Q&A: Hello Rabbi
Hello Rabbi
Question
Hello, the Rabbi repeats this point a lot: that serving God without investigating and examining is not meaningful, because a person does not really believe, but simply grew up into a certain reality. Based on that, I wanted to ask: what person who was born religious is actually considered a believer? After all, when we interpret reality, we start from many assumptions that exist within us because we were born religious, so in that sense even the person who investigates is not really a believer. So who is a believer?
Answer
I didn't write that one must investigate and examine. One has to formulate a position for oneself. Must that happen דווקא through this or that kind of inquiry? That is a matter of your temperament and your way of making decisions. I wrote that the aversion to investigating and reading counterarguments has no basis, because if they persuade me, then from the outset I am not a believer. A person is a landscape shaped by his birthplace, and the decisions he makes are of course also influenced by his environment and biography. I do not share the hysteria about vested interests of the moralists.
Discussion on Answer
By everything, all of it included.
The Rabbi claims that one can formulate an independent position even at a young age, but presumably that position will change as a result of age and not as a result of investigation and examination. That is, age will affect the outcome. If so, what is the value and advantage of this?
A person has to formulate a position and decide. What he has is his own mind. If it changes in the future, then it changes. What's the alternative? If you rely on someone wise and older, will that necessarily not change later in your life? Moshe Dayan already said that only a donkey doesn't change his mind.
It is my usual sacred practice not to mark likes, but the Rabbi's answer is so true and so correct that I cannot refrain from giving it a like (a big like).
By the way, forming an independent position is presumably influenced also by the age of the person investigating and examining (I do not mean specifically "life experience"); why doesn't the Rabbi address that?