Q&A: Intuition and Emotion
Intuition and Emotion
Question
Hello Rabbi. I believe in God and the Torah more out of intuition and less out of logical arguments (not a perfect faith, but there’s always something to work on). At the same time, I’m very repelled by the Jewish idea of “You set man apart from the beginning and recognized him as standing before You” — meaning, that at base a person is a worm, and the only way he can have value is in relation to God (through commandments). This is expressed in Jewish thought and also in Jewish law. In general, religion shows me that a person has no value in himself, and that a Jew does not live for himself but to serve God. In your opinion, is this a doubt worth clarifying, or some desire to run away? Like someone who is simply bored with the commandments and so looks for ways to deny, or perhaps it’s something deeper? I really don’t want to be a person who, because of his desires and emotions, makes wrong decisions (and in the meantime I’m of course not deciding anything, but continuing to observe the commandments as usual), and I’m in doubt whether this is a real doubt or an attempt to escape being a servant of God because ideas like “living for yourself” attract me. I also saw the philosopher Joseph Agassi say that the Jewish tradition is misanthropic and that fundamentally you are a maggot and a worm, and I can’t say I don’t identify with that.
Answer
Hello.
If you think otherwise, then that’s what you think. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether to observe the commandments. So think that you have value also as a person who is not standing before the Holy One, blessed be He, and observe the commandments. Why is this connected to that? As for the feeling itself, I think it is not well defined. Try to define the two possibilities and the practical difference between them, and it seems to me that you won’t be able to do so. You might want to read Column 159 on the concept of “meaning,” and from there it emerges that a person cannot have meaning without some external source granting it. Inherent meaning (that is, value that a person has by virtue of what is in him, without something external giving it to him) is philosophical nonsense in my opinion.
But if you succeed in formulating the two possibilities clearly and the practical difference between them, you’re welcome to post it here, and then it will be possible to discuss it.
Discussion on Answer
I referred you to Column 159.
Why do you think inherent meaning is philosophical nonsense?
Maybe one could say that in the objective and pure sense a person has no value, and that it’s something he creates and gives himself, but on the other hand a person is born with static traits (in the sense that they can’t be taken from him or denied), like a certain talent, IQ, a unique character — so he does have a basic meaning even before he determines for himself what his own meaning is. You could say that a person is born with a “spec sheet” of who he is and what he is; he isn’t exactly born a blank page without meaning. You can see this in his tendencies, his abilities, his behavior patterns. In my opinion, a person does have meaning in himself to a certain degree.