'Questioning Belief': Torah and tradition today - review

Do you firmly believe in God? Would you say all the stories in the Torah are true? And are its laws still ethical for today? If you are not certain, then you are not alone.

These changes have led many Jews to ask deep and difficult questions about our faith. Some find the Torah to be antiquated, with little to say on contemporary issues.

Some query the morality of Jewish law when it clashes with modern sensibilities. Most worrying of all, some feel that Judaism lacks relevance and personal meaning in their lives.

Judaism was always meant to be a religion that encourages questioning: “Ask your father, who will tell you, your elders who will speak to you” (Deuteronomy 32:7).

From the inquisitive child at the Seder to the yeshiva students who are challenging their teacher, Jewish tradition is suffused with a culture of curiosity. Abaya, the fourth-century rabbinic sage, would often say, “I am open and ready to answer anyone asking questions about the Torah.”

And yet, I have spoken with many people who feel that their questions have been left unanswered… This can open the door to disillusionment and a gradual disengagement from Jewish life.

Rabbi Yehoshua Engelman, a teacher of mine and a good friend, is fond of saying, “Never ruin a first-rate question with a second-rate answer.”

Many intelligent adults no longer even bother to ask questions about Judaism because they fear that their doubts will never be convincingly addressed. To stay committed, they feel that they must sacrifice some of their intellectual integrity and, as Micah Goodman notes, “put their critical thinking aside whenever they enter a synagogue or beit midrash.”

Meanwhile, when teenagers and college students do not receive meaningful responses to their questions, they tend to disengage and drift away from Jewish life. In their wake are hurt and distraught parents…

I believe serious questions should be treasured. They reveal a genuine interest; they show that the asker is trying to make sense of what they are learning and attempting to see how it fits into their view of the world. Inquiry is the springboard to further knowledge and new perspectives…

Of the thousands of questions I’ve been asked, the ones in this book are those that arise most often, in some form or another.

I begin each chapter by expanding on the question posed and exploring its various elements. Often, I include a critique of the standard answers given. This reduces the natural tendency for confirmation bias, the temptation to present information in a way that just reaffirms my values and assumptions.

Then, I share my own responses to each question. These involve presenting and analyzing a range of traditional Jewish sources and modern texts, often in novel ways. Says the Talmud, “One person’s way of thinking differs from the next, just as one person’s face differs from the next.” And so, of course, these responses express my personal way of thinking about these questions.

The European Enlightenment caused a radical shift in human thought. Cherished beliefs of the devout, Jews and Christians alike, came into question. Long-held assumptions, firmly rooted in biblical teaching, were challenged by new sources of knowledge.

For the deferential and religiously minded European society of the 19th century, the rapid succession of discoveries and realizations in numerous fields of study was devastating. Intellectual richness caused a crisis of faith.

For me, the process of investigating challenging questions has uncovered fresh readings and insights that have had a transformative effect on my understanding of Judaism. They have led to a reassessment of many topics and allowed me to see them in a new light. In the end, my thinking moved me from a defense of Judaism to a reevaluation of it for the modern age.