The Judaism, with which I grew up and came of age intellectually, was
a supremely rationalistic one. In left-of-Orthodox
circles in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and into
the early 1990’s, Judaism was all about building a religion of reason and
forcing that framework upon the key texts of our tradition. Orthodox Judaism was less so, but still many
Orthodox Jews were rationalists. And this
rationalistic impulse is not the exclusive territory of Judaism; it is organic
to Western thought.
I’ll never forget the first Greek Orthodox
priest with whom I worked in the Air Force chaplaincy. At the social gathering where we welcomed him
and his wife to our staff, it came out that both had been raised in Protestant
Christianity and had even been missionaries of a sort as young adults. Why had they ultimately embraced Eastern
Orthodox Christianity? The wife said
matter-of-factly that they’d grown weary with Western rationalism which
discounts the mysteries of life and faith.
I was fascinated by this answer.
Later, my colleague later gave me a short book explaining the Orthodox
faith on a basic level. The book’s
author explained that, to an Orthodox Christian, Protestant and Catholic
Christianity are not opposites but two sides of the same coin. And that coin is Western rationalistic
thought, superimposed upon the Christian faith.
Now I’m sure that my Protestant and Catholic colleagues would have taken
issue with that assessment! But to a Jew
who was struggling with the mystery of faith, it was eye-opening.
It was probably unavoidable for a rationalist
to be struggling with the mystery of faith at that moment, during the year
following the cataclysmic attacks on America on 9-11. When we watched the two airplanes hitting the
Twin Towers again and again, and watched the towers tumble to the earth
releasing that incredible dust cloud over Lower Manhattan, it seemed my very
worldview was challenged. The attacks themselves
had been dismaying enough, but what was far more discomforting was the sense
that everything underpinning my beliefs regarding the world had…come tumbling
down.
The rationalist tries to construct a
worldview where every fact supports the next.
The rationalist tries to explain each and every aspect of reality with
an eye toward integrating disparate elements into a unified system of
cause-and-effect. The rationalist
applies the same criteria to religion and faith that he would to, say,
astrophysics. But at the end of the day,
that is not possible.
In this week’s Torah reading, we
find the following: Hear, O Israel,
today you cross the Jordan, to come and drive out nations that are greater and
mightier than you, cities that are great and fortified up to the heavens, a
great and lofty people, children of giants, that you knew and whom you have
heard, “who can stand up against the children of a giant?” (Deuteronomy 9.1-2)
Moses is preparing the people Israel
for what they will see and experience when the cross over the Jordan to claim
their destiny. He knows that they will succeed militarily in
their mission, because it has been foretold.
But he cautions them not to attribute this success to their own merit: Do not say in your heart, when Hashem
pushes them away from before you, saying, “Because of my righteousness did
Hashem bring me to possess this Land and because of the wickedness of these
nations did Hashem drive them away from before you. (…) You should know that not
because of your righteousness does Hashem your G-d give you this good land to
possess it.” (ibid ibid 4, 6)
The victors in a war tend to see
their side as having won because of their virtue. And sometimes the victors are virtuous. But in reality, the victors are the ones with
the means and the will to win. And those
are not the same as virtue.
So Moses is cautioning the people not
to attribute their coming victory to their virtue. Rather to G-d’s decision that His purposes
are served by the Israelites’ victory. Their
victory won’t be explainable in conventional, rationalistic terms. They would be well-advised to accept this
victory as the unearned gift it will be.
In our age, the world sees religion
as being outdated, as the source of all of man’s foibles of the past, as the
source of all evil. Scientific knowledge
is the antidote to religious ‘superstition.’
If we accept as truth only that which can be empirically observed, we
will be protected from the falsehoods of religious past. In this way of thinking, any sense of wonder
that we experience, if it isn’t from direct and objective observation, is to be
dismissed as a quaint holdover.
But here’s the problem with this way
of thinking. Not everything we
experience can be objectively comprehended. When the Israelites crossed over the Jordan,
they were well-advised to accept that their victory would be attributable
neither to their virtue nor their military prowess. Rather, they should accept that Hashem was
going to vanquish their enemies for a higher purpose. And they would do well to perceive and be
willing to be the instruments of a higher purpose. This
is counterintuitive to the rationalist’s way of thinking and seeing the world.
We too, in our day, would do well to
accept the existence of a will that transcends empirical apprehension. To understand that there is a
Sovereign G-d who has plan and purpose. Not
to belittle the sciences, but to understand that there is a dimension to life
that is not quantifiable through scientific enquiry. Cause and effect is an important element in
our reality, but it doesn’t account for all reality.
It is incumbent upon us to conduct
ourselves with virtue. To always focus
on the highest ethical standards. To
take very seriously the responsibility that we carry, since by our very name –
Israel – we carry the name of the Eternal G-d. But we must also understand that our role vis-à-vis
the nations, is not dependent upon our virtue.
It is in spite of our overall lack of virtue. The mystery of chosen-ness cannot be
explained in human terms, because it is Divine in origin.
It is important to study the world
around us, to empirically observe the phenomena manifest in our natural world
to the best of our ability. But it is
also important for us, as it was for our ancient forebears, to accept that
there is another dimension to life. One
that does not look to the natural world for answers. One that accepts the gifts we’ve been
given. And applies them with
thankfulness. Shabbat shalom.
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