Q&A: Serving God Through Emotion
Serving God Through Emotion
Question
I’ve read on the site here several times that you argue there is no value in emotion in and of itself, except insofar as it helps make things easier for a person, unlike serving God through the intellect, where you do see value in serving God. Seemingly, if our goal is to connect to God, based on the words of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, that the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to bestow good upon us, and wisdom decreed that this good can reach only one who possesses goodness, and that goodness is being connected to God, who is the true good—if so, why assume that this comes only through the intellect? I do think that knowing Him and His will is the central part, but why, if I feel some special closeness or dependence on Him, blessed be He, is that not of value in itself in your view?.
Answer
First, if you assume that the goal is emotional connection, then of course emotion has value. But that is begging the question. Since I argue that emotions have no value, then apparently that is not the goal either.
As Nefesh HaChaim writes, in contrast to Hasidism, devekut is not an experience or an emotion but a metaphysical state. Engagement in Torah is itself devekut with God (not that it leads to devekut with God, as the Hasidim explain it, interpreting devekut as an experience or emotion), because we are engaged with His will, and He and His will are one. His will is interwoven within us, and therefore we are connected to Him. This is an objective state, entirely unrelated to the question of what we experience or feel. This is the Lithuanian-style devekut.
In my discussions of emotion, I raised the possibility that we may be obligated to engage in activity that arouses emotion, but the value lies in the activity, and the emotion is only its target outcome (because it is not in our hands). A practical difference would be a person without emotions (an organic defect in the brain). Do you think such a person has any problem at all in serving God? In my view, absolutely not. He is supposed to do the same things, but in his case emotions will not be aroused because he simply does not have that dimension. In my eyes, a person in such a state has no value-related deficiency whatsoever.
I think a person without emotion is like a truly stupid person who cannot study Torah (or at least cannot reach its depth). That is, he has missed some particular part of serving God. I assume that our goal in life is to be as good as possible, which means being connected to God, who is the true good. I noted that I understand this to be the case based on Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in Derekh Hashem, chapter 2. So I’m trying to understand why it is obvious to you (or why Nefesh HaChaim writes) that connection to Him is a metaphysical state. Why can’t one simply say, more straightforwardly, that when I know and understand His will, and in addition I am emotionally close to Him, that creates a connection to the Holy One, blessed be He, and as a result God’s goodness is within me? By way of analogy, when I know a person well and am emotionally close to him, I become connected to him and he becomes part of me. Or are you claiming that there is a different goal? And if so, what is the logic behind it?.