Source
r/exjew•
feltzzazzy

Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen kinda debunked the Kuzari Principle and killed my faith.

Question/Discussion

Did anyone notice how Rabbi Kelemen basically destroyed the Kuzari Principle argument? Or was it just me?

Literally in the first 10 minutes of his infamous lecture “A Rational Approach to the Divine Origin of Judaism” (now under a different title) went on to deconstruct the credibility of Judaism. That was when he took it down.

When I realized that his deconstruction was debunking the Kuzari Principle my whole entire faith fell apart! He did not even attempt to revive it- instead, he presented two completely different arguments which were not compelling (at all).

Here is a 2 minute clip of him debunking it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-dP2ZTc4Eg

I would also love to hear how you guys debunked it. Lol

Posted Apr 8, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

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wonderingwho82•

I always love the beautiful irony of watching someone use the Kuzari Principle that “you can’t convince someone of the truth of Torah misini” to convince a room full of people of Torah misini. It is the most self-defeating argument you could possibly come across.

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feltzzazzyOP•

What’s even more fascinating is that most Jews don’t even start believing in Judaism because of the mass revelation! They believe it for completely other reasons until they are told by some kiruv rabbi that the Kuzari principle is irrefutable. (I know Jews that never even heard of the mass revelation arguments until I told them that those are the only arguments worth arguing.)

This would mean that the first possible Jews could easily be convinced of a false mass revelation by a cult leader with this mass revelation narrative included in the faith much, much later, after those people already committed their lives to their trusted charismatic leader!

5
Baxter_Todd•

I think this is the rest of the speech and how he deals with the question. https://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/Rational_Approach_Divine_Origin_Torah-B/

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feltzzazzyOP•

He obviously tries to reconstruct the credibility of judaism, but he uses completely different arguments. He does not use the Kuzari Principle at all. He basically says it’s a bad argument — follow that link I pasted above.

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0143lurker_in_brook•

Lol you actually have made a really keen observation there. He does refute the Kuzari argument.

Yeah, not wanting to watch this video again, but if I recall his other arguments are "the redactor should be a more prominent figure in Jewish history" and "if it could happen naturally then why don't other religions start with having national miracle stories." (Two bad arguments in their own rights, though the "why don't other religions have the story" one is kind of similar to the Kuzari actually.) I'm surprised if he doesn't do the Kuzari argument in this video though. I think he's used it in the past, like "here's some extremely stupid cult that some people joined, and they're pretty gullible, but nobody would be SO gullible as to believe that the story of God giving the Ten Commandments to millions of people could have been forgotten." As if there's some reason to think that a lost history is so impossible to convince someone of. (And as if the academic perspective is that the Torah was a single unit that would have been presented to the people all in one go.) Maybe he gave up on that argument?

There are a bunch of good ways to debunk the Kuzari argument since it's so full of logical gaps and flawed premises. One of my favorites is to point out the natural ways it could have happened (natural myth formation, compilation of myths, a king forcing the story to be taught, that sort of thing). Kelemen's refutation of the Kuzari argument in the video you shared is one example of that. Another is to push back against the assertion that people wouldn't be gullible enough, like I did in a post once. Then there's showing parts of Tanach that are basically "the Jewish people forgot about the Torah and worshipped idols and a good leader had to bring them back" (refuting the "unbroken tradition" assumption in the argument). Another way is also to point to counterexamples where people have myths and legends about their national history that would have affected everyone and yet which aren't actually true. Any of those choices will do.

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VRGIMP27•

I love Kellerman's insanely ridiculous attempt to describe the documentary hypothesis as 4 random ass charismatic redactors conspiring to invent a religion, and dupe people. Sorry cheif, that's not at all how myth formation works.

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Some story of revelation from God is told by a man Abraham to his children. His children believe their father, and now you have an established family belief system, that as converts come in, it gets bigger, and naturally the initial stories get better with the telling. Eventually a system of elders/priests/judges get set up to preserve the stories, codify them, etc. AS WE KNOW HAPPENED IN HISTORY WITH EVERY RELIGION EVER!

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Could there be a historical core to an Exodus like story? Sure. How? Early Israelite people were a sub set of Canaanites.

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Something people don't realize is that the Egyptians were in fact present in Canaan during the time the Torah is believed to have "happened." So, I look at it as, a group of Henotheistic Jews, with some other very monotheistic priests, are living in Canaan, and are interacting with a large empire (Egypt,) that they dislike a lot, periodically fight with, (win some lose some.)

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So, Egypt looms large in the stories, as "we sure beat the shit out of those guys from across the pond didn't we?"

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Does nobody see the ridiculousness of the narrative saying you are fleeing from the Imperial oppression of Egypt to the space right next door? You can still see the Egyptians mowing the proverbial lawn from within Israel.

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It would be as though you were fleeing from Germany by going to Austria. Really?

4
fagaaron•

I’ve been arguing these exact points with Rabbis and regular Jews and they just say shit like “it says it in the Torah so it must be true” or “you’re just a heretic” or even “you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

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bgoldgrab•

Kinda interesting because in his own book "Permission to receive" he used the kuzari principle

1