Q&A: Certainty or Probability
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Certainty or Probability
Question
Hello, I understood from your words on several occasions that in your view, faith belongs in the realm of probability rather than certainty.
From what I understand, it is impossible to reach self-sacrifice and giving up one’s life on the basis of probability.
If so, someone who believes on the basis of probability would not die for the sanctification of God’s name, given such a possibility, and likewise would not fulfill the law of “be killed rather than transgress.”
- Did I infer your position correctly?
- When the Torah commands me to give up my life, isn’t there a hidden statement here from the Torah that faith is supposed to be certain? And if so, can faith in fact be certain?
Answer
- No. People kill themselves even without certainty. Nobody has certainty about anything, and yet people still give themselves over. That’s how we live. What we call certainty is not really such. See what I wrote in Column 62 about the pious Yaavetz and boorishness.
- Even if faith is supposed to be certain, it cannot be so. Therefore there is no point in hair-splitting about it. It’s like what I’ve often been asked: how can it be that the Hebrew Bible teaches us nothing, after all it is the holy word of God. My answer: it can’t be, but that is the reality in practice. Difficulties don’t change the facts.
Discussion on Answer
You need to have enough certainty to justify giving up your life. That’s all.
1. There is no certainty about anything, but there is a feeling of certainty, and only then does a person give up his life. Isn’t that so? But from your words I didn’t understand that you were talking about the level of felt certainty.