Yeshayahu Leibowitz - First step towards atheism

Lior Tal

• The creation of the world - "the existence of the world depends in a "true extant' which is God, but that does not imply specifically that the world exists since a particular moment in which God created it. But most believers are merely unable to believe in Hashem regarding his divineness, but only as a function he takes, regarding his being the creator of the world in a particular date... Perhaps in means of depth of the faith actually the concept of a primitive world is more suitable, but it is not a must in the aspect of the faithwise need of the believers". Leibowitz distinguishes between the essence of the existence of a god without which a world would be impossible, and the recognition of the creation of the world by that god. He claims that even Maimonides has never mentioned a creator (The quote in the Siddur is indeed inaccurate. In the text of Maimonides the word "creator" is not present)' but only the principal that was brought above.
  
• The Torah and the commands we have are divine and were given in mount sinai - "Faith does not come from upwards but from downwards... do I need to teach you chapter 33 in the second part of The Guide for The Perplexed? ie: the question whether the vision mentioned in Mount Sinai forum is optical vision or a cognitive vision? Maimonides leaves this issue as an open question, saying - you can interpret it according to your ability and belief... the faithwise basis of us is that our scriptures - which are human made - is the divine discipline which obligates us. Ths is the dogma of Judaism".
  In my only rendezvous with Leibowitz, about two year before he passed away, I tried to hear from hear in obvious words the basic faith basis: Torah was written by the divinity. He could noway agree to give up to a wording that seemed so trivial in Jewish faith. He claimed in front of me that the only important thing is that I am demanded to practice Torah and Mitzvot. To the question: by whom am I demanded? He answered with his typical rebuke: "What does it mean by whom? Do you think you should be a moral person? Why? There is no rational reasoning for it, it is a value choice! You are demanded to accept the burden of Torah and Mitzvot". Michael Sheshar also tried to "squeeze" of Leibowitz the traditional common accepted answer and asked him: "And what about the written Torah?", and Leibowitz answered: "The scriptures declares those are holy writings". Sheshar doe not loose: "And this is a human decision?"' "Yes", implies Leibowitz, "we believe that that human decision is itself the faithful religious decision. I think that I am expressing myself totally clearly... what I am saying has nothing new and I would be able to show you those things in the strictly rabbinical writings. The scriptures are a human creature on one hand, and on the other hand we accept it as divine. The same discipline we created ourselves".
• The existence of God as a supervising term in our world - "I have already noted above there is a great difference between the belief in God and the belief in God's guidance. If the Prime Minister does not supervise and does not know what the intelligence does, it is a horrible failure, since his duty is to supervise... god has no duty for human... if you understand the concept of 'guidance' in its folklore meaning, than also six millions of Jews were burnt in the gas cells with the assistance of god... In the world as it is today string pulling by God is noticable at all". Leibowitz says that the most rooted pricnipal among believers is basically false. There is no divine interference in the world! In his article about Job and Abraham Leibowitz says: "Job was convinced' there was a hidden meaning to creation and wanted to know it, and God showed him that creation - wherever it was divine - had no meaning at all". This is how the author throws the whole basis of religious education taught nowadays in all the Yeshivot to the trash can, the one that says there is a guide to the world and creation has a meaning. He says that all those are vain and that the worlds acts naturally.
• Afterlife and the reviving of the dead - "In the commentary of the Mishna: 'Reviving of the death - I have already explained it' - and one has to search where Maimonides explained that. And indeed, you find before that: 'Some sages said that evil men are called dead in their lives and justs are called live when dead'. And this is the reviving of the dead!... the just - that is the one who achieved a real cognition of God - does not die with his biological death' since that intellectual cognition of God - and only it - is eternal... if God revived the dead physically, he would revive the evil as well". Regarding Messiah Leibowitz told me in my conversation with him: "Messiah will always be going to come, forever in the future, will be going to come". This figure of speech he explains literally. It is impossible we would recognize a world in which Messiah would have already come since that would not be a world in which we would live. Therefore we would always be commanded to believe Messiah would come.
  This is how Leibowitz closes the faith circle of creation - endowment of a divine discipline - personal guidance - Afterlife and says none of these is true! This is why it is easily understandable why there is so much objection within the religious institute to the writings of the man and why his name is dared to be mentioned in the seminars. Leibowitz has a great rare faith in the obligation to worship God in spite of the obvious recognition there is no divine interference in the world and there is no promise for good set aside the duty. He contemplates the world in pragmatic sharp eyes and sees the absurd' the chaos and meaningless in the creation. As a man of science Leibowitz refuses to get excited of all those interpretitions which give theoretical unproved answers to the problems of the world and say that in spite of all there is a divine order inside the human chaos that sorrounds us. He says that the Kabbalic world is idolatry and completely rejects the doctrine of Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. Leibowitz believes fully in one thing: there is a demand to practice the Halakha, this is what man is all about and a Jew who does not keep that demand is worse, for him, than the member of any other nation - whether it is a Christian, Muslim, Indonesian or a complete atheist. The words: I believe in God, are totally empty of meaning if there is no acceptance of the burden of Torah and Mitzvot aside them. This is his strict declaration and there is no other way to interprete him!