יסוד דת

OK, um, ..there are a few things which I wanted to have been written on here by now and which are not...due to no other reason than sloth! ..that and a keyboard which is constantly switching the caps lock on and off...and skipping random typed letters...

Anyway, I would like to comment on one of Chana's posts (September 3rd). I know I nominated her to go to Israel but that does not in any way mean I agree with her opinions all the time. In a recent post she came to the conclusion that the most logical stance is that of the Agnostics, and that while she does agree with them, she'll stay an Orthodox Jew because it "seems" right:

h

"I cannot prove my religion; I do not think I will ever be able to. Indeed, the greatest question is what to do when the vast majority of what I read or learn about simply seems to disprove what I have been taught. But you see, above all logic there is emotion, and my emotion and intuition point to the fact that there is a God, He exists, and He listens to me."

I consider this reversion back to emotion and intuition to be perhaps characteristic of the female sex, and something that the Spanish Rationalist Rabbis would revile from due to it’s independence from pure logic. She said herself that the Torah demands truth ("the stamp of G-d is truth"), and this is a "dishonest" way of viewing religion.

h

Let me start with a chart of the main issues debated upon (in this situation):

1) "Adeism" v.s. Deism

2) Atheism v.s. Theism

3) Religions v.s. Judaism

In other words the first issue that must be dealt with is whether primordial matter was brought into existence by some being, or whether it existed for infinity.

The second is if this being interacts with human beings and conveys to them information on how to properly live.

When I was fourteen I formulated theories about both of these issues, and, while I may by now see them as a little juvenile, I still do see them as making sense. Firstly, I thought it’s more likely that primordial matter was put into being by something immortal than it itself having been around forever. Secondly, I considered it unlikely the creator would go through the trouble of creating us if it wasn’t going to interact with us in any way…kind of a long story about that actually..

In regards to the third question though, which is the focus of my attention here, I think it’s clear that for centuries the foolishness of the Christians has negatively influenced well-meaning Jews (whether they know it or not). One aspect in which this is very evident is the subject of “faith” (and what comes into the realm of faith). A few centuries ago in the Christian world if someone suggested the world went around the sun they would burn them on the cross for “blasphemy”. Now, this is not the place to carry out a long exposition on the subject, but suffice it to say “faith” without doubt is a Christian invention. The main concern of the Torah is not “faith” but living a G-dly life according to the commandments, since, in the realm of faith, nothing can be verified and the Torah has never been concerned with its verification. The Jews themselves have never been concerned about this verification; for example the first people to look for Mt. Sinai were the Christians in the third century. Not even the Jewish but the Gentile Christians! How could it be in all their history no Jew cared to see the mountain of G-d? Rather it seems the Jews were never overly bothered by the verification of these events since they knew that the events themselves could simply not be physically verified.

H
Whether the Torah was written by (Moses in accordance with he words of) G-d, by Moses or by a group of Israelite priests during the First Temple period or later cannot be "proven" in any way shape or form. People can have convincing propositions about one theory or the other, but nothing can be scientifically (i.e. empirically) proven, and without that all you can rely on is how likely each side of argument might seem to you. On the other hand we are encouraged to be intellectually honest. So we are, in essence, all "agnostics", since we admit that we cannot verify things in a real sense. We are allowed to be agnostics, but we must decide which proposition sounds more correct to us. More "likely". My own judgement and evaluation of the arguments has always told me that it is more correct to assume that the creator did, in fact, have some sort of communication with Moses, as is described in the Torah. I admit that I cannot know the reality of what occurred; I wasn't there, no one from among us was, but this seems to be the most likely scenario and therefore ample reason to abide by the "teachings" of "the book of teaching" (ספר התורה).

This is an article from the Anglo-Israeli Conservative or "Masorati" Rabbi, Simchah Roth, and I've always felt it nips this whole misunderstanding in the bud. All the articles are worthwhile for anyone to read through.

העבד