Q&A: Rabbi Kook’s Imaged and Conceptual Faith
Rabbi Kook’s Imaged and Conceptual Faith
Question
I saw a quotation from Orot HaEmunah
(1998 edition, p. 55), which says as follows:
"In faith there are two values: imaged faith
and conceptual faith. The imaged faith,
which is sensed and felt, has laws,
essential principles, and halakhot. Freedom of thought
does not apply to it, just as such freedom
does not apply in any matter of law and justice;
rather, what does apply to it is investigation and clarification of the foundations of
acceptance and tradition. Above it
stands conceptual faith. In it there is
specifically a supreme freedom, and it is revealed only
to the upright who enter into the secret of God. And there is a covenant
that when a person faithfully preserves, in complete innocence,
the imaged faith, when he is loyal to
the house and sanctuary of the holiness of faith,
he will merit the light of conceptual faith, where
there is a world of complete freedom." End quote.
Does the Rabbi, may he live long, hold that conceptual faith is the second level of imaged faith, or that it replaces it?
According to the second possibility, one would have to conclude from Rabbi Kook’s view that conceptual faith has no rules or halakhot at all.
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. He writes that conceptual faith has no rules, and only the imaged faith does.
I think conceptual faith complements the imaged faith. It explains it. It seems to me that this parallels the words of Rabbi HaNazir about a visual idea as opposed to auditory logic. He emphasizes there too that even an idea that is not an image is grounded in seeing. It is an abstraction of things that you saw (like the idea of horseness). But auditory thinking brings you to the abstract thing not through abstraction from images. See letter 43 on p. 119 in the book.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t know. I’m not familiar enough with Plato.
Regarding Rabbi HaNazir’s view: does he disagree with Plato on the question of where the idea comes from? Plato holds that a person is born with it and that it is hidden within him, and the horses merely awaken the concealed memory; while Rabbi HaNazir holds that it is not innate but acquired through seeing actual horses, and did not exist in the person beforehand?