[Avodah] Thinking about, knowing about, and knowing G-d
Micha Berger via Avodah
avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Thu Sep 10 12:14:52 PDT 2015
On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 12:27:43AM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Areivim wrote:
: R' ZS:
:> The Nachum in your story is too busy to think about HKBH, and that's not
:> good, but OTOH HKBH Himself said "I wish they would forget me and keep my
:> Torah", so this Nachum is better than someone who is constantly
:> thinking about HKBH but doesn't keep mitzvos. But this is why Tanya
:> (ch 41) says to interrupt ones learning once an hour to think about why one
:> is learning.
: This discussion reminds me that there's another step - not only to think
: about Hashem, but to _know_ about Hashem, as in the old story (excerpted
: from a piece I wrote for "A Daily Dose of Torah"):
: R' Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev studied for an extended period of time with
: the Maggid, R' Dov Ber of Mezeritch. When he returned, his father-in-law -
: who did not approve of R' Levi Yitzchok's leanings towards chassidus - asked
: him, "What did you learn there?" R' Levi Yitzchok answered, "I learned that
: Hashem exists." His father-in-law, annoyed, protested that everyone knows
: that, and to prove it, asked the maid, "Does Hashem exist?" She answered,
: "Certainly!"
: "She says it," R' Levi Yitzchok responded, "but I know it!"
: Certainly pertinent to Malchiyos.
I often quote something R/Prof Shalom Carmy wrote in
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol07/v07n087.shtml#07> (Aug '01):
> [RGStudent: <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol07/v07n086.shtml>]
>> However, in his Al HaTeshuvah (pp. 195-201), R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik
>> investigates what it means to "know" God. As he points out, it is
>> impossible to know God. Rather, the Rambam means that we are obligated to
>> constantly recognize God's existence. As it says in Mishlei (3:6), "In all
>> your ways know Him." Cf. Rabbeinu Yonah's commentary to Mishlei, ad loc.
> People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to take
> for granted things that I don't.
> The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about
> G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising
> these proofs is identical with knowing G-d.
> Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except as
> a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence.
RMYG's point is similar to that in the quote from RGS.
There is a difference between knowing about Gcd and knowing Gcd.
The latter is experiential, and doesn't demand proof. And IMHO more
related to Malkhios.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive.
micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner
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