Q&A: Defining Faith
Defining Faith
Question
What do you think about the following statement:
“Faith is neither intellect nor emotion, but the most fundamental self-revelation of the essence of the soul, which should guide it in its character.”
Answer
I wish I understood what that means. I suspect that nobody else really understands it either (including the person who said it). In the next column I’ll sharpen a point that may be related to this saying.
Discussion on Answer
The man himself, yes, but his writings less so. In my view, he has many vague statements that stem from concepts that are not sharp and not well defined, and therefore you can read anything into them. In my book No Man Has Power over the Spirit (and also here on the site; see column 183), I brought examples produced by an automatic Rabbi Kook text generator. A fascinating experiment. If you don’t define what intellect is and what emotion is, you can’t speak about something that is neither intellect nor emotion.
Where can I find that text generator?
And if you don’t like Rabbi Kook’s writings, then what do you like about him?
https://woland.ph.biu.ac.il/?page_id=154
He has beautiful ideas and originality.
Here, the column is up: https://mikyab.net/posts/87500/
Your question is mentioned at the end of the column.
How can the Rabbi say about Rabbi Kook that he doesn’t understand what he’s saying, when I assume the Rabbi appreciates Rabbi Kook and his writings?