Judaism and life

In honor of Rev. Michael Avraham
Hello,
I greet you (27) from Jerusalem, I have eagerly read your books (Quartet+3), and I feel that you are a suitable address for my reflections.
I reflect a lot on Jewish beliefs and opinions. Over the years, I have formed a position on many of the issues, and I feel that I am whole, understand, and identify with the world in which I live and work.
Recently, a more general and broader thought has emerged and taken shape in me, which is superficial on the one hand and does not seek specific explanations, but on the other hand I feel that it is much more dramatic and much more critical, it seeks to examine the rationale behind the whole thing.
I am writing this precisely at a stage when I have no concrete questions, precisely when I have all the excuses. Now I am trying to stand aside and examine the entire business from a comprehensive, non-focused perspective.
 
My feeling lately is that for a Jew in the 2000s, religion is completely disconnected from his personality and emotions, if he understands it rationally. Because our entire life, our entire way of thinking, absolutely does not walk hand in hand with the "being" of the Torah, with its structure.
One could go on and on about every detail, every commandment, but I will include here, as an example only, a few rules.
We do not look at ISIS members as animals that walk on years because they believe in a different faith than us, but because we truly do not think that killing is a way of life, even as a measure against a person who killed, i.e. we are incapable of thinking that a person who lit a match on Shabbat deserves to be stoned. And not only in "seriousness", but also in "lightness", we do not live in a way that someone who skipped one letter in reciting the Shema did not fulfill his duty. We are able to understand this as a "religion", we are able to explain it, "morality is relative", "commandments were given only to unite people in them". Okay, but in no other area of our lives do we live like this and therefore it will never be a part of us, once they may have behaved like this on a daily basis, for a Jew in 2016 this is a religion that is completely disconnected from life, from everyday life.
We can recite over and over that we believe in the Messiah and look forward to Him, but the ones who really believe this are the ones who have never tried to think, those who believe this are clearly out of touch with reality. No one lives in any other area of their life feeling or hoping that suddenly the heavens will open and everything will change. We continue our business as usual not because of a “deficiency” in faith, but because no one really thinks that anything is going to change. I don’t think anyone really believes in the coming of the Messiah, some say they do.
Confidence and effort are the refuge of the desperate. Anyone who has something to do to put themselves in order in any area will do so, only when you have finished doing everything in your power, or you have nothing to do at all, you are "hung" on faith. "If you walk in my statutes - and I will give..." This is a slogan that is completely disconnected from our lives, and again, not because of a "deficiency" in faith, we live and believe in truth and sincerity, in a world where there are no miracles or shortcuts. If you have something to do, that is what will help, if you don't, you can pray, you certainly won't lose.
"With God's help" and "God will help" are nothing more than lip service to all of us, if you or someone you know can help, do so, only when the doctors give up do we begin to "really" pray. And no, it's not that we've only just now "remembered" God, but now it's really the only thing to do. Once upon a time, people might have believed that there were things in the world that happened "alone" - horoscopes, spirits, and gods. Today, you can only perceive it as "religion," never as "life." Is there anyone for whom the phrase "Behold, the Keeper of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep" or "If God does not save a city..." is nothing more than a hollow mantra? Does anyone feel safe when they are not standing behind a soldier armed from head to toe, or behind a well-developed army spread out around the entire country???
Human nature makes us depend on the unknown, most of the world believes in "something", believes and hopes that suddenly it will be good, but we will never be able to turn it into more than hope, we will never be able to truly think that prayers are useful. We simply do not live like that, nothing in our world moves with prayers, only once the wrath and joy of the gods controlled the weather… .
And again, it's important for me to clarify the point. I know the answers well: "Prayer is not give and take, but only a declaration of beliefs," "God does not watch over everyone, only over individuals," "He does not always have to help and effort is needed," and so on. I'm not talking in micro, but rather in macro terms. Okay, we managed to sort everything out with the rational, but the final feeling of it all together, of all these piles of "rationals," is that all of this is disconnected from our lives, that we act, live, and believe in completely different things.
How can we continue with the clichés of the "chosen people" of "reward and punishment" of "in every generation we are saved from them", when the years of the world are shattered before you, we have surrounded ourselves with amounts of excuses and apologetics, "to deduct his salary from the AHV", "to increase his salary", "to spend our money" does not allow, "exile", "to hide our faces", and so on and so forth (and even when it is all over - "the gates of excuses were not closed" of course...). The bottom line is that if someone were to offer us a deal like this in any other area of life, trying to convince us that everything works out in the deal and is well-scrubbed - we would simply throw them down all the stairs, you will not be able to sell us such nonsense, we believe in other things... This is not really to prove that it is not true, it does prove that we will never be able to make it a part of us, a part of our mind.
What are we actually relying on, a few hundred years in the days of David and Solomon, when you don't have a nation in the world that hasn't enjoyed a similar period of prosperity and peace somewhere in its history, is this proof of a chosen people and enlightenment???. Here, as everywhere, you can philosophize and make excuses, but if in another area of life you wouldn't buy it, then it's simply not you, it's a detached belief.
How can we continue to hope for a "return to Zion in mercy," when all of this "Zion," all of the Temple and the sacrifices, seem to us to have come from another planet...
 
So far from one side that understands and agrees with everything, but feels that all of this is completely disconnected from his life.
And now for the other side of the same coin.
 
So okay, we managed to build Judaism for ourselves on a few successful Rambams, a few Leibowitzians, and we even found references in a few contexts from the ARI, the GRA, and the CHAZU. Look, even the mainstream thinks like us.
Hand on heart, the vast majority of Jews and sages of all times did not think so, but rather believed that the Bible spoke literally, that the sages believed and were right in what they said, and that all their words were literally, that God always helps His people and saves us from their hands, that if you pray, it will be good, and even if you say one mundane word in the middle of a hymn, you will find yourself outside of Heaven. Even a simple and honest reading of the Bible, and especially of the Book of Psalms, leads you to think that everything is simple and understandable without any forced excuses or apologetics, that if you pray, it will be good, if you ask, you will receive, and that the life of a Jew is many times better than that of a Gentile.
I'm not proving from this that the position we've built for ourselves is not the right one. Newton and Einstein were also in the minority at first. I'm just trying to stand aside and re-examine the whole thing. First we talked about how it's not part of us. Now I'm wondering if you see that nothing of what's written is happening, that nothing is appropriate, and that if this is a splash, then everything has exploded a long time ago. So maybe instead of putting plaster here and here and here, maybe we'll answer in an absurd style: "One answer that will remove all the questions"...
Perhaps the same answers and explanations can also be pushed to Christianity and Islam, and if it's clear to us that that's not what the poet meant, why is it clear to us here that the opposite is true, if you read the Bible and get a certain impression, and read Chazal and get a certain impression, then what looks like a rose and talks like a rose is a rose, and not a monkey in disguise. Maybe we went too far and "created" something, and with a sober look we find the coin under the lamp, and if it doesn't work, it's simply because it's not true???.
Earlier I mentioned that you would never sign such a deal, and that shows that you don't live like that, now I wonder if the same fact doesn't also prove that you don't believe in it. True, we found excuses for everything, my feeling was that these were "local" excuses and from a bird's eye view of this whole lame business, the realistic person had no doubt what to believe.
And personally, I want to ask you, you constantly prove that not everything in our world is proven and scientific, there are things that you simply "feel" (for example, that you are alive and active and not in a dream...), you called it "synthetics". This is true regarding the basic feeling of most people that there is "something", but you did not talk about the platform that Judaism built on it, I want to say that the natural tendency, or the synthetic feeling - is the exact opposite of this. Maybe everything is rational in principle, but after all, this is absolutely not the feeling of the heart. The feeling indicates that the opposite is true.
[In a sidebar: Interesting on the same subject. We are used to answering the question "Where was God during the Holocaust?" I believe that there is a fundamental flaw in all the answers. Because as a philosophical question, it is clear that there are answers to it, but those bitter Jews who abandoned their religion never philosophized; their feeling was purely "synthetic." True, there are answers, but our feeling as those who experienced the event was that these were "excuses." Those people simply felt that it was pointless to continue singing "Good, for your mercy has not come to an end" or "The grace of God has not been numbered, for his mercy has not come to an end"….]
Breslav Hasidim believe that all abundance comes through Rabbi Nachman, and that those who associate themselves with him receive it. For some reason, the sub-sector with the lowest socio-economic conditions in the Haredi sector are Breslav Hasidim. True, one can make excuses, but perhaps it is more accurate to say that this is proof that everything is nonsense. Aren't we in the exact same boat???.
 
I want to summarize both claims.
The first argument is that even if we accept everything, the only option to live with it would be either "Leibovitchian," meaning Judaism separately and life separately, or classically "Haredi," simply not thinking ("innocence" in Hebrew). Both options are incorrect in my opinion, and besides, anyone who reads the Bible literally, and the Book of Psalms in particular, is incapable of thinking that this is what the poet meant. The more realistic option would be to choose one of the two, religion or life...
The second claim is that perhaps this itself is proof of the falsity of the whole matter, not philosophical proof, proof that can also be refuted, but "synthetic" proof. If we live and think so differently, why burden ourselves with this apologetic burden, and not simply look reality in the eye...
 
 
I would be happy for an answer.