Sorry that it wasn’t written clearly.

1. I have thoughts and doubts about faith. Sometimes I tend to believe, and sometimes I deny everything; I go through periods.

2. I saw that the Rabbi once wrote that someone who does not believe / is a denier is considered under duress, and therefore if he violates what is stated in the Torah / Jewish law, he is exempt.

3. Since I have already moved from side to side several times (from believer to denier and vice versa), the only concern I currently have as a complete denier is that if I eat pork on Yom Kippur, perhaps in the future I will return to believing and suffer pangs of conscience over what I did during my denial.

The question: is it true that in my current situation — where I am a complete denier — I am considered under duress, and if I eat non-kosher food or sleep with menstruating women, will that not count for me as a transgression / will I be exempt according to Jewish law?

The reason for the question: if that is the case, then I have no reason not to commit transgressions today while I am a denier. Even if in the future I return to believing, I will have no feelings of guilt or regret, because according to Jewish law I was under duress and did nothing wrong.

I hope it is clear now. I would appreciate an answer, and if more clarification is needed, I’m here. Thank you.

As you wrote, in my opinion a complete denier is exempt as someone under duress. When you are in a day of denial and are afraid to commit transgressions, that is not because of a desire to prevent the pangs of conscience you will have then, but because right now you are not sure.

Thank you, you helped me a lot.

As for the second part of the answer, there is no certainty, no absolute certainty, but there is what I think (just as you always say that nothing can be known with certainty except that sentence, and even that isn’t certain… but a judge has only what his eyes can see), and right now I think with a clear head that God is a human invention and the Torah was written by human beings. I know that maybe my opinion will change in the future, but that does not make me insecure about my current view.

Suppose you are right in your assumption and even now I have some tiny doubt that maybe there is a God and the Torah was given from Heaven — does that change the definition from under duress to intentional? Is it really that black and white?

If one cannot be certain of anything with absolute certainty (after all, you can’t prove a negative, though I’m comfortable with a kind of Russell’s teapot-style denial), then one cannot be a complete denier…

In column 661 I discussed the difference between uncertain belief and a wager. My feeling is that you are mixing up these two. When you have such thoughts even on your days of denial, that indicates that even on those days you have not really decided. A person does not decide differently every day. Once you have not decided, you act according to the laws of doubt. If you suffer from split personality and every day you have a different decision, and this is in fact a decision and not a wager, then the question should not be directed to me but to a psychiatrist (seriously. I do not mean to mock you).

Thanks for the reference to the column, very apt points.

In my case I do not think this is a wager. My concern is about myself, if I change my mind. Maybe it stems from an unhealthy skepticism; after all, I nursed religion from my mother’s breast. Years of education at the knees of Judaism, thousands of hours of study and prayer, do not become irrelevant history. Our history is part of our decision-making mechanism.

The questions of faith have been gnawing at me for many years, and this is a process of self-examination. One does not make such a fateful decision lightly, and so there is always the concern: maybe I am wrong.

But as you wrote, fear of being mistaken does not change the intuition (intellectual intuition, of course), and my understanding right now is that what I believed for many years is not true.

Emotion also plays a role. Life was easier for me as a believer, so I have no guarantee that I will not change my mind. Maybe I will believe out of a desire to make things easier for myself and hang everything on another entity. Maybe I will be persuaded for a logical reason. During the period of questioning my faith, I was like a leaf blown in the wind, one day here and one day there. After a long process, my personal conclusion finally arrived, and it has been here for a while.

For years I researched and checked, I wanted to convince myself that there is a God, I read and asked. I came to your site as a last resort. I read hundreds of pages of your writings including the notebooks, listened to your lessons and podcasts, and although with your great talent, broad perspective, huge analytical ability, and clarity you did persuade me that it is rational to believe there is a God, when choosing between the two sides, the rationality of Dawkins and his friends is more convincing, and that is where my intuition has been for some time.

I do not think I suffer from split personality (though I am an interested party and maybe I do need a psychiatrist, for a prisoner cannot free himself from prison), but I think I am being realistic. For years I believed, for years I struggled, and some time ago I reached a conclusion that I am convinced of now. But I may change my mind. Someone who is not willing to change his mind if shown otherwise is not a worthy person.

After perhaps clarifying the background, I think the question comes from a practical place and not out of a wager. After all, if I believe a little at a level that justifies something like Pascal’s wager, then apparently I am not under duress.

The Rabbi’s sharp answer — that in my non-belief I am considered under duress — solved the problem.

Thank you.

Hello Ilan,
It seems to me that you could answer your question yourself by testing it with a different question: what do you think about a person who, after deliberation and investigation, reached the conclusion that there is no reason not to kill people for personal needs, since man has no advantage over the beast, and there is no difference between slaughtering a bird for food and eliminating a business competitor? (I am speaking about someone who truly reached this conclusion rationally after deep thought, not as an excuse for immorality.) Is he under duress, or will he be held accountable for his actions (assuming God exists)?

In other words, you can examine the question by using another question in which (I assume) you are convinced that the conclusion the coerced person reached is very problematic. What is the threshold of demand a person must meet in order to be considered under duress?

In my opinion, the threshold depends on quite a few changing factors, and the main one is how severe the implications of the decision in question are. (Nachmanides noted this in the portion of Leviticus regarding the difference in liability for a sin-offering for different transgressions.) But this may help you examine what you really think about the matter.