Rabbi Shaya's Thoughts

Faith vs. Reason

Friday, January 28, 2022 - 10:27 AM

Religion, to many, means faith or blind faith. Just believe in G-d and everything else follows. If you don’t have faith, then you can’t be religious. This logic can be used to come to the opposite conclusion as well: logical people are not religious since they use logic and not faith to come to their decisions. Hence, religious people are unreasonable. They may be kind and giving, but they can also be fanatical and unbearable because they don’t use logic and reason to come to their conclusions, only faith, and faith can lead a person down a path where one should not go. So says logic. The faithful obviously disagree and feel that it is faith that keeps them going. They have a higher purpose, they are connected to G-d and there is more to their actions than just what makes them feel good.

This in short, is the age-old argument between the faithful and the atheist, between those who believe and those who don’t. Which makes us wonder, what happens in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim? Last week, we read how G-d gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai. The Jews accepted with complete faith to do whatever G-d asked of them. No questions asked. Yet, this week, the Torah portion starts by teaching us logical mitzvot, mitzvot that make sense to us. True, they are commandments, but they resonate with us, they are reasonable! We can understand them. When we fulfill these requests from G-d we are doing them not out of faith, but out of reason. What happened here? Why the shift from a “faith-based religion” to a “reason-based relationship with G-d” (did you even know that you can have that)? Yet, as the Torah portion moves on, we go right back to the famous verse in which the Jews say, Naaseh V’nishma, meaning “We will do and we will listen” (the Torah does jump back and forth in the narrative). Clearly, this verse is telling us that Judaism is based on faith.

How to we explain this sequence of events: Faith – reason – faith?

The foundation of Judaism is based on faith. However, from the earliest moments after the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, G-d wanted to make it clear to us that we should not rely on faith alone to have a relationship with Him. We must use our minds, our thinking heads to understand what it is that G-d wants from us. True, there are some mitzvot that might be more difficult for us to understand while others are very easy and logical. But that is beside the point; the main thrust of Judaism is that we should study, learn, and understand. Judaism should be meaningful and understandable to us. We should enjoy our connection to G-d. It should not be a burden on us. However, there are times, that for whatever reason, all logic gets thrown out the window, and all that we have left is faith.

That is why the Torah starts off with faith, moves on to logic, and then finishes with faith. To teach us that the foundation of Judaism is based on a strong, never-wavering faith in G-d. However, we must nurture this faith with a deep understanding. Therefore, we learn and debate as we try to dig deeper into the meaning of the whats, whens, whys, and hows of what G-d commands of us. In the end we know that even if we don’t understand, it all boils down to faith.

So, is it faith vs. reason, or is it faith AND reason?

Making the Impossible Possible

Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - 12:05 PM

There are times in life when we feel stuck. We may think to ourselves, how in the world can we accomplish this task? It’s impossible for us to do this! Yet somehow or another, we find the strength within us to be able to accomplish the task at hand. Does that ability come from within us or from some outside power? Perhaps a mixture of both?

We find examples of this in our own life all the time. We are put to a challenge and we wonder if we are up to this task. Can I do this particular thing or is it too much for me to do? Yet we go ahead and just do it – because we were forced by circumstances, perhaps even against our will.

From where do we get the strength?

In this week’s Torah portion, Yitro, we learn that when G-d gave the Torah to the Jewish nation, we “heard the lightning and saw the thunder!” You read that correctly. Our senses were so in tune that we heard what we usually see and we saw what we usually hear. Well, that is at least the way Rabbi Akiva understood the verse. Rabbi Yishmael, however, understood the verse a bit differently and took the more practical, albeit less literal, interpretation, and said that they saw the lightning and heard the thunder.

There are of course reasons for their disagreements, but what is interesting is that they do agree on one thing: G-d was creating a bond with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. The question is, how was it done? Was G-d telling us that He works in wonderous ways? That it is He who runs this world, and therefore He performed a miracle that betrayed the laws of nature, so we could have “seen the thunder and heard the lightning?” Or was the message that the world is meant for us to live in, and to reveal G-dliness within the confines of this limited space? If so, the thunder was heard and the lightning was seen, in a very natural way.

The truth is that the two rabbis are not arguing but teaching us an important lesson. We need to always remember that we should keep both perspectives alive in our outlook on life. Yes, we live in this physical, mundane world. We see and hear things through our limited perspectives. However, there are times when we have to, and have the ability to, see what is usually heard and to hear what is usually seen. How? When we connect to G-d. We can do that when we learn the Torah, and we connect to G-d. That is when we recognize that this world is G-d’s world.

We are real, and G-d is real. We can make the impossible possible.

What doesn’t break you makes you stronger

Monday, January 17, 2022 - 11:33 AM

What doesn’t break you makes you stronger. This is a well-known saying, but what does it mean? Why are we so sure that if we don’t break from the pressure of the “thing” (whatever the thing may be), we will come out stronger? Perhaps we will still come out weaker, even if we are not destroyed.

Many ideas in our world originate in the Torah. This concept, above, can also be found in this week’s Torah portion, Be’Shalach. The story is about how the Jews are stuck between the Egyptian army behind them and the Sea of Reeds in front of them, and they don’t know what to do. G-d instructs them to go directly into the sea and the sea will split on their behalf. In order for the water to remain divided so that they can pass through the sea to the other side, G-d has to perform a continuous miracle, holding the “walls of water” up on both sides. After the Jews pass through, the water returns to its original state, as it was since the creation of the world.

The Hebrew word used in the verse to say that the water returned to its original state, is L’eitanu, which can mean “to its original form,” however, it can also mean “to its original condition.” This is a wordplay that can mean to the original deal (condition i.e., deal) for which it was created.

To appreciate this nuance of the meaning of this word, we must understand what the deeper message being conveyed to us is. On the surface, the water is doing whatever G-d wants it to do. If G-d wants it to flow, it will flow, if G-d wants it to stand still it will stand still. If G-d wants it to split for the Jews to go through, it will do that as well. So what does it mean “to its original condition?”

G-d made a deal with the sea. He said, “I am going to create you only if you fulfill your ultimate purpose, if you do that job well, willingly, and enthusiastically; then, once you go back to your natural state of being, you will be even stronger that you were before.”

Of course, the sea has no mind of its own and it must follow whatever G-d wants it to do. True. However, if it just goes along with G-d’s plan, then over time, G-d will also allow the sea to dry up, perhaps die a natural death. However, if the sea shows that this temporary change in its nature is not something that it is upset about, but it understands that this is part of G-d’s plan, then it will come out stronger.

That is the reason why G-d put a condition on the sea to begin with. He didn’t have to make this deal; G-d wanted to make this deal so that He could reward the sea afterward.

In our life we experience the same thing. Our life can be plain vanilla, every day the same thing. No ups or downs. No challenges – just boring. However, G-d says, “I have a deal for you. I am going to throw you a curve ball. I am going to ask you to change your nature, just for a little while. If you go with the flow, a reward will come as well. I may ask you to stay still, or I may ask you to run. Whatever I ask, it will be a challenge, and if you succeed, the reward that will come out of your hard work will make you much greater and stronger than what you were as a person before you started.”

The challenges that we face are not here to break us but are here to strengthen us. Take up the challenge with love as it comes from G-d, as it was all part of the plan from the beginning.

When the Clock Strikes 12:00

Thursday, January 6, 2022 - 3:47 PM

This past week, people around the world were counting down to midnight. As the clock struck exactly 12:00, people celebrated the beginning of 2022. Today, with modern technology, we know the exact moment to celebrate. However, if you do some research, you will learn that the question of exactly when midnight occurs, or whether midnight belongs to the day before or the day after—or smack in between the two—is a complicated question. That is why most people try to avoid the issue, and we just raise our glass in celebration and say L’chayim, and we don’t think too much about it.

This makes us wonder, why did G-d, in this week’s Torah portion, Bo, decide to get Himself into hot water by saying that He would bring the tenth and final plague - the death of the first born - at exactly midnight.

In addition, no other plague was given a timeframe. At most, Moses let Pharaoh know that the next day a plague would come. That is a vague timeframe, and even the time that G-d was specific, Moses wouldn’t say exactly what G-d told him to say; instead he said K’chatzos, loosely translated to mean “at about” midnight. Why wouldn’t Moses say what G-d said, “exactly” at midnight?

Rashi takes a novel approach to the word K’chatzos. He explains, yes, it can mean “at about” midnight, but it can also mean so much more. We can interpret this word to mean “in between today and tomorrow,” since this time is very difficult to pinpoint. Even today, with all the technology that we have, it is very challenging to split this timeframe in half. Moses, who didn’t want to take the responsibility on his own shoulders to define that time, says “at about” this time, yet he still defined the meaning of this time: “In between the two days.”

However, let’s take this a bit deeper. Moses was not telling us when G-d would bring the tenth plague, but how He would bring the death of the first born!

The how is that it was G-d Himself who brought this tenth plague, and who brought the other nine plagues, and who performed all the miracles for the Jewish people. And for that matter, who runs this world. G-d was sending a message to the Egyptians and to the Jews alike: There is a Creator of this world. He is a master clockmaker, who knows how to make this world click. Who knows precisely how this world works – after all, He is G-d. That is why G-d says: B’chatzi Haleila at exactly midnight!

Moses, who wanted to emphasize G-d’s greatness, changed the word to say “at about” not to diminish the time, but to enhance its meaning.

We look at the clock and we may not know exactly when midnight is, however, we know that G-d does, and this fact reminds us of our Creator and our connection to G-d. This reminder tells us to take a moment and contemplate all the blessings that G-d gives us on a regular basis, the “exodus” and “redemption” that we experience each and every day.