Core Ideas

By: Jonathan Seidel

The downfall of madda: knowing and doing 

The failure of madda’s acceptance in orthodox community may stem from religious stringency, non-stop work or other enjoyable media. Yet even if this is true, there may be a more honest rejection to which bolsters observance simply without resorting to apologetics.

Madda is not as fruitful for a community that sees it as negligible or dangerous. Madda need not mean Kant but Whitman or Hemingway. The care to be cultured rests on an interest. There are observant detractors. Others do not have time for it. Would love to read Hemingway but need to work. Shabbat is time to spend with family and friends. Madda is wasted time. The more enjoyable aspects of focusing on Torah or family trump famous literary pieces. Madda is something for the interested not for the layman. Even for those we aren’t stridently opposed the lack of concern is the far most reaching. Read a bit in high school and some college courses. Yet such disinterest is no defiance but ignorance.

To those who choose otherwise, they fill the gaps with more enjoyable subjects. Whether that is Torah or more commonly television. This is not some Torah only crusade. They may excuse their ignorance as prophets of an exclusionary club but they are committing their own fallacy of bitul Torah watching television. Talk about dangerous. Some of the Netflix shows or YouTube clips may be more harmful to the soul then Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. It may be more beneficial to read a reform rabbi’s book on faith than some of the sexual exploitation on social media. The unconcerned group is not one enthralled in Torah but in the field playing around. They find some enjoyment with Torah but rather little with secular work. 

This group wouldn’t even read Maimonides or Kuzari. The issue isn’t even secular pieces but anything philosophical. They may enjoy R Sacks’ parsha derashot for their inspiration but you wouldn’t find them reading R Hirsch’s commentary nor his philosophical treatise. This group may only learn daf yomi for points or obligation. There is a spectrum of enjoying any liturgical works at all. Yet the point is that more intellectual works are beyond. They may read a chassidic book or a book of insights. Spiritual inspiration is fondly enjoyed but not the perplexing responses to the contemporary issues. How many of these individuals have read R Sacks’ other works? How many have read the Rav? Probably very few.

They don’t say philosophy is evil but rather philosophy is boring. Philosophy of the perplexed or intellectual people. It isn’t for me. Philosophy has become a work for those in need of value from outside. Philosophy doesn’t enhance but salvages struggling conviction. Those who don’t do well with traditional sources. Those on the outskirts who need answers lest they lose their religiosity. Philosophy is the lowest of the low. It is not a study for a religious Jew. It is to be ignored and derided. It is heresy posed as intellectualism. Only in extreme cases can it be learned. Those truly who need an external push. The radical nature can overwhelm the cynicism. The stimulation is a quick hit to calm.

Philosophy has a bad name. It has its detractors with minute advocates. One can intellectualize without resorting to the defiant questions. Intellectualism sprouts from the canon not outside. To think is not to the problem but apply that thinking rigorously. To extend one’s inquires into the skeptical realm. To grow weary of tradition due to external pressure to overthink. Is it a dramatic appeal to heretical joy. To find excitement in the deprecating nature of questioning tradition. Skepticism is brought on by seeking patterns that aren’t there. By imposing truth when it isn’t there. An agenda of aspiration to ensure a position. It is more than a thought process. It is an ideological prose of stubborn cynicism.

Brute antagonism is fervently cycled by the phobic anti-intellectualism. The brain can only be used for traditional models. The philosophers of old were exceptional people in difficult times. More likely is the complexity required. Preferring to put all eggs in one basket. A formidable sugya is strenuous enough. Doing so for interest of knowledge is not central nor reliable. There is enough “philosophy” in Talmudic learning. Enough “philosophy” in weekly sermons. No need to quote Kant nor analyse the sociopolitical makeup. All is done by virtue of the traditional lens.

It’s philosophy. It’s deploying intellectualism to deduce the realities. It may not mention Hume nor care for the jargonist devotion but the mind is racing. Mechshava replaces the external stimulus. It is replete with traditional rhetoric. To think is to derive. To ponder is to criticize.  Make it simple, make it a lesson. Invoke ethical motifs not intellectual themes.