Whoops. Here it is for real.

Hey Liat,

 

I am all for questioning why we should keep mitzvot, but I think it can be dangerous. (And by dangerous I mean dangerously freeing). I questioned why on earth I keep kashrut and why on earth I keep halacha. I’ve come up with some reasons that make me want to do some things some of the time, but I’ve rejected any strong commitment.

 

It seems to me that if we rely on our own answers we aren’t relying on halacha. The halachic system is set and if we question it too much we risk falling out of it. Maybe you can question from within the system, but that’s a cop out. I don’t think  that incomplete questioning  can bring real satisfaction.

 

Why do you think you need halcha to be the person who you want to be? If you know the person who you want to be, why don’t you just try being that person and let halacaha come in on the side?

 

 

Mr. Kurin,

 

What can I contribute to this discussion if I reject divine will? For the sake of conversation I have been known to equate my personal will with divine will, but I only really mean that my will is of the highest importance (to me).

 

What is so great about the authority of the Jewish tradition?  Do you think that it is possible for someone to live a fulfilling life without bowing to its authority? 

Fashionably late

This was going to be a comment, but then it ended up being long enough for a post…

Liat,
I was happy to finally see some action on the blog, so thanks for that.
I just want to point out a few things about your response.
1) When you talk about keeping lashon hara because that's the kind of person you want to be, I would place that under the category of comfort. Even though it's not actually comfortable, what I meant by comfort was any reason other than the fulfillment of the Divine Will.

2) This is also related to your discussion about deciding whether or not to keep the mitzvot. You have articulated an issue that basically all of the commentators who did ta'amei hamitzvot discussed. The mainstream view is that extrapolating reasons for mitzvot can be a useful tool in making them more meaningful for people, as you correctly mentioned. But, other than that you can basically take them or leave them, since they are only speculative. They all agree that these reasons can not determine whether or not we actually keep the mitzvah. Although it is obvious that they would take this position, it seems to me to be very logical. The question at hand (and this is also part of the response to your suggestion that I should look more into the reasons for mitzvoth and question them) is whether or not the mitzvot are a clear expression of the divine will. If you do believe in the traditional view of Torah MiSinai (which, correct me if I’m wrong, as far as I know you do, unlike some of the other contributors to this blog, who by the way haven’t done much in the way of contributing!) can you justify valuing your own speculation over what is explicitly written?
- There are several ways one could answer this question. These include sociological reasoning (i.e. the mitzvah applied then, but now times have changed, and so should it), and a separation between the Torah and the Talmud (i.e. I’ll follow what the Torah explicitly says, but the Talmud was just speculation also, and I can do that too). In my opinion both of these arguments are pretty weak, especially for one who believes in Torah MiSinai, but I don’t need to discuss them any more unless you choose to use one of them in your answer.
- Of course, you could always just say that halacha is for comfort/meaning/becoming an ideal person, and then you would avoid this entire problem. That would, however, constitute a rejection of the authority of the Jewish tradition. So, Liat, where do you stand on all of this? I guess what it all boils down to, and this question is now for Shoshi also, is whether halacha is a set of laws, or a set of suggestions.

3) About me being bothered by questions against my beliefs: As was sort of implied when we spoke in person, I totally agree with the importance of questioning oneself, and I certainly support the avoidance of blindly following the beliefs of those around you. However, all I meant to say was that the particular questions at hand were not bothersome to me, for the reasons I explained.

Well now that my midterms are over...

Sorry for the delay! I know- it's been over a month which is really crazy. I am happy that now I have the time to answer your question: "Is Halacha for comfort? Should we only do it if it's comfortable? If it's not comfortable, how important is it to try to make it comfortable?"

Tough stuff, Michael! I have to be honest: I am sorting through a lot of ideas on this topic and don't necessarily have a set opinion on it at the moment. What I can tell you is that the halachot that mean the most to me and that I truly find beneficial to my spiritual growth are often not at all comfortable. For example, the doing m'lacha on Shabbat or holidays often makes for a lot of uncomfortable and downright annoying situations, especially this year when the holidays were smack in the middle of the week! Refraining from saying loshon hara is not what I would call comfortable but I keep it because I know that it helps me become the kind of person I want to be.

In fact, while we're on the whole issue on comfort, I just want to comment on some of the ideas that you shared in your posts. You said that you don't let certain ideas bother you, etc. Part of me is glad for you because being constantly bothered by hard questions n Judaism is not a pleasant experience, when you are expected to keep all halacha as usual. But I speak from my own experience when I say that while it's not fun, confronting these issues can be an opportunity to make things much more meaningful than they would have been otherwise. If I start to question why on Earth I need to keep Kosher, then if I decide to keep it, the mitzvah will hold much more meaning for me and will allow me to gain what I was always meant to gain from it, instead of merely going through the actions. Of course, you may decide not to keep it, which makes the decision you make all the more valuable.

P.S. (see below first)

If I was bothered by your question, then I would say the following:
It is very possible that the God was made up by humans, since the idea of His existence and His caring about the happenings of the world, and especially the afterlife, are very comforting. However, the comfort of being a believer is much stronger in some other religions, especially Christianity, than it is in Judaism. We spoke last Shabbos about cases in which halachik lifestyles are often not healthy nor comforting. In fact, they can sometimes be quite the opposite.
Personally, though, I never get insulted or bothered when people make derogatory statements about religious Judaism. This is mostly because they are things I used to think myself. However, the only comments I get from non-religious people that actually frustrate me are ironically the comments that people make when they're trying to be nice. I often hear things like "[religious observance is not necessary but...] if that's what you need for your inner peace, then good for you." Or, "everyone needs something to believe in." I don't hold it against the people who say these things, since not only do they not no any better, but they also mean to be nice. However, the fact is that this prevailing view of religion (which may have been caused by Christian influence) is very far from the truth when it comes to halachic Judaism. I would elaborate on this more, but Rav Soloveitchik is a better writer than I am, and he goes on a tangent about this for a while (See footnote 4-I think- in Halakhik Man).
But I am curious what Shoshi thinks about this religion being for comfort issue, since she believes in a comfort level for halachik observance. Please do respond (and yes, I will have follow-up questions on whatever you decide to say). Liat was actually never really said clearly what she thinks about comfort and halacha. Sooo, although I'm not so bothered by the question posed (see my previous post), I am very interested in what Liat thinks about the following questions: Is Halacha for comfort? Should we only do it if it's comfortable? If it's not comfortable, how important is it to try to make it comfortable? etc...
-Shavua Tov

Sorry for the delay...

I was (and still am) planning on responding to your first post, but you sufficiently provoked me to respond to your second post. I don’t think the question you raise (which many people ask, and many atheists like to advocate- though I'm certainly not accusing you of this, since I know you're just playing devil's advocate) should not anybody. Of course it is true that given the current makeup of the human psyche, humans could "create" the idea of God, for the reasons you mentioned. However, that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not God exists. The idea shows that given a theoretical universe where God doesn't exist, the existence of the "God idea" in people's minds could be satisfactorily explained psychologically. It may prove that the fact that humans have the concept of God can not alone prove that God exists (although most versions of St. Anselm's ontological argument probably still hold up against this question… even though they mostly don’t hold up in general). But contrary to the writings of some of the popular atheists (and by popular I imply both meanings of the word) it certainly does not negate the notion of God's existence. One could easily believe that the idea of God could have been made up, but it happens to not be made up, since He exists.

Furthermore, the idea that humans could conjure the idea of God may also be a result of the human soul, which has a longing for meaning (assuming we have a soul, which is assuming God exists). Therefore, the idea that “God was created by humans may only be relevant if one is already assuming that God does not exist. There is no contradiction in believing in God, and also believing that humans could have made up the idea of God. Just like some of the things we discussed last Shabbos, this is all an issue of perspective.

A parallel to this that we already talked about is Bible criticism. The documentary hypothesis shows that given the theoretical situation that the Torah was written by several authors, we could figure out how to read the Torah accordingly. This does not pose a direct contradiction to the notion that God dictated the Torah. In other words, one could easily believe that the Torah could be read as if written by four authors, but still believe that it doesn’t have to be, because it was in fact written by God/Moses. Therefore, the documentary hypothesis is not related to the question of whether or not God wrote the Torah.

Another parallel is the argument about evolution. In order to "save the Torah," some people will claim that all of our evidence for evolution was planted by God in order to test our faith. This is silly, but it can't be disproven by any amount of evidence. Therefore, belief in evolution is also a question of perspective.
However, unlike Bible criticism one can fully believe in Torah and also in evolution, because they especially do not conflict for many reasons (I actually wrote a whole article about this in YU's Jewish thought magazine). Evolution is also different than the documentary hypothesis since it has hard scientific evidence.
A relevant anecdote I was told by a Rabbi/Professor (I would use names, but should I on the internet?): A Rabbi/biologist was discussing evolution and saying that the theory that God planted evidence of evolution to test our faith is not something that God would do. A Bible Professor chimed in, “Then why did God make the Torah look like it has four authors!?” (Note: everyone in this story accepts evolution and does not accept the documentary hypothesis)

Combining both of these topics again, another Rabbi/Prof likes to joke that the debate about the authorship of Torah is one large proof of evolution, because each side has adapted their position to such an extent that they will be able to incorporate any evidence thrown at them by the other side into their own view. In other words, any ‘evidence’ mentioned by Bible critics about different styles of writing, or even duplicate stories is understood by traditionalists to be a manifestation of the complexity of God and his Torah. And any time the traditionalists will throw a verse at the Bible critics that seems to not fit within their hypothesis, they will simply respond that it was added later, or for stylistic reasons, etc.

To summarize, all of these are issues of perspectives, and therefore not really bothersome. If one assumes God can’t write or talk, or assumes miracles or prophecy are impossible, then he can make sense of the Bible through Bible criticism. Without the perspective of those assumptions, the documentary hypothesis is just another alternative reading that is not any more compelling (maybe even less compelling) than the traditional view. Also, if one wants to assume there is no God, then he can explain the ‘God idea’ through psychology. Without that perspective, the conjuring of God by humans is just a theoretical alternative to what actually happened: that the God idea exists because God Himself exists. Since both of these are issues of perspective, it is almost by definition that neither side can ever disprove the other side, whatever evidence they bring. Therefore, the two sides are not in direct conflict.

First Aid

To walk through the world is a project that quickly grows tiring, and often quite difficult. This is not to say that life does not have its joys, but dealing with its challenges takes up much, if not most, of our time on Earth. Many of us find solace and meaning in religion. In fact, in his archetype theory, Carl Jung said that all humans have a God-archetype, or an idea that an old man with a white beard runs the world and is watching over us, because we need to believe that. So to start this blog (interactively!), I'd like to ask you what you think: is the function of religion merely a band-aid to help us deal with the chaos of life? Have we created the idea of religion and of God in order to delude ourselves into believing that there is some divine order and meaning in life?

Disclaimer: I have definitely played up my inner devil's advocate for this post.