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what exactly is the difference between the rationalist approach and the non-rationalist approach in Judaism. Have heard the Rambam as belonging to the rationalist side.

I assume both believe in miracles.

ray
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    This question would be a great deal clearer if you would [edit] in some information about where you've seen these terms. – Isaac Moses Mar 23 '15 at 12:29
  • @IsaacMoses dont remember where first saw them. common terminology, no? – ray Mar 23 '15 at 19:03
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    where you first saw them is less important than some notion of the context[s] in which this question seeks to understand what these words mean. These are English terms that may or may not mean different things in different contexts and may or may not describe well-defined approaches to Judaism. – Isaac Moses Mar 23 '15 at 19:06
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    http://www.chayas.com/AntiRAMBAM.pdf – mevaqesh Dec 02 '16 at 04:43
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    This should answer your question. – mevaqesh Feb 02 '17 at 03:19
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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjGl4Ep2B5U&t=1s this is an ok starting point for those who are not in the know. r slifkin in my opinion was too politically correct in his speech. im glad r duwak spoke his few minutes with straight answers without sugar coating. however the terms rational and irrational are not really the words meant to be used. rambam zl wasnt anti mysticism. he believed in meta physics as well. – MoriDowidhYa3aqov May 02 '17 at 12:05
  • Did Rambam believe in neisim? I was under the impression that he did not. – ezra May 03 '17 at 16:03
  • Why is this primarily opinion based? – DonielF May 03 '17 at 21:09

2 Answers2

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Rationalism in philosophy is more about the method used to achieve conclusions than the underlying conclusions themselves.

Rationalism in religion tends to forbear supernaturalist thinking for scientific style reasoning.

Rationalist Judaism as a philosophical school is a relatively modern and loosely defined construct. "Jewish Rationalists" lay claim that Rambam and Rav Hirsch are antecedants to their school of thought, though whether they were actual rationalists or just wrote works absent mystical reference is a matter of some debate. A Jewish "rationalist" would, however, be inclined toward the style of those two Ba'alei Mesorah rather than, say, Tanya or the Zohar for handling things like metaphysics and miracles.

Bottom line: a rationalist would tend to ignore metaphysics as not empirically observable by humans, so it can't really be ascertained or meaningfully discussed. Historical miracles would be handled in the fashion of the Rambam - as engineered "coincidences" of a grand scope that utilize the rules of nature for uncanny results.

Here's a good discussion of things from the rationalist point of view. The wikipedia page on Jewish philosophy delves into this divide between traditionalist and "rationalist" thinking.

Isaac Kotlicky
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    Does the wikipedia page contrast raitionalist thinking with tradition thinking? Or is that your word choice? – Double AA Mar 23 '15 at 14:20
  • @doubleaa it references historical rationalist thought among Jewish philosophers and discusses their reception by their contemporaneous traditionalist orthodoxy. – Isaac Kotlicky Mar 23 '15 at 14:23
  • @DoubleAA sample quotes: Sa'adya Gaon denounced Hiwi as an extreme rationalist, a "Mulhidun", or atheist/deviator. ... It was Saadia who laid foundations for Jewish rationalist theology [...] thereby shifting Rabbinic Judaism from mythical explanations of the Rabbis to reasoned explanations of the intellect. ... Contemporary Kabbalists, Tosafists and Rationalists continue to engage in lively, sometimes caustic, debate in support of their positions and influence in the Jewish world. – Isaac Kotlicky Mar 23 '15 at 14:36
  • @DoubleAA as far as I can tell, the WP article does not use the word "traditional" as opposed to "rationalist," so I agree that using the former term in this sense is incorrect. – Isaac Moses Mar 23 '15 at 15:15
  • @IsaacMoses correct, but that's ultimately immaterial. When contrasting a philosophy against his contemporaries, the older school is, by definition, "traditional" even if they aren't labeled as such. Note that the "misnagdim" were the traditionalists of their time and were only retroactively labeled once chassidus became widely accepted. – Isaac Kotlicky Mar 23 '15 at 15:19
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    @IsaacKotlicky 1) Your use of quotation marks is material and incorrect. 2) There's a difference between "traditional" and "traditionalist." 3) There's nothing new about the Rambam. 4) A more precisely descriptive term could be "mystic" or "esoteric." – Isaac Moses Mar 23 '15 at 15:28
  • @IsaacMoses 1) I'm not sure what you are referring to 2) If you wish, I will alter it to "traditionalist" rather than "traditional." 3) I didn't say anything about the Rambam being "new." I'm not sure what you're referring to. 4) Much of the Rambam's limud (and Jewish rationalism for that matter) is esoteric without necessarily being mystical. Much of "traditionalist" discussion on the Torah doesn't require any actual mysticism/metaphysics. – Isaac Kotlicky Mar 23 '15 at 15:36
  • @IsaacKotlicky 1) In your last sentence, you use two terms in quotation marks, apparently (incorrectly, in the first case) ascribing them to WP. 2) Without quotation marks, "traditionalist" might work in this context. Does the WP article actually set up a clear contrast? 3) Your answer suggests that "rationalism" includes (or at least claims to include) the Rambam, and your previous comment suggests that "rationalism" is novel. 4) "Metaphysicism," then? Your "bottom line" paragraph suggests a specific focus for rationalism, so it should be possible to be equally specific about the opposite. – Isaac Moses Mar 23 '15 at 15:46
  • @IsaacMoses 1)&2) It's a summary. I will change it to traditionalist and remove the quotes to make clear that the former is my language and the latter is WP. 3) "Rationalist Judaism" as a discrete, self identifying school is new, the Rambam and rationalist interpretations of Judaism aren't. I thought that was clear from my answer. 4) Not necessarily. Rationalism has clear boundaries, the other side is far more nebulous since it includes a large variety of styles and schools of thought. – Isaac Kotlicky Mar 23 '15 at 16:04
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    @IsaacMoses Modified the answer to make clear that Rambam may have used rationalist *methodologies*, as opposed to being part of a discrete "rationalist school." Better? – Isaac Kotlicky Mar 23 '15 at 16:07
  • @IsaacKotlicky: The Rambam did not use what we today would call rationalist tools. I don't think anyone who predates the invention of science and the scientific method could qualify. After all, the Rambam's "rationalism" was based on a millennium of accepting Greek (in his case, Aristo and Plotinus's) explanations of how the world "must" work. Much of it was an appeal to authority, not that he'd have noticed since that authority was not absolute. – Micha Berger Feb 01 '17 at 22:21
  • @MichaBerger I disagree with your assessment. Rationalism as a methodology is divorced from the modern scientific method, especially when dealing with untestable precepts (such as metaphysics). They still possessed "science," but it wasn't as rigorous as today. The "authority" being appealed to was the current understanding of the world. Just because that understanding is flawed doesn't undermine the methodology of assuming "science" is by default correct, as the Rambam does when he exhorts individuals to use the medical knowledge of their own times. – Isaac Kotlicky Feb 02 '17 at 15:46
  • "Bottom line: a rationalist would tend to ignore metaphysics as not empirically observable by humans" This is quite literally the opposite of true. The rambam, saadia gaon, and the ralbag were all deeply concerned with metaphysics. To say they would ignore it because it isn't empirically observable doesn't make much sense in the context of rationalism, which is traditional juxtaposed to empiricism. – Yoel Fievel Ben Avram May 03 '17 at 16:28
  • @ShamanSTK my point is that rationalism as a school of thought is a later convention that didn't exist when the authorities in question wrote their corpus. I would make a distinction between metaphysical philosophy, which was considered a scientific discipline of logic, and mysticism, which wasn't. – Isaac Kotlicky May 03 '17 at 21:31
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Rationalism in Jewish sense is in not philosophical rationalism but, rather a tool. In analyzing Jewish tradition as there have been many different forms Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Haredi, and Hasidic. The rationalist in any of these is more of trying to separate falsehoods from truths with the use of reason.

"The biggest stumbling block to love of God is the belief that the only way to remain true to the Bible is to interpret it literally. The result of literal interpretation is a material conception of God, which, in Maimonides’ opinion, amounts to idolatry." (Maimonides Stanford Encyclopedia)

For example, concerning G-d's incorporeality Rambam talks about how some Jews can make the simple mistake of G-d's being corporeal because taking the Torah literally in that sense.

"The biblical texts suggest that God is corporeal and the interpretation of these texts is not a very easy task"(The Guide for the Perplexed). From this, we can conclude that some Jews may be confused, led astray, or be susceptible to conversion to other religions when they misinterpret the Torah. If they can't understand G-d's incorporeality they might lose their faith. This is why Rambam wants to guide Jews to pure monotheism and rationalism, being using reason as a tool is helpful.

Also, to note Rambam, the famous rationalist had created the 13 principles of faith. three of which are like miracles.

  1. The belief in divine reward and retribution.

  2. The belief in the arrival of the Messiah and the messianic era.

  3. The belief in the resurrection of the dead. (Chabad)

The word miracle definition in the Dictionary.com "is an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause."

As it said in the Torah "for dust you are, and to dust you will return." and along with the notion that people can be resurrected is a miracle as itself as people do not see their dead relatives coming back to life.

Also, the Rambam states "The existence of G-d and his unity were admitted as unquestionable by all Jews; all Jews as Jews know that G-d exists and that He is one, and they know this through the biblical revelation or the biblical miracles."(Guide of the Perplexed PG XXI,Volume 1)

Both faith and reason can work together and in Judaism are not conflicting but rather complementary each other. For rationalism it is simply a tool to help us understand G-d and how we are live in a proper state to worship G-d. This proper state should be clear of misunderstandings from superstition to G-d's incorporeality.

The difference between the rationalist and non-rationalist is the focus on reasoning. Rationalist use of reason to help them while, non-rationalist do not use any form of philosophical techniques from the Greeks, Western, British, and etc. All non-rationalist forms of Judaism tend to be mystical rather than philosophical.

Steve Luong
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  • Normally answers are best when sourced, although in this case the question was very poorly worded, basing itself on the subjective term "rationalist", so that leaves it open to individual interpretation. – mevaqesh May 02 '17 at 18:32