#6 Does it make a difference if we believe in God?

The question is basically about what has been recently dubbed “Orthopraxy”. “Praxis” means you perform all the Jewish rituals and attends all its religious functions—attending Synagogue, put on teffilin, circumcise your sons, keep Kosher and Shabbos and Yom Tov, etc., but have no internal conviction whatsoever that what you are doing is true and really meaningful in the philosophical sense. You simply belong to a faith community without having any faith as an individual.

There are two questions here:

Is it valid way of life from a Jewish theological perspective?

Does it have any value at all or is it better to be consistent and drop out of the community?

• Is it valid?

No. There is a myth that Judaism’s main difference with Christianity is that Christianity primarily requires that its adherents believe (and not much else) and that Judaism primarily requires actions and rituals. “Deed vs. Creed”.

But this is completely false. Judaism requires belief and conviction about its fundamentals of faith. The Rambam declared that one who does not believe has essentially lost his membership to the Jewish community even though he appears to be a part of it externally.

Such people need to be rejected socially because usually, a person can’t keep his true opinions to himself indefinitely. He will wind up having a negative influence on the society in which he has integrated himself into.

The effects of Orthopraxy on one’s family are especially tragic: Imagine a father who goes through Shabbos without singing zemirot, without talking about the Torah parsha, who dreads learning with his kids and hearing their nonsensical teachings that they learn in school. Inevitably he will be sending conflicting messages to his family and they will be very confused.

It is a tragedy that should be desperately avoided.

But how do you “force yourself” to believe? This brings us to the next question:

• Does it have any value at all?

Absolutely--As a temporary mode of outward behavior to get you through a period of crisis.

We all go through moods and phases of religious enthusiasm and lack thereof. The important thing is not to panic or do anything drastic in the heat of the moment to sever your ties with Judaism. The human mind is very fickle and without training and discipline it can become quite confused and be in constant flux.

The first thing to tell yourself is that this is a temporary phase of uncertainty and it is nothing to be scared or embarrassed of. But don't be passive or resign yourself to the situation.

You can employ various strategies to deal with disbelief and go through various types of reading material to regain faith. With the kiruv world so accessible to each Jew today via e-mail, one can write questions to knowledgeable and sensitive rabbis anonymously and receive individualized guidance on virtually any personal religious issue. There are many resources available today and it is a shame to have to struggle through this kind of challenge on your own.

When logic and philosophy fails, it may indicate an issue with Judaism that is not completely philosophical/intellectual. A crisis in faith may be due the corroding effects of one's social or intellectual environment or premature exposure to some powerful critiques against religion which can be quite disorienting. Countering these effects takes consistent and determined effort.

One powerful emotional antidote is reading the histories of Jews or communities who went through periods of great adversity and persecution for their Jewishness and remained steadfast—The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, etc. Jews retained a deep faith despite the fact that everything around them was telling them to stop believing.

By connecting to the amazing story of Jewish commitment throughout the millennia, we can put our seemingly looming doubts into their proper perspective.

# 4 &5 How can we prove the existence of G-D? How do we know G-d created the world?

There is a generic answer and a uniquely Jewish answer to this question.

The generic approach is to look at the universe and employ some form of the argument from Design.

The argument from design works on two and a half levels:

For those who reject evolution (another lecture) the argument comes from irreducible complexity we find in the biological world. Components which make up DNA and other machinery of the cellular world work and even look like machines. Michael Behe who is a microbiologist has done extensive research on this topic and is one of the leaders of the Intelligent Design movement.

For those who accept the evolutionary explanation for the development of all biological life, there is still the huge mystery of “where did the simplest life form come from.” Even atheists are really at a loss for this question.

Yet another argument comes from what is called “The Anthropic Principle” Essentially it is the same argument from design which is altered to bypass the theory of evolution. The physical sciences can only explain HOW things in the physical universe work. They cannot be used to explain WHY things work in the first place. What is a star? They explain that a star is made up of helium and hydrogen atoms colliding, causing a nuclear reaction called fusion. That’s a description of what is happening and how stars are formed from these elements. But to explain why there is helium and hydrogen existing in the universe at all, and why they have these physical properties and produce stars when they collide—those are why questions which cannot be answered even by the most detailed description of the process itself.

Science finishes its job when it fully describes what takes place and describes the necessary physical conditions which bring out the processes we see. All the why questions can never be answered by science and you need religion for that.

Unfortunately, we erroneously feel we have explained something completely when we describe what happens and the immediate causes. Supplying a physical sounds like an adequate answer to a why question, but it isn't. That shouldn’t satisfy the really curious person who yearns to know the real ultimate causes and reasons for the very existence of the universe and everything in it.

We need to posit the existence of G-d to explain any ULTIMATE why’s of the universe. Why are the physics so fine tuned to allow the existence of biological life as we know it?

But there is a deep problem when we are positing the existence of God in order to resolve an unsolvable mystery. How meaningful is that? Do we pray to him? Does this Creator care about us? And this function of God-as-Creator is a very man-centered one. He only exists because we need Him to exist in order to solve a philosophical question.

So much for the generic answer.

The Jewish answer is that we received the answers from direct experience.

Both of the above questions have the same ultimate answer: Yetzias Mitzrayim.

The Ramban at the end of Parshas Bo says that the question of G-d’s existence and His creation of the universe is resolved from the quality of the ten makkos. Hashem attached a message to various makkos explaining what their function was and what belief they were designed to instill.

Some makkos showed Hashem complete and total ability to manipulate and co-ordinate the laws of nature. He systematically smashed every Egyptian source of power and object of worship in order to illustrate that he created the natural world. He also illustrated his awareness of the details of human events and intervened in history to save one nation from another. He is the creator and supervisor of this world.

This was going to be a one-time event

The Ramban concludes that Hashem only openly reveals Himself and proves his existence and role as creator in this manner once in human history. He will not perform miracles for every skeptic who demands direct proof. He made a big enough illustration of this truth as to make it unlikely for future generations to have any serious doubt to its occurrence and unnecessary to repeat it ever again.

This is why so many mitzvos have the purpose of reminding us of Yetzias Mitzrayim. It is to instill that event in the hearts and minds of the Jewish People forever.

#3 Why is the Torah so important?

• Aside from the obvious issue of getting eternal personal reward and not being a human animal
• Living up to the demands of the Torah elevates the entire world and brings it to its perfection

• Ethical dilemmas resolved

There are some basic principles of morality that are universally agreed upon. Secular ethicists don’t really know where they come from or why we have them, but you could say there is such a thing as moral intuition that is shared by everyone. So we may not need the Torah to determine what IS a moral value and what IS an immoral value in isolated cases. The real problem for the secular person is knowing how to balance two or more moral values when they are in conflict.

The classic case is telling “the brutal truth” which will be insulting and offensive, or lying to avoid insult. Truth-telling is a universal moral value which is clearly superior to lying IF THAT IS THE ONLY FACTOR INVOLVED. But what about lying in order to avoid giving pain to someone? That is also a moral value and it is coming into conflict with the value of truth telling.

So the Torah (and Halacha in general) gives us principles regarding how to chose between conflicting moral values in most situations. By following the Torah’s principles we can be confident that we are not compromising our moral integrity when we sacrifice one moral value for another.

• Comprehensive Ethical living—covering all the bases

When someone is unaware of certain facts, he may do the objectively wrong thing even though he is not to blame and has not compromised his own personal moral integrity. Doing the wrong thing is still something that should be avoided. Example of an adopted child unwittingly turning away his parents when they ask for aid.

Without the Torah telling us Who made the universe and therefore to Whom we owe a debt of gratitude, we would be doing the wrong things in life from an objective point of view because we could not give any credit where credit was due.

• The narrative sections of the Torah give us human role-models by which we can measure ourselves and strive for greatness. Being good and moral is level one. A secular person could be satisfied with just that. But striving for greatness beyond what is strictly ethical is a whole other dimension.

Avraham’s extreme chessed, Yitzchak’s extreme din, Rivka’s extreme chessed despite evil surroundings, Yaakov’s extreme honesty in working, Rachel’s extreme selflessness to give her husband to her sister, Yosef’s extreme resistance to temptation, Moshe’s extreme concern for justice, and extreme self-sacrifice for the Jewish people, Aharon’s extreme acceptance of personal tragedy, etc.

• The same narrative sections also provide human examples of evil which are held up for contempt—The Torah magnifies the sins of the great ones almost to the point of caricature in order to have this effect.

We can more easily internalize the correct values and attitudes and reject the incorrect ones if we see them illustrated clearly and not just be given a long list of rules.

• Without the Torah we wouldn’t know that God takes a serious interest in human affairs—personal and global. We see from the Torah that God has a plan and purpose for this world and has given us an indispensible role in achieving it. The history of the ancient world and the Jewish people is recorded in the Torah for this reason.

This is what making a covenant with Hashem means. The covenant with Noach, Avraham, the Avos, regarding the Land of Israel, regarding the Jews accepting the Torah. All the things that Hashem makes a covenant for means that His purpose of creation must be achieved through it and it will not happen without it. Zechus Avos may run out, but bris Avos can never be nullified now matter how low we go.

#2 What is the Torah?

Bullet list:

• Written Torah
• 5 Books of Moshe plus the Nevi’im and Kesuvim—different levels of prophecy and different rules of understanding each set
• The 5 books of Moshe are the pure will of God encapsulated in letters and words, sentences and sections of text. It is the most amazing thing that the Divine mind has been compressed and expressed in a way that we can understand it at all.
• Moshe had the highest authority in Judaism because he has the highest possible level of prophecy. He became a completely transparent medium for the Divine will. This was because he was the humblest of all men. Why does the Torah testify to his humility? Because that’s how it established the fact the only Moshe’s prophecy was completely transparent. This comes from the story of Miriam and Korach. It became one of the Rambam’s ikkar of emunah. This is why we execute any prophet who contradicts the Torah.
• Interesting difference in style between the language of the first four books of the Torah and the fifth--see Ramban
• The Torah itself is the tool by which Hashem created the world-“He looked in the Torah and created the world” It is the blueprint of creation. Everything in the world only exists because it has its roots in the blueprint. This is why we believe that if not for the constant learning of Torah by the Jewish people without a moment of interruption, the world would simply vanish into non-existence. (Nefesh Hachayyim) The existence of the physical universe was made contingent on the perpetuation of Torah since Sinai. God made a condition with the creation on Yom HaShishi.
• Those who have mastered the entire Torah must by definition have mastered all the inner workings of the physical world. Moshe Rabbeinu and Shlomo Hamelech knew it all and understood all wisdom. Great sages know different parts of Torah and can have knowledge about the physical world that was not obtained through scientific investigation. Hafoch bo--Kula bo They got it from the Torah—gestation period of the nachash.
• Oral Torah-indispensable to make the written Torah a text with practical instructions. What is a pri eitz hadar? What are totafos and tefillin? What is a melacha? Some of these instructions come with a death penalty. How can you be killed for doing something if you don’t know exactly what you weren’t supposed to do?
• Part of the ikkar emuna in Moshe’s prophecy of the five books is that he also received oral explanations for each mitzvah at the same time on Sinai. Not made up and interpreted by humans as we went along. This is true only of NEW cases which arose. But even with interpretations, the RULES for interpretation are technical and objective—received from God Himself. No room for subjective biases to make new rules of interpretation. Gezeiros and takkanos are completely made up and it is an aveira to call those things part of the Torah itself. This is Ba’al Tosif.
• Ba’al Sigrah: Do not subtract from the Torah—Since the Torah is the blueprint of all creation from its beginning till its end, it is illogical to claim that the Torah was only intended to be applied in ancient times as a response to ancient pagan concepts and uncivilized societies and that parts of it have become obsolete. Since the blueprint of all mankind is sourced in the Torah, it follows that the Torah’s laws and demands for man are always relevant. They are designed for the existential make-up of the human personality which does not change from culture to culture or era to era.