Deeper is Higher - Part V.5

In the previous post in the series Deeper is Higher, I briefly summarized the voluminous research of Ian Stevenson. While Stevenson certainly got the attention of the scientific mainstream, one obituary concludes that “His greatest frustration, he maintained, was not that people dismissed his theories, but that so few bothered even to read the evidence he had so painstakingly assembled.”

However, for those who are intellectually honest, including many skeptics, there is no denying the fact that the phenomenon of "Children who remember previous lives" does occur. The only question is how to explain this phenomenon.

We will test each explanation on one case provided by Stevenson’s colleagues, Jim Tucker and Jurgen Keil (Life Before Life, pgs. xi-xiv; the original journal article is available here):

“Dr. Jurgen Keil, a psychologist from Australia, listened as Kemal Atasoy, a six-year-old boy in Turkey, confidently recounted details of a previous life. They were meeting in the boy's home, a comfortable house in an upper middle class neighborhood, and with them were Dr. Keil's interpreter and Kemal's parents, a well-educated couple who seemed amused at times by the enthusiasm that the little boy showed in describing his experiences. He said that he had lived in Istanbul, 500 miles away. He stated that his family's name had been Karakas and that he had been a rich Armenian Christian who lived in a large three-story house. The house, he said, was next to the house of a woman named Aysegul, a well-known personality in Turkey, who had left the country because of legal problems. Kemal said that his house had been on the water, where boats were tied up, and that a church was behind it. He said that his wife and children had Greek first names. He also said that he often carried a large leather bad and that he only lived in the house for part of the year.

"No one knew if Kemal's story was true when he met Dr. Keil in 1997. His parents did not know anyone in Istanbul. In fact, Kemal and his mother had never been there, and his father had only visited the city twice on business. In addition, the family knew no Armenians. His parents were Alevi Muslims, a group with a belief in reincarnation, but they did not seem to think that Kemal's statements, which he had been making from the time he was just a toddle of two year of age, were particularly important.

"Dr. Keil set out to determine if the statements that Kemal had given fit with someone who had actually lived. The work that Dr. Keil had to perform to find out if such a person even existed demonstrates that Kemal could not have come across the details of the man's life by accident.

"When Dr. Keil and his interpreter went to Istanbul, they found the house of Aysegul, the woman who Kemal had named. Next to the house was an empty three-story residence that precisely matched Kemal's description - it was at the edge of a the water, where boats were tied up, with a church behind it. Dr. Keil then had trouble finding any evidence that a person like the one Kemal described had ever lived there. No Armenians were living in that part of Istanbul at the time, and Dr. Keil could not find anyone who remembered any Armenians ever having lived there. When he returned to Istanbul later that year, he talked with Armenian church officials, who told him that they were not aware that an Armenian had ever lived in the house. No church records indicated one had, but a fire had destroyed many of the records. Dr. Keil talked with an elderly man in the neighborhood who said that an Armenian definitely lived there many years before that the church officials were simply too young to remember that long ago.

"Armed with that report, Dr. Keil decided to continue his search for information. The next year, he made a third trip to the area and interviewed a well-respected local historian. During the interview, Dr. Keil made sure he did not prompt any answers or make any suggestions. The historian told a story strikingly similar to the one Kemal had told. The historian said that a rich Armenian Christian had, in fact, lived in that house. He had been the only Armenian in that area, and his family's name was Karakas. His wife was Greek Orthodox, and her family did not approve of the marriage. The couple had three children, but the historian did not know their names. He said that the Karakas clan lived in another part of Istanbul, that they deal in leather goods, and that the deceased man in question often carried a large leather bad. He also said that the deceased man lived in the house only during the summer months of the year. He had died in 1940 or 1941.

"Though Dr. Keil ws not able to verify Kemal's statement that the wife and children had Greek first names, the wife came from a Greek family. The first name that Kemal had given for the man turned out to be an Armenian term [Fistik] meaning "nice man." Dr. Keil could not confirm that people actually called Mr. Karakas that, but he was struck by the fact that, even though no one around him knew the expression, Kemal had given a name that could easily have been used to describe Mr. Karakas.

"How did this little boy, living in town 500 miles away, know so many things about a man who had died in Istanbul fifty years before he was born? He could not have heard about the man Dr. Keil had to work so hard to learn anything about. What possible explanation could there be? Kemal had a very simple answer: he said that he had been the man in a previous life."

Normal Explanations ( from weakest to strongest):

I. One explanation suggests that the matches between the Previous Personality and the Current Subject are a coincidence, a fluke. When I first saw this explanation I laughed out loud in an otherwise quiet library. You could maybe suggest such an explanation for one or two cases or for a few "matches" in each case, but "strength is in the numbers." Kemal Atasoy, for example, made fifteen fully confirmed statements concerning his Previous Personality, three partially confirmed, and four unconfirmed statements. It is preposterous to claim that "coincidence" has much explanatory value.

II. Perhaps the researcher was deceived by the child or the family in some critical way. In the case of Kemal Atasoy that would mean that his parents had coached him or perhaps he had read about Aysegul's neighbor somewhere and intentionally claimed that he was the reincarnate of that man. In other cases, by the time the investigator arrives on the scene, the child does not remember the past-life and the testimony of the parents must be relied upon. It is conceivable that the parents, in at least some of the cases, are lying.

The difficultly with this is that the most of the time the families have no interest in concocting such a story, and sometimes it is counterproductive for their social-standing or family life. Critics counter that in some cases children may create a story for social benefits (for example, in the Indian caste system or in our case the lived next to a well-known personality). In response, a) these cases are rare and most children and families receive no benefit and have no desire or time to create a hoax, b) there are cases where the child remembers being in a lower caste or having difficult living conditions.

Furthermore, in many cases there are multiple witnesses to the child's claim, and therefore it is unlikely that there is a conspiracy. Thus Stevenson is confident that “Perhaps I have been hoaxed in some cases without knowing this. I cannot deny that this may have happened, but I think it can only have happened rarely, if ever (Children, 147)”

Another suggestion is that the investigators are guilty of fraud. This would mean that at least six primary investigators and countless assistants would be conspiring, an extremely unlikely phenomenon. However, skeptics draw attention to a case where Stevenson's translator was accused of dishonesty:

"The data collected on this trip became the basis for Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, whose publication was delayed because his publisher backed out of the project when it was discovered that Stevenson's interpreter was accused of dishonesty. Stevenson admits the man was dishonest in some matters, but he did not think the man had deceived him. So, Stevenson did not reject the data collected with this interpreter's help."

Stevenson addresses this issue in Children Who Remember Previous Live: “Probably some errors in translation have occurred from time to time, as I have noted (when I have detected them) in my detailed case reports. However, I do not think that these have been numerous or damaging…” (pg. 132)

Thus, even our good friend, Sam Harris, agrees that fraud is unlikely: "Either he is a victim of truly elaborate fraud, or something interesting is going on."

III. Another argument is that children have wonderful imaginations and this is the cause of their "memories." Attention is drawn to cryptomnesia, the phenomenon in which a person obtains information normally and then forgets its source. This explanation is only possible in the cases where the child's statements aren't verified or when there was no external confirmation (unlike the case of Kemal Atasoy). This then is a reasonable explanation for a minority of the cases, and Stevenson carefully considered this possibility in almost all of the cases he studied (Children, 149), but even these cases I wouldn't call "worthless" since there are other aspects of evidence besides "memories."

IV. The most serious argument against Stevenson and Co. is that their methodology was sloppy. Generally critics do not maintain that Stevenson was purposely sloppy or, for the most part, that they could have done a better job. Anyone who reads Old Souls will see a first-hand account of how methodical Stevenson was in his investigations. They do claim, however, that a) Stevenson often arrived at the scene after the child forgot the alleged memories of the Previous Personality, and he thus relied on the testimony of the family, or he arrived after the two families had already met (the case was “solved”), b) he was involved in a tricky business by questioning children (and with a translator at that), and c) and analysis of the data is not so clear-cut.

a) The argument is that these cases almost always developed in an uncontrolled setting. This would allow for faulty memory or for a socio-psychological explanation of the cases. Brody developed such a hypothesis (summarized by Stevenson, quoted by Keil: “In a culture having a belief in reincarnation a child who seems to speak about a previous life will be encouraged to say more. What he says then leads his parents somehow to find another family whose members come to believe that the child has been speaking about a deceased member of their family. The two families exchange information about details, and they end by crediting the subject with having had much more knowledge about the identified deceased person than he really had had.” The uncontrolled nature of the cases create “paramnesia” (the delusional belief that two events, or in this case, people, are connected).

This can be countered in numerous ways. First, some cases are more controlled than others, such as when Stevenson arrived while the child was still making statements or displaying behavior etc. or when there were written records of the child’s statements before he met the Previous Personality’s family, or where there was no known surviving family (as in the case of Kemal Atasoy) . Second, this explanation would only explain cases where the culture encourages such beliefs or the parents have some benefit from unintentionally creating such a story. This is not true for all cases. Third, Stevenson tried not to rely on independent witnesses in his investigations. Fourth, Stevenson did not generally give much weight to cases in which the families had already met or even had some past-ties.

b) Interviewing indeed is tricky, and Stevenson had his hand at it for half-a-century. With regard to translators Stevenson addresses this issue as well: “In several different countries, I have been fortunate in having the same interpreters work with me for a decade or longer. They have become used to my methods, and together we have identified some of the words and phrases in the languages used that are particularly liable to faulty translation. Moreover, by recording the questions asked as well as the answers given, I can observe whether the interpreter is asking my questions or pursuing his own line of inquiry. The more experienced interpreters often think of better ways of phrasing a question that I have, and they may also suggest further questions to pursue a point that seems to them important. They have thus become collaborators more than assistants in the interviews (Children Who Remember Past Lives (132).”

c) Leonard Angel, in 1994, critically reviewed one case in Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (Stevenson’s first book, published in 1966) and finds his method wanting in six ways. In short, Imad Elawar was reported to have made 61 statements that matched his Previous Personality. But upon closer examination there were discrepancies between the statements of Elewar and the Previous Personality that Stevenson nevertheless counted as a "match." Stevenson, therefore, may have fallen prey to "subjective validation," or the process of validating words, initials, statements, or signs as accurate because one is able to find them personally meaningful and significant. Also see here.

Thus, Angel was quoted as saying: "'I think he was trying to figure things out, but he just didn't follow elementary proper standards,'' said Leonard Angel, a philosopher of religion at Douglas College in New Westminster, British Columbia, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. ''but you do have to look carefully to see it; that's why he's been very persuasive to many people.''

Stevenson himself and others have argued against Angel's criticisms. For those interested in the give-and-take see here.

V. Another suggestion is that of genetic memory. Most scientists do not believe in such a mechanism, even though epigenetics is somewhat similar to this idea, but, even so, this does not explain cases (such as Kemal Atasoy) in which there is no genetic relationship between the Previous Personality and Current Subject.

VI. Lastly, I quote from The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion (which, in my opinion, is not so spiritual): "Reincarnation is a tricky concept because it implies that an entire personality - encompassing everything about the deceased - has somehow been incorportated into a new body. Furthermore, it implies that the current person is an outgrowth, a follow-on, a natural extensions of the previous personality (or chain of personalities). The mechanism I am hinting at is much different. It is an embellishment of the known, bodily processes of stress, immobility, and dissociation. It encompasses the physical and feeling knowledge that is stored unconsciously when schocking, painful, or otherwise overwhelming experiences become traumatic and the course of the emotional stream is diverted or dammed up. The latent energy conveyed will relate to the experience itself and the parts of the body most directly invovled, comprising a virtual snapshot of what was being perceived at the time of the threat. I won't posit that the entire personalioty is reborn in a new body - only that the emotional energy that went unreleased in its time obeys the first law of thermodynamics and, through unkown means, is effectibvely transfered to a new residence. In this conceptipn, what survives is the impulse to express intense feelings that have been frozen, held in, or repressed (pg. 352)."

This explanation, while very valuable, does not have full explanatory value (such as, trvial memories and behaviors).

Paranormal Explanations (from weakest to strongest)

I. Perhaps the children are experiencing a form of telepathy (see my post here) combined with subconscious impersonation. Almeder quotes C.T.K. Chari (pg. 43): "[W]e cannot rule out some combination of the counterhypotheses of hidden and disguised memories acquired in a normal fashion, extrasensorially selective tapping of memories of others, and a psychometric or psychoscopic ESP achieving a strong empathic identification with deceased persons..."

Almeder, quoting N. Hintze and J.G. Pratt and Stevenson himself, argues that a) these children do not otherwise display ESP, and b) this phenomenon is well-beyond typical psychic powers.

Another suggestion, though, is that after hearing the claims of the child, the investigator, while attempting to validate the child's statements, psychically influenced the interviewees. In the case of Kemal Atasoy Keil interviewed the historian with the child's claims in mind. Perhaps he psychically influenced the memory of the historian. Perhaps.

II. Another suggestion is that these cases are instances of possession. Almeder (pg. 53) argues that those claiming possession state that "I am X" while those claiming a past-life usually state "I was X." In other words, there isn't a major personality change in past-life memory cases (Tucker, Life Before Life, pg. 46). Also, possession would not explain the existence of birthmarks (pg. 45).

II. Finally, we arrive at reincarnation. Besides the fact that this is what the children are claiming, it also has a high explanatory value ( announcing dreams,confirmed statements, strange behaviors, birthmarks). There are four main problems with this hypothesis:

a) Paul Edwards writes: "An acceptance of the collateral assumptions [involved in the belief in reincarnation] would amount, to borrow a phrase from Kierkegard, to the 'crucifixion' of understanding" (quoted in Alemder, pg. 34). In other words, Edwards a priori finds reincarnation impossible (for example, because there is no explanation as to how the memories enter into a new body). There is not much to argue against such a position.

b) Skeptics are bothered by the population explosion. Apparently, there would not be enough souls/minds to reincarnate into all of the bodies in existence. Since when are skeptics experts on spiritual mechanics...?

c) Different cultures present different type of cases thus suggesting that the memories are cultural-influenced. For example, cultures that do not believe that one can change sex-type in reincarnation do not report cases where a child remembers being a different sex-type. In response, there are cases where no family member believed in reincarnation. Furthermore, when we get to our discussion of Hashgacha/Divine providence we will discuss the subjective nature of Hashgacha/Divine providence. Lastly, there could be a cultural component to the phenomenon but that does not discredit the entire phenomenon ("throw the baby out with the bath water").

d) Critics argue that this hypothesis is unfalsifiable because any "un-solved" case does not count against it. There is a confirmation bias. I'm not sure how to respond to this objection because I am not an expert in the philosophy of science and the need for "falsifiability." All I do know is that Kemal Atasoy had otherwise unexplainable memories. It only takes a few very good cases to make a strong argument that reincarnation occurs, at least, sometimes.

In conclusion, there is a difference between science and common-sense. It is true that Stevenson did not prove with a 95 % confidence interval that the cases he researched for over forty years were indeed cases of reincarnation. However, it seems to me, that anyone who has read a large amount of the cases, does not feel that their assent to belief must be fully scientific, and who has not been blinded by scientism, will find the evidence for reincarnation extremely convincing.

The Gaon of Vilna

Courtesy of On The Main Line

Models of Torah IV - Eitz Chayyim

"עֵץ-חַיִּים הִיא, לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ-She is a tree of life for those who cling to her."

One aspect of this common refrain points to the life-giving quality of the Torah,[i] but another aspect refers to the very nature of the Torah.[ii]

The Torah is a unified[iii] and living[iv] organism whose growth is incumbent upon Israel[v] but is guided by Providence.[vi] As the tree develops it becomes ever so specified and differentiated.[vii]

…And through the small leaves one reaches up to the great Roots.[viii]


----------------
[i] Ibn Ezra on 3:18; Rashi on Mishlei 3:16; Shabbat 88b
[ii] Yalkut Shemoni here; Brachot 32b; Arachin 15b; Taanit 7a
[iii] The Torah is one interconnected system. This can be said in three ways: a) the content of the Torah is a harmonious unity, b) the Torah is transgenerational, and c) the Torah is holographic.
a) Avakesh expresses it in the following way: "How do we make sense of the myriad isolated phenomena, multiple details and seemingly unrelated particulars that continuously intrude upon our consciousness? Are they representations or fragments of one indivisible whole that we misperceive as distinct or, perhaps, true reflections of the multiplicity in reality. In every discipline and branch of knowledge there are splitters and there are lumpers. The former, to the extent possible, tend to unify and reconcile what they see as different aspects of the One. The latter, driven by the profound conviction, that multiplicity of perceptions reflect multiplicity in existence, on the contrary, divide and sub-classify.“Franz Rosenzweig in the Star of Redemption writes that the former is Judaic, the latter is the inheritance of the nations of the world. On one side stands monotheism, on the other paganism and Christianity.“We, in our own time, have been profoundly influenced by the reductionistic models that have been so successful in scientific and societal endeavors. By breaking all phenomena into finer and finer independent and self-sufficient units, modern man succeeded in harnessing and commanding the very power of Nature. Mechanistic thinking justifies itself and revels in its success. Only recently has the pendulum began to swing back. From molecular biology with its signaling interconnected pathways to discovery of patterns in self organization of physical particles, the order and relatedness of Creation is becoming a subject of scientific inquiry and interest. Still, reductionism is in the very air we breath, it commands us and obscures the worldview of our forefathers. Rabbinic thinking is profoundly synthetic and harmonizing. The Torah is one and does not admit of contradiction and disorder, except perhaps as an intermediate step in an attempts to master it. The Midrashic method is to seek synthesis. It is for this reason that multiple, apparently separate and even contradictory understandings are brought to us as a part of the same whole.
“At the bottom of this tendency is a uniquely Jewish way to see the world. Starting form the same data, it aims to discover unity and unification in Torah interpretation as in life. In that, it has a great deal to teach us."
This is also perhaps the main theme in R. Hirsch’s writings – the Torah is a system with every detail leading to Shleimut. R. Kook (Orot ha’Torah 4:1) poetically writes “The entire Torah is but one name of The Holy One, blessed is He, one name, one expression, one saying…”

b) R. Micha Berger adds that this unity is trans-generational: “Mesorah is a living tradition of a development of ideas. The Oral Torah is oral, a dialog across the generations. If we see a quote in the gemara from Rav Yochanan, we might be curious about the historical intent of Rav Yochanan. But in terms of Torah, important to us than what R’ Yochanan’s original intent is what R’ Ashi thought that intent was, which in turn can only be understood through the eyes of what the Rosh and the Rambam understood R’ Ashi’s meaning to be, which in turn can only be understood through the eyes of the Shaagas Aryeh and R’ Chaim Brisker. That is the true meaning, in terms of Torah, of Rav Yoachanan’s statement.“Definitionally, talmud Torah is entering the stream. Not seeing a statement as a point to isolate in time and space, but as a being within current that runs through history from creation to redemption."
R. Soloveitchik famously described this trans-generational experience in Shiurei ha’Rav (edited by Joseph Epstein).

c) The Kabbalists take this idea even further. The Gr"a is quoted in Ma'alot ha'Torah (pg.s 15-17) as saying: "When the Gemara mention 613 mitzvos it is referring only to the roots, but these roots spread into many branches. Which commandments are roots and which are branches is not known to us, nor is it necessary to know this, for each mitzvah and word of Torah contains the entire Torah and all the mitzvos; their rules, details and particulars. Thus, the Torah is compared to a tree, as it says, "She is a tree of life for those who cling to her" (Mishlei 3:18). The root of a tree spreads into many branches. Each branch spreads into many stems, and each stem into many fruits. Each fruit has many seeds, each capable of producing an entire tree with roots, branches, stems, leaves, fruits and more seeds to produce another tree, and so on ad infinitum. Also, a branch can be planted to produce a total tree with all its parts, as the philosophers wrote. So it is with words of Torah and mitzvos: every single word and mitzvah contains all the mitzvos and all the words."

R. Moshe Schatz, in "Sparks of the Hidden Light" (pg. 56) relates this idea to Holography. He quotes the Zohar (3:228b) which states that every commandment includes in it all 613. Also see Arizal Mevo Sheraim p. 5b; Etz chaim shaar 24, chapters 1-7, gate 44, chap 7; Rashash, Rechovot ha'Nahar p.3d, 5d-7a. Also see, R. Kook, Orot ha’Torah 4:3.
[iv] Avot D'Rebbe Natan 30b; R. Tzvi Freeman writes: "Torah, you see, is not a staid book, nor is it a malleable plastic, but a living organism. An organism adapts, but doesn't change. As the weather changes and so, too, its environment, the polar bear, the dolphin and the bacterial cell find the keys within their own DNA to cope with the new and survive. Similarly, as the Jewish People travel through the vicissitudes of history, storming every form of culture and society ever known to humankind, they look in the Torah and find, "Yes! Here is the solution for this particular situation. All was foreseen, everything was provided for us, by He by whose word all things come to be." This seems to be a poetic understanding of the principle that "all that was establish by the rabbis was established like it is found in the Torah - kol mah d'tiknu rabbonan k'eyn d'oraisa tiknu."
[v] R. Kook, Orot ha’Torah 2:1 writes “Every person who learns Torah brings the wisdom of Torah out from potential to actual…The Holy One, blessed is He, desires that the Torah should become great...” See previous post on The Torah as a World.
[vi] Rabbi Simon said, "There is no plant without an angel in Heaven tending it and telling it, 'Grow!'" (Genesis Rabba 10:7). Rupert Sheldrake, a controversial biologist writes: "I first became convinced that living organisms were organized by fields when I was doing research at Cambridge University on the development of plants. How do plants grow from simple embryos inside seeds into foxgloves, sequoias or bamboos? How do leaves, flowers and fruits take up their characteristic forms. These questions are about what biologists call morphogensis, the coming into being of form....This is one of the major unsolved problems in biology.
[...]
“Since the 1920's, many biologists who have studied the development of plans and animals have been convinced that in addition to the genes, there must be organizing fields within the developing organism, called morphogenetic fields. These fields contain, as it were, invisible plans or blueprints for the various organs and for the organism as a whole.
[...]
These fields help explain not only normal development, but also regeneration. If you cut a willow tree or a flatwork into pieces, each piece can regenerate to form an entire new organism. Like other kinds of fields, morphogenetic fields are intrinsically holistic. The isolated parts retain the capacity to re-form a whole organism, because each part is still associated with the field of the whole organism.

R. Kook, Hakdama l’Eyn Aya writes that just as hashgacha/providence determines the timing of new technology this is true in Torah as well. The position that Torah is guided by hashgacha is famously attributed to the Chazon Ish concerning relying on new manuscripts.
[vii] One view of the Torah is that it was originally more flexible and intuitive, and it became, and continues to become, more and more detailed-oriented. For example, R. Meir Levin writes in his edition of Matteh Dan (but based on R. Reuven Margolies, in his edition of Sh’eilot u’Teshuvot min ha’Shamayim) It is likely that other observances [not just Tefillin] were also given from the beginning with a variety and latitude regarding how they could be fulfilled. A great many commandments are fulfilled through an experience “in the heart.” Any a number of observances that awakened necessary feelings and emotions could be Biblically acceptable in the fulfillment of these commandments. Among them are such common rituals as payer, mourning, enjoyment of festivals, remembering the Sabbath, Exodus, Miriam, and the incident of Golden Calf, as well as certain declarations. Much later, the Rabbis formalized these observances and standardized their rituals, nbecause the times had changed and they were at risk of not being properly kept and preserved if left to the discretion of each individual. At this point disputes arose about how best to accomplish the purpose of the commandment, or as to details of what the original enactment standardizing them had been.”

For a long discussion of such an approach see Metahalakha by Moshe Koppel, or a summary of it by R. Micha Berger. Also see the famous Rapture and Reconstruction by R. Hayyim Soloveitchik.
R. Nathan Lopez Cardozo, in Crises, Covenant & Creativity (pg. 124), based on the S'forno (Shemot 25:8-9; Vayikra 11:1-2), writes: "In the generation precding the Torah, the relationship of the body to the soul was such that essentially the soul retained the upper hand...But as impurity slowly crept into the heart of man, it became necessary for him to muster more effort to control his own inclinations. Threfore, by the time the Jews left Egypt, they needed much more spiritual instruction to condition themselves to the service of G-d. While their ancestors found it posible to do so with only a few mitzvot, the Jews of the Exodus needed literally hundreds." This gives a different, and positive, perspective to the "chumra phenomenon" so prevelant today.

On a slightly different note, this reminded me of a quote from C.S.. Lewis (The Great Divorce, pg. vi) “Even on the biological level life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.” In other words, specification is not just a response to exile or sin, as R. Levin and R. Cardozo would have it, but is a natural part of the growth process.
[viii] This is a major theme in modern Jewish philosophy, especially in the writings of R. Soloveitchik and R. Kook. See Orot ha’Kodesh, Sha’ar Rishon, and Orot ha’Torah, Chapter 3. Also see The Jewish Action Reader (pgs. 16-31), “One Soul’s Adventure: Spiritual Growth Through Halachah,” by Anthony S. Fiorino.

Deeper is Higher - Part V

Children Who Remember Previous Lives

"I was telling these stories [of children who remember previous lives] to my friend Gene Weingarten, a Washington Post writer and editor and one of the most skeptical individuals I have ever known, the kind of guy who would rather feed his hand into a meat grinder than admit to believing in paranormal phenomena. Gene let me finish. Then he said, "You remember that story about Arlene's brother, right?"

"Arlene, Gene's wife, had been raised in Connecticut, the daughter of multigenerational Northeasterners. However, as soon as her younger brother, Jim, could speak, he would say, "I was born in Dixie.'"

"'It wasn't just that he kept saying it," Arlene told me when I asked her about it. "It was that word - Dixie. We didn't know anybody who used that word. Who would use that word in Connecticut in the 1960's?'"

"I asked her whether she or her parents ever thought that it might have anything to do with a previous-life memory.

"'Are you kidding?" she said. "We just figured it was more evidence that he was a weird kid.'"

"Then the family took their first road trip south, to Florida. Arlene only had a foggy memory of the trip, but thought that her mother would probably remember it clearly. I called her mom, Phyllis Reidy, who now lives just up the Florida coast from Miami.

"There was no interstate in those days, of course, so we drove all the way down old U.S. 301. Arlene was nine and Jim was six. One of the first things Jim had ever said was, 'I'm from Dixie.' He said it all the time. And he spoke oddly too. We always said it sounded like he had some kind of accent. We used to ask him if he was from Boston, and he said, 'No, I'm from Dixie.'

[...]

"Then, when we drove into the South, he got all excited, started talking a mile a minute about how his grandmother and grandfather came from Dixie and his mother and father did, too, and I said 'We're your mother and father,' and he said, "No, you're not,' just flatly, like that.

"We were in Georgia, just south of the South Carolina line, and he really started going nuts. 'I'll show you were we used to live,' he said. 'There it is! Its way up there, up that hill and in back of those trees.'"

[...]

"After that trip, he never talked about being from Dixie again. The accent lasted about two weeks after we got home, then it disappeared."

"Although Phyllis said that she didn't think Jim would even remember the incident, I got his number and called him. Jim Reidy is now a television engineer living in Massachusetts.

"I don't remember much more than my mother told you," he said at first..."I could always picture that house- the porch, swing, the weeping willow, the picket fence. I also remember my parents."

[...]

"What did you make of all that?" I asked. "Did you think maybe you had been reincarnated?"

"Not really," he answered. We were Irish Catholics, and reincarnation didn't really fit into that picture. But it got me to thinking, maybe there were parallel universes, or some such thing." (Old Souls, pgs. 216-218).

Introduction

As far as I know, this is not one of the 2,500 cases that Ian Stevenson, and his colleagues, have collected over the last 50 years. It was taken from a book called "Old Souls: Compelling Evidence From Children Who Remember Past Lives," which tells of a skeptic, Thomas Shroder, who accompanied Stevenson on a few of his trips around the world, searching for, documenting, and analyzing, in his characteristic methodical way, the thousands of children who claim to remember previous lives. Cases have been found on every continent (except Antarctica), although some places, such as India and Lebanon, have a much higher density of reported cases. Stevenson wrote "European Cases of the Reincarnation Type" to illustrate Western cases.

There are generally two types of cases: A case can either be a "within-family" or a "stranger" case in which the subject is claiming to be a previous personality who has no connection to his current family. In the "stranger" case, it may either be "solved" or "unsolved," meaning that the previous personality has either been identified and compared to the current subject or he has not been identified.

A model case consists of six characteristics, and to be included within Stevenson's database, located at the University of Virginia, a case must have at least two characteristics (Tucker, Life Before Life, pg. 27). I will use the example of Corliss Chotkin, Jr., whom Stevenson visited on four separate occasions, to illustrate most of these six characteristics (Stevenson, Children Who Remember Previous Lives, pg. 57-59).

1) Prediction of rebirth - "[A]n elderly Tlingit fisherman (of Alaska). Victor Vincent, told his niece, Mrs Corliss Chotkin, Sr., that after his death he would be reborn as her son...Victor Vincent died in the spring of 1946. About eighteen months later (on December 15, 1947), Mrs. Chotkin gave birth to a baby boy...When Corliss was only thirteen months old and his mother was trying to get him to repeat his name, he said to her petulantly: "Don't you know who I am? I'm Kahkody"; this was the tribal name Victor Vincent had had."

Predictions are common among the Tlingit and the Lamas of Tibet. Stevenson points out that this can sometimes weaken the strength of a case because reincarnation was already expected and the parents may have inadvertently pushed the child in this direction. However, when the prediction of rebirth is accompanied with promised identifying signs it is much stronger...

2) Birthmarks or birth defects related to the previous personality - "He showed her two scars from minor operations, one near the bridge of his nose and one on his upper back; and as he did so he said that she would recognize him (in his next incarnation) by birthmarks on his body corresponding to these scars...Corliss Chotkin, Jr. had two birthmarks, which his mother said were exactly at the sites of the scars to which Victor Vincent had drawn her attention on his body. By the first time I [Stevenson] first examined these birthmarks in 1962, both had shifted, according to Mrs. Chotkin...but they remained quite visible, and the one on Corliss's back impressed me greatly. It was an area on the skin about 3 centimeters in length and 5 millimeters in width; compared with the surrounding skin it was darker and slightly raised. Its resemblance to a healed scar of a surgical wound was greatly increased by the presence at the sides of the main birthmark of several small round marks that seemed to corresponding to positions of the small round wounds made by needles that place the stitches used to close surgical wounds."

Stevenson has written two massive volumes, consisting of 2,200 pages, on birthmarks and birth defects as providing evidence for reincarnation. These can be found here, and here , with a summary of this work here. This evidence is strongest when an autopsy or medical reports of the Previous Personality can be located to match with the birthmarks or birth defects of the current subject.

3) Announcing dreams of rebirth - "When Mrs. Chotkin mentioned Corliss's claim that he was Kahkody to one of her aunts, the latter said that she had dreamed shortly before Corliss's birth that Victor Vincent was coming to live with the Chotkins. Mrs. Chotkin was certain that she had not previously told her aunt about Victor Vincent's prediction that he would return as her son."

Another case of announcing dreams, which is particularly interesting: "A Burmese wife whose husband was away from home on a long journey had a dream in which a deceased friend seemed to be asking for permission to be reborn as her child; she did not like this proposal and (in the dream) told him not to come to them. When her husband returned from his journey, he told her that he had dreamed of the same old friend and had told him (in his dream) that he (the friend) would be welcome to be reborn in their family. In the due course a child (Maung Aung Than) was born who later made statements suggesting that his father's acceptance had prevailed over his mother's attempted veto."

4) Statements about previous life - Besides Corliss's claim that he was "Kahkody," as mentioned above, "he also mentioned two events in the life of Victor Vincent about which she [his mother] did not think he could have obtained information normally." Corliss's case is weak on statement so I will quote one the case of Sujith Jayartne, a boy from Sri Lana:

"Sujith said that he was from Gorakana and lived in the section of Gorakawatte, that his father was named Jamis and had a bad right eye, that he had attended the kabal iskole, which means "dilapidated school," and had a teacher named Francis there, and that he gave money to a woman named Kusuma, who prepared string hoppers, a type of food, for him. He implied that he gave money to Kale Pansala, or Forest Temple, and said two monks there, one of whom was named Amitha. He said that his house was whitewashed, that its lavatory was beside a fence, and that he bathed in cool water.

"Sujith had also told his mother and grandmother a number of other things about the previous life that no one wrote down until after the previous personality had been identified [unlike the preceding statements]. He said his name was Sammy, and he sometimes called himself "Gorakana Samma." Kusuma, the woman he mentioned to the monk, was his younger sister's daughter, and she lived in Gorakana and had long, think hair. He said that his wife's name was Maggie and their daughter's was Nandanie. He had worked for the railways and had once climbed Adam's Peak a high mountain in central Sri Lanka. He had transported arrack, a liquor that was illegally traded, in a boat that had once capsized, causing him to lose his entire shipment of arrack. He said that on the day he died, he and Maggie had quarreled. She left the house, and he then went out to the store. While he was crossing the road, a truck ran over him, and he died.

"The young monk went to Gorakana to look for a family who had a deceased member whose life matched Sujith's statements. After some effort, he discovered that a fifty-year-old man named Sammy Fernando, or "Gorakana Sammy" as he was sometimes called, had died after being hit by a truck six months before Sujith was born. All of Sjith's statements proved to be correct for Sammy Fernando, except for his statement that he had died immediately when the truck hit him. Sammy Fernando died one to two hours after being admitted to a hospital following the accident." (Life Before Life, pg. 87).

5) Recognizing people or things connected to the Previous Personality - Getting back to the case of Corliss Chotkin Jr., "When Corliss was between two and three years old, he spontaneously recognized several persons whom Victor Vincent had known, including Vincent's widow." He "spontaneously recognized a stepdaughter of Victor Vincent. She was at the docks in Sitka, where Corliss happened to be with his mother. Corliss, suddenly noticing her, called out excitedly: 'There's my Susie.'" In this instance, Corliss's mother was acquainted with Susie, although she had not noticed her before Corliss did. In the best of these spontaneous recognitions, the subject identifies someone who is completely unknown to any person with him."
Stevenson does not attach a tremendous amount of importance to recognition when they are made under uncontrolled situations, e.g. when the subject is tested in front of the previous personality's family to see whether he makes correct recognitions. This is due to the leading nature of the questions asked and possible hints given to the subject. However, in some cases he has been able to control for such variables.

6) Unusual Behavior Related to the Previous Personality - "Corliss combed his hair in a manner closely resembling Victor Vincent; both Corliss and Victor Vincent stuttered; both had a strong interest in boats and in being on the water; both had strong religious propensities; and both were left-handed. Corliss also had a precocious interest in engines and some skill in handling and repairing them; his mother said he had taught himself how to run boat engines."

This evidence is at best convincing when taken together as a whole; no individual match between the Previous Personality and the Current Subject is quite convincing. However, Stevenson discusses other behaviors which are more convincing: 1) Emotions appropriate for the memories he claims to have, e.g. upon meeting the family of the Previous Personality, the Current Subject ardors the sisters but dislikes the brother of the Previous Personality, just like the Previous Personality felt; 2) Behavior (phobias, tastes, interests, skills, sex-type) that is unusual in the family of the Current Subject but corresponds to the traits of the Previous Personality, e.g. the Current Subject is afraid of water and the Previous Personality died by drowning in water; 3) Xenoglossy, i.e. the ability to speak a foreign language that they have not learned normally (this is rare but not rare enough for Stevenson to write a book about it).

In an up-coming post we will discuss the suggested explanations of this well-documented phenomenon.

Why Learn Gemara - Part V - Addendum II

The Torah as God's Mind, the problem with this idea, and a first approach to dealing with the problem is all dealt with here. To briefly summarize: The Rambam, and others, teach that the key to Ahavat Hashem is beholding His wisdom in Torah and in nature. The difficulty with this is that much of the Torah is not necessarily the wisdom of Hashem, although certainly His will, since most of the Torah is dependent on human interpretation.

Now I will allude to a second approach, but stop there because I do not fully understand it. Just a thought to ponder. I am also partially quoting for the sake of space, so please see the sources I quote for a full understanding.

II. The Torah as a Verb

The truth of the Torah, the Godly wisdom found therein, is not an noun to be found but a verb to be developed and emulated. I quote below from three modern Jewish thinkers:

R. Tzvi Freeman, a wonderful writer at Chabad.org (and a wonderful person!) writes the following in an article entitled "The Murky Truth About Truth":

"So what is the definition of truth if even G-d can't decide? How do we claim exclusive rights on The Truth when you can't even agree -- G-d can't even decide -- what The Truth is?

"Obviously, we have to rethink the idea of truth. Maybe there isn't an ultimate piece of information that is the ultimate truth (like in Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where he is told that the ultimate truth is 46). Maybe truth isn't a fact at all. Maybe truth is more like a process.

[...]


"The advantage of human intellect is not necessarily in knowing but discerning. In other words, the ability to generate a plethora of varied perspectives, possibilities, hypotheses -- and then analyze each one to determine which works best in this situation.


"Anyone familiar with study of Torah knows that this is what it's all about. As soon as you begin learning the first line of Genesis, you are told that it can't be read with a single interpretation. It can't just mean that G-d started creating the heavens and the earth out of nothing, because there are far more facile ways of saying that. In your first step of learning Torah you are introduced to conflict-knots to untie and signposts to interpret.


"Torah learning is all about process rather than content -- how to approach a problem, how to generate lots of perspectives, how to analyze and compare them, how to determine which one works best as a reading of the text, which works best as a practical application, which works best as an ethical lesson... it goes on and on literally without end.

"Torah is not about G-d's ideas. Torah is about how G-d thinks about those ideas -- but using our human minds. But Torah is particularly about how we come to a final decision.


"Now it becomes easy to see how a Torah that makes an exclusive claim to truth has no qualms about "taking the truth from whence it comes." The truth of Torah lies principally in its process of evaluation and discernment between ideas. If someone else has made a valuable study of those ideas, developing them further and bringing the issues out into the open -- all the better. Now it's up to the Torah process to determine whether the axioms upon which this is based are acceptable or not, whether this is something G-d wants in His world right now or not, how it should be used and for what.


"This is how Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi describes the truth of Torah in chapter five of Tanya: When the human mind is absorbed in comprehending that if Mr. Simon argues like this and Reuven inc. argues like that, then the halachah will be such and such -- that is Torah and that is Truth. Not that he is learning about Truth. Rather, he is "thinking with G-d's mind." He is being Truth. That state of being, that experience, that process, that itself is Truth.


R. Micha Berger in Defining Geulah and Geulah and the Halakhic Process writes the following (very partially quoted):


"...[H]istory as a process by which Truth, which had to be compromised by the creation of Man, is planted again in the Heart of the Jewish People as Torah, and through that Man is refined, the Torah is refined, and Truth sprouts forth from the ground, reconciled with the refined human being at the culmination of history...Torah is not being described as Truth. Rather, it is the seed and process from which Truth blossoms.


[...]


"The purpose of halakhah isn’t directly to obtain the Truth. It’s to make the Truth bloom within us and be manifest in the world. Thus, the essence is our working the process...Torah, like life, is about becoming, not being."


Another interesting thinker, Stan Tenen, once wrote to me the following (also a partial quote):

"...Orthodox Judaism, halacha, and Talmud, et al., DON'T HAVE TO BE CORRECT to do their jobs.


"This is because the entire Torah system is a _living_ system, and living systems don't have to be perfect, because they self-correct, they grow, they mature, and they recycle...


"The fact is, we've kept ourselves stupid by flattening and denaturing the kabbalistic roots of halacha. We avoid Kabbalah because it's so often been hijacked by idiots, false messiahs, and anti-semites. But this leaves us without our own roots, and without our own references.


"...the sages who set the Talmud knew the priestly teachings of the science of consciousness which later became Kabbalah, so they knew to anticipate that some of their decisions might be objectively wrong, and they compensated for this. Living systems that know that they're alive take care of themselves, and plan ahead.


"Whether or not Talmud is accurate is not nearly as important as that the Talmud/Torah tradition is _alive_. That's its _singular_ achievement, and after all, it's the only necessary achievement to ensure Jewish survival. When times are better, repairs can be made...

"Judaism is _not_ truth. But Torah is alive, and its _process_ is Truth. There's a big difference."

Why Learn Gemara - Part V - Addendum I

In the previous post we discussed the view that through learning Torah one is connecting to God's Mind. The question that was raised was "how can we claim that the Torah is God's Mind when much of the Torah is based on human interpretation?!" The first approach answers that human cognition, especially when contemplating wisdom or Torah, is guided by Divine inspiration.

The next question, then, is "how does one know if one's ideas are in accordance with the Divine Mind and not a product of one's own self (see Bava Batra 12b which is bothered by this question)?" To this I present two approaches:

I. The Acceptance of Israel

If Israel accepts a certain work, especially a halakhic work, then we know post-facto that it was written with Divine inspiration. R. Yaakov Elman (Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah, pgs. 242-250) quotes many sources that maintain this view, especially R. Yonasan Eibescheutz (Urim veTumim, kitzur tekafo kohen, nn.123-124), R. Tzadok ha'Kohen (Machesevet Charutz 6a-b), and R Yisrael Dov Ber of Zledniki (Shereit Yisrael 6c). This has practical implication; a work written with Divine inspiration contains multiple levels of meaning (Pardes, Shivim Panim etc.). See Avakesh for a discussion of this.

II. Philosophic-mystical approach

For this section I will only quote others who have actually experienced a quasi-mystical experience when learning.

R. Avraham Yitzchak Bloch hy"d (Shiurei Da'at, pg. 7) describes the experience of learning in depth - a trait associated with all of the Roshei Yeshivos of Telz, from Reb Lazer Gordon to R. Mordechai Gifter.

"It is possible for every person to become conditioned in the ways of thinking in Torah - with depth and exhausting labor until one reaches the end of the matter. When a person delves into a matter he connects himself to Wisdom itself and becomes completely removed from outside infleunces and views. To reach this state clarity of faith in Hashem is required; a person must feel the Existence of Hashem as the source of Wisdom. Through this it is possible to feel Wisdom as having self-sufficient and independent existence. At this point seclusion with Wisdom is seclusion with the Creator Himself."

Upon seeing this quote I immediatly recalled a quote from Roger Penrose:

"Almost all my mathematical thinking is done visually and in terms of non-verbal concepts...Often there are simply not the words available to express the concepts required...A common experience, when some colleague would try to explain some piece of mathematics to me, would be that I should listen attentively, but almost totally uncomprehending of the logical connections between one set of words and the next. However, some guess image would form in my mind as to the ideas he was trying to convey - formed entiely on my own terms and seemingly with very little connection with the mental images that had been the basis of my colleague's own understanding - and I would reply. Rather to my astonishment, my own remarks would usually be accepted as appropriate, and the conversation would proceed to and fro in this way...

"...I imagine that whenever the mind perceives a mathematical idea, it makes contact with Plato's world of mathematical concepts...When one 'sees' a mathematical truth, one's consciousness break through into this world of ideas, and makes direct contact with it...[T]his 'seeing' is the essence of mathematical understanding. When mathematicians communicate, this is made possible by each one having a direct route to truth, the consciousness of each being in a position to perceive mathematical truths directly, through this process of seeing (indeed, often this act of perception is accompanied by words like 'Oh, I see!'). Since each can make contact wit PLato's world directly, they can more readily communicate with each other than one might have expected (pgs. 424-427)."

Lastly, on a slightly different note, I quote from the wonderful book "The Jewish Self," by R. Jeremy Kagan (pgs. 98-102). See there for the full story; this is only a taste.

"Though understanding is build on inspiration, and genuine inspiration is divine, how can we distinguish true inspiration from fantasy?...How can something so personal govern what is seemingly objective?

[...]

"Torah is not a vision of reality; it is determinant of reality. Yet a person's vision of the world is a reflection of his self. It follows, then, that to have vision of what is real a person must have access to a self which is true and real.

"Torah is the pursuit of that self. It is not an academic investigation of ideas; it is a discipline of ultimate self. Only through diligent nurturing of the true "I," combined with a ruthless winnowing of historical circumstance, social opinion, and individual selfishness can a person gain access to his unadulterated self. Thus the sages state that the Oral Torah exists only in one who "kills" himself in the tents of Torah. This does not refer to removing one's individuality or his uniqueness and personality. The sages were not Torah computer or zombies. Rather, it refers to the removal of all external pressures which are foreign to the elemental self.

"The unrefined self is a mass of inclination each pulling in their own direction, with a confused center traveling among them...The unrefined self sees itself as several selves.

"The true self is unitary. Man was created in the tzelem, or image, of the Creator; the pure inner self is one, just as the Creator is One. Only through intense refinement can we arrive at that true, unitary self. This process of purification is identical with understand the world in a "personally objective" sense. For the purified self is in the image of the Creator, and the world also is creator and as such must reflect the Creator. Therefore the pure self mirrors the true world. Since our understanding is a projection of our self, purifying our self gives us true understanding of the world.

"The discipline of trhe Oral Torah is that process of purification; through it we have access to the unadulterated self. For just as man is created in the image of the Creator, so too the Torah is His creation and therefore reflects Him. The Zohar states that "The Holy One, The Torah, and Israel are all one." The Zohar means that the true inner being of an individual, the Torah, and the Creator's expression outside Himself are all one reality expressed in different dimensions. Therefore the Torah is necesarily the blueprint of the self.

"The relationship of the self to Torah is roughly comparable to that of mathematical axioms to the laws which are derived from them. The axioms on their own appear inexplicable and irrelevant. When developed they produce a full system of laws. These laws are merely expansions of the potential which lay in the axioms. So also the undeveloped self is impenetrable and nebulous. Torah is the structure of that self actualized and concretized.

"This metaphor also captures the relationship of the Torah back to the self. Our mathematical system, when viewed without the axioms which unify it into a logical whole, appears to be an arbitrary jumble of rules. So also the Torah without the self - which is its living source and center -appears empty and arbitrary.

[...]

The Oral Torah cannot exist without the self as a mere collection of disparate facts and legal decisions, for it expresses an integrated world. In the time of prophecy the Torah was the Creator's Torah and was unified through Him. When the Torah is no longer prophetic, when it is cut off from the Creator, the Torah finds its unity through the unitary knowing self of the individual. That true unitary self is the focal center of the Torah, and the Torah exists only though that unitary self with all its uniqueness and personality. Only in the uncovering of that unique self can the Torah, in its fullness, exist. Our sages express this in the following passage from the Talmud:

Said Rava: In the beginning the Torah is called by name of the Holy One and in the end it is called by the individual's name, for it says, "In Hashem's Torah desire and in his Torah strive day and night (Avodah Zarah 19a)."

Why Learn Gemara - PartV

The Torah as God's Mind

Through learning one may get a glimpse the wisdom of Hashem as manifested in the Torah. The intellect beholds the Infinite Perfection of Hashem, "how the higher light fits within the halakha”[i] and the heart is filled with tremendous pleasure and love of Hashem.”[ii]

Coming to this experiential recognition of love of Hashem is the climax of spiritual growth. The Shiurei Da’at[iv] explains that great Sages, like the Vilna Gaon and R. Akiva Eiger, could sustain their bodies from the pleasure that they received from the Torah. This is obviously a very high level, but even the average student can either gain enjoyment through learning and thus fulfills his need for pleasure in a holy way.”[v]

The difficulty in the Rambam is that since much of the Torah is based on interpretation it does not necessarily reflect the wisdom of Hashem. Indeed, the accepted interpretation is post-facto Hashem's will, but how can we say that it actually is His Mind and Wisdom?

R. Jeremy Kagan formulates the questions as such: "As long as there was prophecy, the Creator revealed in a direct way what the essence of reality was - there was a divine check on the understanding of Torah, it was completely the Creator's Torah. But what happens when prophecy stops? We still have a record of Moses' prophecy, the Written Torah; it contains all potential truth. But its reading becomes entirely dependent upon
interpretation.

How can an individual's interpretation of the Torah still be Torah?...[H]ow [can] such a thing can be called Torah, the underlying essence of reality and determinant of the Creator's relationship to the world?”[vi]

There are two approaches to this question. The first approach addresses the nature of human cognition:

“Just as prophecy is a Divine flow, so wisdom. Man cannot apprehend anything without the aid of the Divine influx, as it says, “For the Lord grants wisdom (Proverbs 2:6)” This is what the Rabbis meant when they said “Though prophecy was taken from the prophets, it was not taken from the Sages” (Bava Batra 12a).”[vii]

This is true of all thought which involves eternal truths, [viii]but is especially true of Torah.[ix]

R. Soloveitchik,[x] in discussing the Rambam,[xi] writes: "Man must serve God at the intellectual level. Judaism believes that human thinking is only a reflex of the infinite mind and that human knowledge and cognition are basically Divine possessions. Man is only allowed to share these treasures with their real Master - God. Thought is the link connecting finite and infinite, creature and Creator...Thinking in terms of eternal truths, whether theoretical or ethical, is an act of love, of craving for God...In the intellectual gesture, there is a human turning to God, a silent communication, a speechless dialogue with the Creator, Artist and Lover. Man and God are united through the bond of wisdom (see Mishna Torah, Hilkhot Teshuva 10:6).

"In an excerpt from Maimonides Guide (MN III:51) the exclusively intellectual feature in the communication between God and man is stressed with almost unrestrained zeal. The true worship of God is possible only when correct idea of Him have previously been conceived. It is when one has arrived by way of intellectual research at a knowledge of God and His works that one may try to approach Him and strengthen even further the intellect which is the link to Him.

"At this intellectual level, Judaism considered the study of Torah as the most sublime kind of worship, a way of meeting God, of breaking through the barrier separating the Absolute from contingent and relative. Human intellectual engagement in the exploration of God's word, thought and law is a great religious experience, an activity bordering on the miraculous, a paradoxical bridge spanning the chasm that separates the world of vanity from infinity. The leaders of both Hasidut and Lithuanian halakhic rationalism saw in the preoccupation of the intellect with the Torah a sort of identification with Divine thought, the realization of man's longing for companionship with God, reaching the dimensions of the supra-natural unio mystica."
This approach would probably interpret the principle of “Eilu v'eilu divrie Elokim Chayim” according to the multiple-truth theory. Halakhic truth is either dependent on the case[xii] or the times[xiii] or is simply too rich and complex to be grasped by one mind.[xiv]


[i] Orot ha’Torah, 2:3
[ii] Rambam, Sefer ha’Mitzvos, Mitzva # 3
[iii] R. Chait, http://www.ybt.org/essays/rchait/learntorah.html
[iv] Shiure Da’at, Vol II, "Peles Ma'agal Raglecha."
[v] Hakdama l’Eglei Tal
[vi] R. Jeremy Kagan, The Jewish Self, pg. 98
[vii] Shlomo Almoli, Pitron ha’Chalomot, 4:2. Also see Chiddushei Ramban on Bava Batra 12a. Translation by Bezalel Naor, Lights of Prophecy, pg. 32.
[viii] R. Kook, Orot, Zironim, Tzimaon l’El Chayah.
[ix] Avodah zarah 19a; Ramchal, Tikkunim 24; Tanya, Chapter 5; Nefesh ha’Chayim 4:6; R. Tzadok ha'Kohen, Dover Zedek, 71d-72c.
[x] Worship of the Heart, pgs 4-5
[xi] Sefer Ikkarim, 1:16; Chovot ha'Levavot, Sha'ar Avodat Elokim, Chapter 5.
[xii] Rashi, Ketubot 57a (See R. Zvi Lampel, Dynamics of Dispute for different interpretations) – when two sides argue over the halakha there will be cases when one is correct and other cases when the other one is correct ( and, presumably, we decide the halakha based on which one will be correct most of the time). For this phenomenon in Torah, see Ohr ha’Chaim on Bamidbar 14:29 and Devarim 1:14; Ramban on Breisheit 15:13 (with R. Cooperman’s explanation) and Vayikra 18:4; Netziv on Breisheit 25:23.
[xiii] Dor Revi”i based on Midrash Shmuel on Avot 1:1.
[xiv] Maharal, Be’er ha’Golah, pgs.19-20; Yam Shel Shlomo, Hakdama l’Bava Kamma; Migdal Oz , Tefillin 3; Amudei Shesh, chapter 20; Shi’urei Da’at, hakdama, and others.