Q&A: Faith
Faith
Question
Rabbi Michi, hello.
God = holiness = morality = Jewish law.
1. Is this framework correct in your view? After all, to prove the existence of God rationally—that He is the source of all the laws of nature, and that nature could not have created itself—one can bring arguments both ways. {Richard Dawkins would say that this is not a proof; Rabbi Michi would say that there is a high probability that this is evidence for the existence of God.}
2. “Would that they had abandoned Me but kept My Torah”—does this sentence mean that it is preferable for people to observe the commandments even if they do not believe in Him?
Answer
This riddle is beyond me.
0. The first framework is not correct in my view. Morality and Jewish law are two independent categories. See, for example, Column 15.
- What is the connection between the first framework and the question of whether it is or is not possible to prove the existence of God?
- Why does the fact that there is a dispute mean that it is impossible to prove? One of them is mistaken and the other is right.
- If people observe the commandments without faith, the commandments are worth nothing. As for the interpretation of that statement, the gates of interpretation have not been locked. Even in the context of the midrash itself, it is brought in the context of “from acting not for its own sake, one comes to act for its own sake”; that is, there is no halakhic preference here but a tactical one. If they keep the commandments, that will bring them back to the right path, whereas faith without commandments probably will not do that. But it does not say there that those commandments have value.