| נשלח ב-30/10/2005 06:55 |
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חובת האדם בעולמו - גם אם לא מאמינים?
I have got an interesting question which I cannot, obviously, ask any of my rabbis. I would much appreciate if I can get a Torah'dig answer from one of the learned scholars here.
I have chronicled my struggles with belief in the almighty for about a year in a blog, which by now I have discontinued. The question I have pertains to the obligation one has on this world.
Suppose one does not believe in God, yet he still is wiling to act in accordance with the Torah, adhere to it's laws and follow it's rules. What is his status according to Jewish law? After all, it is impossible to require someone to believe, even if it is a commandment.
I understand that there are certain commandments which are certainly unattainable in such a case, such as Ahavas Hashem or fearing him.
Also, it would be interesting to know what are the requirements of someone who does not believe? Is the person to blame?
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| נשלח ב-30/10/2005 17:36 |
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Just a quick one liner for now,
הלואי אותי עזבו ותורתי שמרו
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| נשלח ב-30/10/2005 19:49 |
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Any , the Posuk that you've brought says that God ask to leave him and to keep his Torah the emphasis is on God ordering and him ask to keep his Torah.
hassid
I can't think of one good reason to keep the torah with out believing in god.
Not only the Mitzvot yuo've mantioned as: Love God and fear him, but a vast number of other mitzvoth . From Yetzihat Mithraim and Shabbat etc.
Not to mention the fact that there is no point by doing that
תוקן על ידי - cosmo_jew - 30/10/2005 19:49:51
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| נשלח ב-30/10/2005 20:51 |
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Cosmo,
The reason is simply because I'm stuck in this life and I would rather be doing what is required than finding ways how to not do them or whining. I can keep Shabbos and remind the Yetzias Mitzrayim every day without any problems; however, one can wonder if I am doing nothing by just saying things I do not believe in.
The question really is, is there no point?
Also, how can God require me to believe?
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| נשלח ב-30/10/2005 22:59 |
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Hassid
Two separated issues and I'll concentrate on your first question
I can barely see a point in observing Torah when one believes in god: meaning why does the fact that there is a God forces one to obey his rules. But maybe out of fear.
Even
less then the above I can see a reason to keep a set of anachronistic rules. The only thing I can understand , that one does not want to change a comfort and warm community.
תוקן על ידי - עצור_כאן - 31/10/2005 2:13:22
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| נשלח ב-30/10/2005 23:14 |
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I was referring to the Halachic view on this situation. Perhaps it should include footnotes with a citation of a rabbinical source.
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 03:06 |
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Cosmo,
As Hasid has already pointed out ot you, he wanted the answer based on what Judaism would tell him to do, hence my answer from the Drash on the posuk. הלואי אותי עזבו ותורתי שמרו
The logic behind such a statement is IMHO due to the fact that Judaism doesn't really see God as fathomable or understandable. At the end of the day you can't really believe in 'blank'. Judaism isn't interested in belief; it's interested in action, ethical action, period.
As I quoted from a well accredited Sefer, Judaism is not about 'doing the will of God' for God has no will and no gain by you doing anything, it's ONLY about losing your irrational self-centerdness and to start doing things because it's the right thing to do.
'' ענין העבודה לשמה בפנימיות, אינו לעשות נחת רוח לבורא, כי זה מבט של נברא ואמרו כן לסבר את האוזן. אולם בפנימיות, העיקר שלא יהיה לגרמיה, וד"ל......יש שתפסו את האין סוף לפי בחינות הנפש של הנברא כפשוטו, כרצון של האין סוף, ענג של האין סוף, וכו' וכו', ובאמת כל זה אינו כן כלל...... זה טעות בעצם שמביט על האין סוף כעל נברא...."
This sefer is in good company as Hillels answer to the impatient wannabe convert that doing unto others as you would have it done for yourself is the whole of the Torah and the rest is only ways how to achieve this end.
R' Akiva too said the same.
Don't use the simple meaning of the text to disprove me because;
A- You will then have to go back to the primitive form of Anthropomorphism so that you'd stay true to the simple meaning of the text.
B- I am convinced that if and when you will discover a way of life which you will feel is the truth, you will explain to the masses with as little depth as possible so as not to lose them completely. For the people with superior intellect, for people who can understand fine and subtle concepts you will incorporate in your speeches and texts many subtle messages which the smart people will grasp the deeper meaning of your message. You will not give a deep philosophical text for the masses.
In light of the above I ask you Mr. Hasid, why should you stop praying and miss out on the opportunity for meditation on our utter dependency on Existence, which will make us humble (metaphorically we would say humble before God) and will make us see others as much part of existence as our own selves so that we will stop with this stupidity of putting ourselves in front of others.
Why should you stop saying berachoth and again miss out on the above opportunity.
On the contrary, go ahead and wear Tephilin, don Tzitz so that you should have the humility concept through action (ritual) and emotion too, not only intellectually.
Keep Shabbos so that you remember that Existence is master of the world and you really only rest, i.e. you do nothing. Until you'll maybe realize that there really is no such entity as ''you'' at all.
But the people around you keep all the mitzvoth for different reasons I hear you saying. Well because most people don't have your intellectual capacity do you have to lower yourself to their level?
Did the writer(s) of the Torah really mean these deep concepts I'm writing about here? It's the same like asking if this here simple good man who will never harm a soul, if this man knows all the deep intellectual reasons for being ethical. The answer is no, he cant articulate it but I still would be totally honest when I will go ahead and explain what is it really that's pushing him, what is it that he feels so strongly about when he will never do bad to his fellow man. No, I will not be lying when I explain the lectures he give to his children on the importance of ethics, even if I use terms and concepts that he has never heard of. Or maybe you'll say that the psychologist who explains someone's behavior with some deep psychological concepts is lying too, for after all we can be sure that this individual being explained has no idea about all these terms.
The writers of the constitution claimed that 'all men are created equal' yet they didn't abolish slavery. They somehow had a mental blockage, they knew the concept but didn't grasp it in it's fullness. Heck they didn't even give women the same rights as men.
The writer of the Torah could have had an intuition that God is Havayah, Existence but couldn't rid of the concept of God being a kindly father in heaven, or at least prudently realized in the futility in trying to convey this deep intuition.
In the other Eshkol you have so aptly explained that if this is what the Torah is all about then there is a risk of it being altered at whim. I would just add that this is true only in regards to the simple folk, who don't care much if they are wrong philosophically, that is why there is the simple text, of a God with all humanlike attributes who will become very angry or happy according to our deeds. Deep concepts are just not meant to be told for the ''people of the land'' i.e. the simple populace.
Did the Writer of the Torah really have to make an all out campaign against some traditional creation myths? So as to leave the people confused and upset. Or maybe do as Hillel said כלה נאה וחסודה that truth is what is the right thing to do not always that which corroborates the actual facts.
As then so now, by saying it's just about being ethical then there will be wholesale abandonment of adherence to the Torah (ethical) laws, as you yourself have said. Hence the Rambam wrote many things differently in Sefer Hayad vs. Moreh Nevuchim.
But to lose all these beautiful reminders and rituals NEVER.
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 04:03 |
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Dear Any,
You contradict yourself in the very first paragraph: if Hassid was asking for a Halochedic or Talmudic answer how come did you give the contrary?
Not that I've anything against your wonderful and enlightening thoughts but they don't represent judism, no matter how many citation you'll find.
Judaism is based on God will all though we do not grasp and understand it. Not to mention the fact that you sensed it by yourself but tried some how to push your progressive and modern insights in to the torah.
What I can't understand is why? Why do you fill that you need to some how attach your insights to the torah neither God nor the rabbinical world force to do it.
By the way the argument that the concept God is as you put it -" about losing your irrational self-centeredness and to start doing things because it's the right thing to do." – is wrong:
a) History shows the contrary, most of the horrors were made in the name of God (especially by the monotheism)
b) Take Buddha for instance he tot all the noble insights with no god above all. And it was approximately in the same era when the torah was granted by Moses.
p.s from what book is the citation above?
תוקן על ידי - cosmo_jew - 31/10/2005 4:04:33
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 06:04 |
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Dearest Cosmo,
Hasid didn't ask if he is halachically allowed to disbelieve, he asked that being that the case is such that he factually disbelieves is there then any value or logic to go on doing the Mitzvoth Masiyot.
My response was that God "wants" us to keep the mitzvoth although we leave him out of the picture.
As a matter of fact maybe the Peshat (ok I really mean Derush) is not as a last resort as a bedieved, namely 'I wish that although you have left me you still keep the Torah, No, God says my wish is precisely as follows, "I wish you would stop already talking about me (leave go of me already, let go of this metaphor) and just keep the Torah (just be ethical)
You say that Buddha and Moshe were the same time. Not exactly, Buddha attained enlightment around 535 BC and the Jews came into Israel like 700 to 1000 years before that.
The same time that Buddah taught his beautifull truths the Prophets in Israel were doing the same Amos Isiah are pure universalists mocking sacrifices and extolling virtue above all.
The prophets maybe didnt totally eradicate sacrifices (they allowed it only in the Temple)yet Buddah too didn't eradicate idol worship, on the contrary there is much more idol worship (maybe mistakenly so) in Buddhism than in Judaism.
It's amazing that when it comes to encapsulating Judaism, or Buddhism (I think the same goes for Christianity) the one concept is always ETHICS.
Judaism says as much as the famous story of Hillel mentioned above. Or that of R' Akiva.
Here's an almost carbon copy story in Buddhism;
Once a very old king went to see an old hermit who lived in a bird's nest in the top of a tree, "What is the most important Buddhist teaching?" The hermit answered, "Do no evil, do only good. Purify your heart." The king had expected to hear a very long explanation. He protested, "But even a five-year old child can understand that!" "Yes," replied the wise sage, "but even an 80-year-old man cannot do it."
It is very possible that Buddhism has a clearer message of ethics and of what the most important things are. But what are the chances that we can become Buddhists. For us the Buddhist path is a much slower path. For people born and bred in a certain religion, with family and many friends dedicated to that religion we should find the truths, the truths that are really there albeit not glaringly obvious, in our own religion.
Let us find love and happiness in our own wife and children why should we look for "strange wives" for love?
Please understand that once the other religion is just as much about ethics as our own then it is basically the same religion, different means with the same ends.
Let us use the means that are more easily and readily available to us.
Again I stand by my postion that the DEEPER MEANING of Judaism is all about Ethics.
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 06:25 |
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Dear Ani
You are writing some beautiful concepts, but I can't see how they fit in to torah or Judaism, it looks to me that the whole bible was created for the sole purpose of giving to the children of Israel a nationality, and along the way it also includes some common ethics.
As for Hassid
There is the concept of מתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 06:52 |
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Dear Any, I'll respond tomorrow but one correction I meant Ezra Ha'soffer not Moses
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 07:02 |
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Tzuriel,
Even if you will be correct with assuming that the Torah doesn't have a deeper meaning other than the simple text.
Can you totally ignore the way God is understood in the Torah as Havaiah?
Even if you will be correct with totally disregarding the Name of God in the Torah to direct us to a deeper meaning of the whole God thing.
Can you totally ignore the Prophets who have proclaimed again and againg that Worshiping God is all about helping the downtrodden and the needy.
Even if you will be correct in disregarding the Prophets
Can you totally ignore the way Hillel encapsulated the Torah in his beautiful one liner דעלך סאני לחברך לא תעבוד Or can you totally ignore R' Akiva's statement that ואהבת לרעך כמוך זה כלל גדול בתורה?
Even if you will somehow find legitimacy in ignoring all of the above ,
I ask you,
WHY,
Why don't you try to live with the meaning of judaism being what can conceivably be said to be the possible approach of many of the sages quoted here and above.
WHY,
Why can a frum jew live with the Rabbinical Judaism, a Judaism which by any account is radically different than what would go for the simple meaning of the text, yet you can't swallow anything that isn't the most simple primitive definition of the text?
WHY
Why do you care that it "isn't the real Judaism"
Live it and find spirtiual sustanence or live it and find it sucking the life force out of you.
It's your choice.
ובחרת בחיים
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 20:01 |
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Dear Friends,
You have touched the crux of what the founding of the hebrew Atzor was all about. This was often expressed over there through a saying that it is unimportant if the Torah was given from heaven, but rather if we find heaven in the Torah.
For a person who chooses to live according to his whims and/or does not attempt to educate himself to increase self discipline and control, there should be no purpose in keeping the Torah, because he is not looking for heaven. Only for one who does want to work on himself and who is looking for a satisfactory system to serve this purpose, the question arises whether the Torah is the best system for his personality and circumstances or not.
There are some people who do strive to become more self controlled people ("better persons") but they still fail to see what's in the Torah that could help them. In many cases, that failure does not stem from lack of knowledge out of ignoring the Torah, but from having been so hurt by the religious education and thus disgusted by it. It is emotionally too hard for them to relate to the Torah with cold blood. Especially for such who have socially-officially stepped out, it seems to be too difficult to reconsider and re-learn the Tora the way Ani_Bapetach suggests. Someone in the hebrew Atzor mentioned Bashevis-Singer's "Baaltshuva" in this context of not being able to believe in something one needs for one's own moral therapy.
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 21:20 |
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Any,
In the end, I believe, we both agree that after all it is not a real Jewish interpretation to the Torah.
It's not right to pick one solitary notion and broaden it and make it the core of Judaism. Judaism is first of all a (yes you may say primitive) simple belief in god. That is the most important foundation and therefore gods' commandment stand many times against humanities
Cause obeying god is above all.
Having said that ,it seems clear to me that one without the other couldn't exsist. It's impossible to get an Halochadic answer for something that conterdict the very essence of Halocha, ie obeying god.
One who want to be moral and doing good dids does not need to keep most of the Mitzvoth only tha few of them which are concentrating in – "Ben O'dom La' Khavairoy" and even those are some time not moral.
Yes, I agree that one can learn a lot from the Torah But there is a gap between learning and enriching oneself or obeying.
I'' leave the Buddha debate for another time maybe we should open a separate thread for it.
S'
It all boils down to that….
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| נשלח ב-31/10/2005 23:01 |
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Dear Hasid,
We here are bickering back and forth on the issue of your predicament. Can you weigh in your two cents? Tell me please if my point has any merit in your eyes.
Thanks
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| נשלח ב-1/11/2005 04:31 |
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Ani,
This idea is too foreign for me to digest it, yet.
If I understood you correctly that the whole concept of God is just a metaphorical 'big daddy' who keeps count, and was only created as a tool to conform the simple minded to the geniuses ideas or perhaps as a rallying point to which all enslave.
The problem I have with it is that it failed. As Cosmo mentioned before, this clinging to a creator or God created more inhumane cruelty than anything else on earth. Can you imagine the real 'world peace' we would have had not God been created. Imagine a fight free Rodney!
Second, if it is in fact just a farce than it's really up to me to decide if I want to accept it's teachings or not. Even if we agree on what is moral and what is not I can still decide that for my own egoistic reasons I will call myself the exception. (It works for me when driving on the shoulder during rush hour, if everyone would be so inclined traffic would snarl there too, but I am one of the only few who dare.) at least I would be able to drop certain mitzvos which are only here for the sake of identifying oneself or 'belonging', things I might not care about.
I might be simple minded but I don't get it.
Tzuriel,
מתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה sounds good, I used it myself – on my blog, to explain why I decided to do Teshuvah.
Sachliel,
Shouldn't the Torah than be updated to the nowadays universally recognized morals? Can we still read a bout killing Amoleik and father selling their daughters into forced marriages?
Ani, Sorry if I sound uneducated, but may I ask what this Havaiah thing is? I recall you using this word before.
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