Parshat Miketz

"... Pharoah dreamed and behold..." -Genesis 41:1

Dreams are truly fascinating, aren't they? The scientific study of dreams is known as oneirology, and it is, has been, and shall remain for the foreseeable future, an area of much contentious research. As much as we know about how the brain and dreams function, there remain many more questions than there are answers. I am not a neuroscientist so speculating on how the brain functions on a physical level is pointless for me. I want to focus on the theological implications of this phenomenon that we all know so very well. In order to conceptualize this, I first need to talk about a blockbuster.  

Only a few short months ago, a film by Christopher Nolan called Inception was released to nearly universal acclaim. 

Essentially, the film deals with the idea of implanting (or incepting) an idea into a person's mind. This is done in order to make the individual in whom the idea is being incepted believe that the idea is original (and not from a third party). The protagonists in the film attempt this endeavor in order to incept the idea in a certain wealthy businessman's mind to break up his inherited corporate empire. I believe the concept of inception is critical to understanding how two very important theological concepts operate in our own world. 

"... The dream of Pharaoh is one; what God is about to do He hath declared unto Pharaoh ..." Bereshit 41:28

To examine these concepts, I shall first explain the Rambam's position on the nature of prophecy and divine providence. In short, the Rambam held, with the exception of Moshe, that all prophetic revelation is given to the prophet through a dream. And it is on this note that our parsha begins: Pharaoh is given a dream by God.

Similarly, the Rambam's perspective on divine providence can be illustrated by the following parable: God exists outside of time as we know it, and therefore He knows the future (from our linear perspective) and all scenarios that could possibly occur as a result of our actions. Consider a hypothetical individual who has merited divine providence. He is planning on taking a voyage on the high seas, but God knows that all possible future scenarios for that particular seafaring vessel end in its destruction and sinking. In order to save our meritorious hero, God incepts within his mind the idea not to travel on that particular day, and when he chooses not to travel, he is thereby saved from death. 

To summarize the two concepts I am exploring, God both communicates prophetic revelation through dreams and protects the righteous by incepting thoughts they believe to be their own into their minds. According to the Rambam, God doesn't mess with the natural order of the world anymore than He absolutely must. 

You may be thinking, "If God incepts the thought into the mind of the righteous man to not travel on that particular day, doesn't that nullify the individual's free will to choose?" It's a great question but it is one that must be understood subtly. 

Our minds process events in such abstract ways that it is practically impossible to pinpoint exactly what external cues in conjunction with our subconscious, instinctual, and cognitive biases lead to our seemingly original thoughts. 

So I pose the two following rhetorical questions: did Robert Fischer Jr., the mark in the film, lose his free will after the idea was successfully incepted in his mind? To address this, I will attempt to answer an even more important question, namely, did Pharaoh lose his free will when God gave him the dream which in turn directly led to Yosef's redemption from prison? 

"... Then Pharaoh sent and called Yosef, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon ..." Bereshit 41:15

My answer is no, and I will also do my best to show why by holding that such an incepted thought (from either God or wacky dream travelers) impedes human free will, you are actually logically forced to conclude the opposite. Let me explain.

Every knowledgeable religious Jew believes that God has a plan for the universe, and that the world will eventually be ushered into what is known as the Messianic Era. In Hegelian terms, this concept is known as an historical inevitability. And in Judaism, it is an important concept. Rambam brings the belief in the Messianic Era down as a fundamental tenet of the Jewish faith. 

According to the Bais HaLevi, at first glance, we perceive Pharaoh's dream as the cause of Yosef's redemption from prison. However, when we remove ourselves from the simplistic linear shackles of the narrative and factor in the concept of divine providence as the true guiding force behind Jewish history, we can view Pharaoh's dream as actually the effect of Yosef's inevitable departure from prison. This was, as we all would agree, necessary in order to further the historical narrative of the Jewish people in the land of Egypt. 

"And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof; and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh." Bereshit 41:8

God did not nullify Pharaoh's free will by giving him the dream. Pharaoh himself sought out interpretations among the pagan magicians of Egypt, but none offered him an explanation to his liking. He is the one, at every single junction in the narrative, who made decision after decision by utilizing his own free will to choose. 

By holding that God nullified Pharaoh's free will, you are assuming that after God gave him the dream, that He then forced him to seek out an interpretation, rather than Pharaoh choosing to do that himself. It sets a dangerous precedent to state that incepted thoughts nullify a person's free will. You'd then be forced to state that any original thought that ever pops into our minds invariably nullifies our free will, because our thoughts are always the result of external cues and cognitive biases that we have no conscious part in constructing. Since we can all agree that we think original thoughts on a constant basis, all of humanity would, according to that reasoning, be perpetually enslaved to the whims of neural synapses! I feel that this position is simply untenable. We have the power to choose whether or not to follow our gut feelings and impulses. 

If you're feeling a bit lost at this point, I apologize. Let me recap what I've said so far.

a. God has a plan for the world, and this includes a plan for the Jewish nation. Yosef needed divine intervention in order to be redeemed from prison. This historical necessity was what caused God to intervene and give Pharaoh the dream. This is an example of non-linear causality. 

b. From our vantage point, God giving Pharaoh the dream is what led to Yosef being redeemed. This is why it is presented in such a way in the narrative. Human beings, for all practical purposes, perceive time as linear, but this is not a complete picture of reality. 

c. Pharaoh's dream did not nullify his free will. By holding that incepted thoughts from a third party nullify free will, I believe that you are forced to conclude the same about any thought that pops into ones mind. It is impossible to distinguish between a divine, and therefore perfectly incepted thought, and a seemingly original thought.

While my arguments in favor of maintaining free will in light of incepted thoughts may not be perfect, I am nevertheless confident of one thing, which is that God has a plan for the universe. What makes it so difficult for us to comprehend this is that His plan has been specifically crafted in such a way that goes counter to human intuition. When we factor in the concept of non-linear causality and apply it to God's hand in the universe, this apparent paradox becomes much easier to conceptualize.

All of Jewish history, all of human history, and indeed all of cosmic evolutionary history follows this seemingly paradoxical pattern. And it is through understanding this principle that I believe that a theology relevant to the modern man must be established. This is the foundation of a rational religious framework that can move us closer toward understanding both the physical, and the metaphysical, aspects of our universe. 

Challenges

I feel as though whenever I reconcile one problem I have with religious philosophy and Judaism in particular, a whole slew of other issues somehow find their way to the forefront of my mind, thereby invalidating any progress I have made in my journey toward understanding my purpose in the universe.

The latest challenge to my faith is courtesy some groundbreaking new research in astrophysics which is cited here http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.3907. 

In short, if the research is eventually confirmed, it will prove that alpha, otherwise known as the fine-structure constant, is not a fundamental constant throughout our universe. 

I have tried to explain why this presents such a difficulty for religious believers to my friends and colleagues. However, no one can quite grasp why this presents such a terrible blow to creation. In short, if the fundamental constants are variable throughout space, and thereby certainly over time, it is proof positive that even the most basic physical laws which govern our universe were not the result of fine tuning by a creator, but rather the result of as of yet unknown natural processes.

UPDATE

Upon much reflection upon these and other scientific findings (such as the theological implications of evolution), I have reached the following conclusions:

1) No matter how complete our understanding of the laws of the universe becomes, we simply shift the philosophical discussion up a meta-level. For example, suppose it is definitely proven that our universe is simply one in an innumerable vacuum of parallel universes and the fact that the laws of physics exist in such a way in our region of our universe that is conducive to the development of life is due to mere mathematical probability. Even if this was proven, it would still beg the question of why the multiverse exists and why the meta-laws that lead to the development of all physical laws exist in the first place and can produce a universe that is undeniably ordered. Philosophy (and derivatively, religious philosophy) is still valuable. We cannot allow our ever-evolving knowledge of the universe to cloud our judgement and lead us to arrogant, absolutist statements that are inherently unfalsifiable.

2) It is simply a restatement of the "paradox" of free will and divine providence on the cosmic scale. Consider this: the meta-laws that shape our universe through what are ultimately unguided processes is just a scientific assessment of the universe's "free will" in contradistinction to God's divine providence. I will devote future posts to the extrapolation of this idea, but this is just a basic summation of the issue.

3) Morality. Some biologists/psychologists (and militant atheists) like Richard Dawkins believe that human morality is simply (and only) a series of complex neural impulses that evolved over time in order to preserve society through our development as a species. I am not doubting that much of these conclusions provide reasonable explanations for the historical development of morality, but it leads one to concluding that the ends of human morality is societal pragmatism. (I don't kill you so you don't kill me.) The insight of Judaism is that morality (the concept of the ultimate good) is an ideal unto itself. Much of humanistic culture has attached itself to the concept of an ideal morality, but they unconsciously skim over the fact that this idea is rooted in religious philosophy. 

Purpose and Paradox

I'd like to briefly explain why I named this blog "Purpose and Paradox".

The first word, Purpose, was chosen simply because I believe that Judaism gives objective meaning to existence and that without it, humanity is left to rationalize their own purpose and meaning, including coming to the conclusion that life has neither. And yes, I realize that one could argue that Judaism is man made and therefore the meaning it ascribes to existence is likewise an artificial construct, but that is an absolutist position that I am not totally comfortable with, as I shall discuss later on in further posts. I also believe that many non-Jewish philosophers throughout the ages have tapped into existential truth as well, albeit through their own human intellect and reasoning alone. Judaism as a revealed religion is unique because the Prophets, when recording their prophecies, synthesized both their own superior human intellect and the divine perfect intellect to produce texts of remarkable depth and magnitude containing truths that transcend the confines of historical relevancy.

The second word, Paradox, was chosen because I believe that the only way for the ultimately limited human intellect to perceive grandiose all-compassing truth is through parables shrouded in what we perceive as paradox. I am defining paradox to mean two premises that contradict each other given the information available at the moment, but upon further reflection, from a greater vantage point beyond, actually don't. There are well known paradoxes in just about every field imaginable and sometimes, after a period of long reflection and study, many get resolved because of new information that was not previously known and considered. Whereas some individuals read biblical narratives as completely literal accounts and find fault with the numerous contradictions such a reading brings forth, I see the narratives as substantially more flexible and derive truths from the paradoxes found therein.

Goals

I'm not a big fan of the whole blogging phenomena that has swept the internet over the past few years. However, I have decided to give into my narcissistic tendencies and finally create one regardless of whether or not my thoughts generate a readership or not. The fact is that I am simply a person with a lot of weird ideas when it comes to just about any subject, be it politics, film, or religion, and I have finally come to peace with the fact that there are so few people out there willing to hear me out on them. So now I have decided to turn to the internet, which in some respects fills my emotional need of being heard because I suppose it is theoretically possible that someone out there is reading this and that makes me feel pretty good in a pathetic sort of way.

So the purpose of this blog is, in short, to give me a place for me to write down my own ideas about life. I will also use this blog as an open forum to allow me to discuss and question traditional beliefs in Jewish thought and philosophy. I have a lot of questions and a lot of ideas on how to resolve many of my questions in light of modernity, but I am by no means an expert on the subject. I am merely a laymen who seeks to grasp a more complete understanding of life's purpose, which is by no means an easy or simple task.

Let me begin by giving a brief biography of myself. I am male, currently 21 years old, and I am from the United States. I am currently studying in an Israeli yeshiva and will be continuing to do so for the remainder of 2010. Upon my return to the States I will be attending university where I plan to major in computer science. I was not raised as an observant Jew or involved with a Jewish community growing up, I attended a public high school, and no, I was not convinced by Chabad or other kiruv organizations to embrace my Jewish heritage. Rather, my return to traditional Jewish observance was sparked by my interest in socialism in high school. I became familiar with the history of Labor Zionism and was specifically enthralled by the writings of Moses Hess. In time, I began that to truly appreciate my Jewish heritage and in doing so became ritually observant. As even more time went on I searched for answers to my questions on reconciling faith in Judaism with a scientifically grounded naturalistic worldview and I still have a lot of questions. I believe that about does it for my inaugural post, I shall return soon with more!