The Kuzari Hypothesis: Enormous, Easily Available Evidence?

A guest post by Anonymous

When debating the divinity of the Torah, Jewish apologists will inevitably bring up the Kuzari Hypothesis, a proof from mass revelation. Apologetics range from the simple "3 million people saw it so it must be true" to the more sophisticated arguments.

The simple version can be refuted by pointing out that the argument is simply circular reasoning:

• We know the Torah is true because 3 million people saw the revelation.
• How do we know that 3 million people saw the revelation?
• Because the Torah says so and the Torah is true!

The more sophisticated version, as formulated by Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, goes like this:

"Let E be a possible event which, had it really occurred, would have left behind enormous, easily available evidence of its occurrence. If the evidence does not exist, people will not believe that E occurred."

What he is saying is that people will not believe in an event if there should be evidence of the event but that evidence is lacking. He calls it the Kuzari Principle.

Does Gottlieb provide any evidence for this principle? Not really. It seems to be merely an Argument from Ignorance on his part. He does point out that there are no parallels. But that's simply a red herring. The existence of parallels is irrelevant. What we need is evidence of this hypothesis's truth.

Moreover, it seems that we actually have evidence that the hypothesis is false. Millions of Jews and Christians believe in a worldwide flood and a mass exodus of Jews from Egypt. These events, had they occurred for real, would have left enormous easily available evidence behind. But they didn’t. Yet people still believe in it anyway.

Most will try to rationalize away the evidence for these historical events by claiming that "it was a miracle so it didn't leave evidence behind". Similarly, when presented with the revelation story, the ancient Israelites would have reasoned that the sinful ways of their forefathers, who were idol worshippers, caused them to forget the revalation.

Let's further analyze Gottlieb's hypothesis.

What does Gottlieb mean by "enormous, easily available evidence"? The Jewish tradition? I'm not sure how that could be enormous evidence. And as for easily available, most of the people in those days didn't have a clue of their own history. How many people these days know what their ancestors were doing 500 years ago? And this is in the age of modern recording and documentation!

So in sum, what we have is a story, written in one book by one or more unknown authors, that many people believe to be true. Judaism is no different than any other religion in this regard.

This blog post is has only focused on one aspect of the argument. Much more can be said about it, including the process of myth formation, the gaps in Jewish tradition, and the presence of parallels.

OTD Interview with Yoni

A good friend of mine, Yoni, was interviewed for the OTD Stories website.

You can find his story here.

The Five Stages of OTD Grief

Losing God or losing religion is often awfully close to grieving for a person that passed away. The Kübler-Ross model, according to Wikipedia, "postulates a series of emotional stages experienced by survivors of an intimate's death, wherein the five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance."

Cristina Rad, a well-known ex-Christian atheist activist, describes this model in the context of grieving for God. She also mentions that this model does not always apply to everyone but that it appears to be useful in practice.

Cristina Rad's discussion starts getting relevant to our discussion at 1:18 minutes:



I will summarize the 5 stages below and adapt it to the OTD situation:

1. Denial.

Some of the arguments include:

"I may have questions about emunah and I am not getting the answers that make sense to me, but there were many other people wiser than me who must have thought through these issues and did have a satisfying answer."

"If I would only davven with more kavvanah, I will surely be shown the truth of Judaism"

"If I will stop believing in God, life has no purpose anymore. So this is just a trip of my yeitzer hora"

 "I will reinforce my faith by reading sforim that increase my emunah pshutah (simple faith and ask the Rebbe for a brocha"

2. Anger.

Many OTD people (rightfully so!) experience a lot of resentment. This may even stay with them for many years. It will cause them to want to shock their parents by showing up in the community "dressed like a goy" (read: in modern clothes, not conforming to strict community standards).

Anger can also be expressed verbal shouting matches or by by cutting someone out of your life. Some people get angry at God for letting this difficult situation happen to them. Which makes them want to eat pork on Yom Kipur, for example, just to spite 'Him'.

3. Bargaining. Some people here realize that their old beliefs are a house of cards and exchange them for more benign forms of Judaism, such as modern orthodoxy (often just a stage propelled by apologetic LWMO material by the likes of Rabbi Nathan Slifkin), Reform / Conservative Judaism, hippy-like Rabbi Nachman / Carlebach Judaism, Conservadox, etc. Many turn into deists or seek some other form of spirituality.

Or just choose to live their lives as an Undercover Kofer / Orthoprax person, in order to avoid the pain accompanying leaving the fold.

4. Depression.

Many of us had or are having difficulty dealing with their past and present experiences. The loss of community support, friends and family leads to a terrible sense of loneliness. Imagine a woman losing custody of her children just because she decided not to be frum. Life doesn't make sense to her anymore without her children.

Some are depressed because it can be overwhelmingly hard to adjust to a foreign lifestyle and the reality of having to deal with a world that appears meaningless at first.

5. Acceptance.

This is when people start realizing that "it's going to be OK". Although there may not be a God, or there may not be an absolute purpose in life, we can still take ownership of our own future and create our own new derech.

With the help of a newly created circle of friends (e.g. online social groups) or a good psychologist, as well as possible support from institutions that are specialized in helping transitioning people, OTD persons may find new trust in a better future and come to terms with their new reality.


Please share your personal experience (anonymously, if needed) in the comments section below.