Q&A: Returning to the Right Path
Returning to the Right Path
Question
Hello Rabbi,
My name is Yechiel, and I’d be happy if you could help me.
I’m currently studying in a hesder yeshiva in the first-year class. During high school I was pretty careless, and I wasn’t all that interested in prayer, commandments, Torah study, serving God, and the like.
At the beginning of 12th grade I tried to explain to myself why I wasn’t really keeping commandments very much, and why I was pretty lazy, and I came to the conclusion that I had never really clarified for myself whether I wanted to continue living like my parents and my family do, and that I needed to think about it.
I assumed that once I had a foundation of faith, so that I could honestly say that I feel and believe in God, I would connect more and it would be easier for me to serve Him and keep the commandments joyfully.
And that really is what happened: I learned a lot about faith, and I think I answered many of my questions for myself, and intellectually I really do think that there is a God, that He created the world, and gave us Torah and commandments.
But even so, it is still very hard for me to keep commandments (I’m not talking about observing the Sabbath and eating kosher food, commandments that I always kept; rather I mean prayers, washing hands, blessings, and various Jewish laws that bother me and that I used to be lazy about).
It could be that this comes from the fact that for a long time I didn’t keep those commandments and it’s hard to return, or maybe it’s actually because I don’t connect to it so much and don’t really feel it. Even though intellectually I think I’ve understood a lot and believe in God, emotionally I don’t feel it and connect less.
I don’t think that more study about faith will necessarily help.
I’d be happy for some advice about what to do from here,
Thank you very much!
Answer
I don’t have the knowledge or expertise to answer a question like this. It seems to me that it belongs to psychology. I deal with beliefs, not with the psyche. But it may be that there are some things you genuinely do not identify with, even though you have become convinced of the truth of the system as a whole, and that is why it is harder for you to observe them. I’m writing this not as criticism of you, but because in my opinion some of these things really are not convincing and are not necessarily correct. It would be worthwhile for you to think about that.
Discussion on Answer
I mean that there are such things in accepted Jewish law. Each example has to be judged on its own merits.
Sorry for jumping into the discussion with the doctor,
but what did you mean by the line, “because in my opinion some of these things really are not convincing and are not necessarily correct”?
Do you mean that indeed some of the examples the questioner gave do not need to be observed?