Video: How Do You Know the Torah Is True?

A one person revelation narrative creates a credibility trap door. Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen lays out the 3 possibilities of how the narrative could proceed. His fascinating presentation leaves no doubt of the validity of Jewish history.


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7 Comments

    • Good Shiurim

      R. Leib Kelemen.

      has more from him.

      They are important though as correctly pointed out, they are accessories to faith.

      BTW, R Schochet AH’S, in one of his counter-missionary debates said, “We don’t believe Matan Torah is true.” “We KNOW Matan Torah is true.” (like how do we know there was an American Revolution…. or Columbus…..or a Crusades….. We have our accounts, we have our traditions, we have our Torah…. we have all the proof)

  • Maskil vs Oved

    This is known as the Chakira or philosophical approach, which though intriguing is still limited, primarily due to the fact that people don’t often do what’s rational (e.g. Smoking, gambling). The Rebbe’s approach was that of going to a yid and asking them to do something Jewish and igniting a spark – what we now know as Ahavah mesuteres. This has a much more permanent and essential effect.

    • Citizen Berel

      That’s not Maskil vs. Oived. Maskilim and Oivdim are chassidishe inyonim.

      Chakira is human sechel, which points to but is distinct from the etzem, the absolute reality of the subject. Human sechel starts where the absolute reality stops, which is why we need come on to proof.

      Chassidus is emunah, the etzem itself. To be maskil chasiddus is to be mamshich emuna in sechel.

      The upshot is that chakira is the domain of the creation.

      Chassidus–both to the maskil and to the oived is elokus.

  • Dont rely too much

    These are nice ideas to add to a strong well established faith but internalizing it too much can be disastrous. His arguments are not fully sound and can be repudiated easily especially since he makes use of a straw man argument. Probably the strongest point he makes is that a religious origin story like ours ()with millions of witnesses instead of one) has not been established anywhere near as successfully as ours so if the alternative (heretical) explanations of the state of our current Mesora (of a Sinai event) are highly probable they should have occurred more than just in our case, as it is a highly preferable way of asserting a religion. On the other hand if the alternative explanations are very unlikely they may be harder to believe than our Mesora. So you can see that this may add some logical confidence to your deep-seated beliefs but more than that would render you susceptible to a smart fellow taking apart Rabbi Keleman’s assertions especially since he doesnt comprehensivley address the alternative theories (hence the straw man’s weakness)