Q&A: The Path to Faith from External Motivations
The Path to Faith from External Motivations
Question
You often present, in many variations, the idea of faith that comes from understanding and not from emotion or convenience.
For example, you agreed with Marx’s statement, “religion is the opium of the masses,” in relation to a religious approach based on what pays off and on a comfortable lifestyle, for example.
But is that really such a bad idea when it comes to the practical side of bringing someone to repentance?
Assuming that I believe in religion, God, reward and punishment,
and I have a strong motivation to bring another Jew whom I love to that as well.
For example: my brother.
(to increase God’s name in the world / to prevent punishment for my brother in the World to Come, etc.)
1. Even if there is not ideal faith here on the part of the “newly religious” person—even if according to Maimonides this does not amount to pure commandment observance based on faith—
still, at least this would prevent transgressions.
Is that a trivial matter? That a Jew refrain from desecrating the Sabbath or violating the laws of menstruation, even if the means used to get him there were propagandistic and based on other motivations.
2. Creating a religious environment is fertile ground for arriving at faith.
There is a high chance that after being drawn in by convenience, exposure to religion will lead to exposure to content / arguments / ideas that present a position of faith.
Much more so than if he remains where he is now, in an anti-religious or even merely passive environment.
My question is this:
Granted, one can agree that in a philosophical-logical-theological discussion,
to present the claim “religion is true because it is exciting”
(like in the debate you participated in, where in another episode they brought a Chabad follower whose argument for the truth of the Torah was: “Come taste the açaí!”)—
that is a bad argument.
But when I come to discuss practice, assuming I feel a sense of mutual responsibility and I want to prevent my brother from transgressing or guide him toward genuine faith,
is it a bad idea to fire him up?
Answer
I am opposed in principle to lies, even when the goal is the positive one of advancing the truth. But you are not talking about a lie; you are talking about a tactic. That is, if you persuade a person that this is a good life and that it is worthwhile for him to live this way, and he is genuinely persuaded of that (not because you lied to him), while the whole hope is that he will eventually come to serve for its own sake—then that is completely legitimate. From acting not for its own sake, one comes to act for its own sake.
But if the goal is not drawing him near to religious service but merely preventing transgressions, I am not sure that is necessary. If he does not truly believe, then his transgressions are not really transgressions anyway. See my article about causing a secular person to sin. But in any case, as long as you are not lying, of course there is nothing wrong with it, and benefit may even come from it.