[00:00:00] Speaker A: That's ultimately the aim with Torah, that we're all meant to be directly involved in making meaning for ourselves. Because if we don't and we just believe it because someone else told us, it's not powerful enough, it doesn't keep you going.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the current podcast. As always, we have a fantastic episode lined up for you today. Aria and I are going to be talking to Rabbi doctor Raphael Zahrem, the author of the finalist for the Rabbi Sax Book Prize in 2023, questioning belief, Torah and tradition in an age of doubt. Rabbi Doctor Zarim has a wonderful talent for taking complex ideas and distilling them down and making them understandable while retaining their complexity at the same time. So here's our conversation with Rabbi doctor Rafael Zarim, teaching his Torah. Al Raghel ahat.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: We are delighted to be joined by Rabbi doctor Rafael Zahram. Rabbi Zarim, thank you so much for joining us on the Quorum podcast. And please, can you teach us your Torah?
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Al Raghala Khat thank you so much, and it's great to be here on the podcast. Al vega lachat my Torah, let me think. I would say it's how Torah works.
First to understand what kind of text that it is. It's been misread in so many times. Obviously, we see as our source of halacha, of jewish law. But then people seem to take it very literally as historical fact. And there's a fear that if we go away from that, say, oh, it's not all fact, in some ways, it's less true, but for me, it becomes more true.
And understanding the genre of the text is fundamental. It extends out to Tanakh as well, and why those books were written and how. And then how did Chazal read them? So what happens is we put a lens on in the modern world of what we assume Chazal are doing, which is looking for truth. And then we see that because that's the lens that we're wearing. But actually, I want to think, how did Rabbi Akiva think? And so if you look at not just some midrashim, but all the midrashim or all the agadot, you get a feel for the way chazal read these things, which is rather non literal. They're not that interested in that aspect of it. They're interested in the meaning and the value, not as information, but as inspiration or purpose of living. And so I've dedicated my life to reading the text slowly and carefully, what Ruth Calderon called being marinated in the texts. And you read it and you live with it, and it plays through your head. And then you start noticing phrases. Why are they there? And then suddenly, some of the more weird commentators make sense. The greatest readers of the Torah were the rabbis. So what's the irony? Instead of being inspired by those rabbis to read the Torah, what do we do? We read the rabbis. We read their commentaries, and that makes no sense. If they were here, they say, why are you reading me? I was reading the text. Learn from me how to read the text. But that's what you should be doing. They're the best guides. They noticed not everything, but so much nuance in a phrase, in a letter, in a structure. And learning from them how to read can help us to read and show that the Torah has relevance and meaning for us now, instead of imprinting what we want to see in it, letting it speak to us.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: So, before drilling down into sort of more detail, and how that then manifests itself into your book, questioning belief, I suppose if we could look at. I don't know if it's a more general part of your experience or more specific, depending on your view of Torah, I suppose, but your journey to jewish education, maybe, I don't know if it took a detour or not. Through a doctorate in physics, which is looking at how the world works.
So how, first of all, what is that story? How does one go from a doctorate in physics to the rabbinate in education?
But then also, how has sort of the.
Suppose that the mechanics of physics and learning physics and studying the universe, how has that influenced your Torah of figuring out how the Torah works?
[00:04:31] Speaker A: So, two aspects. The first one, in terms of moving from physics, I thought I was going to be a scientist, and I publish papers in theoretical physics, quantum chaos theory. And the more papers you publish, the harder it is for them not to give you a doctorate, because if you've published in the major journals and you get feedback, it's peer review. It's the hardest thing. You get paper review back on your paper to publish. And the feedback I got was pedagogically strong. This person should teach physics. I was literally, I'm being told you're an okay scientist, but you're really clear. And so I figured, well, in that case, let me be clear in a subject that I love even more. And I'd always been teaching Torah, and I kind of pivoted. I was offered different jobs, somebody to pivot, to concentrate on teaching Torah and analyzing that. Having said that, the other aspect is science teaches you to truly understand something. My tutor gave me a four page paper. Science papers are much shorter than four page paper. And he said, read and understand this. I said, what does understand me? And he goes, unless you can derive yourself every equation, you don't understand it. Three months later, I understood the paper. I understood what it means to understand line by line, and that accuracy and slow reading and full understanding is what is required to be a Torah scholar as well. So I think it was great training for me also. It meant that spurious arguments, which are then brought into Torah, things that don't quite hold together, I'm quite good at all conscious of being self aware about confirmation, confirmation bias. I want it to be true because it is, or I cover sources to make it work, and that doesn't work. You have to really be constantly looking for Emet when you're studying Torah. Does your argument work? Not just do I like it, but what are the arguments against it? And do those fall apart? And that's important as well, to know you're really on the right track.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: So the jump from studying physics to writing the book there was. I mean, it wasn't just a jump from one to the other.
The topic, I mean, I suppose if you could talk about the concept of the book and how that journey in and of itself was a number of years. It wasn't a, well, I'm going to write a book now. What I'm going to write about. Oh, this is interesting. There's an actual. This is like a life's work, almost.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Of course, I began working in the equivalent. It's called the UgIA, but it's like the federation in London. And my job was to raise the level of jewish learning in all the youth movements and clubs, orthodox and progressive, and to bring more toa text into their study. So they read them in their way. So I was always very close, the text. And I was teaching in adult education. I spent a couple of years in the Mandel School of leadership in Israel, and then I was privileged to come back and help rebuild the London School of Jewish Studies, where chief rabbi Sachs was the president of the college. And I was brought back to run it and to build it into a large, successful adult education center. And I'd been taught by rabbi Sacks. And what does that mean? That means when you teach Torah, you are mechadesh. That's your job. The Gemara says, if shall I bet Midrash Belichidush. There can be no me drash without Kidushim. So every time I taught, I would look at the commentaries and explain all of those as he would do and then suggest some ideas on top. And after 20 years, had quite a lot of that stuff. And then I discovered not everybody does that. And I started thinking, well, he said to me, Rafi, it's about time you start writing. So I gathered my thoughts in different areas, and one person I've been learning with for a long time, a good friend, Stuart Rodin, said, you need to give responses to challenging questions people have in the Torah. And I did a small book load at first with a good friend, Maureen Kendler, Zikhonali Verkha, Wonderful Woman. And this was for high school kids about responding short answers to questions in an honest way, not in a triumphalist, of course, ta's true, but an honest here's what we can say reasonably in response. And people responded to me and said, we want something deeper. We want something that really goes into the questions of how that works. So I decided that I would choose twelve or 13 fundamental questions and try and build responses. And at first, Stuart, like, would say, that's not good enough. Try something better and build. So it forces you, as I learned from Bisex, to read everything you can on the subject and to build the argument. And so, you know, each chapter has about 20 of my different Shurim coming together. And then a whole bunch of new material had to research. And what you discover when you write a book, if you're honest, is that what you have to write? You can't get away with, as it were, an issue, right? People make little jumps. Torah teacher, which seem reasonable in class. When you sit down and write, it don't work so well. Every stage of the argument has to hold together and be consistent, and that's what I was trying to do in these books. So the fundamental questions of why is the, why is the Torah 50? Why is the world 14 and a half billion years old, and the Torah says seven days? People have asked before that and they've given different answers. And I summarize those. But then why is it written the way that it's written? What's the purpose of it?
The exodus story, of course it's true. It happened. We came out of Egypt. But you can't prove that archaeologically, historically. Now people will point to certain things and say, oh, that seems likely that it is, but that's not the same as knowing. So I'm very honest about what we know, what seems reasonable, and what we can understand from that. So those different chapters are also about faith or belief in God. I wanted to write using the Qurat in the Torah, so there's no index the back of my book of subjects, because each chapter stands on its own. But there is an index of biblical references because there's hundreds of Pasukim from Tanakh quoted because I like go back to the original source. How does rabbis read that Pasuk? So that's key.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: Before we go further into the book and hear more about it and some of the topics that you talk about, I'd love it if you could share, as the rabbi sacks chair of modern jewish thought nsJs, if you could share maybe some of your experiences with rabbi Sacks, what you learned from him, maybe kind of his approaches that informed your teaching and also your writing in this book.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: So he taught me to read, as I said, the text very carefully, to read everything on the subject and to have it relevant to modern life. And once you've looked at everything else, you're allowed to suggest your ideas and to look at the bigger picture. Why was this text being written? What was the context of what was going on and understand structures and so on, and also be playful and creative in the way that you write.
Let me give you a little bit of his Torah, which people don't know about. For instance, if you all those out there in podcast land, I'm sure you have lots of korean books. I'm sure you've got a korean siddhor. So look at the translation of the Amida, the last part, the last three bracha, which is an everyday anshabbat, second last bracha about thanks to Godot. Blessed are you, God Hatofzemachar, whose name is goodly arts. Quel if I can say such a word here translates it, whose name is beneficencence.
And for you it is appropriate to praise. How does rabbisaks translate it? Belessod, are you a God whose name is the good? And the good he puts in quotation marks, and you allowed it in printing it. So it's a translation, and suddenly the word the good is in quotation marks and the ghdev is a capital g. Whose name is the good? What does that mean? Why has he done that? What's he trying to do with that? And I thought about it for a long time, and I thought about his background in philosophy, and I thought about his understanding of the greek source of philosophy, and that Plato's aim in his writings was to work out what is the nature of the good, the nature of existence, and therefore how to live the good life. And what I thought was suggesting is that the entire project of greek philosophy was just one of God's names. And I asked him about it, and he smiled broadly.
So that's an example of careful reading of a text, of what it really means, suggesting to make those connections. And when I read pasukim, I'm always trying to understand the context in which it exists, the human element of it, and its important relevance for today. So, those are some of the things that he taught me to do.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: So now, looking. Looking at the book, each chapter stands so on its own to answer a big question about Torah, about belief, about. I mean, the title of the book question, belief, about what we're doing here and essentially coming to try and understand or uncover how Torah works. So, staying on theme, and Al Ragh Elahat standing on one leg, can you just take us through that process very, very quickly? Understanding, of course, that the leaps that one can take in a shih, you can take now, but those leaps are explained thoroughly in the book.
The starting point, the problem that you identify the question that you have and then taking that through to.
I know that you don't like using the word answers, correct?
[00:13:20] Speaker A: That's right. I like responses.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Responses. So, from the question and then taking it through to a response.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Sure. Okay, so, first of all, there's three different kinds of questions in the book. The first 3rd is about origin type questions.
Does the flood story still hold water? Does evolution clash with Torah? Did the exodus happen? Those are kind of origin story questions about the beginnings of Torah, and that's often a clash with science and nature and so on. The middle third are moral, challenging questions. What is the Torah? Slavery. Slavery is a stain on history. The american declarative independence, the whole change in America involves getting rid of slavery, and in Britain as well. Why does the Torah not ban it completely? Why does it allow it? Why does the Torah allow collective punishment?
It seems to just wiping out Amalek or stomana moa. So everybody there, man, women and children, it's a great moral question, and one with lots of relevance for now, or the elitist question, which is, isn't being the chosen people a little bit racist? So there's kind of moral questions and about eating animals and so on. So that's the middle. I give a selection, not all, of fundamental moral questions on the Torah. And the last third is about faith, about belief. What does it mean to believe in God? What happens if you don't? Why can you argue with God? And why pray? Those kind of questions? So, let's look at the belief in God one. And the way I structure every chapter is I explore the question. And I bring up answers I think, aren't that convincing, what people like to say? So people say, well, if I could see God, then I'd believe. I'm not sure that's the case, because the Benaisael saw God and they quickly didn't believe afterwards. And then I go through the proofs for God, and none of them are really compelling. And rabbis don't know this, but every high school kid, definitely in London, who does philosophy, learns the proofs of God and the holes in them. And there's books about this. And it's important to understand. Now, obviously, rabbis want to like proofs of God because they believe in God, but the proofs don't get you to a personal God anyway. It's just the idea of some kind of being. But they're not compelling. So that's problematic. But then you look at the disproofs for God, the so called ones of the new atheists. They're also not compelling. So you're left with not knowing and realizing it doesn't take you anywhere. So you have to try on a new path. So then I look, for instance, at the Rambam. Now, Rambam writes, is Mishnehtar. It's a book of jewish law. It's like the highway Code. It just tells you what to do, doesn't tell you stories, except when he begins the laws of idolatry.
He tells a story, a long story, of how belief in God was lost to early humankind, and how Avraham rediscovered it and was challenged and eventually found a path to God. It's an entirely entire chapter, the first peric describing this story. What's it doing there? And so some of them told me, well, Avraham believes in God, so you should believe in God. That doesn't make sense. Why would he tell the story? And the more I thought about it, I realized that Avam was trying to tell you this was the Derek Avraham. This is how he found it. But how will you find it? And that combines with a hasidic reading of apostle kin Shemot, where it talks about in our mider, we don't say.
We say.
And the Baal Shem Tov, based on this, a much older medieval commentator says, because the God of Avraham was not the God of Yitzhak. The God of Yitzhak was not the God of Yaakov. It's different, right? And the God of Alex. Alex. And the God of Ariye is not the God of Raphael. We find, even though God objectively exists, we know God individually, subjectively, and therefore we have to go on a search. And therefore, the story of Avraham's finding or looking for God is his story. And that is a kind of model for what you might find in your own way. So it becomes that belief in God is not a yes or no. It's not a binary. I believe or I don't believe. It's a journey in the same way as the other ten Commandments. If I said to you, do you honor your parents or family? You might say, well, I try, but just no, yes or no answer. It doesn't work like that. I did quite well last week, I'm going to try next week. It's an arc of a life, keeping Shabbat as well.
And so belief in God is also a journey.
It's about a search. And so I start describing it in that sense now. I don't go down the path of, it's really good to have doubts. I know people like to do that in the kind of modern world. Doesn't make sense to me. Right. It's okay to have questions, and Tehillim allows us. And actually, rough sacks showed me once when there were difficult stuff in my life, the tehillim that rage at Hashem and ask why without giving answers. You know, the voice of doubt is in Tanakh. It's amazing that we don't have to be embarrassed about it. We can you say the right tehillim that relate to that? But it's because sometimes the journey feels like I'm not getting anywhere and I feel far away from God. And other times you feel closer. So this chapter is about what it means to have a relationship with God. And then towards the end of the chapter, I bring in a poem, not a song, a poem from Leonard Cohen about the fun to believe in God and how playfully he does it, which gives the same kind of feeling of what it means. So I'm not going to say the chapter isn't, let me prove to you God exists, or this is what belief in God is, but what does it mean to believe in God? So I analyze what the idea of belief is and how that works and how we actually live. So that's an example of a chapter.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Something I think is really, I mean, something is binary, something is unique or isn't unique. Something that I think is unique is that you'll sort of, you'll take, you'll look at the rambam, who certainly in, like modern jewish circles, is the arch intellectual, arch rationalist, and sort of fusing the rambam with the Baal Shem Tov, who is perhaps seen as, like, anti rational or certainly much more mystical and spiritual. And sort of by fusing those two come to this response or conclusion of, I guess, as you say, you know, being comfortable with doubt and Alex embracing.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: It's even worse than that. I bring in scientific thinking to explain Rafsulloveitchik and this idea of relationship, which was an idea for us to love. Each building in this relationship that is actually some level of it is true in the psychology of our minds, in the physicality of the natural world, in our bodies, and in the nature of physics as well. It's really interesting, right?
[00:19:53] Speaker B: So this is what I was building towards, and I think I'd be interested, first of all, I'm interested to see what came first, your comfort with doubt or youre openness to fusing these different schools of thought, whether it's rational versus mystical or, you know, whatever it is.
First of all, like, what came first? Your comfort with doubt or that thing. But then also, how, what. What do you respond to, you know, a high school student who is adamant they don't believe in God, and they're adamant that they don't believe in the truth of Torah or the other way. To a person or a community who say the Torah is absolutely true and literal, which is, you know, that's what your book is sort of arguing against, that it's not necessarily absolutely truth, truthful and literal in that sense.
So, I mean, how do you respond to, how do you explain and justify and defend that middle ground of being both comfortable with doubt while also searching for the truth that, you know is there?
[00:20:55] Speaker A: So, Gila Sacks, very nicely by Sacks daughter, wrote the introduction to the book, and she quotes her father saying, we ask not because we doubt, but because you believe. It's from the haggadah, published by Colin. And I always know that the Torah has answers, has responses, has ways of understanding. So if I reject weak responses or weak answers, I'm not afraid. I've got to find better ones. I know the truth is out there, like a scientist knows. It has to make sense. We live in this physical world. It can't be that God's words and God's works, the Torah and nature clash. So if they do, I've either misunderstood nature or misunderstood the Torah. So I have a fundamental belief that I'll find it. So I might doubt the answers that are given, but not that there must be some understanding. When you say the Torah is true, what does emet mean?
And how we do we measure those things. So that's stage one. When it comes to young person, the first thing I ask is, first of all, understand why they're asking where the question is coming from.
Is it a psychological issue that they've been wondering about? Do they think philosophically? Do they think emotionally? They can't see the text together. A lot of things don't make sense. If I told you the table we're sitting at now is 99.9% vacuum, and the rest is a hotbed of vibrating particles, you'll say you're a weirdo, but the truth is, from a scientific point of view, that's the case. But you don't realize that. So any area of meaning doesn't make sense when you're outside it. You need to be introduced. To appreciate a good wine or classical music, you have to learn how to listen and how to read. Or by sacks, did a wonderful course at lsgs, where I teach, called the art of listening, and that the way to read Torah is just to listen to its words. And young people have been told what the Torah means before they read it, and then they read it and don't see that, and they wonder why. So I want to let go of all those things you have to believe, and let's just look at this text and see if we can make sense of it. And it gives freedom when I tell them, you know, we haven't got most of the answers to the questions in Torah, and we need you to help. I'll give one example. In Ahway Mot, it's got all the wrong sexual practices. All the people you can't sleep with. And then right in the middle of it, towards the end, it's got the law of molech, which is about child sacrifice. Nothing to do with sexual practices. No relationship. Even in the commentaries. What's it doing there? It doesn't fit. So I've got structures of every sedra and how it's put together, and I asked my teacher about that, and his response, not the. Not the answer, or his response to it in terms of specifics, but the way he responded was amazing. He said to me, so, Rafa meeshiva, he said, you know, after 25 years, I've been thinking about that, and last year, I think I cracked it. Now, just think of what that project is that he's living with questions, and I have hundreds of questions that I can't answer on tar.
Hundreds. I'm thinking, maybe this will. And sometimes I'm learning. I'm studying one thing I'm reading the gamard, then you read the next bit and actually it's answering something else. And the project gets like, we need more minds, jewish, non jewish, male, female, old, young, to be involved in this project, to understand the depth of what this could mean. And so when I talk to a young person like that, it changes everything. They often feel there's a hermetically sealed box of rules they're supposed to sign up to, which is ridiculous and wrong and boring and not something you're a part of. But if you're told it's an unfinished work of questions that we need your help involved in and we don't want bad answers, and you might find in the process to be lured into it, then that's a bit more interesting for them.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: It's definitely more interesting. But I suppose taking that hypothetical high school student who's got these questions, when you open it up, as Judaism is questions, and it's unfinished and we're trying to figure it out and we're trying to see how it works, we have to balance that with the mitzvah. And so the rambam has these voluminous work of rules, and in there is a story, but the story has to gel with the volumetric work of rules. So how does.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: It's a good point, because I still got to live a religious life and keep Shabbat and so on, so. And it's a very important thing. And the way I've always looked at it myself is that I'll do it to understand the process. There's a tradition, this I trust. It's probably a good idea in the same way that all young people, as you grow up, are told to follow in the rules of society, and you kind of didn't always want to go to school or want to get insurance or understand how it works or anything else, but you kind of do those things, and as you get older, you think, well, wait a second, how does it really work? So, yes, as I've got older, I've reflected on, so why do I put on sit?
Why do I make that bracha? And so I'm really annoying. I like researching these things to understand why, to make sense of it, and often it's not what you're told. It's a bit more complicated in some ways, becoming a rabbi, doing smicha, which is why sacks gave me. I became stricter on some areas because I really understood them, and I become more lenient on others as if I've understood it. And that's ultimately the aim with Torah that we're all meant to be directly involved in making meaning for ourselves. Because if we don't and we just believe it because someone else told us, it's not powerful enough, it doesn't keep you going. So the aim of everyone's supposed to learn Torah? Not because I don't learn Torah because I have to, it's because I need to. It's an understanding to understand the world. Then prayer makes sense to me. Kashrut makes sense to me. Or this Pesach or the poem story makes sense to me. If you're told poem was a guaranteed historical fact in every throne, you have to celebrate that and say that brachah, because of that, it's like, really? But historically, it's not so clear, and why would we do that work in that way? But if you understand that Purim was a certain unusual historical stage, because for the first time ever, the entire empire was under Persia, and it wasn't trying to get rid of religion. It's the most amazing thing people don't. You all know that God isn't mentioned in the Megillah, but that's not the chap. The Chap is. Gods are not mentioned in the Megillah. Look at every story in the Tanakh. The enemy, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, earlier, the Canaanites. It always tells you the Elohehem and their gods and what they were doing. There's no mention of gods in the entire Megillah. And the one time the rabbis talk about it is with Haman, who wore this kind of idolatry on his neck. But he wasn't Persian, he was an Amalekite who did have gods. So the poem, weirdly, and as an Orthodox are, by saying, this is a secular story, it's about in a society where there's no danger of worshiping of the gods, but you might end up just not being religious. How do you survive now that already begins to gel with you going, yeah, that makes sense, but it makes sense from the text. So once you understand the framing of something, it changes your. Your understanding of it. And so it's all about reading carefully and making meaning. So I've kept the festivals, I've kept these mitzvahs as a child. As I grow up, I'm like, I need to know why, to make sense with it. And I haven't got answers always.
And it sometimes changes my practice to an extent, but it becomes individualized. And as you get older, you talk to different rabbanim and leaders. They've all got slightly different practices in the way they do mitzvah. And the reason why, and they don't always do it publicly. If you're Rav, you do it publicly. Privately is because they're making it meaningful for them. Let me give you another example of that Haredi rav that I knew in the old city. And I went to. I was there for Yom Kippur Davening, and we got to the Musa Amida Yom Kippur, and, you know, there's the avodah, this really long text where you go through all the sacrifices. And in the stand at Ashkenazi Siddhor is this very long, very difficult poetic Hebrew. This far, we have a different one, and I see him open up the rumbam, hirchhot Korbai, not on the day, and start shocking in front of that. And he asked masters what you're doing. He goes, I don't like the version in the maksa. I'm thinking, what do you mean? You don't like the versions in the maksa? Right. It's much clearer in the rambam.
Can you do that?
He could, I can't, but privately. But it was real for him. That poem did not speak to him. It made me look at some of the slichot. Some of the slichot are quite shocking. They're written a time in medieval Europe, and it's quite shocking. Now, I don't mind saying it, but if it's overly barbaric or not understanding, I don't relate to it so much. I might say another one, I can't not go to shul. I want to say slichot, but they have to make meaning and so on. And there's a standardization of tefillah that we should definitely stick to the matbear tefillah, but on individual level, to make meaning. There's a lot more room in the people. People realize, and I quote in the book, examples from the Shulchan Aracha, that says that it has to make sense to you. And I'd rather people said less and felt more to relate. Otherwise we end up with this really weird stirah. What's a stirah in English? Contradiction. Contradiction. Where you're given the impression of doing something religious and it's not meaningful, and the gap gets bigger, and it leads to a weakening of religious life and meaning. And you have to live with these questions and really be challenged by it.
That's how you grow now. Some people don't want to open the box too much. That was the last part of your question about if you're more religious, that's your choice. And the Rambam writes about this. He sometimes says, if you want to believe some of this stuff literally, that's okay. There's a deeper level of it. Sometimes he says, I don't mind the literal, but sometimes he thinks it's dangerous to believe it literally if it gets near issues of or desire or misunderstanding. So I don't mind people having different. I don't call it simple. It's like a more direct belief sometimes. But if it starts to clash into a halachah and get a bit weird, I'm like, well, are you sure about this? But nobody has to read the book. They can close the book. They don't have to read it. This is my understanding. I don't profess to be. Judaism says, this is my voice, my reading. I'm sure I've made mistakes, send me comments to improve on it. But if it can help someone, my aim is to deepen you out. Shamim and they asked Rav Henkenhenne, the grandson of the Vatavana, about this. Once. He was asked, can you be Makadesh? Can you give your own ideas on aspects of agadot? Right? There's a system, but an agadot. And he said, if it's mossif it increases reverence for heaven, you can do your own ideas. That's what I've done to try and help people. And this is what I've learned in my journey. I've taken a pause. Here's what I am. This might help you.
[00:31:06] Speaker C: I'm interested to hear dedicated chapter in the book on prayer you mentioned just now.
I guess in that sort of dichotomy between a subjective experience of God and the kind of uniform text of the sill of the mat Biatfela you talked about, how do you find a balance between those two things and how, what is it kind of what journey, what prayer journey do you take us on in the book?
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Yeah, the rambam's very honest about it. What's the reason we all say the same prayer? He says, admit it used to be people who knew more did long prayers and this did short prayers. They did it in Aramaic or in Hebrew. And we standardize it so that you can walk into any shul and know what's going on. And I love that. But that's functional, that's utilitarian, that's not philosophical. So that means that in shuls we have to standardize. But what's going on? You in your pew in your seat, you can do what you want really, really deep down.
And it might be that every day you'll say different, one of the tear lots slower and actually understand that one. Because why can I say that? Because I know people who have met governors, you know, the regular governors in London I've seen who come out, sure, every day. And I asked them, I said, do you know what that psalm means? And he's like, no, but I don't. I know it's basically thanking God. And I said, and that's fine, but how will he ever get to understanding it? Because he's too busy. He does a dozening every day, then goes to shore, then goes to work, and doesn't really can't translate it word for word. So I'm not devaluing that. Others might, but I'm saying there's more to that to understand. So we have to begin to read to understand what the phrases are about. So standardization is vital for community, but again, it's functional, not ideological. That's why I know there's room as an individual to try and come up to praise. If someone said, as an educational point of view, love, I want each day to say just one of the psalms, of the five psalms in Ashrae at the end, and then build up. So after six months, I can do all five. They'd say, yes, that makes sense. So you have to redo that. The chapters are a lot more. And it gets back to that subject of insurance I mentioned earlier. I argue that people don't doven as much today because they have insurance. Now you think I'm mad. You're grinning at me, but I'll tell you why. You don't really think it's safe, unsafe to go on holiday and travel because you have travel insurance, and if all goes wrong, you're covered or you have house insurance, and God forbid, you have life insurance, and, you know, at least they'll be okay. And 500 years ago, they didn't. So when a. When a woman would bake bread and hope. The yeast we have now is chemically produced yeast, it's very tight. It always works. Then it was natural yeast, and it didn't always work, and the bread didn't rise. And if it didn't, supper wasn't going to be very good. They prayed when they put the bread in the oven that it should rise. And Tikhinot, this collection of women's prayers attest to that. I quote some in my book. They're beautiful, right? That I don't have nightmares. You pray to hashem. Now we understand psychology. We can help these things. So progress has made us less reliant on prayer, and that's the promise. It doesn't feel as necessary, a fundamentally. Sure I do. And this clash with the reality is that if I pray to God, it doesn't always get better.
I get in my mailbox all these booklets of these wonderful stories of I prayed, and then everything went well. And even though I love that story and I want to believe it's true, it's probably a true story for that person. The rationalist, to me goes, what about all the other people that prayed? And it didn't help and they didn't have Vanasa. So as a kid, I never understood why there's ya Afjan Kippur headlines, you know, death spots around the world drop dead. It doesn't happen. You're laughing, but, like, either it's true or it's not true. So, oh, no, it means in the world to come really well. In that case, it takes the whole sting out of it, or, oh, no, we don't know who's really good and who's really bad. Really, really, we don't. I think we do it. If we don't, we're in really big trouble. So then we've misunderstood what it means. What does it mean that God hears our prayers? What does it mean that it actually works? And the rambam is fascinating. There's different interpretations, and I really go into what it really means to take people on a different understanding, because I get all kind of up there at the end, I do a little exercise to try and bring it back to earth. And it's the following. Normally, when people teach Tefillah, they open this siddhartha, look at the first psalm and explain, explain, explain. I said, let's not start with the siddha. Let's start with you. If I sat you down. Oh, yeah. And said, write down today what you really want, what matters to you more than anything, that your family is safe and healthy, the hostages come back, that we have peace. All these things. We desperately want these things.
And when you write down what you really value and what you really care about, and then you go to the Siddhor, you discover that the tehillim and the brachot are responding to your desires, then they're immediately relevant. And I did this as an exercise with people I try and do in the book, but it's an exercise. Write down what you really value. You can't live without. You want to say to hashem and to yourself every day, and then look in the siddhartha, and surprise, surprise, it's there. Why? Because the human experience isn't that different. The rabbis were humans like us, and they had those basic desires. I want to understand why I'm here in the world. I want my life to have meaning. I don't want a darn be forgotten. And you look at the prayers, and actually, they have a relationship with that. They're responding to that. Then suddenly it's, you know, that there's a thing now today to do vision statements of your organization, and they'll put them on the. On the wall sometimes. And I knew a guy who actually worked out his vision four points, and he created his inbox with the four parts of vision. And every email he got, he had to put in one of those four bits of vision. And then there was trash or empty that didn't fit. The end after week, he had thousands in the bit. They didn't fit. And he realized, maybe my vision's wrong. You see, that's really tight, but, you know, they'll have on schools on that, the vision on the wall. Why, to a mind every day, why am I doing this? That's what shacher it is, and mircha is a check in. What do I stand for?
Right? To be is to stand for. Heschel said. And that's what the siddha really is. Because we think to start with the siddha, we feel the chains already on someone go, forget the chains. My vision of a siddhur. The siddha means order, right? But that's over time, and it feels too structured. I want a siddhor, and maybe one day Koran will print one. Can you imagine?
It's like what a composer does when they come to the podium. Not composer, the conductor. And he's got all his notes and elastic band around. Imagine if every century, the prayer was written in was a different color and different countries were different shapes, and it was hand printed, right? Hundreds of pieces of paper from different places wrapped in an elastic band. And that was your ordered siddur. And you'd have to keep lift it up. This prayer that was written by Rebbe in the second century, and this addition that was done by a chief rabbi in this century, and you would immediately feel that this was a collection of thousands of voices over hundreds of years trying to relate to our creator. And that would make Sidor look different. And that's why I'm trying to release it from the straitjacket in that chapter.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: A question to which there may not be a response.
But sitting down to write the book, as you said we spoke about earlier, was a culmination of 20 years of teaching and collating all different sorts of lectures and classes. And Shurim, when you sat down to write, was there anything that you were putting the chapter together, and you looked at it, and you just thought to yourself, I've got this all wrong. And you had to go back to the beginning. Is there anything that's still in the book? Specifically still in the book? Whereas you were going through it before publication, where you thought to yourself, I might have thought this ten years ago, or I wrote this 15 years ago, but Raffi now, in 2023, 2024, doesn't think this at all.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: About 30% ended up being new because there were hot gaps. That's the result of Shurim to really check. I argue that the flood is a localized event. I think I argue that quite compellingly. But there were a number of classical sources that say, you mustn't think that. I was like, oh, why is that? And so it took a lot more research to work out why that was the case. So there were holes that I wanted to plug and make sense. And the greatest thing is, my friends I sent. It's very scary the first time we send it out. It's different people to read and to get an idea. And because they could write back and go, this chapter makes no sense at all. But actually, their comments and Corin helped beautifully as well. They gave it to them of scholars to read, and the feedback really helped sharpen different parts. And when I began writing, rabbi Sack was still alive, and he said, rafi, here's a great book you should read. And all those authors are there. I'm sure you've heard of the art of War. This book is called the War of Art. It's a much shorter book. It's very powerful, and it helps you write. And I read that, and that really gave me a heyset to keep going and to work it through. But every footnote matters. Every line matters because it's emethead. You have to try and get the nearest you can to Emmett, right on the back of a. You're a fan of seal, the singer Seal. On the back of his second album, it says, I hope you like the album. It's the best one I had at the time, and I love that line. And I wanted to put in the book. I did it more subtly than that, but it's like, you know, this is where I am. I'm sure there's always more edits and more things to be accurate. But I've done my darndest to be careful and to go through each line that it makes sense. And that's what really takes the time to sharpen the argument. So I ended up moving things around sometimes. It turned out when I finished, I'd only quoted the same macaw twice, once in the whole book, which I was excited about, to kind of spread out different views. And sometimes if you've seen the mako in the midrash and in the zohar, and then the hasidic commentary, which one do you choose that's relevant for that time? So how you tell the story is very important. What sacks taught me. Be accurate, check your sources, and for heaven's sakes, don't be boring, because you have to be interesting. People sometimes are very scholarly, but you just fall asleep, you don't keep going. So I've tried to make an interesting and dynamic, and I hope I've tried to begin each chapter different kind of way. Sometimes tell a story to get you into the source of telling it. So that's been my derek, and I'm.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Interested to hear, in terms of, while we're talking about your process for the book, what was it that made you choose? I mean, I'm sure over the years you've been asked lots of questions on lots of topics. What was it that made you choose these topics in the book?
[00:41:11] Speaker A: So even though there's twelve questions, it's really more about 30, because questions on God, there's a range of them.
And so these ones were asked the most, or seem to really stand out to me. Some people have problems with the ethics of the Torah. Why are we allowed to kill animals? It just doesn't seem right. They've got moral indignation. That's one kind. Then there's the kind of science or origin type. It's going, this is really true. Does this really happen? And there's the more spiritual types and there's books of different ones, but I figured I. Authors, academics may be in one field, but human beings aren't. We're kind of complicated. So a bit of everything is more realistic. Now, it's hard because it means a lot more research, but that's what the three areas were. And then somebody asked me, why did you do it in that order? Why'd you start off with origins and then, and then, and then ethics, and then end up with beliefs? Sure, you should start with beliefs, but it seemed natural. I don't know why it seemed more natural to me to start off with origin, maybe, as my scientific background. So that was my structure. Then after the book was published, I was put on tefillin one day and it suddenly hit me. We say when we bind the tefillin on the. On the. Shel yad vat stikli lior lam vat stikli batzer mishbat v'shelom avad stichl bet hashem, which means I'm bound to you, lo alam. I'm bound to you in righteousness and justice, and I'm bound to you in belief and connection to God. Now, the word lualam for scientists is a great word. Why? Because what does the word lualam mean? Lu alam va ed means forever and ever. So it's time, right? But the olam is the world. So is it space, three dimensions? Or is it time, the fourth dimension? So our scientists know that's what you call, what Einstein called space time. There are four dimensions. That's what alum means. So I'm bound to you, God, in the physical reality of physical space and time. That's origin issues. That's 50 million years old. That's the flood happening, physically happening, the ecstasy, egyptian archaeology, that's what it's about. So I'm bound to God, first of all in origins, then I'm bound to stag Hamish. But righteous injustice, which is a fundamental issue in ethics, by the way. Fundamental issue. Why do we allow these things? If we're into righteousness and justice, how can we be elitist to be better? How can we allow slavery? That's what it is. And the last part with faith. What does faith mean via date? Hashem, and to know God. So I figured if Hoshia, which is where those verses are from, has that order, right, it's after facts. I can't pretend that I planned it, but I felt in line with, with Tanakh, which was nice. Then maybe Hashem isn't the beginning. You know, there's that leap of faith. I don't think that's how we work. It's very philosophical, it's very greek. You start off with belief. No, you don't. You start off being born and just naturally being in things, actually, and you grow with that. And ultimately, Emunah is the highest challenge to work out, and that's why I end up in that way. So I felt vindicated. But the truth is it just sent naturally to me in that way. And those issues in the God chapters, there's four questions, but there's really 20 sub questions inside of that.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: I mean, that also gels with the Avraham's belief. Avraham's sort of coming to know God as well. He's born. He looks around him, he sees it's a journey.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: And then ends up knowing Hashem. It's, you know, it's very nice. Nice when things work out and you can definitely tell people that it was on purpose.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: I would love to, but it's not honest. I've got a bit difficulty with that.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: That's your honesty. That's your.
[00:44:29] Speaker C: Questions in this book. What's next?
[00:44:32] Speaker A: It's a great question. There were questions I missed out. I didn't handle Tommy nachemim directly. There's a wonderful book by Sam Liebens, also published by Cohen, on that subject, but some things are much better to do with indirectly. So it's there in the book, but in different kinds of ways. In terms of what I'm writing next. I'm writing a couple of academic articles at the moment, but I want to write a book about the chagim every so often. It's worthwhile doing those.
I'd love to write a book on each of the chagim, but who's got time, right? But two or three essays on each one, like that poem, example to just. And I'm not. The basics of the festival. You can get that in other places, but unusual. Basically, chagim for adults. Why? Because we love them as children. So the idea of sitting in a sukkah and the sun going through the shah, or in England, the rain coming through the skag is great when you're a kid and as an adult, you like going, oh, it's for the kids. You get that next stage where you enjoy, again, for your kids. But then what about after that? And actually, I want to write a book, chagim for adults. I won't call it that because it's patronizing, but chagim for adults, like, what is the philosophical idea that Sukkot represents or that Pesach represents or the Shavuot represents all the festivals. And it's. When you read the text, it's quite surprising. Some Gedalia is an amazing one. You just read. Most people just. I've never read just Tanakh, the story of Gadalia, and it's such a surprise. And why does it fit in in the same Chuvah some Godalia is about to Shuva?
Why read the story? You'll see. It pops out if you. If you read the four chapters of Jeremiah, which is not difficult, but no one ever does. Fascinating. So you can tell. These are stories. And so I've got four or five essays on each of the Hagim, which I think will, which I think would, again, be helpful. So that's what I want to do next year.
[00:46:16] Speaker C: And just another part of your, not another hat, but another part of your hat.
You're renowned or in England for your tours of the British Museum and other places.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: Yes. I love, I love. I was taken around, actually. Barbarna Sullivan, I've got to give a shout out to him. He's a brilliant tour guide in the old city. And he showed me 20 years ago that we in the British Museum have amazing stuff and Israelis come to look at what we have. So I've done a number of tours there. And a book that actually my wife wants me to write is called searching for God in the British Museum.
In terms of what were the gods in? Idolatry, all different cultures. The oldest picture of a jew, as far as I know. Yes, I think so. And the oldest corroborating evidence of the Tanakh are all in the British Museum. And it's amazing. People don't realize, is there Ramses, too? Is there so many different aspects. So I'd love to write maybe a book about, but I want it to be like a guidebook to help someone go on their own tour. I want to discover for themselves.
I don't want to be the, you know, the sage on the stage, people. This is the way to think. I want to help people think their own ideas and challenge me and take it in other directions. But I'd love to write a book about the British Museum.
[00:47:24] Speaker C: Wow.
We're running out of time.
But as you said from the start, you have this amazing way of being able to explain how Torah works and make it clear. And you do that with students, with friends, with peers. It's really incredible. And we're really very privileged to partner with you on this book and to bring that to the wider world. So thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us on the podcast and for sharing that with our listeners and for joining us and teaching us your Torah.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: Ragallah, thank you very much. And I hope questioning a belief helps. Thank you.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: That's all we have time for this week. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you to Rabbi Doctor Zarin for spending time with us. If you want to get a copy of questioning belief, you can do
[email protected]. and you can save 10% on that book and your entire order with promo code podcast at checkout if you want to be in touch with us, you can reach
[email protected] or on social media at cryironpublishers. We'll be back in a couple of weeks time with another wonderful episode of the Cryon podcast. I'll regularly until next time, goodbye.
