Torah Truth

Following Part 2 of our series on Idol Worship we now know that Faith is an inevitable proper of any human being at any time of human history. From religiosity to atheism, all ideas taking control of the human mind represent some kind of Belief, Trust and Faith. As we mentioned in Part 2, the dictionary definition implies that Faith is such a belief which is not based on any proof. This might bring us to a surprising conclusion that Faith is no different from fairy tales, folk stories or any kind of fiction as no proof is required … how much sense it would be in any of the dominant ideas of humanity if Faith does not require any proof … we need to fix this misconception.

We will consider again example of the relation between a doctor and his patient. Note: the relations between doctors and patients represent the best examples of Faith in all of it’s forms – baseless, based on some evidence and, another form, heavily based on personal experience.

Doctor prescribes a medication. Case #1 : patient has no previous knowledge of the effects and results of using this medication. Nevertheless he follows the prescription as not debatable necessity. Subconscious justification for this is : “doctor knows better”. This is a classic example of the “blind Faith” or “baseless Faith”. Why? Couldn’t it be that doctor already proved himself in the past as knowledgeable, experienced and in fact helped his patient before? Possible, but uncontested fact is that doctor is a human being and patient understands that he can always slip into making a mistake which happens with any human being in any profession. Thus following a prescription without previous knowledge of it’s effect is only possible if patient has a blind Faith in his doctor.

Case #2: patient learn about somebody’s previous experience with prescribed medication and therefore based his acceptance on that person’s experiential proof. Patient still knows that this pharmaceutic medication warns about some side effects when circumstances change: other food consumed, body temperature change, blood pressure different, or patient just recovered from flue, etc. Yet the fact of somebody’s past experience brings up a Faith in belief that the same experience will (most probably) repeat itself in this person. This is a Faith based on circumstantial or partial experience.

Case #3: patient gets a prescription of a medication which he already used in the past and had a very positive experience.  In this case there is no reason for any caution associated with this remedy, thus patient will believe in value of it and will have a Faith in positive effect (full or partial). This represents a Faith based on a complete knowledge which is based on personal experience.

Religion based on Torah of Moses is based on a complete experiential Truth only. Through His servant Moses, God warns Israel many time not to follow practices of other nations. He explicitly mentions details of their practices using words such as gods/idols “made of wood and stone” to imply that they are not “alive” neither they can help worshipers in any way, which means that there cannot be experiential proofs to the beliefs in those idols. But, opposite to idol worship, Faith in true God, must be based on the evident Truths, for example on the the past experience of all the Nation of Israel:

Remember days long gone by. Ponder the years of each generation. Ask your father and let him tell you, and your grandfather who will explain it. (Deuteronomy 32:7)

Torah rejects the notion of the blind Faith. Knowledge of history is provided as a research which will bring seeker to the Divine Truth recorded in the Scripture. This not only points to the Biblical times alone but also the recent history of the Jewish people displays on the ground the enormous amount of Divine intervention. (God willing we will create article to record well documented miracles happening in the Land of Israel today). In fact the very existence of the Nation of Israel in itself displays the miracle of the Prophetic Revelations recorded in Torah and Book of Prophets.

To highlight this principle that Faith in True God of Israel must be based on the experiential proof, here are the words of the Holly Book:

He will say, Where are their gods, The rock in which they took refuge which ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink-offering? Let them rise up and help you! Let them be your protection! (Deuteronomy 32:37-38)

All Israel was witnessing the Divine Presence when their sacrificial offerings were consumed by miraculous fire from the heaven. Although we cannot verify today the Truths of God’s message in the same manners described above, nevertheless, the principle of Faith, only based on experiential proof, is clearly recorded. And today a sincere seeker of Truth can and will see many other evidential proofs of the Divine Message – miracles and calamities, many happenings in the Holly Land, moral decay in many countries of the world as a result of the loss of religious Faith, are all a clear proof of prophecies and warnings of Torah. The scientific discoveries for long were pointing to the Creative Mind behind all the laws of nature, etc.

Here is a quote from the “Guide for the Perplexed” by Rabbi Moshe Maimonides, Rambam :

Those who undertake to investigate the principles of religion, have come into the ante-chamber… but those who have succeeded in finding a proof to everything that can be proved , who have a True knowledge of God, so far as a true knowledge can be attained, and are near the truth, wherever the an approach to the truth is possible, they have reached the goal and are in the palace in which the king lives. (an ongoing metaphor by Rambam where the Palace stands for a Palace of God searched by the Religious seeker, The Guide, Book 3 Chapter 51)

The investigative approach to religion or to any beliefs, we allow to take over our minds, will alone prevent us from falling into the abyss of the idol worship.

But there is another aspect of experiential proof to substantiate the Torah message as oppose to the idol worship practices: personal spiritual experiences. But this topic is for another installment of our Idol Worship series Part 5.

Idol Worship Navigation:

• Idol Worship Part 1 – Outline
• Idol Worship Part 2 – Understanding Nature of Faith
• Idol Worship Part 3 – Faith Based On Evidences Versus Baseless
• Idol Worship Part 4 – Elections in USA