Spinoff: Torah as Reality

poelmamosh

Mon, Apr 29 2013, 12:57 pm

On another thread, I argued with a poster that it is fallacious to have societal norms direct our perspectives on life since "Torah dictates reality."
I was asked for an explanation. I think this is an interesting discussion - hey, we have a section for that on imamother! so I started this thread. Here is a snippet of an article by Dr. Yaakov Brawer:

Quote:

The natural, and seemingly logical, assumption in all of this is that the existence of the world, with its myriad details, complexities and possible problems, mandates the existence of Torah. For example, as every serious student of the Talmud knows, pits and oxen don’t mix. The regulations governing the potentially calamitous relationships between these two entities, as set forth in chapter 5 of Tractate Bava Kamma, are numerous and exceedingly complex. What is the extent of your liability if you dig a pit and my ox stumbles into it? It depends. How deep was the pit? Was the ox killed, or only injured? Did the ox fall into the pit because it was frightened by the noise of the digging? Did it fall backward or forward? And so on. One might reasonably suppose that since oxen and pits are facts of life, the Torah must implement laws to govern their many possible interactions, so as to insure harmony and justice in accordance with divine will. In fact, the situation is just the reverse.

Oxen and pits are not facts of life which the Torah must address; rather, the Torah is the fact of life that necessitates the existence of oxen and pits. Oxen and pits exist only so that some aspect of divine justice can be revealed and actualized through them. The world has no intrinsic reality. Its existence is required in order to provide garments in which Torah can be enclothed, and thus revealed to us within the framework of time and space. Torah, then, is not an allegorical exposition designed to explain and give meaning to life, but rather life is an allegory through which we can grasp and materialize the transcendent divine will and wisdom as set forth in the Torah.

This concept is very difficult to appreciate, for the simple reason that the world does not seem like an allegory that refers to some transcendent reality propounded in Torah. On the contrary, the world gives every appearance of being real in and of itself, whereas the Torah seems somewhat theoretical and abstract. It is hard to imagine that the world is only a parable invented to reveal the primary reality of Torah. Intuitively, the opposite would appear to be the case.

The entire article - fascinating! - is here:
Reality and Its Shadow