Q&A: Faith and Emotion
Faith and Emotion
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Following listening to the first lesson and a half of your YouTube series "Faith and Its Meaning," a question came to mind:
I agree with you that emotion is not faith, and faith does not depend on one religious emotion or another, and that in essence faith is the conclusion of a logical argument about reality. But I think that although there are exceptional individuals (and perhaps you are among them) who are capable of serving the Holy One, blessed be He, in a purely intellectual way without emotion, most human beings cannot be that way, and if they do not also mix in and connect to the matter emotionally, they will not be fully committed to it (even if they know it is the truth).
I have an example of this:
Suppose there is a father who feels no emotion toward his child—not love, not hatred, nothing. On the other hand, intellectually he understands that he needs to take care of his child, and he provides for all his needs without loving him, and even smiles at him and hugs him because he knows that is what the child needs, but inside he does not have even a drop of love. Do you think one could say that he is a good father? According to what you say, technically he is indeed a good father, and it could be that the child will never know about the father's lack of love. On the other hand, I think few fathers, if any, are capable of carrying out such a task without connecting to it, and even if they are capable of it—are they not of a lower level than fathers who care for their children and also love them emotionally?
In summary, my claim is this: emotion is not necessary for faith, but for the overwhelming majority of people, except perhaps for exceptional individuals, it is a necessary condition for maintaining faith.
Thank you very much.
Answer
There is no connection between the two planes. Regarding the question of how to arrive at faith, I argued that this is a factual claim and one must arrive at it using rational tools, not emotion. The question whether emotion is helpful for the service of God is a completely different question. And even if it is helpful, it does not follow from that that it has value in itself.
Discussion on Answer
You are probably new here. See column 22, 311, and many others, and in my article here: https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=f18e4f052adde49eb&q=https://mikyab.net/%25D7%259B%25D7%25AA%25D7%2591%25D7%2599%25D7%259D/%25D7%259E%25D7%2590%25D7%259E%25D7%25A8%25D7%2599%25D7%259D/%25D7%259E%25D7%25A9%25D7%259E%25D7%25A2%25D7%2595%25D7%25AA-%25D7%2590%25D7%25A4%25D7%259C%25D7%2598%25D7%2595%25D7%25A0%25D7%2599%25D7%25AA-%25D7%259C%25D7%25A8%25D7%2592%25D7%25A9%25D7%2595%25D7%2591%25D7%2594%25D7%259C%25D7%259B%25D7%2594/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiVn4eLt4uKAxW5nP0HHb10JAIQFnoECAYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1iDmwv6H_MN9KvxCsHIX2I&fexp=72801196,72801194,72801195
It is impossible to say that emotion merely "helps" in the service of God—
many commandments among the 613 commandments depend on emotion, and are counted by all the enumerators of the commandments—for example, love of God, fear of God, love of one's fellow; "service of the heart," meaning prayer [there is a dispute among the halakhic decisors whether this is from the Torah or rabbinic], and many more.
And specifically these are commandments that we are commanded to remember constantly through the Shema, tefillin, and mezuzah, whose purpose is that the commandments of love of God and fear of Him should always be before our eyes; and similarly, "Love your fellow as yourself," about which Rabbi Akiva said, "This is a great principle in the Torah"—how is all this possible without emotion?