Amongst all the comment spam from intellefundies like RG, Deganev and Yus (none of whom do the cause of OJ much good), there is some good stuff from people such as Anthony and EvanstonJew. Shame it has gotten buried in a pile of fundamentaslit.
EJ in particular is someone who usually has something interesting to say, whether I agree with him or not, it's still interesting, unlike some of the mindless fundamentalist nonsense that some commenters think passes for intelligent thought. Oh that all my commenters would be like EJ! (Careful what you wish for). Here is a collection of Evanston Jew's comments:
"I want to respond to the argument that Torah isn't true. I had a teacher way back when who taught me the following derech: Always ask with respect to any idea ...What does it mean, is it true and is it interesting. Let's say, hypothetically, Torah is not true. The last two questions remain and in my view are more than enough to generate a culture of Orthodoxy which I believe is necessary for the preservation of the Jewish people.
Anyone who studies tanach seriously realizes that even after our having decided the mesorah is false we are still far away from understanding the meaning of the text or fully comprehending the significance of what did happen.The same is true for all the other major works of Torah, from the Talmud to the Zohar.
I don't know about others, but for me there is nothing more interesting or enjoyable than trying to say peshat in Torah commensurate with all we know about the world. Asking whether it is true never enters into the question. A similar point can be made about the way of life, Orthodoxy in the broadest sense, that enables the culture of Torah to thrive.
Against my variant one would have to argue that an Orthodox culture is inferior to say a literary or scientific culture. Not so easy to do.
There is an implicit assumption that Orthodoxy is a type of governance that can be accepted or thrown off, the famous kabalas ol malchus shemayim. The idea is that we are independently subjects/ selves and would remain pretty much the same with or without the way of life,what I called the culture of Orthodoxy.
I think this premis is not fully true for most people who have been raised Orthodox with a yeshiva education. The power structure that constitute Orthodox life not only governs its subjects, it creates them. Listen to the crowd on Yeshiva World or some such site....how they talk, how they think. It is clear the culture, the way of life called charedi has created these people. Why should it be any different for Jews with one foot in and one foot out of Orthodoxy.
And it is with respect to who I am, who I have become over a lifetime of contact and immersion in Orthodox life that I say the truth of some dogma is really irrelevant. Everything of interest in me remains the same whether or not P is written before or after the churban, and so on.
A life conducted inside a Borges infinite library is of value or not independently of whether the infinite collection of books are true.
I would say first the obvious point that many yeshiva people live in an intellectual Jewish ghetto where tanach makes them uncomfortable, midrash is unappealing, philosophy is treif and kabbalah is frightening.
Torah bemiluah, Torah in all its fullness, where no sefer is foreign and no idea is treif not only encompasses all of the above, but also what Jews have believed over the years about Torah and their place in the world and why. Think of this as one vector. Orthogonal to this are the many derachim of reading and interpreting these texts and ideas, (psychoanalytic, philological, historical and on and on.)
Parallel to this mesorah is the astounding and truly mind boggling fact that over the course of our history we were "everywhere" worth being. Greece, Persia, Islam, Christendom, the secular West. Our literature and practices intersect with these other streams both influencing and being influenced, as well being witness to the indigenous developments unique to each of these cultures. So for starters you have the entire humanities as a playground sans Icelandic sagas and Beowulf.
Add to this, questions of bildung and the care and development of our selves, and each of us as existential beings, as RJBS might say, faces the personal problem of putting together a coherent and plausible picture of the world and our place in it. So although lo aleicha hamelacha ligmor we now have all of philosophy understood as the science of science & as wisdom, plus the more fun tasks of developing attitudes and a personality which will enable us to live well and with meaning.
As far as I can tell a life can pass, only a small part of the library will be looked at even by the most bookish of men, and the word truth has appeared rarely if ever, and never in a way to spoil the party."
HALOSCAN COMMENTS
