A Metaphysical World View (I)

According to Samīr Naqqāsh's Story “Yawm ḥabalat wa-ajhadat al-dunya” (“The Day in Which the World Became Pregnant and Miscarried“)

תפיסת עולם מטפיזית (א)

על פי סיפורו של סמיר נקאש „היום שבו העולם הרה והפיל”

رؤية عالم ميتافيزيقية (1)

وفقًا لقصة سمير نقاش «يوم حملت وأجهضت الدنيا»

Dr. Binyamin Rish

Independent researcher

Abstract

Samīr Naqqāsh's story "The Day the World Became Pregnant and Miscarried" interwoven with philosophical elements related to man's cognition of himself and the world, elements presented in this article as a Metaphysical World View. The protagonists, Isḥāq ʿĪda and Shaul Hillel, stand at the center of a theory of cognition and consciousness. Isḥāq is childless and presents a misanthropic view of the world, filled with hatred of humankind. He makes use of judgments of perceptions, and particular and sensual representations. Based on contingent generalization, drawn on his own past experience and own subjective judging, he adjudicated on external objects that exist independently in his mind, that all mankind is flooded with sin, apart from him. His idea of God is the idea of a “vengeful God” who is supposed to act in according to strict justice and to exterminate humanity. His sensual intuitions, which constitute a necessary component of each knowledge, place him in the empiricist tradition, according to which human cognition depends on the experience of senses. Shaul, the other protagonist is a humanist, who viewed man as the center or the purpose of the world, and showed respect towards him is married, but infertile. He ignores the evidence of his wife's infidelity, which is based on sensory intuition. He uses judgments of experience, categorical imperatives and a priori concepts that contain intellectual representations. His judging according to categories and pure intuition – a rational inner insight – led him to establish internal objects such as “I am a human being.” Shaul, unlike his predecessor, holds the idea that God is supposed to be a "bearer iniquity" and act in merciful justice. Shaul may be placed within the Rationalist tradition. The author wishes to convey the message that the underlying assumptions of both of his protagonists' philosophical approaches are doomed to failure and cannot serve as a source for man's cognitions of himself and the world. 1 He came to emphasize that human existence is essentially under the shadow of duality. He does not seek to sweeten human existence, nor to present it as subject to any unity, but outlines it as a contradictory existence: an existence that constantly moves between different poles, an existence that cannot find rest and perfection by its very essence.

A. Introduction

In response to an interviewer’s question whether he considers himself a Jewish author who writes in Arabic, Samīr Naqqāsh emphasized that he was first and foremost a man whose Judaism did not prevent him from using Jewish elements in his stories to express universal human issues and to view Jewish problems as problems of mankind. As an author, he noted, his mission was to deal with universal, human, eternal, mental, spiritual, philosophical, and ethical issues. Even if his works are categorized as a writer dealing with the past, he belongs to the present and future. Naqqāsh stressed that his stories come to express the pain, suffering, and distress experienced by human beings everywhere, but they do not offer solutions to these problems, because there are none, and that his writing on existential issues tries to give the reader food for thought.1

It seems that the story “Yawm ḥabalat wa-ajhadat al-dunya” (“The Day the World Became Pregnant and Miscarried”)2 possesses the afore-mentioned characteristics. The story and its protagonists stand out in their Jewish character. It takes place at the holiest time and place for Judaism: in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement, where two Jews, Isḥaq ʿĪda and Shaul Hillel, who emigrated from Baghdad to Bombay, happen to meet when they come to pray and ask forgiveness from God for their sins. Isḥaq is childless and his hatred for those around him, family and strangers alike, is evident. In his eyes, all of mankind are sinners. He does not hesitate to demand that God exterminate them all. Shaul and his wife, Ḥabiba, have worked together to fulfill their dream of having a son, not yet born due to a fertility problem Shaul suffered from. For Shaul, his wife’s unexpected pregnancy was a divine miracle. However, as soon as Ḥabiba became pregnant, she began to patronize him and refused his request to come with him to the house of God on the holy day. Shaul, who noticed a sudden closeness between his wife and his neighbor Ezra Salaḥ, suspected that the fetus she carried in her womb was not the fruit of his loins. He was transformed from a vital man who loved life into a shadow of a man.

On the holy day and in the holy place, with a mere look and without saying a single word, Isḥaq became a source of harassment for Shaul, over-powering him until Shaul felt that his fate was in Isḥaq’s hands. When Isḥaq rubbed himself against the boy kneeling in prayer in front of him3, the story comes to an unexpected end: When the boy fled in panic, Isḥaq recoiled in embarrassment and Shaul, who had witnessed what happened, lost his mind, fled the synagogue, and was shot dead in the street. As noted above, the story has elements that are not just Jewish and human, but also interwoven within it are philosophical and ethical issues related to man’s cognition of himself and the world. These elements will be presented in this paper as a metaphysical world view.

Traditional metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with clarifying the nature of existence as a single whole and of the general features common to all things that exist. This metaphysics

focuses on three main subjects: God, the world as a whole, and the human soul (including questions about the immortality of the soul and free will).4 The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), defined metaphysics as “cognition that is not physical, but beyond experience,”5 and spoke of a metaphysics “that can appear as a science,”6 a metaphysics built upon the conclusions of reason that discusses what it finds within itself: “reason has the sources of its cognition… in itself,” “from the wellsprings of reason itself.”7 One can learn about the nature of metaphysical thinking, which is a systematic study of human thought about existence and not a systematic study of existence itself. Kant states that the metaphysical cognition is a priori or from pure understanding and pure reason", that is, its validity does not depend on experience. Truths can be asserted about the nature of the existence of God, of man (his soul, spirit, mind), and of the world based on purely rational considerations, with no need to rely on experience. Reason’s uniqueness lies in its reflective ability, the ability to observe in itself, criticize itself, and correct what needs correcting. 8 The empiricist philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), on the other hand, declares that the science of human nature, which deals with the question of human cognition, its abilities, and its limitations, must be based on “observation and experiment.”9

A.1. Viewpoints on Idea Theories

There are several principles for the Theory of Ideas: (1) In the spirit of man, there are “ideas” or “images” which are the direct and unmediated objects given to human cognition. (2) Material objects are found outside the spirit or self, that is, in the “external world.” (3) The theory of ideas assumes that the ideas of sensory perceptions are given to man as a chaotic multiplicity. It is the mind that is supposed to process, interpret, and unite it in a one frame so that a unified and orderly picture of the world is obtained.10

René Descartes (1596-1650) distinguished between three different sources of ideas: (1) Ideas inherent from birth which are considered one of the foundations of rationalism.11 These ideas, clear, distinct, and true, are found in the subject without being perceived through the senses from the external world. Such are the ideas of mathematics and physics.12 There are two innate ideas in man, which are clear and distinct: a) the idea of himself (the “cogito”). 13 b) The idea of God defined as infinite perfection preceded in man the idea he has of himself, and was planted in man by “a substance that really was infinite” – God.14 (2) Ideas that derive from the external objects (that is, ideas that come from the senses and their objects cause them). (3) Ideas invented by the subject.15

Unlike Descartes, who believed that only innate ideas have cognitive value as only they can provide real information about the world, John Locke (1632-1704), the founder of the empiricist school of thought, denies the existence of innate ideas as a source of cognition of reality. Instead, Locke embraces the existence of ideas that are from Experience, caused by external objects that man perceives and learns through the senses from his environment, and the mind that "furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own. These ideas include also the ideas that their owners invent them which contain the fruit of imagination, the interpretation of what is given, and deduction from them.16 Locke defines the term “idea” as follows: “Whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks.” He adds that an idea, which is in a person’s mind while he is thinking, is also expressed “by Phantasm, Notion, Species.”17 Locke distinguishes between simple ideas that are received through the senses in the mind only passively, and complex ideas that are received from

the simple ideas. The mind forms through three actions on the simple ideas other ideas – complex ideas or general ones: (a) Combining several simple ideas, and uniting them into one complex idea, (b) Bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together and setting them next to each other, allows them to be reviewed at once, without uniting them into one idea. (c) Separation of simple ideas or peculiar ideas from all other ideas that accompany them by act of abstraction and retain only what is common to them all. Thus all general ideas are formed. Some of these actions, as sources of cognizing reality, find expression in the story and will be presented later.18

According to the theory of representation advocated by Locke, in the process of perception through which a person receives information about the surrounding world through the senses, three factors are at play: the person who perceives, the material object, and the idea of the material object that is in the mind of the perceiver.19 The theory of representation includes the causal theory as the material objects are the reasons or causes of the contents of perception – of the ideas. The judgment that expresses the essence of John Locke’s empiricism is: “All concepts [=ideas] come from sensation or repetition.”20 The external (sensation) and the internal (repetition) experiences are the only sources of the contents of the knowledge. Locke includes in experience the “repetition,” i.e., everything that a person can learn about the activity of his understanding and what is happening in his soul from observing the life of his spirit and soul. In repetition, the understanding returns and examines ideas absorbed by sensation. The ideas gained through experience are what give knowledge.21

David Hume divides all perceptions into two main types: Impressions and Ideas. Every perception is simple, or composed of simple perceptions. The simple ideas are received by Hume in the form of impressions from external experience (sensation) and internal experience (repetition). Locke’s words about the relations between objects in the external world and ideas are the same as Hume’s words about the relationship between impressions and ideas. Both speak of a causal relation and of resemblance – on an origin-copy relation. For Locke, a causal connection is between the represented object and the idea (image) that represents it. The object is the cause, and the image – the result. The resemblance is between the representing idea (image) and the represented object. For Hume, it is only on a relation between the internal perceptions and themselves. There are two relations: a causal relation – the impression is the causal source of the appropriate idea, and the other is a relation of resemblance: the idea must resemble the appropriate impression.22

The Ideas theories of George Berkeley (1685-1753) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) will be discussed later.23

A.2. Objectives of this article

In this paper an attempt will be made to cognize the protagonists according to the raw materials of the cognition through which they perceive the world. The main principle in Kant’s theory states that human cognition has only two sources: sensibility and understanding. 24 These two different ways of cognition, a posteriori and a priori, are expressed in the protagonists whether through sensory intuition known as “the given,” or through pure intuition – categories,25 or a priori concepts known as “the array.” The characteristics of these intuitions will be clarified and thus it will be possible to identify which of the protagonists acts through sensory intuition and which through pure intuition –

concepts. The characteristics of the two types of judgments used by the protagonists will be clarified: synthetic posteriori judgments, called judgments of perception, and synthetic a priori judgments, called judgments of experience, and it will be determined which of the protagonists use each type. All judgments have validity. This paper will examine to which protagonist can be attributed judgments that have only subjective validity (i.e., they are valid for the protagonist only) and to which protagonist can be attributed judgments of objective, universal, and necessary validity. An attempt will be also made to distinguish what type of ideas each of the protagonists adheres to: simple ideas that are absorbed passively or ideas that result from conjoining (synthesis) or other activities of the understanding. The type of representations each protagonist uses – sensuous, moral, or intellectual – will be also examined.26

This paper will also consider whether the internal ideas represent the objects of the protagonists outside of them. That is, if there is a correlation between the internal ideas and the external objects, and whether the protagonists’ cognation has validity, or whether the judgment exercised by the intellect distorts the ideas.

An attempt will be made to determine the metaphysical worldview of each protagonist and to deduce which philosophical doctrine he represents. The characteristics of the two protagonists, including a description of their characters, traits, and inner world as represented in the text will be drawn in general lines. The message that the author sought to convey his readers will also be clarified.

B. The beginning of the story: External reality as reflected in the protagonists’ consciousness

The story begins with a priori analytic judgments of the implied narrator.27 “White is purity, fasting is submission. Virtue and innocence are white. Fasting is humility and worship.”28 The judgments are true, analytical, and a priori. They are analytical because: (1) they do not amplify the cognition nor add nothing to its content; (2) the predicates “purity” and “virtue and innocence” express what has already been thought, or at least implicitly ascribed, through the subject “White.” In the same manner, the predicates “submission, and “humility and worship” are already included in the concept of “fasting,” which is the subject;29 (3) they are analytic also because their truth depends solely on the meanings of the logical terms in them or on their logical form,30 based exclusively on the principle of contradiction, that is, their negation results in an inner contradiction; (4) judgments that are syntactically composed of simpler judgments are analytic if the judgments included in them together constitute a valid inference.31 They are a priori judgments, “even if their concepts are empirical … for in order to know this" person no need further experience outside his own notion on the white and fasting, “for this constituted my very concept,” that is, the content of a person’s concept.”32 These analytic judgments by themselves cannot confer a cognition of external reality. They did nothing and have advanced nothing, and as the implied narrator expresses it: “In the pure and clean white … which is agreed upon by everyone.”33 But this seemingly peaceful opening is in contrast to the language of the perceptions in the consciousness of the two protagonists, whose spirits are dark as they enter the synagogue. Despite an atmosphere of awe, holiness, acceptance, and submission, which is shared by all, the first Hallel chant evokes subjective perceptions in the protagonists. Isḥaq's spirit is murky. That first Hallel chant, the external object, erupting "from the congregation’s throat" caused him “stunning indignation.” He ascribed this to the fact that his “constant place behind the synagogue rostrum”34 was usurped. Shaul's serenity was also disturbed

during the “first Hallel chant,” due to his feelings of abandonment caused by his wife's absence from the synagogue for the first time in their ten years of marriage.35 These judgments of perception have subjective validity, that is, they are valid for every protagonist's personal feeling, thought or opinion, and do not necessarily have a truth value.36 However, whereas Shaul managed to ward off the feeling of the “murky wave” when “he heard the sounds, saw the sight, and awe flooded him,”37 Isḥaq was unable to escape the feeling of doom that overwhelmed him as he heard “the voices from all sides”: “He would penetrate into the white surge and got lost” and “a dark stain … began to occupy spaces in his head … absent-mindedness and hidden doom began to appear in his depths and to conquer him openly.”38 Following this opening, the differences in the worldview and personalities of the protagonists will deepen to the point of a covert struggle between them.

C. Soul-body dualism

Descartes claims that Soul and Body are two different essences: (1) I am a thing whose essence is to think; (2) My body is a thing whose essence is to expand; (3) I perceive … that my essence (i.e., the essence of my soul) is distinct from the essence of my body.39 The only thing which cannot be doubted is man’s ability to think: “I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is simply to think, and which does not require any place or depend on any material thing.” 40 In the fact that he thinks, Descartes sees the most certain truth, from which he determines that he exists. This determination he expounds in his famous statement: “I am thinking, therefore I exist.”41 In another wording: “I am, I exist, is necessarily true, whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.”42 The difficulty in accepting the Cartesian dualism lies in the fact that, although Descartes established the separate existence of the body and the soul, he states that in man they co-exist and that there is reciprocal activity between them. This is an interactionist dualism.43

C.1. Isḥaq is presented as a thing whose essence is to expand

Isḥaq is presented in the story as a thinking thing only in a limited way: “Isḥaq ʿĪda was in a state of absentmindedness …,” “his thoughts, rupture, collapse in his head,”44 “his thoughts abandoned him,”45 “he moved on his seat distractedly.”46 At the same time, the implied narrator highlights Isḥaq's essence as a body – a thing that takes up space, whose essence is to shrink and expand: “A charge of curses [containing some amount of matter, not a stream of curses] was emitted from his body [not from his mouth]47. Isḥaq seemed to Shaul, the external object, as a "strange human phenomenon for which there is no explanation: A man who did not cease continuously shrinking the sides of his body … He puts his body into his body, as if intending it to shrivel to nothingness and to become nothing,”48 “and he, as his heart, shrinks.”49 “He began to expand to both sides after having shrunk and shriveled.”50 “silently, the shrunken elderly man began to expand to both sides.”51 Through these sentences, which are scattered in many places in the story, the author tries to assimilate in the heart of the reader the fact that these two different essences – body and soul – are not only used as a background for the story, but are an inseparable part of the characters.

C.2. Shaul is presented as a thing whose essence is to think, as an element of the soul

In contrast to Isḥaq’s essence, presented as an expanding thing, Shaul Hillel is presented as a thing whose essence is to think: “His desire to imprison … the unrestrained thoughts is an impossible

thing,” “I collect the shreds of my thoughts …,” “In one fraction of a thought …,” 52 “He becomes a slave to spontaneity … It … places his thoughts in his head,”53 “His legs were tired, but not his thoughts, up to this moment still hatch behind his forehead involuntarily.54 “Another thought was immediately born from the depths of the collision.”55 In order to emphasize that the soul is a spiritual essence separate from the material body, even at the time of death, that is, the soul is immortal, was used in the description of Shaul’s killing in the verb “dissolve” – an essential quality of matter – rather than the verbs “was killed” or “was bled to death:”56 “He hears and dissolves … and dissolves … and dissolves.”57 In this way, the author highlighted the dualism between body and soul in the story’s protagonists.

D. The main considerations for choosing thinkers' theories as a tool for examining the story

D.1. Cartesian dualism

The element of Cartesian dualism, presented above and which turned the problem of the relationship between body and soul into a central question in the new philosophy,58 seems consistent with the philosophical elements presented in the story and serves as a significant factor in the selection of Descartes’s teaching as a doctrine that is used as a tool for analyzing the literary work.

Locke adopted the Cartesian structure's existence, although in his view, the continuity of the thinking substance is interrupted in every sleep. Therefore, it is impossible to assume that such a substance exists as a real thing that lasts over time. He claims not to know whether Cartesian dualism is a true or false doctrine, because this doctrine is quite vague, and man is in complete ignorance of “the nature of that thinking thing.”59

Empiricist George Berkeley, in contrast to Descartes, surrendered the “material objects” component in the composition of reality, claiming that there are no material objects,60 and called this negative aspect of his teachings “immaterialism” (the negation of materialism). According to Berkeley, any doctrine that states that material objects exist in reality is a materialistic doctrine.61 He does not distinguish between dualism and materialism. He views dualism as put forth by Descartes or Locke as “materialism,” and both are viewed by him with disgust.62 According to the idealism version of his teachings, “material objects” are nothing but files of ideas, i.e., spiritual beings. In Berkeley’s theory of perception, there are only two factors: God and man, who has a finite understanding that perceives ideas that stand in their own right and that are in the understanding and "have not any subsistence without it".63

Wilhelm Leibniz, as an idealist, sought to prove that the theory of ideas is a rationalist theory in the sense that it is anti-empiricist, because it denies that the source of all ideas and all knowledge is in experience.64 He claimed that the universe contains only spiritual substances that are real, monads that appear as if they were material objects, monads “without windows,” that is, they "have no communication with one another.”65 However, the material objects perceived by the senses are only well-founded phenomena66 and not reality, because only spiritual substances have reality.

D.2. The foundation of the causal concept.

The principle of causality, which maintains that everything necessarily has a reason, a principle that applies to physical objects as well as to ideas, is also presented in the story in question, and serves as a factor in choosing Descartes’s doctrine as a tool for analyzing the story. 67 According to Descartes, every idea must have a reason, and it is impossible for an idea to “come from nothing.”68

Berkeley’s theory excludes any theory of causal perception between objects on the one hand and ideas on the other, because any comparison must be a comparison between ideas only, and not between the represented objects (in his eyes considered materialism), and the representative idea.69 Therefore, Berkeley, who denies the existence of material objects is, in fact, denying Cartesian dualism, an element that was expressed in the story in question.70

According to Leibniz’s method, the causal soul-body interaction is inconsistent with dualism that differentiates between two substances, because in a body that is not a substance, physical laws rule while the mental and spiritual processes are conducted according to the laws of understanding.71 Therefore:

(1) The aforementioned idealistic view advocated by Berkeley and Leibniz, according to which reality is first and foremost an idea (i.e., something abstract and not physical) and only following the idea can physical objects be discussed as things that exist in reality, contradict Cartesian dualism – an interactionist dualism. In other words, according to Cartesian dualism, man comprises two separate entities, body and soul, that influence each other, and even claims causal interrelationships that apply to objects and ideas, including innate ideas.72

(2) Since both these foundations: the body-soul dichotomy and the interactionist dualism, and others elements in the teachings of Descartes, Hume and Locke are in line with the world view of the author on the nature of the world, the human soul and its place in the world and the essence of the idea of God, as presented in the literary work, their teachings are used as a tool for analyzing the story. On the other hand, several foundations of the theories of Berkeley and Leibniz will be presented. Although they are not in line with the author's worldview, as reflected in his works, they can illuminate its connection to the historical and cultural worldview of Judaism.73

E. Judgments of perception: Sensory intuition and perceptive representations

Kant’s statement that “we can cognize objects only as they appear to us (to our senses, not as they may be in themselves)”74 expresses the idea that “all objects are mere appearances, i.e. … representations of our sensory intuition.”75 An intuition is defined as follows: “a representation of the sort which would depend immediately on the presence of an object.”76 In other words, intuition is unmediated awareness of the existence of an object in front of us.77

E.1. Isḥaq’s perceptual representations of the cantor and his voice

The representations used to describe Isḥaq’s perception of the objects surrounding him are closely related to the order of the prayers and the other happenings in the holy place. The cantor’s voice, “the humming voice, coming from the heart of the synagogue rostrum,”78 which Isḥaq perceived

passively in his cognition, is the object of many of his representations. This voice (the object) evoked in Isḥaq’s cognition perceptions of frustration, helplessness, and submission – “the signs of the first deception.”79 The cognition was consolidated in him that this was the voice of “the killer,” due to his feeling that he had been robbed of “God’s gift,” his “permanent place behind the synagogue rostrum,”80 a representation created by means of a causal connection.81 He represented the cantor’s voice as an “evil voice … repulsive… grating, spilling … like a donkey’s bray.”82 While saying the “Qedusha” prayer (“holiness”)83 Isḥaq found that the cantor’s recitation did not bring honor, but caused “injustice” and “disrespect towards the Creator,” because “what sanctity will it be when it emanates from a whistle blown by a donkey [the cantor]?”84 Isḥaq imagined the cantor not only to a donkey but also to a “bleating bull,” and to one whose fake grief over the passing away of the righteous of the generation, no longer present in the congregation, is expressed by “crocodile tears.”85 Due to what Isḥaq perceived as deception, he wished for the cantor’s death and decided not to approach the latter’s rostrum. He collapsed on “a vacant chair … in the last row of the hall.”86

It therefore follows that there is not necessarily a resemblance between the internal ideas, namely: the simple, complex, particular and general ideas, i.e., between the perceptual representations that are representative and the represented material objects. Although the object of perception is the same (such as the cantor’s voice), a person absorbs his perceptual representation differently from others. Furthermore, it is impossible to perceive any material object in itself; the perceived idea is not the same as the material object. It can even be said that objects cannot be known directly, but only through the mediation of ideas in the mind, because a person does not go beyond his thoughts about the object. He creates for himself an idea about the object and its qualities in his mind, an idea that can be confirmed, contradicted, or corrected.87

E.2. Isḥaq’s perceptual representations of Lulu

In contrast to his sympathetic attitude toward his deceased sister Ghala, who was a pimp in a brothel, and whom he described as someone who “did good deeds – mitzvot – and did not spare her hand in helping the poor,”88 his attitude towards Lulu who engaged in prostitution was completely different. Isḥaq depicted Lulu, who sat in women’s section of the synagogue on the Day of Atonement in her red dress that distinguishes her profession, as someone who conveys a message that she does not intend to abandon her occupation of prostitution and repent.89 As he understood it, her conferring in secret with God on the holiday came “so that he would atone for all her iniquities.” but she was in fact trying “to delude God,“ “to cheat him,” and even to demand from him the afterworld after she “bought this world.”90 The prayer: “And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou overthrowest them that rise up against Thee; Thou sendest forth Thy wrath, it consumeth them as stubble,”91 which means that God takes vengeance on those who rise up against him, was for Isḥaq evidence that Lulu would not be saved “from the revenge of the Lord.”92

E.3. Isḥaq’s perceptual representations of the young man

With his sensory intuition, Isḥaq also cognized his neighbor, the gullible young man,93 whom he represented as a “pig”: “a vibrant young pig,” “a fresh youthful pig.”94 The disgust, anger, and contempt which Isḥaq felt towards the young man resulted from his cognition that he was fated at the end of his days to “sit next to the youths.”95 Looking further at the young man, Isḥaq imagined

him as coming to pray because he did not lift his eyes from the Siddur – the prayer book.96 However, another look caused him to conclude that in fact the young man had come to the synagogue in order “to kill two birds with one stone”: To atone for his sins, but also to hunt a female for him.97 He decided that the young man “was in another world,” immersed in granting his love to the woman who was sitting next to Lulu in the women’s section,98 and his look wandered in turn from his prayer to the beautiful woman at Lulu’s side.99

E.4. Isḥaq’s conceptual representation of Shaul

In contrast to the other characters with whom Shaul and Isḥaq had dialogue in the past, the two main protagonists did not speak to each other at all on the Day of Atonement: “Like the secret, silent war being waged” between them.100 The two communicated through the look, which expressed mainly fear in Shaul and hatred in Isḥaq. Isḥaq considered Shaul, “one of the richest men of Qulaba,” to be the “robber of his will,” because the latter had preceded him and occupied the vacant seat “against his will.”101 He cursed him in his heart and longed for the death of all the rich people in Qulaba. His sensory intuition provided Isḥaq with evidence that Shaul did not come to pray. One piece of evidence was “the fiery looks that he …sent … in the young man’s direction,” proving that he came to sink his teeth “into mankind’s flesh and dignity,” that is, in the effeminate boy.102 Another piece of evidence was the fact that Shaul remained seated during the “Amidah” prayer of “Musaf,” alone, separate from the rest of the people.103 As an eyewitness to the fact that Shaul “grimaces and purses his lips,” led Isḥaq to adjudicate a subjective judgment, subject to his own personal rules, and it is: Shaul is planning a deal to double his fortune.104

E.5. Isḥaq’s conceptual representation of the world

Isḥaq had a hard time absorbing “the world’s filthy game,” which according to his cognition deserves to be doomed to extinction105 because the Jewish clerics are “thieves,”106 “the women are devils,”107 and the rich “are numerous … may the angel of death raid them.”108 From his intuition of those around him, he concluded that human beings are “liars, cheats, infidels!”109 Based on contingent universality drawn on his own past experience and his own subjective judging, 110 he adjudicated that all mankind is sinful. His representations are sensual ones, obtained from his perception of the external objects, as well as representations from the field of morality according to which he tries to shape the world. He was convinced that there is no forgiveness for the sinners, and there is no escape from their extinction: “Whence will come forgiveness, when the world is full of millions like you [the cantor], like Lulu and like Abraham Shalom..?!”111 He did not believe all those who asked to repent, using the following representation: “Even if the tar turned white, even then I wouldn’t believe it.”112 According to his cognition, the worshipers tried to trick God with fake repentance.113 In his eyes, all those who repent, including Lulu, the sages (rabbis) and even his father, are “the source of all hypocrisy in the world”:114 Lulu “asks for mercy in God’s house,” despite the fact that she has no intention of repenting and ceasing from engaging in prostitution. His father and the rabbis took on the role of judges and ruled that his sister Ghala is guilty, because in their eyes she was a “damn whore” in Baghdad.115 His father “put her on the list of the dead even before the angel of death did so,” and the rabbis refused to bring her for burial in the Jewish cemetery.116 Another man for whose death Isḥaq wished was Abraham Shalom, the shopkeeper,

because living with him caused Isḥaq to “grow old …prematurely.” In Isḥaq’s view, “all world’s disadvantages are in him. He is an adulterer… a robber… a pickpocket… a gambler… a drinker… a cheater…”117

From the above, it seems that Isḥaq presents a misanthropic worldview that expresses hatred for all men. Isḥaq’s intuitions, which constitute a necessary component of each knowledge, place him in the empiricist tradition, according to which human cognition depends on the experience of senses. Isḥaq’s cognitive connection with the external world and the causal relationship between the object and his cognition were created through his intuitions that created particular representations.118 The Empiricists, John Locke and David Hume, divided the contents of human cognition into two distinct types: Impressions and Ideas, which differ “in the degree of their force and liveliness” with which perceptions are absorbed in the consciousness. Impressions include “sensations, passions and emotions” – powerful contents. In contrast, Ideas are “faint images” that appear in “thinking and reasoning” – that is to say, weaker in intensity.119 This description characterizes Isḥaq: his impressions drawn from his life experience are powerful contents. On the other hand, the ideas that appear in his “thinking and reasoning” are “faint images.” His thoughts abandon him and collapse in his head. In contrast, Shaul’s thoughts are stronger: “The legs [representing the body] are tired, but the thoughts [representing the mind] are not tired, and up to this moment they still hatch unwillingly behind his forehead."120 In these judgments, the difference in the intensity of the contents of cognition that appear in the protagonists’ consciousness is highlighted, along with a sharpening of the duality between body and soul.

According to Hume’s theory, whenever discretion is not governed by rational laws, it is governed by other laws – the laws of association of the imagination. One gets the impression that the images (ideas) created in Isḥaq’s consciousness were also the result of free association that determined the course of his thought. “The imagination is not restrained to the same order and form with the original impressions.” Another principle emphasizes "the liberty of the imagination to transpose and change its ideas.”121 The association operates through three mechanisms:122 (1) On the basis of Resemblance – In Isḥaq’s imagination he sees himself as resembling: (a) a “Noaḥ of the twentieth century” as the only righteous man in the world; (b) a man whose deeds are good like Dahud Sasson, whose reputation precedes him as a doer of good deeds; (c) a man of "the people of faith" who came to protect the young man from Shaul.123

(2) On the basis of Contiguity – Near the time when Isḥaq wished in his heart that Lulu would die, the prayer: “And in the greatness of Thine excellency, Thou overthrows them that rise up against you…” was heard throughout the synagogue. For Isḥaq, the contiguity of the wish for Lulu's death to the prayer that praised God who avenges those who rise against him was evidence that Lulu would not be saved from the vengeance of the Lord.

(3) On the basis of Cause and Effect – It turns out that “the transition from an impression present to the memory or senses of the idea of an object, which we call cause [such as human sins] or effect [such as the extinction of sinners] is founded on past experience and on [men's] remembrance of their constant connection" between them.124 In this story, Isḥaq inferred from his past experience to a case with which he had no experience – from God’s revenge on the sinners in Sodom and Gomorrah and the annihilation of mankind by a flood in the days of Noaḥ to the necessity to destroy

all of humanity due to its crimes in the present days. His experience raised the idea of annihilation of sinners not by means of the reason, but by imagination.125

The fact that there is not always a match between internal ideas and external objects is reflected in Isḥaq’s case. Isḥaq absorbs only simple ideas (colors, sounds, smells, etc.) from both sensations and reflection, and in his mind assembles them into complex and general ideas.126 There is a fear that the composition distorts the face of reality as it is.127 The simple ideas of the unmediated sensation describe the surrounding world in its raw form before any judgment. Therefore, a description in terms of simple ideals will be error-free, while in every judgment, interpretation and inference added by understanding there is a risk of error.128 For example, Isḥaq concluded that the cantor’s voice is a “donkey’s bray” and the cantor himself is a “bleating bull” or a donkey blowing a whistle. As for Shaul, Isḥaq concluded that he was “a robber of his will,” because the latter had usurped the vacant seat “against his will,” and he is also the one who came to sink his teeth “into men's flesh and their dignity.” As for Lulu, who engages in prostitution, Isḥaq concluded that she is trying to deceive God into believing that she intends to change her ways. As previously mentioned, Isḥaq’s ideas include not only the fruit of his imagination, inventions disconnected from experience's givens absorbed from the outside, but also include everything that is an interpretation of those givens and an inference from them.129 Similar to Locke’s theory, Isḥaq makes a connection between a particular idea that only perception provides and a general ideas that are obtained in the process of abstraction from particular ideas.130 Regarding the process of abstraction from which general ideas are obtained, Locke maintains: "They only leave out of the complex Idea they had of Peter and James, Mary and Jam, that which particular to each, and retain only what is common to them all.”131

This is how Isḥaq acted. He left out of the complex idea the people who crossed his path – the cantor, Shaul, Lulu, the young man, Abraham Shalom – the peculiar to each, and focused only on the elements common to all these particular ideas : They are all sinners, and stated: all of humanity is sinful and unworthy of forgiveness.132 It seems that Isḥaq deduced by way of abstraction a general idea, which does not necessarily represents the general idea of humanity. Actually, Isḥaq distorted the face of reality and presented a picture of a world awash with sin, apart from him.133

The ideas such as colors, sounds, smells, tastes and even pain, are ideas absorbed by the senses and sensations. They are created in the meeting between the external objects, such as the cantor’s voice, and those who perceive them, such as Isḥaq.134 They are not found in things but only in the perceiving and feeling subject and in him alone. In this sense, the idea is subjective and varies from one perceiver to another.135 In contrast to Isḥaq’s unflattering perception of the cantor’s voice as “a donkey’s bray, and contrary his own subjective judging, as a consciousness,136 Isḥaq saw fit to note that the audience’s judgment was not the same as his own: “The audience felt the harmony and enjoyed” the cantor’s voice.137 However, this statement did not come because he found the audience’s judgment to be objective, but because he wanted to give more validity to his statement when he claimed that “they do not differentiate between the voices, and it does not matter whether an owl will hoot or a nightingale will sing."138

It can be summarized that Isḥaq’s sensory representations are descriptions of judgments of perception that have validity only for Isḥaq, for a consciousness, and for no one else. In other words, they have subjective validity and have no truth value. They cannot impart experience, because no a

priori concepts have been added to them. Therefore, they do not have the universality, necessity and objectivily validity with which experience is endowed. It seems that Isḥaq’s intuitions, which serve as a necessary component of knowledge, place him in the empiricist tradition, according to which human cognition depends on the experience of the senses, and that all contents of cognition (concepts, representations) originate from experience.139

F. Judgments of experience: Shaul’s cognition relies on categorical imperatives, on concepts and on rational foundations

Already at the beginning of the story it becomes clear that Shaul acts in accordance with categorical imperatives,140 which for him constitute guiding principles. These imperatives include: “Thou shalt not gossip,” “Do not judge your fellow man harshly,”141 and “Thou shalt not lie,”142 which were for him a universal law in the same sense as Kant’s categorical imperative: “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”143 His ethics are based on these laws. Categorical imperatives are synthetic a priori judgments.144 They are judgments of experience which Kant put it this way: “Beyond what is given in sensory intuition, special concepts must yet be added, which have their origin completely a priori, in the pure understanding, under which every perception can first be subsumed and then, by means of the same concepts, transformed into experience.” 145 By means of conjoining (synthesis) of the intuitions, Shaul generates a category: from an unorganized and unorderly multiplicity of perceptions, he created a one organized complex. 146

An example of a judgement of experience is “I am a human being.” Shaul defined it as “two most rhetorical words, most significant, most sincere and most wonderful.”147 The logical form of this judgment, subject-predicate,148 is equivalent to that of the judgment “Socrates is a man,”149 through which he revealed those a priori rules that belong solely to the cognition and not to external objects. He focused on the qualities of a human being, exposing his weaknesses in contrast to the perfection of God: (1) His birth as a Human being its foundation is in sin.150 Shaul relied on the idea that a man is born in a certain dimension of the sin of his parents’ pleasure: “In sin my mother conceived me and in iniquity she gave birth to me.”151 (2) Shaul believed that a person, in and of the very fact that he is a human being rather than a God, is prone to sin: “We are human beings, who stumble and fall on our own.”152 Therefore, he did not understand the effort to trace the sins of mankind and to record them in a thick book on the holy day.153 (3) In his essence, God is supposed to be a “bearer of iniquity.”154 But Shaul feared that God’s “scale of justice” will overwhelm his “scale of mercy”:155 “Is that so? Will you indeed bear the iniquity of my sin, God?!”156 (4) As a “human being,” man is limited in his perception, understanding and memory.157 Shaul also knew his limitations in perception and understanding. For example, he claimed: "I am a human being. My hand is too short to perceive my feelings… perceive countless matters.”158 And also: “I am not the one who resides in the heights of the world who can penetrate like him into the depths of humanity" and understand what is happening.159 He did not understand: (a) the elderly man [Isḥaq] next to him who “didn't stop wiggling and muttering” who “began expanding to both sides… And wondered: “Why is he a source of harassment to me?”160 (b) The buffer that was created “between his Creator and him” on this day that caused distance from God.161 (c) “The miracle that occurred.”162

(d) How did Ezra Salaḥ, my neighbor, know what was going on in Ḥaviva's viscera… before she discovered it?163 Regarding the limitation of his memory he said: “I am looking for her [his wife Ḥaviva]. My memory is enslaved to habit. And habit erases my memory. I forget. She did not come” [to the synagogue].164

However, a further examination of the mitzvot (commandments) advocated by Shaul reveals that two of them: “Thou shalt not lie” and “Thou shalt not gossip” are mitzvot from Deorita, while the mitzvah “Do not judge your fellow man harshly” is a mitzvah of Darbanan.165 All of them are “thou shalt not” mitzvot that usually require refraining from action for their observance. They are mitzvot between a person and his friend that regulate social behavior. It becomes clear that those commandments are not absolute imperatives, nor have they universality or necessity. For example, telling the truth in Judaism, which is one of the superior values, as it is said: “Keep thee far from false matter,”166 is not included among the Ten Commandments, perhaps because the concept of truth is not absolute – it is not a supreme value. When the choice is between saving a life (Jewish law) and the truth, the truth is rejected in favor of saving human life and even for the sake of the peace of a home, as the Sages say: “It is permissible for a person to alter [the truth] in the matter of peace.”167 For example, when telling the truth could harm or cause discomfort to any person, telling the truth can be waived.168 The commandment “Thou shalt not gossip” originates from the mitzvah “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people.”169 According to Judaism, gossip causes quarrels and conflicts. A human society without gossip is a better society.

After Shaul was careful to observe the mitzvot for years, he discovered through introspection, (by looking inward into his soul), that, he presented himself publicly as sincere, good, peaceable, who advocated not telling a lie, but, in fact, he was “weak…giving up his rights… defeatist… surrendered…” that ironically, his sincerity was "misleading and cheating” and self-deception.170 Moreover, Shaul held two opposing positions. On one hand, he claims that a person is prone to sin, an argument that has a deterministic element, which means that his sins cannot be attributed against him and recorded. Therefore, he is exempted from moral responsibility. On the other hand, he advocates the observance of mitzvot in a devout and uncompromising manner, even though, he cannot observe them in practice, because according to the deterministic argument, sin is inevitable. It is true that it is said: “sin crouches at the door; and unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it,”171 However, it seems that contrary to what is written in the Torah, a person is not possible to rule over it – the sin. It follows, therefore, that:

(1) Shaul's judgments of experience, his categories, that are supposed to include a commitment to inter-subjective172 truth, to universality, necessity, and objectivity, and so to have a validity for a consciousness in general and adjudicate objective judgments, were not absolute imperatives, and nor had in them necessity and universality. There is no truth value to the “categories” adopted by Shaul.

(2) He acts in a pattern of self-deception. In Sartre's terms: “as a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is.” It is a "representation" for others… He presents himself as that person who is not him.173

(3) Shaul's false representation was created also through his choice to observe his preferred categories, even though they did not meet the definition of a category as an absolute imperative. He took “the subjective basis for a judgment to be objective.” Through the “pure reason’s knowledge of itself," he realized that his "disorderly and bungling endeavor to patch together a house of cards" was a mistake. This recognition is "the only prevention against the errors into which reason falls if it misconstrues its vocation.”174

It seems that Shaul, who acted according to the view of “rationalism” which states that man by the power of his understanding alone, without the assistance of a supernatural power, such as God, is able to cognize reality,175 failed to cognize the truth about himself, about those around him, and God’s nature.

G. Schools of thought on the idea of God

This discussion will revolve around the protagonists’ perception of the essence of God, against the background of Descartes’s ontological proof stating that the essence of God includes his existence: “I find… that existence can no more be separated from the essence of God… Hence it is… a contradiction to think of concept [idea] of God lacking existence.”176 According to Descartes, the idea of God is an innate idea, and precedes the idea that he has of himself – because he could not know that he lacks something and is incomplete if he did not have an idea of a being that is more complete than his own. Therefore, this idea is a clear and distinct one that anyone can find within himself.177 God existing as an infinite perfection is the cause of the world and the ultimate cause of everything.178 He is the cause of man’s existence, he is the cause for the existence of the idea of God in man, who is a finite being, and he is also the cause of the existence of the idea of God’s perfection within him.179

Descartes also refers to the nature of God: (a) God is presented not only as the one who creates the man, but as the one who preserves him.180 (b) God is “supreme, eternal, infinite… omniscient, omnipotent…,” 181 and “is subject to no defect whatsoever… he cannot be a deceiver since it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect.”182 (c) The elimination of the assumption that God is a deceiver is intended to remove the remaining doubt regarding the malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning and establish the existence of a good and benevolent God.183 (d) Besides clarity and distinction as criteria of truth, the guarantee of a non-deceptive God is also required to validate the claims of mathematics, physics and science. The need for God’s guarantee of truth sets limits to rationalism. Man cannot research the truth on his own, which is obtained as a linked method and not directly. This is an expression of man's limitations and subjection to God.184

Kant perceives God as an ideal of “the absolute completeness of a thing in general,” or as “a supremely perfect first being.”185

Locke, as an empiricist who claims that the idea of God cannot be the result of external experience (sensation) nor of internal experience (repetition),186 does not speak as a pure empiricist in his discussion of God. He thinks that “man…knows that he exists and that he is something,” and “knows that a non-entity cannot produce any real being….that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing being" , and this being is, therefore, God.187

David Hume, the empiricist, denied the existence of a spiritual substance, human or divine. According to his theory, God has no place at all. His existence is doubtful because his existence cannot be proven based on experience.188

Leibniz, as stated before, maintains in principle that there is no mutual influence between created substances, between monads. Nonetheless, each monad reflects or expresses the entire universe outside of it.189 This is possible due to the pre-established harmony that prevails between all monads until the end of all generations, that is, the states of each monad are in full harmony with the states of the other monads. For the achievement of this harmony, there is no need for further divine intervention, because any other solution presents a God whose ability is defective. 190 The same is true of the principle that “the complete notion of an individual substance contains all of its predicates, past, present, and future”. This means that the notion of the individual includes the entire course of his life in all its details, all things that happen to him, and all his actions arise from his essence or nature.191 Some argue that this perception of the complete notion of the substance is inconsistent with free will. On one hand, if God is omniscient, then He foresees all of man’s actions; if the choice was truly given to man, this would disrupt God’s knowledge. On the other hand, to place the responsibility for all bad deeds on God means to doubt his absolute goodness.192 After all, the sufficient reason for God’s choice to create the world he chose to create, and not another world from among an “infinite number of other of possible worlds, is the will of God and his goodness, which serves as proof that this world is the best of possible worlds.193

Berkeley brings two proofs of God’s existence. One is based on the principle of the continuity of objects, which comes to show that God’s role is to perceive the ideas when no one perceives them,194 and this means that God is always watching over what is happening in the universe. The second proof shows that the ideas of sensation are not voluntary, and that man is not their cause. Therefore, it must be that God is the cause of the ideas of sensation,195 That is, God is the source of the ideas, the creator of the world, and always sustains it.

From all the above, it can be said that God plays a central role in the methods of the rationalist philosophers in the 17th century. As far as they are concerned, God is the guarantee for cognition the world. Descartes characterized God as the idea of infinite perfection. Only a benevolent God who guarantees the validity of the cognition is able to remove the remaining doubt regarding the evil demon. According to Leibniz, God was supposed to take care, at the time of the act of creation, of the establishment of a pre-established harmony between all the created monads. According to Berkeley, God’s role is to sustain the world, as the source of all ideas, and creates the world in constant creation. Empiricists Locke and Hume denied the existence of innate ideas. They did not accept any proof of God's existence that relied on experience. This was enough to absolve God of responsibility for truth.

G.1. Isḥaq’s idea of God

It seems that in Isḥaq’s eyes, God’s existence derives from his depiction, similar to Descartes’s ontological proof according to which the existence of God can be established from his essence.196 Isḥaq gives God human qualities: God is “busy”197 and “Please see your servant, and your beloved, Isḥaq.”198 He believes in Creator's existence, who plans and maintains the world. As for God’s essence, derived from his titles, Isḥaq depicts him as “a God of vengeance,”199 a representation he

deduces from past experience: God’s vengeance on the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah,200 and the extinction of mankind by the flood in the Noaḥ’s days.201 Isḥaq created a distorted generalization from a collection of private instances, from his sensual perception of people, and inductively concluded that mankind sins.202 He also challenges the concept of God’s infinite perfection, by referring to the idea of a “God of vengeance.” As he sees it, God “is softer and more gracious and merciful” toward his creatures than in the past. “He restrains himself… and gives time” to sinners to repent and does not destroy the world, even though evil men, tease him.203 Isḥaq wonders whether it is God’s will that the world be ruled by “every corrupt looter and cheap prostitute.” 204 His displeasure is evident from the fact that it is not his will, but God’s will – the sufficient and ultimate reason for everything that exists – that determines.205 This is reflected in his statement: “Despite being Noaḥ of the twentieth century, God wants … me to remain as Jonah, and no more.”206 Isḥaq sees himself as Noaḥ, as the bearer of God’s word who acts in accordance with God’s strict justice, while, according to his cognition, God compares him to Jonah, whose prophecy of the destruction of the city of Nineveh did not come true, for God preferred his merciful justice over his strict justice after the people of Nineveh had repented.207 His statement: “This world of yours has become food for a beast of prey,”208 and his disappointment with God, “I never expected this from you, my God,” prompted him to demand, in an imperative language, that God change the situation: “Pour down your wrath! Blow up your bomb on them, so that not even one of them will be left.”209 He “demands fire, and blood, and pillars of smoke… Sodom and Gomorrah in a new edition, and another flood” in order to bring about the extinction of “impurity of humanity.” 210 In criticizing, perhaps unconsciously, the concept of God as “a supremely perfect being,”211 and in his demand that the world be run according to his will, and not according to God’s will, Isḥaq challenges God in under the guise of zeal for him. In fact, Isḥaq rejects the claim that the divine cognition is necessary, and that without God nothing would exist and "nothing would even be possible."212 It can be thought that Isḥaq's faith is flawed. Sartre sees belief as a real problem of self-deception. He thinks that "belief is a being which questions its own being, which can realize itself only in its destruction, which can manifest itself to itself only by denying itself… To believe is not-believe." Sartre thinks that "every belief is a belief that falls short; one never wholly believes what one believes.”213

G.2. Shaul’s idea of God

Just as Isḥaq's faith and his cognition of God’s existence is expressed through Descartes' ontological proof according to which God's existence can be deduced from God's essence. Shaul recognized God's existance according to the following signs: (1) By giving God human qualities, by his request from God: “Grant me a first-born son who will accompany me to this house of yours” – God's house.214 (2) His attempt to break down the barrier created between him and God described metaphorically: he tried to destroy the wall with an axe215, to Shatter the vast water that separates him from God.216 But it seems that his determination has weakened. His hand "loosened from Shattering the mountain standing between God and me."217 He expressed his doubts with the question: "Will I be able to reach you and meet you without barriers?"218. (3) His belief that his wife’s unexpected pregnancy was a divine miracle was expressed by his words: “I saw your omnipotent finger intervenes to put a fetus inside Ḥaviva.”219 All of these, as mentioned, testifies to his faith and cognition of God's existence. As for the essence of God as “God bearer of iniquity,” who is supposed to act in merciful justice due to man being a weak and “helpless human being”220, prone to sin, Shaul found support in the verse: “I said, 'I will make confession concerning my transgressions unto the Lord' and Thou, Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.”221 Shaul feared that God’s “scale of justice” would tip his “scale of mercy,”222 And claimed that sins should not be traced and recorded.

When he suspected that his wife and Ezra had committed the sin of adultery and that his wife’s pregnancy was the result of the cheating on him,223 he turned to the omniscient God and wondered: “My God! … Ḥaviva, really? … And Ezra Salaḥ, is he too, my God?”224 Like Isḥaq, Shaul began to doubt whether God’s creation of the world is a complete and planned creation and whether God sustains his essence. But unlike Isḥaq, he doubted God's nature as a good and benevolent God, as “a bearer of iniquity”: “Will you really? … Will you really bear the iniquity of my sin, God?!”225 Shaul's casting of doubt is like disbelief in what one believes. This disbelief makes the belief to a self-deception.226

To sum up, both Shaul and Isḥaq believe in God’s existence. Both agree that human beings are sinners, but disagree with the way God treats sinners, because each of them perceives God's essence differently. For Isḥaq, God is a “God of vengeance,” whereas for Shaul, He is a “bearer of iniquity.” Isḥaq, as a misanthrope, demands that mankind be destroyed and protests that God treats it with mercy and compassion rather than avenge as per his essence as a God of vengeance. Shaul, on the other hand, as a humanist, recognizes the weakness of human beings who are prone to sin, but wonders whether God indeed upholds his essence as a “bearer of iniquity.” The story highlights the controversial dualistic conception of God’s attributes, which express the tension that exists in a religious tradition, whether God should behave in a strict manner, or whether in a lenient manner, that is, whether He should act in the measure of justice or the measure of mercy.

H. The story’s title as a synthetic a priori judgment

The story’s title, which is also the title of the collection, “The Day on which the World Became Pregnant and Miscarried,” deserves further attention and explanation. It will be clarified through the following synthetic and a priori metaphysical judgments:227 (1) “And his wife is absent on this day, which in its hours were pregnant. She is pregnant like it [like the day], she is hiding at home.”228 (2) “What happens on the Day of Atonement, whose hours are pregnant with humanity’s crimes and remorse.”229 (3) “Ḥaviva is not the strangest pregnant woman, stranger than her is the swollen world, in which millions of weeping people are trying at this moment to perform an abortion, and stranger than both is my own self-pregnancy … for whenever I miscarry a fetus from it, it comes back and fills again with twins and triplets.”230

The judgments are synthetic because they amplify the given cognition; they say in the predicate what is not thought in the concept of the subject.231 The parts of speech in judgments 1 and 3: "which in its hours were pregnant” and "I miscarry a fetus” contain in the predicates “pregnant” and “miscarry,” what are not thought in the concepts of the subject: “hours and “I”; “They therefore augment cognition, since they add something to the concept.” There is nothing that connects the subject and the predicate. What connects them is the common object to which they both apply232, and which appear in the judgment 2: “with humanity’s crimes and remorse.”

These are a priori judgments according to two criteria: (1) “They arise from pure understanding and reason.”233 Only pure intuition can give the material for synthetic judgments a priori,234 because “a priori Intuition, in contrast to its empirical one "contains the form of sensibility (the representation of the object], which in precedes all actual impressions through which I am affected by objects,”

that is, "the objects of the senses can be intuited only in accordance with this form of sensibility."235 (2) The judgments “are a priori and not experiential judgments, “because they carry necessity with them, which cannot be taken from experience.”236 According to Kant, The truth of a priori judgment is necessary and does not depend on any experience, as he said: "Before I go to experience". In the human cognition there actually are such necessary and in the strictest sense universal, that is, pure a priori judgments whose truth can be proven through understanding alone.237

A priori synthetic judgment, which makes up the title of the story, connects two pieces of information that do not necessarily have a logical connection between them and they are not based on definitions or linguistic norms, that is, their truth does not depend only on their logical form.238 They convey new information, non- experiential information obtained through a priori intuition – pure intuition.239

Looking at the concept of “humanity’s crimes and remorse” is an example of pure intuition that can be perceived a priori without being unmediated related to it. According to judgment no. 2, there is an affinity between pregnancy and humanity’s crimes and remorse. The hours of the Day of Atonement “are pregnant with humanity’s crimes and remorse.” Judgment no. 1 tells us that Ḥaviva, too, “is pregnant like it,” that is, she is pregnant with the crimes of humanity like this day. Judgment no. 3 draws a parallel between the pregnancies of Ḥaviva, the world and Shaul: Ḥaviva’s pregnancy is strange for the reason that it contradicts the medical diagnosis that there is no possibility of conception from Shaul’s seed, due to his infertility. Furthermore, her pregnancy was strange because it was founded in the sin of adultery, and was not followed by a request for remorse, instead Ḥaviva was “hiding at home.” The world’s pregnancy was even stranger. First, because contrary to the way of nature whereby pregnancy is for females, this time it is the pregnancy of “millions of people,” both men and women, trying to perform an abortion in the swollen world. It is a pregnancy that does not swell from a new life, but swells from the sins and remorse of those who were trying to repent and “abort the world.”240 Furthermore, Shaul maintains that his own pregnancy, despite his being a man, is stranger than both others – even if he aborts one sin through his repentance, his sins double, and triple themselves constantly. In this, the implied author emphasizes that not only is it impossible to stop a human being from sinning, but his sins multiply against his will, and that tracing the sins and recording them in the book is useless as these measures do not have the power to prevent the multiplication. This is a pessimistic message for a society that becomes ever more corrupt and does not work for true moral correction. It would thus appear that adding the object to the story’s title, which is a synthetic a priori judgment, may lead to a better understanding of the title: The Day on which the World Became Pregnant [with humanity’s crimes and with remorse] and Miscarried.”

I. Summary: The protagonists’ metaphysical world view – lines for their portrait

The story presents two protagonists, Isḥaq ʿĪda and Shaul Hillel, Jews who emigrated from Baghdad to Bombay, and meet on the Day of Atonement in the synagogue, where they have come to ask God for forgiveness for their sins. Despite the story’s distinctly Jewish character, it contains philosophical elements and presents a metaphysical worldview that is reflected through the protagonists’ consciousness. Isḥaq is presented as a being in which emphasis is placed on his body as something whose essence is to spread, while Shaul represents the soul whose essence is to think. Two main contradicting directions of thought emerge in the story: Rationalism, which sought to put

perceptions on concepts and its representative Shaul; and Empiricism, which sought to do the opposite and its representative Isḥaq. In a world in which body and spirit are two distinct essences, in a mechanistic world, in which man acts as a machine and God directly sustains the movement in the world by operating the “cogwheels” of the living machine, a covert struggle broke out between the protagonists over who is capable of cognizing reality and the world: Shaul, using only his mind, or Isḥaq, through the experience of the senses.

It seems that Isḥaq acts in accordance with several prominent principles from the teachings of the empiricists Locke and Hume’s and applies them in his life:

(1) Isḥaq’s cognitive connection with the external world and the causal connection between the object and his cognition depend on experience, including the sensory experience. Isḥaq absorbs from the environment, from the objects that are the source of his perceptions through his sensory intuition, the raw materials of his cognition: both his private representations of individuals and the impressions that contain sensations and emotions.

(2) The impressions, as well as his simple ideas that are absorbed passively, are very powerful contents, drawn from experience, which describe the world in its raw form before any judging, and as such they are free from error. However, it should be noted that the ideas of the perceptible attributes that are absorbed by the senses and emotions such as: colors, sounds and even pain, are not found in things, but in the perceiving and feeling subject, and only in him. In this sense, the ideas are subjective and change from one perceiver to another, and their perception can be misleading. This was illustrated by Isḥaq's perception of the cantor's voice as a jarring one, and his perception, that his place as a cantor in the synagogue was stolen from him.

(3) As for Isḥaq's general ideas, the concepts, which are a result of his understanding's activity, that appear in his thoughts and his considerations, are “faint images,” that is, contents that appear with weak intensity. Isḥaq made a connection between a particular idea that only perception provides and a general idea obtained in the process of abstraction from particular ideas. Out of the complex concept, from the figures that came his way, he took the particular for each of them, and focused only on the elements common to all these particulars ideas – they are all sinners – and determined that all of humanity is sinful and unworthy of forgiveness. It seems that Isḥaq deduced by way of abstraction a general idea, which does not necessarily represent a general idea regarding humanity. It can be seen that his composition distorted the face of reality, and that his judging, interpretation, and conclusion were based on images. His images (the ideas), whether passive or sensory, created in his cognition, came from the field of morality: murderers, thieves, sinners, robber of his will and illusions makers. They were the result of free association and personal impressions, which determine his course of thought.

(4) Isḥaq’s reasoning was governed by the laws of association of the imagination. Among its principles, two principles can be mentioned. The first: “Imagination is not subject to the order and form in which the original impressions were given,” and the second emphasizes that the “Imagination is free to reverse the order of its concepts and change them.” This association operates through three mechanisms: (a) on the basis of Resemblance – In his imagination Isḥaq saw himself as resembling: “Noaḥ of the twentieth century,” Dahud Sasson, and a man of “the people of faith.” (b) on the basis of Contiguity – The contiguity of Isḥaq's wish for Lulu's death to the prayer that

praised God's avenges against those who rise against him was evidence that Lulu would not be saved from the vengeance of the Lord. (c) on the basis of Cause and Effect – Isḥaq inferred from God's revenge on the sinners in Sodom and Gomorrah and the annihilation of mankind by a flood in the days of Noaḥ to the necessity to destroy all of humanity (Effect) due to its crimes at present time (Cause).

It follows that:

(1) Isḥaq’s sensory intuitions, which serve as a necessary component of his every knowledge, place him in the empiricist tradition, according to which human cognition depends on the experience of the senses, and that all contents of cognition (concepts, representations) originate from experience.

(2) His considerations are governed by contingent judging. He created a contingent experimental generalization based on a collection of private instances of people. Through them, he adjudicated subjective judgments on external objects, that exist independently of his cognition. In this way he received a picture of a world that is all bathed in sin – apart from him.

(3) His representations are mainly depictions of judgments of perceptions without interpretation that require a priori concepts. Therefore, they are valid only for him, for a consciousness, not for anyone else, that is, they are subjective, and have no a truth value. They cannot impart experience because they do not have the features of universality, necessity, and objectivity which experience is endowed. In his judgments of perceptions, there is not necessarily a correlation between the ideas and the external objects to which these ideas are directed.

(4) His dogmatic adherence to his principles stands out, as does his adherence to his hatred of the poor, the rich, women, the clergy and those around him. This hostility positions him as someone whose worldview is misanthropic.

(5) As for his idea of God, Isḥaq has criticism concerning the idea of God’s infinite perfection, on the fact that only God directs the course of human history according to his will. Isḥaq, in his demand that the world be run according to his own way and will, in effect challenges God under the guise of zealously for him. In his view, God’s essence, embodied in his title as a “Vengeful God” who is committed to act according to the strict justice against all sinful mankind, including those who repent, is not realized. One might think that Isḥaq, even if he is unaware of it, is denying the claim that all of God's cognitions are a priori and necessary.

(6) His determinations about himself (I am “Noaḥ of the twentieth century…”), about humankind (“the source of all the world’s hypocrisy,” “liars, cheats, unbelievers,” who have no “intention of repenting,” “the impurity of humanity” must be exterminated), and about God (“blesses Haman and curses Mordechai,” “softer and more merciful” than in the past) – are all contingent-synthetic – a posteriori claims. The falsity of these claims is possible because they are not necessarily true.

From the above it appears that Isḥaq’s empiricist worldview, based on experiential foundations, his consideration governed by the laws of association of the imagination and contingent judging, do not provide him with the necessary information to cognize himself, the world, and the human beings around him. His worldview turns out to be one that does not fulfill its goal.

As for Shaul, the rationalist and humanist: (1) He suffered from a fertility problem, and was married to a woman at the beginning of her pregnancy, after she had been unable to conceive for ten years of marriage, where her fetus was, apparently, the fruit of adultery with the neighbor.

(2) Shaul allegedly acted according to categorical imperatives, but in fact his principles were not absolute ones, therefore they had no validity for a consciousness in general.

In contrast to the childless, lonely, misanthropic, and empiricist Isḥaq who acted in accordance with judgments of perceptions, Shaul used categorical imperatives that served as guiding principles for him. Among them were found these commandments: “Thou shalt not gossip.” “Do not judge your fellow man harshly,” and “Thou shalt not lie,” which were for him universal laws in the same sense that Kant formulated the categorical imperative. Shaul’s ethics revolved around these leading rules and principles. The categorical imperatives are supposed to be synthetic a priori judgments, judgments of experience obtained by adding a priori concepts of what is given in sensory intuition to verbal descriptions. However, a further examination of the mitzvot (commandments) advocated by Shaul reveals that the judgments of experience, that is, his categories, which were supposed to include a commitment to intersubjective truth, to universality, to necessity, and to objectivity, and were supposed to be valid for a consciousness in general and adjudicate objective judgments, were not absolute commandments, nor had in them necessity and universality.

(3) Shaul established the concept of "I am a human being.” His judging according to categories and pure intuition – a rational inner insight – led him to establish the concept “I am a human being.” He focused on the qualities of a human being, exposed his weaknesses, in contrast to the perfection of God, and found that: his birth is based on sin. He is prone to sin. In his essence, God supposed to be a "bearer of iniquity, and a human being is limited in perception, understanding and memory. Shaul, as a human being, knew his limitations and pointed them out.

(4) Shaul was infected with self-deception both in his relations with his environment and in his faith. As for his relations with those around him in his life, through introspection, Shaul found that his life was conducted in a way of self-deception, and hypocrisy. For years he presented himself publicly as sincere, good, and peace loving, a man who advocated not telling a lie, but, in fact he was “weak…giving up his rights… defeatist… surrendered,” his sincerity was “misleading and cheating” and self-deception. He was “as a being which is what it is not, and which is not what it is,” as a “representation” for others. He represented himself as a person that he was not.

(5) Shaul' doubt on what he believed made his faith self-deception. Ironically, Shaul held two opposing positions. On the one hand, he advocated the observance of mitzvot in a devout and uncompromising Manner, and on the other hand, he could not observe them in practice, because he claimed that a person is prone to sin – An argument bearing a deterministic character. This means that if sin is inevitable, there is no value in observance the commandments, which means that it will not be possible to attribute person's sins against him and record them. Therefore, he is exempted from moral responsibility. Shaul wished that the God who holds the title “bearer of iniquity,” and should be aware of the fact that man's sins are caused by factors over which man has no control,

will indeed confirm the truth of this title, and will not act as an “avenging God.” Ironically, it seems that it was precisely Shaul, the humanist, who viewed man as the center or the purpose of the world, and showed respect towards Him, was not treated respectfully by others. He lost his faith in man and questioned the belief that God is a "bearer iniquity" and “good and benevolent.” Shaul's faith became flawed. He did not fully believe what he wanted to believe. According to Sartre, a person's disbelief in what he believes is self-deception.

(6) Shaul's end as a human being – In his last moments, while Isḥaq committed an obscene act on the young man who kneeled down during the second prostration, Shaul went crazy. He ran aimlessly down the street wrapped in his prayer shawl. In an absurd world, in an indecipherable world, not only did he not find clarity and meaning in the face of absurdity, but was shrouded in a sense of frustration, helplessness and disappointment. He felt abandoned and betrayed: He failed meet God. Ḥaviva, his wife, with Ezra Salaḥ betrayed his trust in their adultery. As a devil (Satan), Isḥaq took over Shaul's soul who felt his fate was in Isḥaq's hands, and thus also left Shaul "paralyzed" unable to act against Isḥaq who hurt the young man in front of Shaul's eyes on the holiest day. Shaul's world collapsed on him. He felt that he was "in the land of doom". and “he is nothing more than a human being… sinful… short-handed… helpless”.241 His killing was like a lifeline from his destruction in a crazy world.

(7) From the above, it appears that although Shaul acted according to the school of “rationalism,” which states that man with the power of his mind alone, without the assistance of a supernatural power, such as God, is able to cognize reality, he was unable to know the truth about himself, about those around him and the nature of God. He had difficulty finding the certain truth in his life, and was left with deep doubts without the ability to make decisions, doubts that accompanied him even in his last moments.

J. Conclusions and messages

(1) The Cartesian dualism

Like Descartes, whose distinction regarding the dichotomy between body and soul is a point of departure in modern Western philosophical discussion, so too the Cartesian dualism is a starting point regarding of the characters' essences. One of them is presented as a thing whose essence is to spread and the other as a thing whose essence is to think. In this way the author tries to instill in the heart of the reader the concept that both main characters in the story represent with varying intensity, yet clearly, the distinction between body and soul, between matter and spirit. It seems that Cartesian dualism is an inseparable part of the characters' essences, essences that reflect the mental and spiritual qualities of the protagonists revealed in their actions and behavior. The Cartesian dualism, which is also an interactionist dualism, which claims causal interrelationships apply to objects and ideas is expressed in the work in question. This is, may be, the reason why the author did not make use of the theory of ideas, espoused by Berkeley and Leibniz – a theory that contradicts Cartesian Dualism as well as the author's view of the world's nature and of God's essence.

(2) Empiricism and rationalism as a source of man's cognizing of himself and the world.

The main message that the writer seeks to convey through his protagonists is that the basic premises of both opposing philosophical approaches – empiricism and rationalism – are doomed to failure and cannot serve as a source of man’s cognition of himself and the world.

(3) The Good and benevolent God’s issue and the world’s evil.

According to Leibniz, "the complete or perfect notion of an individual substance contains all of its predicates, past, present, and future". That is, the notion of a person includes the entire course of a man’s life in all its details, all things that happen him, and all his actions arising from his essence or nature. This perception was expressed in the history of the two protagonists in the work in question. One of them exhibits elements of evil, cruelty and even sadism, while the other suffers humiliation, disloyalty, and arbitrariness from his surroundings. It seems that the problem of evil or the problem of bad is an issue that deals with the fundamental question of how evil and suffering exist in the world, assuming that God is good and benevolent. Some argue that if the choice was truly given to humans, and they are the ones who bring evil into the world, it means that they have the power to disrupt the knowledge of God who foresees all human actions and with their power to disrupt his intention to create the best of the possible worlds. On the other hand, if man is not given the choice, then the responsibility for all bad deeds rests with God, and this means to doubt his absolute goodness.

David Hume presents the argument as a series of questions originally attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus: “Is he [God] willing to prevent Evil but not able? then, is he impotent; Is he able but not willing? then, is he malevolent; Is He both able and willing? Whence then is Evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then, why call him God?”242

However, it seems that the author’s perception of the concept of “the good God” is incompatible with the perception of Leibniz and Descartes. The author does not accept the view that God is supreme God, who has no defects whatsoever, cannot be a deceiver and is a good and benevolent God.

The author not only did not refrain from describing the human evil in his works, but according to his understanding, pointedly and resolutely exposed the divine evil, the demonic qualities of God, who with unimagined cruelty, bordering on sadism, punished his people for no apparent reason: “From his heights he watched when he exposes yellow fangs, enjoying to see the spilled blood and mutters: Indeed, I chose you, ‘my people’, so that you would die and so that my murderous soldiers would live!” The implied author described what would happen: "Shlomo and a group of his friends… took a nap to renew their strength for the second night of the holiday [Pentecost], when they will continue to praise their murderer – God!”243

God is presented as a hateful, incomprehensible God, punishing those who obey him, silent to the applicant to hear his voice and full of contradictions. The proof of his existence is his inhumanity.244 From the moment the protagonists replaced their devotion to God with their call to rebel against him, they ceased to ignore the absurdity that had enlightened their eyes before, and stopped worshiping the irrational. In front of God, who is presented as part of the “up-side-down world,” a world in which righteous is suffering and wicked is rewarded, the protagonists demonstrate their consciousness and rebellion.245

(4) The Nature of the Created World.

According to Leibniz's theory: (a) God created a world in which, among all its individuals, among the nomads of the world, a predetermined harmony prevails; (b) For the achievement of this harmony, there is no need for further divine intervention, as any other solution presents a God whose ability is defective. (c) God created the best of all possible worlds.

However, this is not the author’s view. In Naqqāsh’s works, a monstrous and bleak world is presented; a world full of evil, cruelty, selfishness, humiliation, arbitrariness, theft, disloyalty, greed, and ungratefulness; a world far from being good, in which harmony does not prevail among its individuals. The message presented in the work in question is a pessimistic one which emphasizes that a prominent hallmark of human society is the commission of offenses and crimes. In the author’s eyes, society tends to become more and more corrupt. Its sins multiply and triple themselves and are deterministic in nature, i.e., they are driven by factors over which a person has no control and are not done out of free will. This is a society that does not act and may not be able to act for real moral correction.

(5) Human existence stands in the shadow of duality.

The author emphasizes that human existence basically stands in the shadow of dualisms such as soul-body, necessary-contingent, array- given, unity (synthesis) – multiplicity, concepts-intuitions, thought-perception, a priori-a posteriori, spontaneity-absorption.246

Samīr Naqqāsh draws with the hand of an artist hand the appearance of duality in human situations and the relationships between the various extremes, without trying to find magic solutions for them. He presents man’s repeated shattering on duality's aground, and makes it clear that any attempt by man to break free from duality and break through these boundaries is doomed to failure, and that this failure marks his limits. In this story, as in his other stories, the author does not attempt to sweeten human existence or to present it as subject to any unity, but outlines it as a contradictory existence: An existence that constantly moves between different poles and especially between life and death, an existence that cannot find rest and completeness due to its very essence.247

This story is but another expression of the author’s worldview, in which there is no hope for a positive summing up of life’s journey.

Notes

1  Naqqāsh notes that he studied philosophies of all kinds and irrational aspects of human behavior. He mentions schools of thought, such as Idealism and Materialism, as well as Alfred North Whitehead's rejection of the dualism of spirit and matter: Moreh, Al-Adib Samir, 72, 80, 81; Alcalay, Signs, 100, 105-106.

2  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 11-56. The story's English title is also the name of the book, which appeared in English in the original Arabic book as “The Day on which World has been Conceived and Miscarried,” adjusted in the text of this article for accuracy.

3  On the Day of Atonement, it is customary to kneel and to bow in the order of work in the “Musaf” prayer, as befits a person who wants to repent. 14. Bowing During Musaf

4  Descartes discusses the issues of traditional metaphysics in "Meditations", 3, 8, 9-11. Kant notes that the purpose of metaphysics is “to prove the simple nature of the soul or the necessity of a first beginning of the world.” Kant, Critique, 102; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 51, 52, 54.

5  Kant, Prolegomena, 15 (§1).

6  This is part of the name of Kant's book in which he tries to glorify the value of the critique. Kant, Prolegomena, 119-125; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 55, 56.

7  Kant, Prolegomena, 5 (Preface), 120; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 51, 56-57.

8  Kant, Prolegomena, 15 (§1), 81-82 (§40), 121; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 30, 57.

9  Hume, A Treatise, Introduction, xvii.

10  Weinryb, An Interpretation, 39.

11  Descartes, "Meditations", 68, 69; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 2-3, 120, 148.

12  Descartes, "Meditations", 25, 26, 44-45; Descartes, Philosophical Writing, 259-260; Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 2-3, 141-145.

13  Descartes, "Meditations", 27, 31; See also section C. in this paper.

14  Descartes, "Meditations", 31, 32; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 126, 141, 142. On the idea of God, see also section G in this paper.

15  Descartes, "Meditations", 68, 69; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 2-3, 120.

16  Locke, An Essay, 104, 106, 107-108 (§2, 5, 8); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 33, 99; Units 2-3, 131, 148.

17  Locke, An Essay, 47 (§8); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 30-33.

18  On simple ideas and complex ideas see Locke, An Essay, 119-121 (§1-3), 163-164 (§1-2). On particular ideas and general ideas see: Ibid, 159 (§9). On the process of abstracting particular ideas and accepting general ideas by Isḥaq, see sections E.1 and E.5 in this paper.

19  The theory of representation claims that man perceives the material objects that exist in reality only indirectly through the perceptual phenomena that represent them, which are called perceptual representations, i.e., ideas. Locke, An Essay, 104, 118 (§2, 25), 134-139 (§7-19); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 53-56, 75-76. Unit 8, 115.

20  Locke, An Essay, 104, 118 (§2, 25).

21  Ibid; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 33, 35-36.

22  Hume, A Treatise, Part I, Chapter I. 1-7; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 9-10, 23, 32, 33. Weinryb, An Interpretation, 41, 42. On the difference between impressions and ideas in the protagonists according to Hume's distinction, see section E.5 notes 119 – 120 in this paper.

23  For a discussion of the Ideas doctrines of Berkeley and Leibniz, see section D – D2 in this paper.

24  Kant, Critique, 152.

25  Categories are pure, a priori concepts that originate in the understanding and are necessary “in all cognition from experience.” Through them, the understanding constructs the experimental reality from the sensations given to it. Kant, Prolegomena, 76-80 (§39), 55 (§21).

26  Kant, “Letter to Marcus Herz,” February 21, 133 in Correspondence.

27  The implied author is responsible for the meaning of the entire work. It can be attributed to him: planting hidden meanings among the lines, and other literary means and tricks. Even, Dictionary, 80.

26  

28  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 11.

29  "A mare is a female donkey” is an analytical judgment, because it says “nothing in the predicate except what was thought already in the concept of the subject". Its negation results a contradiction. Only a synthetic judgment expands cognition. On synthetic and analytic judgments and the distinction between them see: Kant, Prolegomena, 16-18 (§2); Kant, Critique, Introduction, IV, 41.

30  Thus, for example: “The snow is white or not white,” Its logical form (“or,” “not”) is an outgrowth of the meaning of the logical terms (“the snow,” “white”) that appear in the judgment. Weinryb, An Interpretation, 77.

31  A complex judgment in the syntactic sense is analytical and true due to its logical form and a valid inference is obtained from it whose conclusion is: If A = white and B = purity, virtue, and innocence, then A is B; if A = fasting and B = submission, humility, and worship, then A is B. A synthetic judgment, according to the example given by Weinryb. Weinryb, An Interpretation, 77, note 13. An inference is valid if the connections between subject and predicate are necessary. Shkolnikov, Weinryb, Greek Philosophy, 100. Kant identified a priori with necessity and spoke of the "consciousness of necessity" in analytical judgments. A necessary truth is one that is independent of circumstances, that nothing can refute it. Kant, Prolegomena, 17 (§ 2); Weinryb, An Interpretation, 82, 84.

32  Kant gives an example of judgment: “Gold is a yellow metal” as a priori analytical judgment, for no man needs any experience other than his own concept on gold.” It is an a priori judgment, because its essential property is metallicity and it is necessary. The judgment can be a priori even when the concepts mentioned in it, such as the gold or the color orange, are experimental and their attribute is contingent. Kant, Prolegomena, 17 (& 2b). On analytic judgments see also: Weinryb, An Interpretation, 75-79, 81-82.

33  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 16.

34  Ibid, 11.

35  Ibid, 12.

36  Kant, Prolegomena, 51 (§18); Weinryb, An Interpretation, 195-198.

37  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 12.

38  Ibid.

39  Descartes, "Meditations", 56

40  Descartes, Discourse on the Method, 127.

41  Ibid.

42  Descartes, "Meditations", 17.

43  Ibid, 56.

44  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 13.

45  Ibid, 14.

46  Ibid, 18.

47  Ibid, 15.

48  Ibid.

49  Ibid, 18.

50  Ibid, 22.

51  Ibid, 33.

52  Ibid, 19.

53  Ibid, 22.

54  Ibid, 23.

55  Ibid, 33.

56  Definition of the word “dissolving”: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/dissolve

57  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 46.

58  Descartes, "Meditations", 4, 6, 50; Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 2-3, 76 and Unit 11, 175.

59  Locke, An Essay, 108-109 (§10), 111 (§13), 337-338 (§13), 347 (§27); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 25, 26, and Unit 8, 169.

60  Berkeley believed that “to be” means “to be perceived” and that “to be perceived” means to be in the understanding, thus denying the existence of objects outside the understanding and argues for idealism. Berkeley, “Principles of Human Knowledge,” 258, 259 (§3-4), 206 (§17); Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 8, 116, 138-140, 142-148, 152, 153, 155.

27  

61  The term “materialism” generally refers to any theory that claims that only material things exist in reality. Berkeley, three dialogues, 476, 478 – 489; Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 8, 116, 117.

62  Ibid, 115, 116, 117.

63  An apple seen by a person as a sensory object has a real existence, but is not perceived as a material object. It is perceived by the mind as a complex idea built from simple ideas such as “a certain color, taste, smell, figure and consistence.” Berkeley, three dialogues, 436 469 – 470; Berkeley, “Principles of Human Knowledge,” 257-260 (§1–6); Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 8, 116, 117, 138-147.

64  Ibid, Unit 2-3, 148.

65  According to Leibniz, “metaphysical points” are monads. They are “real and without them there would be nothing real, since without real unities there would be no multiplicity.” Leibniz, “The New system,” 149 (§11); On the complete independence of the monads from each other, see: Ibid,149, 150 (§13), 151, 152 (§16); Leibniz, “Monadology,” 269 (§11), 276 (§62); Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 11, 117-118, 120, 136, 177.

66  According to Leibniz, material objects are considered a phenomenon, like the rainbow. In doing so, he rejected the Cartesian perception that speaks of matter whose essence is only expansion. Leibniz, “Correspondence with Arnauld,” 113.

67  See, for example, sections “E.1-E.5 in this paper.

68  Descartes, "Meditations", 29.

69  Contrary to the theory of causal perception which claims a causal connection between material objects (reasons) and ideas (results), Berkeley believes that there is no information about the occurrence or existence of a cause. Only sensation and ideas, i.e., the results should be the basis of any knowledge. Bodies are not supposed to serve as reasons and “cannot act upon spirit, or… imprint any idea in the mind.” Therefore, he rejects any theory of causal perception. Berkeley, “Principles of Human Knowledge” 266-268 (§18-20), 270 – 273 (§25-27); Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 8, 125, 127-130.

70  See section C. in this paper.

71  Leibniz, “The New system,” 17-22 (§12, 13, 14); Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 11, 176.

72  Descartes, "Meditations", 28-30; Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 11, 121-123, 171- 173.

73  On the view of Leibniz and Berkeley on issues related to the idea of God, see section G in this paper. On the writer's worldview, which is contrary to that of these thinkers, as expressed in his literary works, see section J in this paper.

74  Kant, Prolegomena, 34 (§10).

75  Ibid, 39, 40 (§13, note I).

76  Ibid, 33 (§8).

77  Kant, Critique, 172, 193.

78  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 13.

79  Ibid.14.

80  Ibid. 11.

81  Descartes points out that the principle of causality also applies to ideas as it applies to physical objects. Descartes, "Meditations", 27-30. Hume has a principle that states that every idea should resemble an original impression that is supposed to be the causal source of the idea. On causal connection, see: Hume, A Treatise, 3, 4, 73-82, 86-94.

82  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20.

83  Ibid, 25-26. The Qedusha prayer is based on verses from the prophecy of Isaiah and Ezekiel: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah, 6:3); “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place.” (Ezekiel, 3:12).

84  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 26.

85  Ibid, 35.

86  Ibid, 14, 26.

87  Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 6-7, 53, 71, 82, 75-83.

88  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 30, 31.

89  Ibid, 15-18, including Note 10. The implied author associates red with sin: “And the red is fire. The red is sins.” The judgments are analytical and a priori. On judgments of this type, see section B in this paper.

90  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 17.

91  Ibid, 18. The verse is taken from Ex. 15:7. https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0215.htm

92  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 18.

93  Ibid, 14. 15, 53, 55.

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94  Ibid, 14, 15, 28, 35. The nickname “pig” and the accompanying epithets are indicated here in the order of their appearance in the text.

95  Ibid, 14, see also note 8.

96  Ibid, 35, note 59.

97  Ibid, 44.

98  Ibid, 46.

99  Ibid, 51.

100  Ibid, 37. It should be noted that the youth, too, had no verbal communication with the two other protagonists in the synagogue.

101  Ibid, 15.

102  Ibid, 35, 43, 44. Although Isḥaq does uses the plural, his intention is solely the gullible young man.

103  Ibid, 51.

104  Ibid, 28.

105  Ibid, 18.

106  Ibid, 13.

107  Ibid, 44.

108  Ibid, 15.

109  Ibid, 36.

110  According to Kant, “Experience never gives its judgments real or strict” but only a posteriori universality, as far as it is perceived in this time. “Necessity and strict universality are indications of an a priori cognition.” Kant, Critique, 137-138; Weinryb, An Interpretation,79. Isḥaq has a posteriori cognition. His judgments were not with true or strict universality, but rather with a contingent one. See also notes 31, 136 in this paper.

111  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 26, 28.

112  Ibid, 30. An allusion to what is written in: Isaiah, 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

113  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 42.

114  Ibid, 30.

115  Ibid, 31.

116  Ibid.

117  Ibid, 26, 27.

118  According to Weinryb, An Interpretation, 91, 92, 94.

119  Hume, A Treatise, Book I, Part I, Section I, 1; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 9-10, 23-25. According to Locke, “All Ideas come from Sensation [external experience] or Repetition [internal experience]. See notes 20, 21, 126. 186 in this paper.

120  See sections C.1 and C.2.

121  Hume, A Treatise, 9-10.

122  On the three types of association, see Ibid, 88-94; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 9-10, 82-84; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 220.

123  On the three figures that evoked in Isḥaq the association of resemblance, see Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20, 32. 35.

124  According to Hume's principles, A Treatise, 88.

125  On Isḥaq's inference about the concept of the sins of mankind as expressed in the Torah in the past, and his view regarding this concept in the present, see section G.1. in this paper.

126  Locke, An Essay, 118 (§25), 166 (§8), 158 (§6); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 38-40, 43-44.

127  Ibid, Units 6-7, 37, 38.

128  Locke, An Essay, Book II, Chapter IX, 145 (§8); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 37- 40.

129  Ibid, 33.

130  For example, a certain orange is a particular idea or “special concept” in Locke's language. In the process of abstraction, a general idea is obtained when a person wants to deepen his general knowledge about oranges, such as their qualities. Locke, An Essay, 159 (§9); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 43, 44.

131  Locke, An Essay, 411 (§7).

132  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 26, 28.

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133  Weinryb comments that it is not clear what nature of the general idea should be used as a model for sorting particular ideas, and whether there is a model of a person that can be compared to it. Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 44, 45.

134  Locke, An Essay, 117, 118 (§24, 25), 136 137, 138 (§13, 14,17), 139 (§19, 21), 131-132 (§10). The perception of the ideas of sensation can be misleading. Thus, for example, there will be a difference between the sensation of one hand and another when one of them is dipped in hot water and the other in cold water and both are then dipped in lukewarm water.

135  Locke gives an example that the ideas of sensation are not found in things: “Idea of pain which produced in him […] by fire […] is not in the fire,” but in the feeling subject. Locke, An Essay, 137-139 (§16,17, 21); Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 6-7, 62, 63.

136  Judging is the linking of unlinked givens to a whole one unity through a consciousness. A consciousness as a self- consciousness adjudicates merely subjective judgments and its judging is contingent (as in Isḥaq's case), in contrast to a consciousness in general, which adjudicates objective judgments, in which general and necessary concepts are used i.e., categories, and its judging is necessary (as in Shaul's case). On a consciousness and on a consciousness in general, see Kant, Prolegomena, 53, 54 (§20), 58 (§22).

137  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20.

138  Ibid.

139  On the characterization of the school of empiricism, see: Weinryb, Rationalism, 61, 62.

140  “The categorical imperative would be that which represented an action as objectively-necessary of itself, without reference to another end”: Kant, "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals", 67.

141  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 12.

142  Ibid.

143  Kant, Groundwork, 73.

144  Ibid, 72; See also section H in this paper.

145  On the characteristics by means of which a judgment of perception becomes a judgment of experience, see: Kant, Prolegomena, 51-55 (§18-20), 57 (§21), 78 (§39); Weinryb, An Interpretation, 191-193, 196, 197, 228.

146  Kant, Prolegomena, 27 (§5), 57-58 (§21a), 58 (§22); Kant, Critique, 399, 400; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 208- 210, 228.

147  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20.

148  On the basic form “subject-predicate", see: Weinryb, An Interpretation, 77, 210, 220; see also section B in this paper.

149  According to the example given by Weinryb of Kant's classification of judgment types. Weinryb, An Interpretation, 207.

150  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 19.

151  Ibid. This idea is based on the verse “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” Psalms 51:7. According to this verse, King David says that he was born in the sin of his father, Jesse, who came to his wife only to have conjugal relations with her for his own pleasure. It seems that this verse implies that the fetus in the womb of Shaul's wife will also be born in sin from the seed of his neighbor Ezra.

152  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 29.

153  Ibid., 20.

154  Ibid., 30.

155  Ibid., 29.

156  Ibid., 30. According to the verse: “I Said: 'I will make confession concerning my transgressions unto the Lord'—and Thou, Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, Selah.” Psalms 32:5.

157  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20, 22.

158  Ibid, 22.

159  Ibid, 34.

160  Ibid, 22.

161  Ibid, 23.

162  Ibid, 34

163  Ibid.

164  Ibid, 22

165  In Halacha, Deorita is the name of mitzvot originating in the Torah. Darbanan is a term for decrees and mitzvot that Sages have established over the generations, and they have no source in the Torah. Hillel the Elder, one of the sages of Israel whose words have been preserved in the Mishnah and in the Tanaim literature, said: “Do not judge your friend until you reach his place.” Mishna Seder Nazikin, Tractate of Avot, Chapter 2, Mishna D.

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166  Exodus 23:7. See: https://he.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1684717

167  Gemara (Talmud), Tractate of Yevamot, 65:2 (Hebrew) https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/409688 `

169  Leviticus 19:6.

170  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 37, 38.

171  Genesis 4:7.

172  Inter-subjective truth is the truth of human subject. It is a subjectivity that is common to the entire human race, in contrast to the personal subject. Weinryb, An Interpretation, 172, 241.

173  Sartre, “Bad faith,” 107,103.

174  Kant, Prolegomena, 82, 83 (§40, 41)

175  On the characterization of the school of rationalism, see: Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 1, 58, 59, 62.

176  Descartes, "Meditations", 46; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 2-3, 141, 150-151; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 363.

177  Descartes argues that the idea of God is clear and distinct. Clear, because the mind sees the truth directly. It is revealed with such force that it is impossible not to accept it. Distinct, because it is neither confused nor mixed with any other opinion. A clear and distinct truth does not depend on any other truth. Descartes, "Meditations", 31, 45, 47.

178  Ibid, 34.

179  Ibid, 35; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 2-3, 130.

180  Descartes wrote: “God… is the cause that produced me in the past…” and “preserves me at the present moment” Descartes, "Meditations", 33, 34.

181  Ibid, 28.

182  Ibid, 35, 55. The natural light comes to express the ability of the human understanding to discover clear and distinct truths by itself. Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 2-3, 134.

183  Descartes, "Meditations", 15. Descartes wrote: “When I turn my mind's eye upon myself…I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete… and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things. Ibid, 35.

184  A linked method assumes that what was proven and perceived as true in each of the stages of the proof (perceiving the truth directly) remains true in all subsequent stages as well of another proof, without having to go back and prove again (remembering the truth). To believe in the validity of mathematics as a linked method, one needs a God who is not a deceiver. Descartes, "Meditations", 30-34, 48-49, 55-56; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 2-3, 115-117, 130, 135-136, 170.

185  Kant, Prolegomena, 102 (§55); Weinryb, An Interpretation, 363.

186  On Locke's theory of ideas, see section A.1 notes 16-21 in this paper; Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 35-36, 99.

187  Locke, An Essay, Book IV, 619-622 (§1-7); Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 6-7, 35, 36, 98, 99.

188  Ibid, 174, unit 12, 222.

189  Leibniz, “Monadology,” 274 – 275 (§51–53), 276 – 277 (§61-63); Leibniz, “Discourse on Metaphysics,” 60, 61 (§9). On Leibniz's theory of ideas, see section D, notes 64-72 in this paper.

190  On the pre-determined harmony, see: Leibniz, "Third Explanation of the New System", 192; Leibniz, "Monadology", 279 (§78, 81), According to Weinryb, the solution inherent in the pre-established harmony, as a solution to the body- soul question, seems too artificial and unacceptable for the pre-established harmony prevails between substances which are all spiritual. Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 11, 118, 177, 178.

191  Leibniz, "Primary Truths" 33; Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 11, 145-148, 171.

192  Ibid. 147, 193.

193  Leibniz, "Monadology", 273-274 (§38-39, 43-45);

194  Berkeley claims: 1. The objects of the senses cannot exist without being perceived by a perceiving substance or mind. Berkeley, three dialogues, 390, 397, 404, 410 – 411. 2. The objects of the senses exist even when there is no human spirit to perceive them. 3. Therefore, there is an inhuman spirit [God], which perceives the objects of the senses when no one perceives them. Ibid, 390, 424 – 425, 428; Berkeley, "Principles of Knowledge", 260 – 261 (§6).

195  Berkeley, "Principles of Knowledge", 270 -274, 317 – 318 (§25, 29, 33, 108). Weinryb, Rationalism, Unit 8, 163, 165-168.

196  On Descartes' ontological proof of God's existence, see section G note 176 in this paper.

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197  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 14. An allusion to Elijah, who mocked the Baal's prophets praying for their God to bring down fire from heaven. He said: 'Cry aloud; for he is a God; either he is musing, …or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth,” Kings I, 18:27.

198  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 14.

199  Ibid, 18, 20; The verse: “And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou overthrowest them that rise up against Thee,” is taken from the Song of the Sea (Shirat haYam), Exodus 15:7.

200  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20. About the annihilation of the inhabitants of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is written: “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire.” Gen. 19:24.

201  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20. About Noaḥ it was said: “Noaḥ was in his generations a man righteous and whole- hearted” Gen. 6:9. On the extinction of humanity by the flood it was said: “And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth… And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth… And the Lord said: 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth’” Genesis 6:5 – 8, 9.”

202  Empiricism claims that all images of the external world have their source in sensual perception, and that experience is the source of all ideas. Hume, A Treatise, 24-132. An example of inductive reasoning: “If Socrates and Plato are mortal, then all men are mortal.” Weinryb, Rationalism, Units 9-10,78; Weinryb, An Interpretation, 43, 203.

203  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 42. “Hamans” is the plural form of “Haman.” In the Book of Esther, Haman HaGagi was the senior minister of King Ahasuerus of Persia. He incited his king against the Jewish population in the kingdom, with the aim of committing genocide. Haman is referred as “The oppressor of the Jews,” as well as “an adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman.” Esther 7:6. His plan was thwarted, mainly thanks to Esther, and he was hanged.

204  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 42.

205  Only one fact can constitute a sufficient reason for the other facts – The creation of the world by God. On sufficient reason, see Leibniz, “Monadology,” 272-273 (§32, 33,36, 38, 39).

206  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 20.

207  On the strict justice according to which Noaḥ acted, see: Genesis 6:14, 17: “Make thee an ark of gopher wood, and I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life.” About another protagonist, who feared that his fate as a prophet would be like the prophet Jonah's fate who went out with a "sooty face", i.e. a liar, unreliable and disappointed by the failure of his mission, see the story: “Dr Khudādā(d)’s Letter to the People of Baghdad” (Risālat al-doctor Khudādā(d) ilā ahālī Baghdad) in Naqqāsh, Prophecies of a Mad Man in a Cursed City (106 -150).” See an analysis of Jonah in Rish, Spheres of Existence in the Face of Reality, 288-290. See also: Ararat, “On the Fear of God (the strict justice) of Jonah,” 85-110.

208  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 42.

209  Ibid.

210  Ibid, 20. Isḥaq's wish for the extinction of mankind is based on the verse: “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.” Joel, 3:3.

211  Descartes, "Meditations", 45-46; Leibniz, “Monadology,” 273 (§41).

212  Ibid, 273 (§40, 41, 43).

213  Sartre, “Bad Faith,” 112, 114, 115.

214  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 24.

215  Ibid, 23, 30 ,37, 39,

216  Ibid, 29.

217  Ibid, 51.

218  Ibid, 30.

219  Ibid, 47.

220  Ibid, 38.

221  Psalms 32:5; Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 30.

222  Ibid, 20, 29.

223  Ibid, 23-25.

224  Ibid, 56.

225  Ibid, 30.

226  See section G.2. Note 213 in this article.

227  According to Kant, metaphysical judgments are synthetic and a priori. Kant, Prolegomena, 16-22 (§2), 24-26 (§4).

228  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 23.

229  Ibid, 29.

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230  Ibid, 37.

231  Kant, Prolegomena, 16 (§2).

232  Ibid, 19 (§2); Weinryb, An Interpretation, 83.

233  Kant, Prolegomena, 17 (§2).

234  Ibid, 35 (§10).

235  Ibid, 34 (§9), 35 (§10).

236  Ibid, 18 (§2).

237  Ibid, 16, (§ 2); Weinryb, An Interpretation, 78. See notes 110, 139, 145 in this paper.

238  Weinryb, An Interpretation, 76, 77, 87.

239  Kant, Prolegomena, 33-35 (§8-10).

240  This interpretation differs from the usual one, according to which pregnancy is only of females and comes “to grow new life.” See Alon, “Samīr Naqqāsh,” 66, 68.

241  Naqqāsh, Yawm ḥabalat, 56

242  Epicurus was a Greek philosopher who lived in the 3 rd century B.C. His philosophy focused on the philosophy of morality and was called Donism. Hume, “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” 226 – 227; Spiegel, Epicurus, 86, 87.

243  Naqqāsh, Shlomo the Kurd, 54.

244  In Naqqāsh, Prophecies of a Mad Man in a Cursed City (“Nubūʾāt rajul majnūn fī madīna malʿūna”), see the following two stories: The first is as the name of the literary collection, 13-27. The second story is “The Swoosh of the Whip and the Silence of the Creator" (La‛la‛at al-sawt wa-samt al-bāri), 75-84.

245  Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 40, 41.

246  Weinryb, An Interpretation, 200.

247  The author’s description of human existence as a contradictory existence is in keeping with the idea expressed by. Sartre, The Look, Introduction Eran Dorfman's 13, 14. References Alcalay, Ammiel. “Signs in the Great Disorder: An Interview with Samir Naqqash.” In Keys to the Garden. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1996, 100-111. Alon, Ktzia, “Samīr Naqqāsh – The Day the World Became Pregnant and Miscarried.” In Hakivun Mizraḥ, Bimat Kedem, Autumn, 2003, 63-68, [Hebrew]. Ararat, Nissan, “On the Fear of God (the Degree of Mercy) of Jonah,” Bet Hamikra, 33a, Jerusalem, 1988, 85-110 [Hebrew]. Berkeley, George, “A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,” in Works of George Berkeley, with preface by Alexander, Campbell Fraser. Vol. I, Part First, Oxford, New York, 1901, 257-347. Berkeley, George, Three dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, ed. With an introd, by G.J. Warnock, La Salle; Open Court, 1986. Camus, Albert, The Myth of Sisyphus and other Essays, trans. by Justin O'Brien, published by Alfred A. Knopf, and Random House, New York, 1955. Descartes, René. “Discourse on the Method.” In The Philosophical Writing of Descartes, Vol I, part four, Cambridge University Press, 1985, 111-151 Descartes, René. “Meditations" on First Philosophy.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, Volume II, Cambridge University Press, 1984, 1- 62. . Descartes, René. “Treatise on Man.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, Volume I, Cambridge, 1984, 99-108. Even, Yosef, Dictionary of Fictional Fiction, Akedmon, Jerusalem, 2015, 8. [Hebrew] Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature, edited with an Analytical Index by L. A. Selby-Bigge, with revised text and variant readings by P. H. Nidditch, 2nd ed, Oxford, New York, 1978.

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34  Weinryb, Elazar. An Interpretation of Kant’s “Prolegomena.” Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, Tel-Aviv, 1996 [(Hebrew]. Weinryb, Elazar, Rationalism and Empiricism, Units 1-5, background, Descartes, Spinoza, The Open University of Israel, Tel-Aviv, 1990 [Hebrew]. Weinryb, Elazar, Rationalism and Empiricism, Units 6-8: Locke. Berkeley, Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel, 1990 [Hebrew]. Weinryb, Elazar, Rationalism and Empiricism, Units 9-12, Hume, Leibniz, Another point of view, The Open University of Israel, Tel Aviv, 1991 [Hebrew]. 14. Bowing During Musaf w.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dissolve. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/dissolve https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/409688 It is permissible for a person to alter the truth for the sake of pursuing peace. 35