Bears, Veils, and the Bubble of Judaism

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Artwork: Savage Punch, by Wesley Burt

Bears, Veils, and the Bubble of Judaism

Introduction

I recently listened to a two-part episode of the NPR podcast Invisibilia on the topic of Reality. Here is NPR's summary:

How is it that two neighbors can look out their window at the exact same thing, and see something completely different? This is a question many people in America are asking now. We explore it by visiting a small community in Minnesota, called Eagle's Nest Township, that has a unique experience with the reality divide: some of the people in the town believe that wild black bears are gentle animals you can feed with your hands, and others think they are dangerous killers. This divide leads to conflict and, ultimately, a tragic death. So, is there a "real" truth about the bear, or is each side constructing its own reality? In part two we look at attempts to escape these self-made constructs. We follow one man's epic experiment to break out of his reality bubble. And one woman's epic-in-its-own-way experiment to break out of her species bubble!

To fully appreciate this blog post I recommend listening to Part 1 of that podcast. Alternatively, here is a link to the full transcript. I will now summarize the main points.

Bears: Peaceful or Dangerous?

The overarching question addressed by the podcast, as formulated by the podcasters, is: "So what is it that makes two people look out the window at the exact same thing and see something completely different? What's in their head that's causing that?"

One of the central subjects of this podcast is Lynn Rogers - a bear biologist who "sees himself as a slayer of myths." Rogers firmly believes that the notion that black bears are dangerous is completely false, and is largely the result of decades of propaganda. "The whole way we think about black bears is a lie - that our culture created a concept of bears as fierce predators so hunters can feel brave." Rogers says, "I think of bears as the modern dragon. In medieval times, people believed in dragons to prove their courage ... Now we know there's no such thing as a dragon, and they needed something to play that role."

Rogers really lives by this theory. He began by approaching black bears when they wandered into town; he then started moving towards them in the wild; then he started making "making friends" by establishing bonds of familiarity with specific bears; then he began feeding them from his hand; eventually he allowed them to "kiss him" by feeding them food (e.g. pecans) from his own mouth and letting them lick his face. Rogers soon gathered a following of like-minded individuals who accepted his theory, emulated his ways, and participated in these intimate interactions with wild bears. The more people he won over to his theory, the more people became convinced of his view.

Lynn Rogers "kissing" a bear

Meanwhile, a large number of scientists and organizations voiced strong opposition to the message preached by Rogers, and warned his followers that they were courting death. The podcasters report that the consensus among bear experts was: "Yes, wild black bears are for the most part timid creatures. And despite their large numbers, have only killed around 70 people in North America since 1900, but still. They're wild, unpredictable animals with the power to do enormous harm. I mean, they have actually killed 70 people in North America since 1900."

The podcasters raised the question: What is the reality here? According to Rogers, the reality is that black bears are not dangerous, and it is only our prejudices, our fear, and our actions which create the perception of danger and provoke the bears to attack. Rogers supports his claim by pointing to the many peaceful bear encounters he has had, and he dismisses the instances of injury as flukes which came about because of human error. According to his detractors, the reality is that black bears are extremely dangerous. The cases of injury and bear attacks are the norm, and the peaceful interactions touted by Rogers are the flukes; they got lucky, but their luck is bound to run out.

After stating this question, the podcasters refer us to Emily Balcetis, a psychologist "who studies perception." The following explanation is offered:

There's so much more information out in the world than we can handle at any given point in time ... A lot of what is coming into our system isn't perfectly clear to us. It's ambiguous. So ambiguous that basically we just have to guess what's going on ... And here's the point of all this: most of the time as we walk through the world, that is what we're actually looking at, not just the thing in front of us but also the concepts in our heads ... Each side is literally seeing something different unfold ... So even though it feels like we're seeing reality, none of us is.

The podcasters take this one step further, citing another psychologist named Richard Nisbett:

INTERVIEWER: Nisbett studies reasoning and errors in reasoning. And in our conversation, he told us something that helped me see the story differently. He says this need we have to find the right or the wrong of whatever we're looking at - that's just a cultural habit baked into the logic system handed down to us from the Greeks.

NISBETT: At the base of Western reasoning are some principles like A is A and not A, and both A and not A can't be the case.

INTERVIEWER: So either black bears are dangerous or they're not dangerous. They can't be both dangerous and not dangerous at the same time because that's a contradiction. And we're contradiction phobic.

NISBETT: Right.

INTERVIEWER: But Nisbett says this isn't the only way to look at the world. For instance, in Chinese philosophy and in much of East Asian cultures today...

NISBETT: The assumption is that if there is contradiction, both may be right or both may be wrong and each side should move toward the middle.

So who is correct: Rogers, or the majority of bear experts? The podcasters do not explicitly take a stance - perhaps because by doing so they would be giving in to this "Greek/Western prejudice."

The Allegory of the Veils

At first I balked at the notion proposed by Balcetis and Nisbett. To me, it sounded as though they were denying objective truth/reality and giving into a worldview of subjectivism and relativism and all of its evils and stupidities. 

Upon further consideration I realized that perhaps they were making a more subtle point: not that there is no objective reality, but that we delude ourselves about the objectivity of our own perception of objective reality. We harbor an exaggerated sense of our own objectivity which, ironically, impairs our ability to perceive objective reality. In other words, reality is objective, but our perception of it is not as objective as we'd like to think. 

It was then that I recalled the Rambam's [1] mashal (allegory) of the veils, in the seventh chapter of Shemoneh Perakim:

In many places in the midrash and the aggadah, including some passages quoted in the Talmud, it is stated that some prophets "see" (i.e. know) God from behind many veils and others who "see" Him from behind fewer veils. The difference depends on the extent of their closeness to God and the level of their prophecy. Thus, it is said that Moshe saw God behind one clear and shining - namely, transparent - veil. This is what is meant by the expression that "he [Moshe] looked through the bright aspaklaria." The term "aspaklaria" refers to a lens made from a shining material like diamond or crystal.  

The intent of this statement is that, as explained in Chapter 2, there are intellectual perfections and psychological perfections. Conversely, there are intellectual imperfections (e.g. foolishness, naïveté, difficulty in understanding) and psychological imperfections (e.g. gluttony, pride, anger, wrath, brashness, the love for money, and the like). Indeed, there are many of these, and we have mentioned the way to distinguish them in Chapter 4. 

All these imperfections are the veils that separate between man and God. This was alluded to in the prophet’s statement, "It is your avonos (iniquities) that separate between you and your God" (Yeshayahu 59:2). "Your avonos" - namely, the aforementioned imperfections, are the veils that separate between us and Him. 

Hashem is the true Reality (with an uppercase "R"). The only way we know Him is through knowledge of the reality (with a lowercase "r") that He created - a knowledge we obtain through our study of the Torah and our study of the world. The point of the Rambam's mashal is that our perception of this reality - and therefore, of the true Reality - is colored, distorted, and blocked by the "veils" of our intellectual and psychological imperfections. 

Like Balcetis and Nisbett, the Rambam is not denying objective reality, nor is he denying our ability to perceive objective reality. Rather, he is saying that our perception of objective reality will always be tainted by our imperfections and limitations. Even Moshe Rabbeinu, who comprehended reality to the greatest extent possible for a human being, nevertheless had a veil which clouded his perception of Hashem, simply by virtue of the fact that Moshe was a physical being.

Judaism's Approach to the Veils

We have discussed the nature and purpose of Torah many times. According to the Ralbag [2], Torah is "a God-given regimen that brings those who practice it properly to true success." By "true success" the Ralbag [3] means "knowing and comprehending Hashem (via knowing and comprehending reality) to the extent that is humanly possible." 

Before hearing this podcast, if you had asked me to explain in the terminology of the Veil Allegory what the Torah (i.e. Judaism) is doing, I would have answered: "The Torah helps us remove as many veils as possible, thereby bringing us closer and closer to an accurate and complete comprehension of reality." But after listening to this podcast, I think I have a slightly different understanding. 

Let's take another look at the quotation from Emily Balcetis, with a different emphasis than last time: 

There's so much more information out in the world than we can handle at any given point in time ... A lot of what is coming into our system isn't perfectly clear to us. It's ambiguous. So ambiguous that basically we just have to guess what's going on ... And here's the point of all this: most of the time as we walk through the world, that is what we're actually looking at, not just the thing in front of us but also the concepts in our heads ... Each side is literally seeing something different unfold ... So even though it feels like we're seeing reality, none of us is.

This led me to the following realization: It is true that the Torah's ultimate goal is to remove the veils, but one of the ways the Torah does this is by imposing its own set of veils - veils which block out certain aspects of reality, but guide us towards a life which, in the long run, enables us to have a clearer picture of reality. (If this point isn't quite clear yet, then bear with me while I develop it.)

Bubbles and Judaism

This thought was further crystallized when I listened to Part 2 of the podcast, which dealt with the phenomenon of informational "bubbles." Here is an excerpt from an interview with Max Hawkins, a Google employee who lives in San Francisco: 

HAWKINS: I was lying on my bed, and I was looking up at the ceiling. I just started thinking about these loops that we get into, about how, like, the structure of your life completely determines what happens in it. 

INTERVIEWER: You work at Company X, which is Y miles from your home. You must commute from where you live to where you work, which puts you on a path that limits your exposure to people outside that path. 

HAWKINS: The people inside the bubble get closer to you, and the people outside get further away. 

INTERVIEWER: It was a beautiful bubble. But still... 

HAWKINS: There's something about that that just made me feel trapped, like I was reading a story that I'd read before or I was playing out someone else's script.

Hawkins and the podcasters viewed these bubbles as an intrinsically bad thing. Without a doubt there are downsides to living in a bubble. The person in the bubble has an extremely limited - and therefore, distorted - view of reality, which the bubble itself inhibits that person from recognizing and overcoming.

Upon hearing this I thought about the fact that the Torah is definitely set up to create a bubble. Think about it:

• We aren't allowed to do certain actions (e.g. the 365 Torah prohibitions, and all of the Rabbinic restrictions which reinforce those prohibitions). 
• We aren't allowed to say certain types of speech (e.g. gossip, harmful speech, heretical speech).
• We aren't allowed to be involved in certain types of relationships (sexually, and by extension, romantically - and sometimes even socially). 
• We aren't allowed to hold certain beliefs or involve ourselves in certain types of thoughts (e.g. believing in other gods, denying the fundamentals of Torah, giving in to our curiosity by idly musing about idolatrous belief systems).
• When the Torah system is fully functioning in Eretz Yisrael, we aren't even exposed to certain practices or people (e.g. all vestiges of avodah zarah - idolatry - are destroyed and those who worship avodah zarah are barred from the country, the Seven Nations and Amalek are wiped out, all types of sorcery, divination, and occult practices are abolished).

These restrictions contribute to a bubble which is far more limited than that of the Google employee living in San Francisco. But the Torah-bubble is not a bad thing. Why not? Because the Torah is trying to limit our exposure to phenomena that strengthen our "veils" in order to carve out a life that is conducive to removing them. Instead of abandoning us to wander aimlessly in the sea of myriad particulars and leaving us with the impossible task of figuring out how to make sense out of the ambiguity on our own, Hashem gave us a regimen which expediently moves us away from avenues of life that would obscure our perception of reality and places us firmly in a "bubble" of routines, restrictions, and practices which promote our life and development as truth-seekers. 

[Note: I am NOT saying that this is the ONLY purpose of halacha. I'm just pointing out ONE of the benefits of the Torah's bubble-forming restrictions, in light of the Allegory of the Veils and these two podcasts.]

Consider the last example in the bullet points above. Does the Torah's ban on avodah zarah in Eretz Yisrael create a bubble? Yes. Is the Jew in Eretz Yisrael being deprived of exposure to the worldview of the oveid avodah zarah (idolater), which would be eye-opening because of how drastically different it is from his own? Yes. But do these restrictions harm him? Absolutely not. To the contrary - allowing avodah zarah into the country would only create the potential for people to become attracted to its ideas, it's practices, and its worldview, thereby increasing and solidifying the veils of Eretz Yisrael's inhabitants. 

The same goes for all of the other experiences and phenomena which are prohibited by Judaism: by preventing us from experiencing particular aspects of reality which would generate intellectual and psychological imperfections, the Torah increases our chances of developing a clearer perception of reality than we would have, if left to our own devices. 

My chavrusa made the analogy to people who experience trauma (e.g. veterans with PTSD, victims of abuse, those who suffer from depression). In all of these cases, there are certain areas of reality which these individuals should not be exposed or think about, since this would contributed to a warped and harmful view of reality for them. In some cases, these areas of reality can be cautiously approached with the proper therapeutic tools; in other cases, they should be completely avoided. In these cases, attempting to "strip away the veils" in an effort to "expose these people to reality" would lead to severe setbacks in their ability to perceive truth. Likewise, it would be foolish to "unveil" these areas of reality with the allegedly noble goal of "breaking these people out of their bubbles." 

The Torah recognizes that all human beings - not just those who suffer from trauma - are in a similarly precarious situation vis a vis our ability to perceive reality. Yes, our ability to perceive reality is that fragile, and such caution is warranted.

The Limits of Bubble Diversity as a Liberating Path

There's another point here that is worth mentioning. In Part 2 of the podcast the Google employee who yearned to escape his bubble came up with a creative solution: he designed an app that would send him to random public events throughout San Francisco. Every Friday night his app would accept an invitation on Facebook to a random event hosted by random people in a random location (in or around San Francisco). He would go there, surrender himself to the new experience, and usually walk away with a fresh new view on reality.

Thrusting oneself into a diverse range of bubbles definitely has its advantages. Yet, when I heard this Google employee speak about his desire to sample other people's bubbles, I sensed an underlying belief on his part that by increasing the diversity of his experiences, he could break free from the very phenomenon of "bubbles" altogether. In other words, it seemed as though he believed that the more bubble-hopping he did, the closer he came to the ideal of "The Unbubbled Human" - a true citizen of the world who could look at reality objectively, unlike the vast majority of his brethren. 

In my opinion, this approach is fueled by a fantasy, and is ultimately futile.

Yes, there is an ideal of "the objective human intellect," as acknowledged by the Rambam in his Allegory of the Veils. Moshe Rabbeinu came as close to embodying this ideal as humanly possible. The fantasy is that this ideal can be reached through exposure to a diversity of experience. This approach fails for at least three reasons.

The first reason why this method won't work is because the number of bubbles is virtually limitless. Each country has its own bubble. Each city has its own bubble. Each religion has its own bubble. Each sect has its own bubble. Each culture has its own bubble. Each time period has its own bubble. Each family has its own bubble. Each person has his or her own bubble. And so on. And even if man lived forever it would still be impossible to experience all of the bubbles, since the world is constantly changing. Thus, the pursuit of new bubbles to experience is infinite - not in a good way, but in a Koheles way.

Secondly, there is the problem of breadth of experience vs. depth of experience. The person who spends five years visiting 500 communities will gain from exposure to a wide variety of experiences, but the person who spends five years immersed in the lifestyle of a single community will gain a depth of experience that no bubble-jumper will ever be able to grasp. To think that the bubble sampler can "get the gist" of these new cultures is to cheapen them and to degrade the value they have to offer - a crime that no diversity-advocate would ever want to commit.

Lastly, there is illusory bubble of bubble-transcendence. (Yes, you read that right.) This is best explained by way of analogy to the impact of the Internet on mankind's knowledge. At the dawn of the Information Age there were optimistic people who believed that the ability for ALL people to access ALL information and connect to ALL places in the world would lead to a truly global community with a global consciousness. This connectivity and collaboration would cause truth to rise to the top. What actually happened is that people formed their own bubbles online, despite their unfettered access to nearly limitless amounts of information. The difference between the pre-Internet Age bubble dwellers and the Internet Age bubble dwellers is that the latter think they have transcended their bubbles, and are oblivious to the fact that they are just as bubbled as the next guy. Similarly, the bubble-jumper is prone to think that he or she has transcended the phenomenon of bubbles entirely. In truth, human beings are predisposed to create our own bubble wherever we goes, regardless of how much information we are exposed to.  

For these three reasons (and probably more) the Torah takes a different approach to bubbles. Rather than attempting to dissolve bubbles by encouraging diversity of exposure, the Torah imposes its own bubble in the form of a regimen designed to equip people with the qualities and skills that will enable them to see past their bubbles. Instead of fighting against the human tendency to form bubbles, the Torah harnesses this tendency and gives it form and structure through halacha. 

Concluding Thoughts

As is the case with many of these personal "Aha!"-moment blog posts, I don't know whether other people will find this idea to be as eye-opening as I did. Perhaps these points are obvious, and I just didn't notice them until now. Perhaps I experienced a "click" upon reading this because of where I'm at in my own learning. 

But as Rabbeinu Bachya ibn Paquda pointed out, if those who doubt the value of their insights chose not to share them because of excuses like this, we'd lose out on a LOT of knowledge. I'd rather err on the side of sharing rather than keep things to myself. After all, this is why I started this blog in the first place.

For me, there are two major takeaways from this NPR podcast:

1. Judaism's goal is to remove veils, but often imposes its own veils towards that end.
2. Judaism deals with the human need to create bubbles (and the futility of trying to escape them) by imposing its own bubble which gives us the best odds of thinking outside of our bubbles.

These two points led to even more insights which I discussed with my chavrusas, but for the sake of the unity of this post, I will save those for another time.

[1] Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides), Commentary on the Mishnah: Introduction to Avos (a.k.a. Shemoneh Perakim), Chapter 7

[2] Rabbeinu Levi ben Gershom (Ralbag / Gersonides), Commentary on the Torah: Introduction

[3] Rabbeinu Levi ben Gershom (Ralbag / Gersonieds), Commentary on Sefer Iyov, Chapter 34