Letter to Rabbi Feldman

Dear Rabbi Feldman,

Your important recent article on the Slifkin affair has had a great impact on my life. I think you should hear about it.

I am from a very chashuve family and have been frum my entire life. Yet from an early age I have had many questions about hashkafa. I have read many books on science and found them very convincing. It has always been quite obvious to me that the science brought down in the gemara is very often, even mostly, wrong. The world is not flat, the sun doesn’t go behind the rakia at night, pi is not three, there are not two separate urinary tracts, eight month fetuses are not dead, etc.

I’m pretty sure that also you and various other gedolim who claim to believe in chazal’s science rather than modern science don’t really mean it. Unless I’m wrong in assuming that you ride cars and planes and go to doctors when you’re sick.

Anyway, none of this ever affected my emunah because I simply understood that chazal were experts in halacha and agada but not in science. That never seemed problematic as hashkafa since many gedoilim held like that and it seemed like the only possible conclusion an honest person could reach.

But now I’ve been taught by the gedoilei hador that this view is kefirah. It is no longer possible to maintain this view and remain a frum yid. As a result, I have been faced with the decision of either believing that all of modern science is wrong and chazal’s science is right or no longer being frum. I can’t have it both ways. At first I thought maybe only the kannoim held like that but your article made it clear that this is not the case – I have to choose.

I’ll be honest this is a very hard choice. I know that chazal’s science is wrong and that modern science is mostly right (mostly but not always; the whole idea is that if a better theory comes along the old one is abandoned). To say that I don’t believe that would be a lie. On the other hand, giving up frumkeit means for me giving up my whole family and all my friends. I’m not even sure what my wife will do. If she’ll agree, we’ll have to take our three small children out of Yiddishe moisdos and send them… I don’t even know where.

Right now I’m checking into possibilities for how to continue my life. The possibility of remaining frum seems to have slipped away forever thanks to you (and many others like you). Please don’t feel bad. You were only being honest and explaining yiddishkeit the way you understand it.

Now it’s my turn to be honest. With you, with my rebbes, with my family and friends. And mostly, with myself.

-- Eliyahu Zecharia Rabinovich