חדש באתר: מיכי-בוט. עוזר חכם על כתבי הרב מיכאל אברהם.

Observance of commandments and suggestion

שו”תCategory: faithObservance of commandments and suggestion
asked 6 years ago

Peace and blessings, Your Honor.
In recent years, I have been increasingly exposed to the superficiality and ignorance that characterize our religious society in all its sectors and details.
(Or at least the vast majority of it) and this gives rise to a lot of religious-philosophical-scientific questions in me.
However, I am in a more advanced process of putting things into their proper proportion in order not to abandon everything I grew up on, and I understand that the masses are indeed shallow and stupid, and at the same time I try to delve deeper and question. My gentlemen and those who are not like that for me.
I would like to address here one of many points that bother me and prevent me from advancing in the service of God as befits the yeshiva student I was. One point, but it contains a principle that I recognize that weaves many other points. (By the way – just sharing – I am full of fears about this upheaval that at first I was deeply in the society I grew up in, appreciated it, and devoted myself entirely to adopting a view, and now I feel disconnected from it as if I don’t belong and don’t identify with it. It’s insanely difficult).
Well-
Suggestion and autosuggestion.
Due to doubts about the righteousness of our ways (Judaism in general and society in particular), I find it difficult to ‘refine’ my religious conduct.
It’s not new for me that I have difficulty with prayer, for example (whether with persistence or with intention), but this situation in which I see my path also through foreign lenses, which are put together by people outside the Israeli camp, hardly allows me to take this issue (again, for example) seriously and improve the situation.
I feel that the observance of practical commandments such as Shabbat, tefillin, and certainly prayer are autosuggestive actions.
I don’t want to believe in the truth of our Torah just because I’m constantly brainwashed.
The situation I find myself in is extremely problematic. Because on the one hand I am not convinced that the truth is in our arms – which in itself makes it difficult to fulfill basic halakhic obligations. And on the other hand I am also not convinced that we are imagining things. I do think that our belief is absolutely reasonable or at least can be. And therefore I do not want to leave everything. It is still important to me to function as the halakhic law expects of me. At the very least, I think it is wrong to make a decision when a heavy fog surrounds me from all sides.
That is, on the level of the mind I can remain in doubt (for now). But in the practical realm, doubt has no meaning. Either you function as a religious person or as a secular person. The fact that I have difficulty praying because of doubt is irrelevant because in practice it is an expression of secular conduct.
In conclusion – I don’t know what is more true and what is less. (Yes, I know that there is no certainty in anything).
And I don’t want to go off the path just because I have doubts and abandon the practical halakhic work, but on the other hand I also feel that if I work seriously and determinedly on faithfulness to the observance of the mitzvot, it will affect me psychologically and make me see the truth in religion. And that’s not how I want my journey to look.
I don’t know if the rabbi has a solution, but I would be happy to get some advice nonetheless.
Thank you…
 
 


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