2021/5782
From time to time, Jews have been summoned to debate those with whom we differ. We do not relish such debates, but we often are unable to opt out. In the debates where we were permitted to speak freely, we reluctantly trounced the opposition.
We shall review three classic examples of these encounters. We will examine a debate with Roman philosophers recorded in the Mishna, the great disputation between the Ramban and Pablo Christiani in Barcelona in 1263, and the well-publicized debate between Rav Jonathan Sacks and the militant atheist Richard Dawkins broadcast by the BBC in 2012.
Jews vs. Romans: The Mishna in Avodah Zarah (4:7) provides a stunning example of the strategy to adopt in such debates (translation from Sefaria.org): The gentiles asked the Jewish Sages in Rome: If it is not God’s will that people should engage in idol worship, why does He not eliminate it? The Sages said to them: Were people worshipping only objects for which the world has no need; He would eliminate it. But they worship the sun and the moon and the stars and the constellations. Should He destroy His world because of the fools? The gentiles said to the Sages: If so, let Him destroy those objects of idol worship for which the world has no need and leave those objects for which the world has a need. The Sages said to them: If that were to happen, we would thereby be supporting the worshippers of those objects for which the world has need, as they would say: You should know that these are indeed gods, as they were not eliminated from the world, whereas the others were eliminated.
The Jews’ Strategy: We can discern three aspects of the Jewish strategy in this debate. First, the Jews did not respond with the proper answer. Ask any Yeshiva high school student, and they will tell you the appropriate response; Hashem grants us free will and does not intervene in how the world proceeds. If a Jew sadly chooses to switch on a light on Shabbat, the light will go on. The Gemara (Avoda Zara 54b) presents this idea in a Braita that complements this Mishna but was not part of the debate with the Roman philosophers (translation from Sefaria.org). Consider the case of one who stole a Se’ah of wheat and went and planted it in the ground. By right, it should not grow. But the world goes along and follows its course (“Olam KeMinhago Holeich”), and the fools who sinned will be held to judgment in the future for their transgressions.
Why did we not provide the true answer to the Romans? It is because the Romans would not grasp our solution. Hashem granting us free will stems from Hashem’s Middah of Tzimtzum, His choice to limit Himself so that we can function in His world (as explained by the Meshech Chochmah to Bereishit 1:26).
The idea of God limiting Himself to create room for others is foreign to the Roman outlook. To the Romans, the gods sought only to aggrandize their power. Therefore we had to respond to the Romans in a manner that is understandable to them. We say to them that Hashem is refraining from eliminating Avodah Zarah as part of maintaining His world. This answer is one that a Roman can comprehend.
It is for this reason we did not accurately translate Bereishit 1:26 into Greek (Megillah 9a), as “let us make man” since the words “let us” express (as explained by Rashi) Hashem’s humility in consulting with the angels before creating humanity. To the ancient Greek mindset, humility is a concept that does not apply to a god. Therefore, the seventy sages who Ptolemy forced to translate the Torah into Greek deliberately mistranslated the phrase “let us” to “let me” for the Torah to be intelligible to the foreign ear.
The second point of the Chachamim’s strategy is familiar even to entry-level chess players. The initial answer of the Chachamim set up their opponents to offer what the latter thought was a game-ending winning argument. Instead, the Romans’ response set up the game-ending argument of the Chachamim – checkmate. Chess players are familiar with this technique of luring an opponent to a move that he thinks will lead to victory when it leads to their downfall (in military strategy, this is called a feint).
The third point is that the Jews do not attack paganism. They defend the Jewish point of view and move on. Jews living under Roman rule would have needlessly endangered themselves if they went on the offensive. While they refer to those who worship the sun, moon, and stars as fools, they do so only because it is part of their defending the Torah position.
Ramban vs. Pablo Christiani: In 1263 the Jews found themselves in the perilous position of Kings James of Aragon coercing the Ramban to debate Pablo Christiani. Pablo convinced the king that he would persuade the Ramban to accept Christianity. Pablo expected that Jews worldwide would then follow the Ramban’s expected capitulation.
Pablo, to put it very mildly, picked the wrong fight. He was overwhelmed by the Ramban in every aspect of the debate. After the debate, even King James awarded Nachmanides a prize of 300 gold coins and declared that he never heard "an unjust cause so nobly defended.”
The Wikipedia entry “Disputation of Barcelona” presents highlights of the debate, which include Nachmanides noted that prophetic promises of the Massianic age (such as Yeshayahu 2:4), a reign of universal peace and justice had not yet been fulfilled. Nachmanides also argued that since the appearance of Yeishu, the world had still been filled with violence and injustice, and among all religions, he claimed that the Christians were the most warlike. He asserted that questions of the Messiah are of less dogmatic importance to Jews than most Christians imagine, because it is more meritorious for the Jews to observe the precepts of the Torah under a Christian ruler, while in exile and suffering humiliation and abuse, than under the rule of the Messiah, when everyone would perforce act in accordance with the Law. Pablo claimed: "Behold the passage in Isaiah, chapter 53, tells of the death of the messiah and how he was to fall into the hands of his enemies and how he was placed alongside the wicked, as happened to Yeishu. Do you believe that this section speaks of the messiah? Ramban said to him: "In terms of the true meaning of the section, it speaks only of the people of Israel, which the prophets regularly call 'Israel My servant' or 'Jacob My servant.'
Unlike the debate with the Romans, Ramban aggressively criticizes Christianity. Ramban, however, does so only because the king compelled him to do so. Ramban even begs King James to end the debate. Ramban trounces his opponent in a discussion the Ramban very much wanted to avoid from its beginning to its end.
In the end, Ramban is banished from Barcelona for his success and makes his way to Eretz Yisrael. There Ramban began the process of rebuilding Eretz Yisrael’s Jewish community. In many ways, the Ramban’s arrival in Eretz Yisrael was a turning point for Jews in Eretz Yisrael. Our enemies ironically began a process that eventually led to the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael in the twentieth century and having a majority of the Jewish people living in Eretz Yisrael in the twenty-first century. As the Torah teaches, the more they oppressed us, the greater we become (Shemot 1:12).
Rav Sacks’ Debate with Richard Dawkins: Continuing Chazal and Ramban's tradition, Rav Sacks very capably repels Richard Dawkins’ attacks against the Abrahamic religions. Unlike the debate recorded in the Mishna, which is recorded very briefly in the Mishna, and unlike the Ramban’s written account of his debate with Pablo, Rav Sacks’ debate with Professor Dawkins is archived on YouTube.
Rav Sacks, unlike Ramban, was most eager to debate Richard Dawkins. Doing so involved no physical danger to Jews. Remaining silent in the face of the popularity of Dawkins’ work “The God Delusion,” though, posed a spiritual threat to which Rav Sacks rose to the occasion, and ably Sacks combated in oral debate and with his work “The Great Partnership: God, Science, and the Search for Meaning.”
Rav Sacks wisely chooses not to debate proofs of God. Instead, Rav Sacks criticizes Richard Dawkins’ belittling of religion as useless and even harmful. Rav Sacks very capably shows, in terms comprehendible to all, that without religion and belief in God, life is without meaning. Rav Sacks cites a Harvard study showing that religious people are much more inclined to be charitable and kind. Rav Sacks recounts that during his research of the moral philosophy at Cambridge, he discovered that objective moral guidelines and boundaries are meaningless without God and religion. Religion, as the great partner of science, guides science when it goes morally awry. Without God, Rav Sacks adds, there is no sense of hope or dignity.
Rav Sacks asks Richard Dawkins how many Jewish commentaries on the Bible he has read. Professor Dawkins fails to honestly concede that he has not read even one such work. Instead, he dances around the question saying that he respects the work of an “enlightened” commentator. After Dawkins roundly condemns fundamentalism, Rav Sacks points out that Dawkins reads the Jewish Bible as a fundamentalist since he comments on the Tanach without reading one bit of Jewish commentary.
There is much more we can share about this debate, but here are a few more highlights. Rav Sacks sets forth when the Jewish commentaries understand the Tanach literally and when we interpret it allegorically. He cites university studies that set forth a scientific explanation for how the Red (or Reed) Sea split. Most importantly, he explains how Richard Dawkins misunderstands the story of Akeidat Yitzchak.
Despite the moderator’s bias in favor of Professor Dawkins, Rav Sacks ably succeeds in setting forth the need for tradition and community. In the most intense portion of the program, Rav Sacks takes issue with Dawkins’ ugly characterizing of the Old Testament's God as misogynistic, masochistic, a bully, and an “ethnic cleanser,” even going to the extent of labeling this statement as anti-Semitic. Rav Sacks says that he does not decry atheists who respect religion, such as his eminent mentor, Sir Isaiah Berlin. However, Rav Sacks rightfully expresses his horror at radical atheism that gratuitously disparages religion.
The recording of the debate captures the superiority of Rabbi Sacks’ manners and mannerisms. Rabbi Sacks comes off as a gentleman per excellence who speaks with no animosity, whereas Richard Dawkins comes off as an awkward and arrogant bully. Dawkins’ defending his ugly characterization of God as “humorous” and his description of his book “The God Delusion” as having a gentle tone make him appear socially awkward and out of touch. To his credit, Dawkins at least expresses a begrudging bit of regret for incorporated an anti-Semitic strain of Christianity into his understanding of the Jewish Bible.
It is most interesting, though, how Rav Sacks emerged as the great defender of the three Abrahamic religions against Richard Dawkins. It is most stunning to see the debate’s audience include Christian ministers and religious Moslems in addition to religious Jews and (L’Havdil) atheists. It is a proud moment when a rabbi is chosen to defend religion and an Orthodox rabbi at that.
Conclusion: In every generation, the Haggadah teaches, “Omedim Aleinu LeChaloteinu,” our enemies try to eliminate us. They try to destroy us not only with violence but with intellectual arguments as well. Fortunately, “HaKadosh Baruch Matzileinu Miyadam,” Hashem saves us from the hands of our scholarly foes by sending rabbis in each situation who rise to the occasion and hand our highbrow enemies a resounding defeat.
One may wonder who will defend us after Rav Sacks’ untimely passing in 2020. In response, we cite the Gemara (Chagiga 5b), which poses this question after the passing of Rabi Yehoshua ben Chananiah, who very ably defended our people in debates with Roman philosophers before the Roman Caesar. The Gemara responds that Hashem sends a capable spokesman appropriate for each generation. “Al Tira Yisrael,” just as Hashem has sent the right Torah defenders in the past, He will continue to do so in the future.