Thank you for the understanding, I really appreciate it. The question of the connection between God and religion is what occupies me (and not the question of God’s existence), and afterward the development and interpretation of Jewish law. But I’d like to read your book before I speak with you so there will be something to talk about, because my questions right now are pretty basic, in the style of: “Who says?”

You touched in your answer on separating emotion from reason, and the mistake in making decisions with emotion. In general, until now I’ve made decisions with reason, and if I measure my life against what I feel now, I’d say that wasn’t a good policy. Lately I’ve concluded that there also has to be some consideration of the kind of person you are and the emotions that shape you, in addition to reason. My struggle now is how to organize the two. For example—my studies are very hard for me and have made 90% of the time I’m awake very unenjoyable. That’s emotion speaking, and all it wants is to stop studying. On the other hand, I know rationally that this is temporary, worth the effort, and practically speaking, if I’ve already gotten through 40% of the program I should just finish. But all the reason in the world doesn’t make me feel any better about that decision. I still ask myself whether maybe it would be better to give it up and be a little happier. In any case, I’m now trying to coordinate my rational decisions with the kind of person I am, and that can’t be independent of it. I don’t know whether I would have gone to the Technion with the knowledge I have today (then again, I didn’t know how hard it would really be). The same questions come up when I think about religion and try to coordinate it with who I am, because without that it just doesn’t work, and I’m proof of that.

I really want to read your book. Happy holiday, and I’ll pass along your regards,

I didn’t mean that one should not take emotions into account. Of course one should. Emotion is one of the factors in the decision that reason makes. For example, when deciding on a life partner, one must take one’s feelings toward her into account, but all of that is weighed by reason, which is what makes the decision. It is not right to decide emotionally or solely on the basis of emotion. The same is true in every other matter. Of course, intuition is not emotion but part of reason (I expanded on this in Two Carts).
Also regarding the Technion, notice that you are now at a very specific moment in time. The question is how you will feel after you finish. That is exactly why one uses reason to weigh things (and it takes your emotional state right now into account and factors it into the overall judgment as well). Why let your current feeling determine your future? What is so sacred about this specific moment? Usually the person who achieves is the one who looks at the long term and is willing to suffer in the short term (an athlete, an artist, a scientist, a Torah scholar). Someone who follows a temporary mood will not achieve, because almost every achievement requires sacrifice and temporary suffering. It seems to me that in the end, someone who is willing to sacrifice for the long term also feels better. Suppose you give up now because of the bad feeling—how will you feel about that later on? After all, your current emotion does not represent what you will feel then. That is what reason is for. Emotion is temporary and momentary, while reason can weigh the long term too (including emotions in the long term).
You spoke about the attempt to make decisions with reason. But your way of measuring whether a policy of making decisions rationally is good or not seems problematic to me. How do you decide what counts as good in this regard? By whether you feel good or not? If so, then it would be better not to make decisions at all and just feel good (animals perhaps feel best of all). In my opinion, in most cases the important question is what is right, not only what feels good to us. Among the options that are right, one should choose the one that feels good.
Also on the matter of faith and religious obligation, in my opinion the main question is what is true, not how I feel about it. As I said, among the options that are right, one should choose the one that feels good. And of course within obligation and faith one should choose a path that you feel whole with and agree with. But even there, in my opinion, one should not let emotion dictate decisions.
I’ll send you, God willing, the relevant part when I finish writing it (within a few days, God willing).

“The main question is what is right, not how I feel about it.”
The first question that comes to mind is: if so, then why were we created with emotion? If we assume that there is an objective spiritual obligation, then emotion is an undesirable phenomenon that has to be controlled—meaning, you have to suffer your whole life, the main thing being to be religious. Others will say that in the end this brings true pleasure, or that obedience to objective truth is itself the true pleasure. I object to these claims because they are not precise (the fact that one person claims to have found true pleasure in religion—does that mean it is true for everyone?) and not proven (this relates to the booklet you sent me; I printed it out to read over the holiday). In my opinion, in the final analysis emotion is what drives us and what gives life meaning. Without that, what reason would we have to do anything? The question is how one gets there. The religious people will say it is through religion, others through long-term achievements, and once I saw some drunk guy with a beer and a cigarette who generally looked pretty pleased with life, and I thought that if he gets that much pleasure, then he has reached the purpose of his creation. What difference does it make if the religious or the ambitious see him as an idiot—from his point of view, he reached the purpose. Some will say that this is not true joy, but if he is honest enough with himself to say that drunkenness brings him that true pleasure, why should we disagree with him? Animals really do feel best, and humanity does not judge them, so why should we judge the drunk? (Maybe because religion and ambition dispute the assumption that he could really be honest enough with himself to say that he enjoys being drunk?)

The form of emotional pleasure depends largely on the upbringing a person received and the kind of person he is. From there, he has to decide rationally what the best pleasure is for him.
I know that achievements matter to me, so I am willing to suffer now, and I agree with what you explained.
But regarding religion, why should I suffer the emotional limitations if it doesn’t give me anything?

It was very hard for me to write these things; they are terribly confusing. I hope I explained myself clearly and didn’t write nonsense.

Thank you

There is an implicit assumption in your words that I do not agree with. Again and again you repeat the assumption that in the end one should act only for the sake of joy and pleasure. There is no other justified reason to do things. I disagree with you about that. In my opinion, one should act in the proper way, even if it is not enjoyable. In your opinion, if someone enjoys murdering, should he murder? The fact that most of us do not enjoy that says nothing about the one who does. I do not murder because it is forbidden to murder, not because it gives me pleasure or makes me happy (see the well-known introduction to Eglei Tal, about how there ought to be joy in Torah study, but also his addition that one who studies because of the pleasure is not truly studying for its own sake). Therefore there is no point in suffering and suppressing emotions. But it is not right to let them dictate what I do and my decisions. That does not mean one always acts against emotion. In many cases it is with us, and it is even very helpful. The relationship between emotion and decisions is discussed at length in my book The Science of Freedom.

So far this is about the normative question—what ought to be our goal. There is also another claim that belongs to the factual plane (not the normative one): that people always act for the sake of joy or pleasure (not that this is necessarily what ought to be, but that this is simply the reality). I disagree with that too (unless in your view every goal is pleasure by definition). In your opinion, does a person who murders always do so because he enjoys it? Alternatively, does a person who performs a commandment do so only because he enjoys it?

There is a connection between these two claims (the normative and the factual), but it is not necessary, and certainly they are not identical. I do not know which of the two you meant (it seems to me both), but in any case I disagree with both of them.
In my assessment, it is important first of all to clarify these questions, and only afterward to move on. If we disagree on this point, there is not much point in continuing the discussion. I am not one of those who think that religious obligation is a recipe for pleasure and happiness (at least not necessarily), and therefore I cannot argue that you should act this way because you will be happier. So first of all we need to clarify what we are looking for and what kind of goals are binding upon us.

What I sent you is only the fifth notebook out of five. The book that I am currently thinking of creating from them would include all five. The first four deal with proofs for the existence of God, and this one deals with the transition from belief in the philosophical God to religious obligation.