Demand and investigation into matters of other religions
Hello Rabbi,
In an argument I had with a secular person, he claimed that there are religions even greater than Christianity, such as Buddha and others in East Asia, and supposedly why shouldn’t we examine them too.
My question is whether it is correct to say that since we have examined Judaism as much as possible, there is no point in examining all the possibilities, or whether this is not a correct claim.
Every time someone claims (as he claimed to me) that there is another people, however large, who also claims to be revealed, and who were willing to give their lives for it to the point of mass suicide for the sake of that religion, will we, in order to be decent and intellectually honest, have to check again that this does not contradict our religion and find out about that people and find differences between our traditions and their traditions in order to prove the truth of our religion? Or is there a situation where we will come to the conclusion that our religion is true in a way that negates claims about later religions and examines and compares them every time?
Thank you very much.
It is impossible to set rules for this, but in principle, we must definitely consider the different options. Of course, when we have to make a decision, we cannot always examine all the options. Therefore, decisions must be made under conditions of uncertainty. It depends on how much time and opportunity we have to examine, how serious we think the other options are, and how convinced we are of our option.
You can take an initial interest and ask, for example, what the logical basis is for that concept/religion (for example, whether there was a revelation or not) and decide whether it is worth examining or not. Again, there are no rules in this. By the way, the size of the nation is irrelevant. Why does size matter?
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Asks:
The more people who believe in the same religion, the more reason I think there is to find out about it because it has more criticism from people who have been exposed to it. Of course, that still doesn’t mean it’s true, but just more reason to check.
By the way, I think you yourself referred in the fifth notebook to the denial of only the two other religions – Christianity and Islam. Logically, it seems unreasonable to refer to every small group of people who start a sect.
After the Torah has been proven to us as truth, and it claims that God will not replace the Torah in any way, and that He has made an eternal covenant with Israel. Doesn’t that automatically rule out every other religion?
Also, how does this explain the logic of the Sages who forbade reading external books? Were they simply afraid that it would be corrupted? And did they themselves not strive for the truth?
thanks.
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Rabbi:
Christianity and Islam were condemned because they are monotheistic and not because of their size.
As for the prohibition of the Sages, I don’t know. It is possible that they assumed that someone who obeys this prohibition either doesn’t know how to think and then it’s better not to engage in it, or that their faith has already been solidified and they don’t need it. Either way, it is clear to me that as far as I am concerned, this prohibition, even if they intended it, is unfounded and non-existent.
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Asks:
And what do you think about the first question?
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Rabbi:
Which I already answered last time. If you are 100 percent convinced, you are exempt from examining the alternatives. Personally, I don’t see how it is possible to reach such a level of conviction. Everyone makes common sense considerations between the level of conviction in the current option and the other options.
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