Question

Hello and blessings, honorable Rabbi.
In recent years I’ve been exposed more and more to the superficiality and ignorance that characterize our religious society in all its sectors and details
(or at least the overwhelming majority of it), and this has given rise in me to many questions of faith, philosophy, and science.
At the same time, I’m at a more advanced stage of putting things into their proper proportion, with the goal of not abandoning everything I grew up with, and I understand that indeed the masses are shallow and foolish, while in parallel I try to delve deeper and ask questions—of my rabbis and of those who are not.
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I would like to address here one point, out of many, that troubles me and prevents me from advancing in serving God as is fitting for the yeshiva student I once was. One point, but it contains a principle that I recognize as running through many other points as well. (By the way—just sharing—I’m filled with fears over this upheaval, that at first I was deeply embedded in the society I grew up in, appreciated it, and was wholly devoted to adopting its outlook, and now I feel detached from it, so not connected and not identified with it. It’s insanely hard.)
So then—
Suggestion and autosuggestion.
Because of my doubt about the rightness of our path—Judaism in general and my own community in particular—I find it hard to “renovate” my religious conduct.
It’s not new for me that I have difficulty with prayer, for example (whether with consistency or with concentration), but this situation, in which I see my path also through foreign lenses put on by people from outside the camp of Israel, almost doesn’t allow me to take this issue (again, just as an example) seriously and improve the situation.
I feel that the practical observance of the commandments, like Sabbath, tefillin, and certainly prayer, are acts of autosuggestion.
I don’t want to believe in the truth of our Torah just because I’m undergoing constant brainwashing.
The situation I’m in is terribly problematic. On the one hand, I’m not convinced that the truth is held in our arms—which in itself makes it hard to fulfill basic halakhic obligations. On the other hand, I’m also not convinced that we’re imagining things. I do think our faith is entirely reasonable, or at least can be.
0 So I also don’t want to leave everything. It’s important to me nevertheless to function as Jewish law expects of me. Maybe less so—I think it isn’t right to make a decision while a heavy fog surrounds me on all sides.
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That is, on the level of thought I can remain in doubt (for now). But in the practical sphere, doubt has no meaning. Either you function as religious or as secular. The fact that I have difficulty praying because of doubt isn’t relevant, because in practice it is an expression of secular conduct.
In summary—I don’t know what is more correct and what is less so. (Yes, I know there is no certainty about anything.)
And I don’t want to leave the path just because I have doubts and abandon the practical halakhic observance, but on the other hand I also feel that if I work seriously and resolutely on being faithful to commandment observance, it will affect me psychologically and cause me to see religion as the truth. And that is not how I want my journey to look.
I don’t know if the Rabbi has a solution. But I’d still be happy to receive some advice.
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Thanks…
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