Is every Jew required to be a philosopher?
When I have questions or inadequacies in my faith, as I assume everyone does (if I’m wrong about this, I’d be happy to be corrected), and I choose to believe despite my doubts, am I working on myself or is that exactly the essence of faith? Usually the reasons I choose to believe are also related to the fact that I was born that way and therefore it seems logical to me to believe, and apparently this is not really an argument. Sometimes the reason is a feeling of closeness to God, or after studying an issue carefully, a feeling of “righteous laws and judgments,” or sometimes the realization dawns on me that only a person with the fear of God can be truly moral even in private (“For I only said, there is no fear of God in this place…”), especially when I feel it in myself or see the morality of great rabbis, and there are other things out of nowhere that make me choose faith. Am I on the right path or should I recalculate my course? Am I expected to get a doctorate in philosophy and then try to prove beyond all doubt the reality of God and the truth of the Jewish religion? Are rabbis/yeshiva heads supposed to reach a higher rank than ordinary Jews in this regard?
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