Faith is a commandment
Hello Rabbi Michael
For some time now, I have lived with the understanding that faith in God and our connection to Judaism begins with a mitzvah. I am the Lord your God. Whether it is a positive mitzvah from the beginning according to most of the jurists, or whether it is the root and foundation of everything and beyond a mitzvah according to some. And like every mitzvah, we do it because that is how God commanded. We do it and obey it. Without reason or knowledge. And it must also come with a prohibition and do not turn after your own heart - this is a sin in its simplest form. A prohibition even to be content if this is the truth. (I know you oppose this) and perhaps this is why it is included every day in the mitzvah of uniting God in the recitation of the Shema. Along with the prohibition of idolatry. Proofs for this:
1. If there is no commandment, why do we even think about God and the Torah? Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
2. Can you convey your books or any other evidence to uneducated people? The Torah was given to a nation of wise and foolish, righteous and wicked. It cannot be that the connection to Judaism is so complicated.
3. The Rambam, Rabbi Chaim, and others provide the main proof that one must know God and investigate faith - from verses from the Tanakh. That is, belief in the Torah from heaven and the prohibition of heresy are a prior obligation to investigation.
4. Is it possible to prove anything these days? Everything is doubtful. Even if you are firm in your belief that it is the most reasonable of all opinions and beliefs, you see that you are almost alone in this. It bothers me and many people that there are atheists and scientists who have proofs and difficulties for us. Even the Rambam was sure of Aristotle's proofs. According to what I claim, a person can be doubtful in reason and yet be enslaved to God. This seems to me to be freedom. And am I a slave to reason? I can choose to believe. And this is the essence of the commandment. Some interpret this as the prohibition against listening to a false prophet who brings a sure sign or miracle, "For the Lord your God is testing you."
5. There is a mitzvah of education in the Torah, there is an obligation to circumcise an eight-day-old child, mitzvot and memorize them for your children, the Torah wants habit and study before reaching the age of mitzvot so that the person is connected. It does not want the person to be objective, a blank page, and think about whether he believes or not. And have we ever heard of Torah guidance to leave the Torah and search for what is the truth?
The idea of faith without reason and knowledge appears a lot in Hasidism and in the book Shomer Emunim. He says that this is the traditional Jewish faith. Perhaps it is similar among the Gentiles to the idea of a leap of faith.
I am not against understanding and investigating the faith, but only after accepting the principles of the faith without reason and knowledge. An axiom of life that must not be shaken and whoever loses it has no share in the world to come. And an exception is made according to the words of the Mishnah and the Rambam. And this is how Jews have lived throughout all generations.
Rabbi Kook writes: Faith must be so complete as if it had no possibility of research, and in contrast, the power of wisdom must be so excellent and swift as if there were no power of faith in the soul at all. "Man and beast - naked in knowledge and pretending to be beasts."
I know you don't think like me, but I'd love to hear your opinion.
You started with the fact that it is a commandment, added that it could also be a meta-commandment principle, and then you went back and said that it must be done because of the commandment. There is no such thing as a commandment to believe. I have explained more than once that it is logically impossible. This is where the discussion begins and ends. How exactly you will reach this factual conclusion that there is a God is a personal matter. There is no need to do it in a philosophical way.
Most of the enumerators of the mitzvot have listed the mitzvah of faith as the first mitzvah in the Torah. I am not talking about a logical conclusion, but about an obligation that came to me from the people of Israel. From the Torah. From God Himself. Like the rest of the mitzvot. And to those who say that this is a meta-mitzvah - the foundation of the obligatory mitzvot.
Why can't it be said that being a Jew is obligated by the principles of faith and Torah, like the rank of a human being compared to animals? That it is a reality of life that I have a choice about whether to behave according to it or not. Just as I accept human moral principles and don't have to investigate whether the truth is that murder is forbidden, etc.
I have a free choice whether to accept this. Just as the choice is free in all commandments. Why can't one choose to be a slave? Out of self-sacrifice? And the servant of God alone is free. This also explains how one can command faith, because it is a choice despite the doubts that are going on in the world. Just as the people of Israel were commanded to slaughter the lamb in Egypt despite their fears about it. These are the worshipers of God, etc.
And after accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, it is commanded to investigate and understand.
As I wrote, I don't see that there is permission in the Torah or Halacha to say that I am mentally leaving Judaism and searching for what the true religion is.
The Torah does not speak of such a situation. He is outside the rule. He is not Jewish. Of course, if it is intentional.
Did the great philosophers of Israel do this throughout the generations, "stepping out of Judaism" and investigating whether it was true or not? Did they document it?
And would you expect that everyone will be able to deal with all the arguments of heresy, the atheistic line, etc., because if he doesn't hear all the arguments, he can't be sure of his faith. A life that will not be enough for that later on.. Is it possible to maintain a holy nation like this? Is this the will of God? And as the Rambam writes in the prohibition against turning, "Let not each of you be drawn after his own short-sighted opinion and imagine that his thinking reaches the truth."
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