Q&A: A Doubter Whether He Counts Toward a Minyan
A Doubter Whether He Counts Toward a Minyan
Question
Hello Rabbi,
One may wonder whether someone who declares about himself that he is unsure whether there is a God counts toward a minyan.
Seemingly, based on what appears from Maimonides' words in The Guide for the Perplexed, that the levels of prophecy are levels in the truth of God's existence, it would seem that even a doubter counts toward a minyan. Of course, we are speaking about someone who in practice observes commandments despite his skepticism.
Please instruct us, and many thanks in advance.
Answer
The criterion, as I understand it, is not certainty, because nobody has certainty about anything, and if someone does have certainty, he is mistaken (about that I am certain 🙂 ).
The criterion is the person's decision: whether in his eyes the evidence and degree of probability are sufficient to make a decision. If a person decides that he believes, then he believes; each person has his own threshold.
Discussion on Answer
There is never certainty about anything. Every decision we make involves some doubt, and each person makes his decisions according to his own judgment. It also varies from person to person. Therefore, what determines it is the decision.
I think the medieval authorities understood this and were not troubled, as we are, by philosophical questions. For them, a person who decided is a believer, and that's that.
As a mere note of sources, I recall that Rabbi Ovadia ruled that one who does not “believe in the Zohar” does not count toward a minyan.
Even if I were interested in that ruling of his (and I'm not), the question is what it means to believe in the Zohar. That all of it was given at Sinai? That all of it was composed by Rashbi? That it contains many important and meaningful things?
My intention was to show that over minor things like not believing in the Zohar—whatever that means—a person is disqualified from a minyan, all the more so for doubting the existence of the Creator. One can disagree with such a ruling, or distinguish and say that in philosophical questions about the Creator's existence it is logical to have doubts (a doubt about the very game itself), whereas accepting the tradition is accepting rules within the game. Or one could distinguish between policing against dangerous positions, such as the question of the Zohar and not accepting the heretic as a kind of sanction, as opposed to someone who doubts God, who is less dangerous because he challenges a supreme dogma that is not open to challenge. And things of that sort. I have no idea. It also doesn't really matter to me, because I think this is a problem of society and not of the individual. For practical purposes, if I deny the Zohar, I count toward a minyan before Heaven, and it is their problem whether to include me in case I opened my mouth and exposed it. And in my opinion that is different from arranging a marriage ceremony, which creates a legal effect, where I should refrain if I deny the Zohar. (And I don't. The Zohar was not forged by Rabbi Moses de Leon except according to Yosef Dan and Gershom Scholem, whereas according to most scholars of the Zohar, from Liebes onward, it was composed by a group of kabbalists over several generations. As an aside, all the proofs for multiple styles and contradictions are dismissed by Dan and company as stemming from a single source, with a devotion that would not shame believers in the unity of the Pentateuch against Wellhausen, may his name be erased.)
Just now I saw his holy words.
What does it mean that he decides that he believes, if for him it is an even doubt? Does the decision create certainty? At most, he can observe commandments in practice.
Why do you think the medieval authorities did not address situations like these? Were there no doubts in matters of faith in their time?