[Avodah] How to teach emuna

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote:
: In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing
: people about the origin of the Jewish people...
:          If so, what did convince them?  If that's what you think, then I
: guess the whole thing really is a scam.

You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of
maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to
Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced
the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle
would say it is impossible for them to do so.

We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have
already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things.

I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I
identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to
believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons
(and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted.

I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2.

But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed.
E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote:
> If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it.

> Evidence, you will find aplenty.

And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote:
> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was
> not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement
> for internal consumption.

Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence
to create and develop their own justification for belief.

RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting
reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic --
teaching emunah (subtopic 1).

And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only
needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong
arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up
to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that
doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism,
since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with
all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line.

So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid
justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont'
accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a
few seconds of typing.

To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal
actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only
whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to
defuse the KP's power to convince.

On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today,
RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters
wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent
publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh
Nevuchim.
<http://www.jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain/item/the_maimonides_exchange_part_2_between_ethics_and_the_intellect>

Quoting from RJLK's response:

    R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual
    climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it
    primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle
    (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for
    the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik,
    along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot
    rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific
    examination of either the existence or order of the universe,
    since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize
    finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds
    of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes,
    "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated."

    Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R.
    Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean
    rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here
    my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress
    in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that,
    on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern
    flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is
    important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective
    religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views,
    it can provide us with a way of updating them.

    Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R.
    Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search
    for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He
    describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious
    experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's
    rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the
    transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in
    the world....

What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could
get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist,
and most later schools of philosophical though.

And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to
justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The
zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected
by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism,
although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag)
are currently dominant.

The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer
to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works
for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few
of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe.

The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with 

    The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel,
    who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles;
    who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having
    made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who
    sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets,
    who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats
    to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very
    large domain.

To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords,
the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with
Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah;
He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis.

The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in
concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos,
kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such
beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave
them to us.

To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And
I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks
his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments
(proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual
motivating justifications need not be the same.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha at aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
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