Faith is not necessarily irrational, but nor is it rational. Would one say that the Medieval Jew faced with a choice of accepting Christianity or being burnt at the stake would by reason choose to die? Yet so many did make that choice, I think, because the entire meaning of their existence was wrapped up in the idea that they were partners in a brit, a covenant with Hashem. And for what glorious purpose? Only the work of perfecting the world. And for this they chose Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying Hashem’s name through preserving the meaning of their lives. What to us might seem the act of a religious fanatic was instead a person choosing to live and die in a way that reflected a deep deep faith, not necessarily in the afterlife, but in the integrity of this life.
On a personal level, I think that faith even on a daily basis is neither wholly rational nor not. Rather, it seems to be, if anything, an intuition. Sometimes the world we experience does not seem to justify faith - I am thinking of our hostages being held for two years in the terror tunnels of Gaza. Yet, incredibly, some of the hostages found faith there, an intuition that their captivity was a challenge to find transcendent meaning even there. Even in less extreme circumstances, in our days of immersion in this physical materialistic world, of needs and lacks and distractions, those of faith reach beyond the rational and irrational to sense beyond senses, to intuit the holy that invests our time and space.
A beautiful essay David, and so fitting for these ten days of repentance.
In Hebrew, the words for Faith and Art are related. Faith is Emuna- Amen means believe, have faith- and Art- also craft- is Omanut. Artist is Oman. It is written exactly the same: אמן,with the identical root letters.
I believe - there we go, again, this is a belief, in this case, in my own intuition- that faith can be understood as an art of the creative “ spiritual” mind, also curative,one that strengthens our sense of reality and presence in this world, including a need for transcendence, and allows connection with a simultaneously wondrous and terrible world.
Faith grapples with a God yet to be fully revealed, the Biblical middrash of Jacob wrestling with God an actual prophecy , a sense of awe anywhere from Spinoza’s pantheism to physics’ quest for the “ One” unifying theory, perhaps a sense of this God even returned to our consciousness, and a humanity still in formation, many thousands of years away from redemption from its dark, savage nature, an understanding of process and history, even anthropology, and our own obtuse arrogance and narcissism believing - in an erratic kind of faith- that we already have all the answers. Before defining Faith, we would need to understand our own humanity and begin to perceive what God might be. The Absolute Generative Totality.
Israel, given a gift of positively transforming its collective
mind by the Powers that gift everything to all, an Israel deeply in love , awe and fear, and bound ( as per the root “religio”) to its God, never accepted that they were enslaved, abused , attacked , violated, mistreated, by every passing empire or tribe, the constant of Israel’s history from the get go in the Land of Israel, because God had unloved and abandoned them at a whim, and thus they were worthless. No, it was their fault, they told themselves, as they learned to self- blame and shame , but it was something they could fix. God never abandoned them. Their faith artfully created a mind-scape where their dignity and divine love were justified and protected, whatever the Earthly circumstances.
God had a special purpose for Israel and it was under the severe forge of the Divine that Israel was, as they themselves understood it, sanctified.
Israel was special, unique, fated to dwell alone, consecrated, strong enough in its understanding of the vastness and incomprehensible infinity of God, of the moral path, the ( partial)divinity of every human, not God itself but its worthy image, an acceptance of accountability, and the non-transactional duty to others, one’s neighbours, one’s kinsmen, the poor and disadvantaged, the strangers in the land, and also their enemies, whom Israel was commanded to help in times of hardship, though was not obligated to love, a utopian task. Compassion and mercy to all, though, were already in Abraham’s nature and dialog with the Almighty, one we too yearn for.
Today more than at any other recent time, Israel needs this kind of faith. “ Tikkun Olam” , repairing the world, a much later kabbalistic idea, was not a core faith of Ancient Israel, but being “ a light unto the nations” , “ a model, treasured people” was. And they knew it had a price.
Israel intuitively perceived how far ahead their thinking was, and accepted their painful ordeal of never ceasing to fight dearly for survival, opposed by the rest of the world, who would have preferred- and adopted- a slower pace in their moral evolution, which they demonstrate today by having swept even the liberal, morally founded West into a most regressive - not “ progressive”- old-new wave of Jew-and-Israel hatred, the same plague that infected the West since Israel’s faith and its Torah , written by Israelites for Israelites, was snatched and eviscerated ,
to diminish its moral demands of accountability .
The faith of Israel remains a faith in its peoplehood, its history and its ancestral self-chosen mission for good, its own “chosen chosenness”.
Not much of the supernatural there.A rational faith buttressed by an emotional millenarian memory.
I appreciated your explication of the issue of salvation through works or faith. Too many people assume that only faith matters because they cannot "work" their way to salvation. But when you read Ephesians in context, you see that it means you cannot just follow the Jewish laws and be saved. You still have to do the works Christ gave everyone: love thy neighbor, care for others. You cannot be faithful to God if you dont faithfully do the simple tasks he gave us.
Wow, that was an interesting read. The non-superstitious faith is much more difficult by the way, but worth it.
On another note, I read this today. Such a imaginative thinker, still he cannot bring himself to understand more than the superficial of religious faith. https://substack.com/home/post/p-138918191
Hi David,Your deep dive into the meaning of faith was incredibly compelling, pushing us to embody our beliefs with courage. It sparked thoughts about the broader threats to our faith communities, like the chilling warning “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people,” which highlights the erosion of our Judeo-Christian heritage. I just wrote this article exploring why standing with Israel is vital to safeguarding these shared values. It’s a short, thought-provoking read. If it speaks to you, please consider subscribing for more!https://sleuthfox.substack.com/p/first-the-saturday-people-then-the
I didn't really begin to understand or internalize faith until I found myself in the deep hole of drug addiction... and realized that my own intellectual resources were insufficient to get me out. I could either trust in a power that I didn't really have a lot of direct evidence for, or I could continue to languish unto death. When I admitted the possibility of God I (quickly) became happier and calmer and steadier. Is that evidence? Probably not, but it's good enough for me!
If you're in a dark place or a situation that feels impossible, give prayer a try. I'm not claiming that anyone is listening or that a miracle will be forthcoming, but your outlook will improve. Your fear will lessen. You will be imbued with a sense of aid and comfort - even if you don't believe in God. That has been my experience, and the experience of hundreds of people similar to me. I know it's a strange claim but I make it all the same.
I love this post! I have questioned Christianity, for what I now realized was my shallow belief that simply proclaiming that "Christ is (my) Lord and Savior" gets you in to heaven. The most wicked people can jump the line with this simple declaration?? Thanks for helping me understand. This also helps me with my own concept of faith and G-d.
In Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, many Protestant streams, Anabaptists, and Quakers all explicitly teach that faith means devotion and fidelity across life rather than blind belief in the existence of some being.
In Judaism, Orthodox Judaism stresses mitzvot and devotion to Torah, conservative Judaism views faith as trust in God and commitment to Jewish law and tradition, reform Judaism frames faith as devotion to ethical living, and reconstructionist Judaism defines faith as devotion to Jewish peoplehood and values. But I am aware of no Jewish tradition that promotes blind faith.
So where do we find blind faith? Certain Evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant groups, as well as creationist and literalist movements, such as Young Earth Creationism. Also, some Islamic traditions, though none of these are mainstream.
Ultimately, belief in God requires a leap beyond empiricism and falsifiability. Some people feel the need to make that leap in order to cope with fear of death, to explain the "meaning" of life, etc., and others don't. I sometimes wish that I could make myself believe in God in the Jewish sense that is my birthright, but I can't. My life might be better or happier if I could, but ultimately, I just don't see any "God-shaped hole" in the universe that needs to be filled.
This may depend wholly upon how one defines God. If we were to define God as love, just as an example, not that I am saying we should do this, but if we did, the God-shaped hole would be so big it would swallow everything worthwhile in life.
Faith is not necessarily irrational, but nor is it rational. Would one say that the Medieval Jew faced with a choice of accepting Christianity or being burnt at the stake would by reason choose to die? Yet so many did make that choice, I think, because the entire meaning of their existence was wrapped up in the idea that they were partners in a brit, a covenant with Hashem. And for what glorious purpose? Only the work of perfecting the world. And for this they chose Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying Hashem’s name through preserving the meaning of their lives. What to us might seem the act of a religious fanatic was instead a person choosing to live and die in a way that reflected a deep deep faith, not necessarily in the afterlife, but in the integrity of this life.
On a personal level, I think that faith even on a daily basis is neither wholly rational nor not. Rather, it seems to be, if anything, an intuition. Sometimes the world we experience does not seem to justify faith - I am thinking of our hostages being held for two years in the terror tunnels of Gaza. Yet, incredibly, some of the hostages found faith there, an intuition that their captivity was a challenge to find transcendent meaning even there. Even in less extreme circumstances, in our days of immersion in this physical materialistic world, of needs and lacks and distractions, those of faith reach beyond the rational and irrational to sense beyond senses, to intuit the holy that invests our time and space.
A beautiful essay David, and so fitting for these ten days of repentance.
Fascinating article.
In Hebrew, the words for Faith and Art are related. Faith is Emuna- Amen means believe, have faith- and Art- also craft- is Omanut. Artist is Oman. It is written exactly the same: אמן,with the identical root letters.
I believe - there we go, again, this is a belief, in this case, in my own intuition- that faith can be understood as an art of the creative “ spiritual” mind, also curative,one that strengthens our sense of reality and presence in this world, including a need for transcendence, and allows connection with a simultaneously wondrous and terrible world.
Faith grapples with a God yet to be fully revealed, the Biblical middrash of Jacob wrestling with God an actual prophecy , a sense of awe anywhere from Spinoza’s pantheism to physics’ quest for the “ One” unifying theory, perhaps a sense of this God even returned to our consciousness, and a humanity still in formation, many thousands of years away from redemption from its dark, savage nature, an understanding of process and history, even anthropology, and our own obtuse arrogance and narcissism believing - in an erratic kind of faith- that we already have all the answers. Before defining Faith, we would need to understand our own humanity and begin to perceive what God might be. The Absolute Generative Totality.
Israel, given a gift of positively transforming its collective
mind by the Powers that gift everything to all, an Israel deeply in love , awe and fear, and bound ( as per the root “religio”) to its God, never accepted that they were enslaved, abused , attacked , violated, mistreated, by every passing empire or tribe, the constant of Israel’s history from the get go in the Land of Israel, because God had unloved and abandoned them at a whim, and thus they were worthless. No, it was their fault, they told themselves, as they learned to self- blame and shame , but it was something they could fix. God never abandoned them. Their faith artfully created a mind-scape where their dignity and divine love were justified and protected, whatever the Earthly circumstances.
God had a special purpose for Israel and it was under the severe forge of the Divine that Israel was, as they themselves understood it, sanctified.
Israel was special, unique, fated to dwell alone, consecrated, strong enough in its understanding of the vastness and incomprehensible infinity of God, of the moral path, the ( partial)divinity of every human, not God itself but its worthy image, an acceptance of accountability, and the non-transactional duty to others, one’s neighbours, one’s kinsmen, the poor and disadvantaged, the strangers in the land, and also their enemies, whom Israel was commanded to help in times of hardship, though was not obligated to love, a utopian task. Compassion and mercy to all, though, were already in Abraham’s nature and dialog with the Almighty, one we too yearn for.
Today more than at any other recent time, Israel needs this kind of faith. “ Tikkun Olam” , repairing the world, a much later kabbalistic idea, was not a core faith of Ancient Israel, but being “ a light unto the nations” , “ a model, treasured people” was. And they knew it had a price.
Israel intuitively perceived how far ahead their thinking was, and accepted their painful ordeal of never ceasing to fight dearly for survival, opposed by the rest of the world, who would have preferred- and adopted- a slower pace in their moral evolution, which they demonstrate today by having swept even the liberal, morally founded West into a most regressive - not “ progressive”- old-new wave of Jew-and-Israel hatred, the same plague that infected the West since Israel’s faith and its Torah , written by Israelites for Israelites, was snatched and eviscerated ,
to diminish its moral demands of accountability .
The faith of Israel remains a faith in its peoplehood, its history and its ancestral self-chosen mission for good, its own “chosen chosenness”.
Not much of the supernatural there.A rational faith buttressed by an emotional millenarian memory.
The faith of Israel remains a faith in its peoplehood, its history and its ancestral self-chosen mission for good, its own “chosen chosenness”.
Agreed.
I appreciated your explication of the issue of salvation through works or faith. Too many people assume that only faith matters because they cannot "work" their way to salvation. But when you read Ephesians in context, you see that it means you cannot just follow the Jewish laws and be saved. You still have to do the works Christ gave everyone: love thy neighbor, care for others. You cannot be faithful to God if you dont faithfully do the simple tasks he gave us.
Wow, that was an interesting read. The non-superstitious faith is much more difficult by the way, but worth it.
On another note, I read this today. Such a imaginative thinker, still he cannot bring himself to understand more than the superficial of religious faith. https://substack.com/home/post/p-138918191
Hi David,Your deep dive into the meaning of faith was incredibly compelling, pushing us to embody our beliefs with courage. It sparked thoughts about the broader threats to our faith communities, like the chilling warning “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people,” which highlights the erosion of our Judeo-Christian heritage. I just wrote this article exploring why standing with Israel is vital to safeguarding these shared values. It’s a short, thought-provoking read. If it speaks to you, please consider subscribing for more!https://sleuthfox.substack.com/p/first-the-saturday-people-then-the
Thanks!
I didn't really begin to understand or internalize faith until I found myself in the deep hole of drug addiction... and realized that my own intellectual resources were insufficient to get me out. I could either trust in a power that I didn't really have a lot of direct evidence for, or I could continue to languish unto death. When I admitted the possibility of God I (quickly) became happier and calmer and steadier. Is that evidence? Probably not, but it's good enough for me!
If you're in a dark place or a situation that feels impossible, give prayer a try. I'm not claiming that anyone is listening or that a miracle will be forthcoming, but your outlook will improve. Your fear will lessen. You will be imbued with a sense of aid and comfort - even if you don't believe in God. That has been my experience, and the experience of hundreds of people similar to me. I know it's a strange claim but I make it all the same.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/two-weeks-in
I love this post! I have questioned Christianity, for what I now realized was my shallow belief that simply proclaiming that "Christ is (my) Lord and Savior" gets you in to heaven. The most wicked people can jump the line with this simple declaration?? Thanks for helping me understand. This also helps me with my own concept of faith and G-d.
https://substack.com/@stowynandegeria/note/p-174879608?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=64kqo7
https://open.substack.com/pub/stowynandegeria/p/liber-primus-a-guide-to-the-conscious?r=64kqo7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
But what denominations actually teach this?
In Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, many Protestant streams, Anabaptists, and Quakers all explicitly teach that faith means devotion and fidelity across life rather than blind belief in the existence of some being.
In Judaism, Orthodox Judaism stresses mitzvot and devotion to Torah, conservative Judaism views faith as trust in God and commitment to Jewish law and tradition, reform Judaism frames faith as devotion to ethical living, and reconstructionist Judaism defines faith as devotion to Jewish peoplehood and values. But I am aware of no Jewish tradition that promotes blind faith.
So where do we find blind faith? Certain Evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant groups, as well as creationist and literalist movements, such as Young Earth Creationism. Also, some Islamic traditions, though none of these are mainstream.
Ultimately, belief in God requires a leap beyond empiricism and falsifiability. Some people feel the need to make that leap in order to cope with fear of death, to explain the "meaning" of life, etc., and others don't. I sometimes wish that I could make myself believe in God in the Jewish sense that is my birthright, but I can't. My life might be better or happier if I could, but ultimately, I just don't see any "God-shaped hole" in the universe that needs to be filled.
This may depend wholly upon how one defines God. If we were to define God as love, just as an example, not that I am saying we should do this, but if we did, the God-shaped hole would be so big it would swallow everything worthwhile in life.
I suppose if "God" is defined as "that which satisfies humans' psychological and social needs," then one doesn't even really need "faith."