R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that’s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that.
Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that?
R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that’s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm.
We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they’re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value.
The interview is available here.
The most interesting part was the statement that there is information at the fingertips of our students of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to. I"m still waiting for those answers and responses. Everyone always says they have answers but in my experience these answers don't really exist and they trot out the same old tired answers that we have all heard many times. RYGB on Harry's blog is making similar claims that he has the answers, that he has a preponderance of evidence that Judaism is true, however, he refuses to post them (see the comments here). The reason is very simple, he knows that as soon as he posts them they will be instantly refuted.
They do have responses, but they are deceptive and intellectually dishonest.
ReplyDeleteIn other words they have no REAL responses. When I first started asking questions I was sure that there were good answers. However, now that I have talked to many smart religious Jews, Rabbis, etc. I see that they have no answers. The fact is that most of them don't understand the questions as they are so caught up in their assumptions.
DeleteAlso they may be familiar with traditional Jewish texts (I am giving them the benefit of the doubt) but either are ignorant of basic critical thinking skills and academic disciplines or just reject them. I have found almost always the latter.
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