Bar-Ilan University and a leading specialist of religious feminist philosophy, about the implications of the Mount Sinai story and how we may approach it in our modern context.

This rich and fascinating conversation explores the tension between Orthodox beliefs and critical theories, the malleability of meaning behind words, and the concept of non-realism.

“Humans haven’t begun to scratch the surface of possible modes of existence and consciousness.”

— Tamar Ross

This‌ ‌episode discusses:‌ ‌

Three assumptions that make up Professor Ross’s understanding of the Mount Sinai narrative and other traditional messages
The primary job of religious statements of “truth” — and how they shape our worldview and day-to-day practices
Three strands of thought that have helped Professor Ross build a subjectivist approach to metaphysics

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Highlights:‌ ‌

00:51 Intro

05:06 Tamar Ross & youthful faith

12:49 3 assumptions of cumulativism

17:32 Words & meaning

20:30 Non-realism & cultural perspectives

25:43 Metaphysics, subjectivism & Kant

28:56 Kabbalah & G-d’s view of human life

32:00 Ludwig Wittgenstein

35:27 Orthodoxy & religious fictionalism

41:44 Obligation, meaning & prayer