What's In A Name (Part V)- Am I Still Pesach Sheini?

From time to time (although it's been a long time since the last one), I will be writing about my reasons for choosing "Pesach Sheini" as the name for my blog. The more I have thought about the name, the more I have felt that it chose me and not the other way around. What follows is the fifth installation. To read the first four click here. 

Dear Rabbi _________________,

After a recent discussion by email, you sent me an email where you spelled out your philosophical and theological views, and asked me to respond in kind; “And you, Reb Pesach -- how do the pieces of your worldview fit together?”. I responded that I was not sure whether I wanted to try and summarize my beliefs, but I would think about it. After much thought, I have decided to respond, with one caveat.

I cannot tell you how the pieces of my worldview fit together, as a unified theory is not something I seek to produce. I’m not sure if anything more than being mine, is what holds them together. One thing which came across quite strongly in your email is that your beliefs are long-held. I suspect, and please correct me if I am mistaken, that you could have used the same words to describe your beliefs five years ago, and probably much earlier than that. I cannot say the same for myself.

When I first started my blog “Pesach Sheini”, the name seemed to make sense. It was my way of saying that I had come through a long, complicated, and painful religious struggle, and that what emerged was a new me. While that was in many ways correct, I made the mistake of thinking that whereas before I had subscribed to certain philosophical and theological beliefs, which, like yours, I would call for lack of a better word, rational, now I had new beliefs which no longer fit that term. What I did not realize was that though I may not ever need a Pesach Shelishi, my new beliefs were not just different, but were also much more fluid.

By way of thinking about how to answer your question, I took a look at the sefarim on my bookshelf. I not only noticed the sefarim which get frequent use these days, those of the Piaseczna Rebbe, Rav Kook, and R’ Hillel Zeitlin, I also noticed the sefarim which I haven’t used much in a bunch of years, although they were helpful to me in the earlier stages of “Pesach Sheini”. Among those sefarim were those from R’ Isaac Breuer, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, and Rav Amital. This is not to dismiss any of them as having importance to me. Rather I use to point out that my hesitancy in answering your question is due to the fact that my religious understanding is anything but static. In fact, if you had told a year or two ago me that ideas from The Baal haTanya and Rav Hillel Paritcher would be part of my religious experience, I would have looked at you like you are crazy.

Please don’t mistake this as meaning that there are no core beliefs. I would be surprised if the Piaseczna Rebbe and his Torah ever stops being of great importance to me. I don’t think I could ever be a chasid, but if the Piaseczna Rebbe was alive, who knows. The same goes for Rav Kook’s and Hillel Zeitlin’s Torah.

As for specifics, beyond the fact that my worldview is mostly mystical, I’ll just share a few brief thoughts. While I understand the reasons why you and others try to take a more rational approach, that worldview has very little appeal to me. Ultimately, no how much we try to rationalize religion, it is anything but rational. It ultimately stands on a relationship with a God, who cannot be touched by the world of rational thought. As such, I take God at his word in the Torah, as did the rabbis in the Talmud, that tefillah is real communication, and that God is directly involved in our lives. While you are correct to note that this approach raises questions, all approaches do.

To sum it up as well as I can, and I do realize that I have left quite a bit unsaid, I try and stand in serious relationship to HKBH, and believe with every fiber of my being that it is a real two-way relationship. Does it all fit together? It does in the sense that this is me. I have no desire to convince anyone else of the correctness of any of my views and beliefs. My desire is nothing more than continuously try and think about, develop, and grow in my relationship with God.

Pesach

50 First Faiths- How do move forward after emunah peshuta is gone

The wannabe intellectual in me is a little embarrassed to admit that I saw a movie starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, and very embarrassed to use the film to discuss religion. Still, “50 First Dates” is where I begin today’s post. In the movie, Sandler’s character falls in love with Barrymore’s character, and after a while things click. It is only afterwards that Sandler discovers that Barrymore has short term amnesia and forgets him and much else each evening. This leads to him having to get her to fall in love with him anew each date, and thus, 50 “first” dates.

There is something very beautiful about emunah peshuta, that simple level of faith in which there is only belief, and there are no questions or doubts. It is somewhat analogous to that time period when young children see their parents as perfect and invincible. One’s davening is pure, and shemiras hamitzvos seems almost as natural as breathing. For many people, emunah peshuta does not last. Just as the young child discovers that his father really isn’t the strongest man in the world, the maamin discovers that there are challenging questions that exist, and information that might lead to doubts. What then?

Once emunah peshuta is lost, the relationship changes. Gone is the bumpless road, where not only is the destination obvious, but so too is the way to get there. What once came naturally, now involves work. What works today, might not work tomorrow.

Being that I was open about the two years when I struggled with my faith, I am often asked for help by people who are struggling with their emunah. Which rabbi gave me all the answers? Which book showed me that my doubts had no basis? Can you please help me get back my emunah peshuta? Of course, I can’t help in that way. No person or book has all the answers, and there is no way to make the questions go away, so what is one to do?

To me the answer seems obvious. The first thing is recognize that one can not go back. Someone who is struggling needs to recognize that if they are going to develop a sophisticated belief system, it will take hard work, and not just once. There is no one who can solve the problem for you. Your questions are often different, and even when they are not, what works for another person, will rarely work for you.

So what did I do? I read a lot. I reached out to smart people and others who had struggled. I davened for help. I worked very hard until I was able to believe again. It was tough, and frustrating, and there are still times when I have do more work, and I suspect there always will be. It would be nice to be able to just “fall in love” just once and know that it will last. The reality is that while you probably won’t have to discover God anew each day, you are certainly going to have to discover Him many more times.

Is there a mitzvah to believe, and if so, how do we get there? (Audio shiur)

In this week’s shiur, we examine whether there is a mitzvah to believe. We look, at various approaches of the rishonim, achronim and modern thinkers. We also consider what the mitzvah might involve, and examine the concept of belief in general.

The shiur can also be listened to on YouTube by clicking on this link

Running time 1:27

Putting Descartes Before the Horse- On knowledge, belief and proof

I was recently asked, not for the first time, how I know that God exists. It’s a question that is often directed at religious believers in general, and at teachers and members of the clergy in particular. Before we can talk about how we “know” this, or more correctly, why we believe, it is important to discuss what it means when we say we know or believe anything.

Although a more complete treatment of this topic would involve a discussion about epistemology, the philosophical study of knowledge, I will focus on a different area of discussion.

I was recently referred to an essay written by Isaiah Berlin, one of the preeminent thinkers of the twentieth century, by my friend Rabbi Todd Berman. In the essay, “The Concept of Scientific History”, Berlin explains why the attempt to treat history as a science, something that many considered an important goal for at least two centuries, is inherently futile. He conclusively shows that science, at least in its pure forms, can test claims and ascertain whether they are correct, while when it comes to the ideas of history, as well as many of its “facts”, this is not true. Thus there is a difference in kind, and not just degree, between saying that the egg broke because it fell on the hard surface, and saying that World War I started because Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. He goes on to say something that shows that it is not just history which can not be treated like a pure science:

If I am asked what rational grounds I have for supposing that I am not on Mars, or that the Emperor Napoleon existed and was not merely a sun myth, and if in answer to this I try to make explicit the general propositions which entail this conclusion, together with the specific evidence for them, and the evidence for the reliability of this evidence, and the evidence for that evidence in its turn, and so on, I shall not get very far. The web is too complex, the elements too many and not, to say the least, easily isolated and tested one by one; anyone can satisfy himself of this by trying to analyse and state them explicitly. The true reason for accepting the propositions that I live on earth, and that an Emperor Napoleon I existed, is that to assert their contradictories is to destroy too much of what we take for granted about the present and the past (emphasis added).

Outside of math and the pure sciences when we talk about knowing things, we all use a different criteria for evaluating the truth of a statement. Even though we can not prove that we were not created last Thursday with memories of a false past, we all know that claim to be false.

Let’s take this a step further. How do we react when we read an article that makes a claim? Do we investigate it ourselves? Study the subject so that we know as much as an expert before deciding what we believe? Of course we do not. Somehow, in our inherently subjective experience, we form an opinion. Even as some of us try to know more before reaching a conclusion, we still fall far short of the level of rigor we would expect in a scientific experiment. What about when we read of two experts who disagree about a theory or idea? Do we commit to being agnostic due to our inability to evaluate which of the two are correct? Do we do a poll of all experts in the field? Would such a poll prove anything? In short, most of what we think we know comes from some combination of intuition, knowledge and whatever other conscious and subconscious thought that goes into deciding. We make decisions about family, safety, career and meaning without being able to prove almost anything.

So where does that leave us? I believe that it leaves us in the potentially uncomfortable position of recognizing that religion is a belief, and not something that  we can prove. As with most areas of life, we subjectively judge the facts and then make a decision. Our reasons for belief might not be able to convince anyone other than ourselves. For those of us who have relied upon the arguments of Medieval philosophers, be it Maimonides or Aquinas, accepting this idea can be somewhat disconcerting. Still, I am not convinced that this is a bad thing.

The inherent subjectivity of our religious beliefs allows us to believe with what Rabbi Herzl Hefter has called “soft certainty”. This level of belief allows for us to live a life of firm commitment, sure enough to serve, but not sure enough to destroy. In an unredeemed world, I don’t think we can ask for anything more.

Post by Pesach Sommer.