{"id":39,"date":"2006-10-05T15:34:04","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T15:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/summametaphysica.com\/ge\/6000-leaps-of-faith\/"},"modified":"2018-04-23T16:21:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T16:21:58","slug":"6000-leaps-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/ge\/6000-leaps-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"60.00 LEAPS OF FAITH
(pps.41-44)"},"content":{"rendered":"

hard cover page 41<\/p>\n

Man of Halachah is prepared to take leaps of faith, but, notwithstanding his acceptance of his own finitude, he is averse to the emotionally absurd. Thus, Judaism generally shies away from leaps of faith that are either intellectually flawed or emotionally grating.167<\/sup> Judaism has historically distinguished and differentiated itself by carefully circumscribing the “blind faith” aspect of religion and carefully appealing to reasoned theological development. While Judaism embraces selected “leaps of faith” as well as the concept of purely ritual law (chok<\/em>), the general thrust of Jewish theology, given the choice, is the line of reasoned analysis.<\/p>\n

Judaism already requires several serious “leaps of faith” from its adherents.168<\/sup> One can argue that these include the (interrelated) leaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n

there is a Divine, as Judaism perceives God;
\nthe Torah and its text are genuine, correct, and accurate;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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167 <\/sup>See Greenberg. “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire,” p. 27.<\/p>\n

168 <\/sup>See Malbim: “. . . the whole of Judaism, apart from these two precepts [the existence and unity of God] is based on faith, faith in Moses as the messenger of God; faith that all that he commanded constituted the authentic message of God.” As cited in Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot,<\/em> p. 304. The aforementioned two precepts are attainable, according to the Malbim, Rambarn, and others, by intellectual discernment.<\/p>\n

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hard cover page 42<\/p>\n

the Masorah<\/em> is correct;
\nthe Divine will cares about my adherence to Judaism today;
\nthere is a moral imperative for the Jew to be a man of Halachah.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus several crucial leaps of faith are embraced by Judaism. And while by definition monotheistic religion requires at least one “leap of faith,” the greater any religion’s reliance on “leaps of faith.” the more fragile its foundations.169<\/sup> Religious viability can be endangered by right-wing theological enthusiasm, just as it can be sapped by left-wing rationalism.<\/p>\n

Surely religious man takes as a premise that finite man cannot fully comprehend infinite God. Nevertheless, within that context, it is surely a plausible exercise to construct a palatable theological edifice.<\/p>\n

Judaism, on the whole, is receptive to chukim<\/em>, which are, by definition, without any apparent reason other than their Divine origin. Judaism, as a religion, is receptive to emotionally palatable “leaps of faith” and, according to most, to Divine “miracles”;170 <\/sup>but as a religious system it is emotionally honest and intellectually rigorous.<\/p>\n

The fact that Judaism contains strong intellectual components should not be confused with Hermann Cohen’s “religion of reason.” For. contrary to Cohen’s formulation, Judaism does indeed validly contain not only a high level of reason, but also major leaps of faith along with a very strong ritual component. The ritual component is often not grounded in any rationale other than that it is Divinely ordained, which is its necessary and sufficient grounding. However, even the ritual component is somewhat subject to intellectual analysis.<\/p>\n

Judaism has historically been what Marshall McLuhan would call a “cool” religion, as opposed to a “hot” religion. It is not frenzied, starry-eyed, or frantic.<\/p>\n

It does invoke and require “leaps of faith,” yet it is well-considered, thoughtful, and even occasionally somewhat cynical in its religious approach. It will sift through the evidence endlessly before deciding a particularly intractable issue.<\/p>\n

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169 <\/sup>See Buber, “What Should We Do About the Ten Commandments?” in his Israel and the World.<\/em> New York: Schocken, 1948, p. 86, as cited in Herberg, Judaism and Modern Man<\/em>.<\/em> “This affirmation-the ‘leap of faith’ that springs out of the decision for God-is not a leap of despair but rather a leap in triumph over despair.”<\/p>\n

170 <\/sup>See Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man<\/em>, p. 79. “He does not require any miracles or wonders in order to understand the Torah. He approaches the world of Halakhah with his mind and intellect, just as cognitive man ap-proaches the natural realm. And since he relies upon his intellect, he places his trust in it and does not suppress any of his psychic faculties in order to merge into some supernal existence.”<\/p>\n

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hard cover page 43<\/p>\n

Judaism tries to “cool off” overzealous would-be converts. While its ultimate aim is a spiritual upliftment, it is still wary of extremes and of overemotionalisrn in any direction. It is wary of the self-denying ascetic and is wary of the man of frenzy.<\/p>\n

The development of Masorah<\/em> through the present day is a continuum of reasoned analysis, debate carefully circumscribed by accepted doctrine, rules of explication, and prior halachic guidelines.<\/p>\n

Indeed, one of the elements which has sustained the Jew through the fearsome millennia has been the careful grounding of Jewish law and doctrine. This has inculcated an internal confidence which has withstood the manifold severe tests of time.<\/p>\n

From our theological perspective, we would maintain that Judaism can embrace limited “leaps of faith,” provided the leaps are not counter-intuitive. A “leap of faith” may be positive-intuitive or neutral but should not be counter-intuitive. In order to incorporate a “leap of faith,” Jewish man must have faith in the leap. Eliezer Berkovits notes as follows:<\/p>\n

Yehuda Halevi, who was not a rationalist, found it necessary to exclaim: “God forbid that there should be anything in the Torah that is contrary to reason!” The Torah is not absurd and the authentic Jew does not engage in religious acrobatics. To believe in the absurd is absurd.171<\/sup><\/p>\n

Bleich drives home the point:<\/p>\n

Jewish philosophers have repeatedly stressed that God cannot command man to accept the illogical or the irrational. The human intellect, no matter how much it may desire to do so, cannot affirm the absurd. Man may, if prompted by a sufficiently compelling reason, postulate the existence of unicorns or mer- maids, but he cannot affirm the existence of a geometric object which is at one and the same time endowed with the properties of both a square and a circle. He cannot fathom the concept of a square circle, much less affirm the ontological existence of such an object.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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171 <\/sup>Berkovits, With God in Hell, p. 123.<\/p>\n

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Propositions which constitute objects of belief must, then, first, and foremost do no violence to human credulity. They must be readily apprehended and accepted by human thought.172<\/sup><\/p>\n

Judaism does not teach that God requires of man a “leap of faith” in the Kierkegaardian sense, i.e., blind faith to the extent of acceptance of the absurd. It teaches, rather, that God’s beneficience assures man that his diligence and perseverance will ultimately lead to understanding and intellectual satisfaction.173<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aquinas notes:174<\/sup> “Faith signifies the assent of the intellect to that which is believed.”175<\/sup>
\nTheology can parry almost any philosophical challenge by responding that God’s ways are mysterious. No one challenges the assertion. The crucial point is whether Judaism wishes to embrace this proposition as a substitute for an integrated philosophical structure. Judaism prides itself on a religious intellectual rigor, if not an intellectual elitism, as well. But Judaism cannot have it both ways. If Judaism claims to be intellectually rigorous, the philosophical underpinnings of God’s interaction with man need philosophical structure\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand a philosophical structure which is integrated with the balance of Jewish philosophy. If the philosophical underpinnings of the interaction between God and man are essentially allowed to rest on the proposition that the ways of God are mysterious, then Judaism is not fatally flawed, but the claim to intellectual defensibility becomes most vulnerable to challenge.<\/p>\n

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172 <\/sup>Bleich, With Perfect Faith, p. 6.<\/p>\n

173 <\/sup>Ibid., p. 11.<\/p>\n

174 <\/sup>As cited in Frazier, Issues in Religion,<\/em> p. 259.<\/p>\n

175 <\/sup>See Russell, The Problems of Philosophy<\/em> (New York: Holt, 1912), p. 39. “All knowledge must be built on our intuitive beliefs; if they are rejected, nothing is left.” Also, Pascal, Pens\u00c3\u00a9es,<\/em> no. 274. “All our reasoning reduces itself to yielding to feeling.” Both cited in Herberg, Judaism and Modern Man<\/em>,<\/em> p. 38.<\/p>\n

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