Q&A: Faith
Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi, I’d be happy to know what the Rabbi thinks about the common approach to faith in the yeshiva world, which says that faith is neither emotion nor intellect, but rather something engraved in our nature, and the intellect merely refines it?
Answer
I’ve already written my opinion about these hollow statements. If something is implanted in us, that is no guarantee that it is true. On the contrary, that is reason to suspect that it is merely the result of random evolution. The desire and urge to speak slander are also implanted in us. By the way, that is exactly the essence of emotion, so such a statement does not fit with the claim that it is not emotion.
Maybe they mean to say that faith is the product of intuition, and with that I can of course agree, and I have written and spoken about it quite a bit. And indeed, the intellect refines intuitions; with that too I agree. But it also examines them critically, and changes and replaces them when necessary. Moreover, this description is true of all knowledge we have, not only of faith. Science too, in its various fields, is based on intuitions. Therefore I do not agree that faith is not intellect, even though it is of course not emotion, as stated above. Intuition is the basis of intellect.
As a side note, I would add that this “approach” is common mainly in places that do not know how, and do not want, to deal with arguments and difficulties, and so they churn out declarations that faith is above intellect, etc. etc., and how important it is to cling to it despite the difficulties and not pay attention to them because they are the counsel of the evil inclination. Utter nonsense.
Discussion on Answer
As I wrote, people are not skilled in philosophical thinking, and so they babble.
I don’t deal with books of Jewish thought. They do not interest me very much and do not contribute much to me. A friend of mine likes to say that instead of studying thought, it is better to think. In the second book of the trilogy, No Man Rules the Spirit, I explain that there is no such field at all, “Jewish thought.” It is a made-up field composed of the musings of different people, which are then imposed onto sources through no fault of the sources themselves. You can gather ideas and insights from many sources, including from that literature just like from any other literature. In the end, what matters is what you think. Other people’s thought is, at most, a source of inspiration or a source of insights that can help you build your own thinking.
I very much agree with the Rabbi, but it’s really hard for me to understand how so many leading Torah scholars in our community and in the Haredi community take this approach. How does the Rabbi relate to the Kuzari, for example? Since many rabbis learn this approach from Rabbi Yehuda Halevi?