Belief in G-d - Part 1: Pascal's Wager - Rabbi Yaakov Lynn

[Music] [Applause] [Music] if you remember last time we talked about amuno and we that's what we talked about in this class but we started talking about um a very interesting idea that we even people who are already in yasuod and already have you know just made the intellectual decision that i believe in hashem nevertheless we always have to work on our ramuna i told you we're going to see that mosher benu even though he spoke face to face with hashem whatever that means that he was always working on his ammuna right so we always that we are kind of which means we're gonna have to ask ourselves difficult questions right even questions that we don't really want to know the answer to right because and we're going to have to admit where there are problems in our muna and be willing to address them right we said not everybody has to deal with every question but if there's a question that bothers me if i don't deal with it so that means there's going to be a crack in my moon right so i want to know what my what my uh weaknesses and my muna are he said last time that when you ask people in seminary do you believe in god they usually it often goes something like this do you believe in god yes right because if i didn't believe in god why would i be here why would i be giving up all these things why would i be fighting with my parents why would i which of course yes i must believe in god right we want to open up that conversation saying i believe in god we're saying i don't believe in god both of them are conversation enders we want to open up the conversation right how's our ramona doing right and be real with ourselves okay before we move forward with that we have to figure out what is the role of a muna in judaism right for this um before we start i want to mention a secular is actually christian philosopher named pascal anybody familiar with him pascal was famous for what maybe many things but the one i know him for was something called pascal's wager our pascal said the following he said listen i don't know if there's a god or not i don't know if i should be religious or not okay this is what he said he was christian again right he said let's look at the possibilities right maybe there he's a god and maybe there isn't a god right that's what he said then he said well wait a second i've got basically two possibilities to of what to do with my life i could be religious or i could not be religious okay now if by the way anybody here study um political science no if you did this would look familiar to you because this was the predecessor of something that today is called game theory which is by the way an excellent way to make decisions right watch what we're going to do now right um if i if he said if i decide to be religious and there is a god is that good or bad that's good if i decide to be religious and there's no god is that good or bad well it means i gave up cheeseburgers for no good reason he was christian but right in our world we would say that so it's not great it's not maybe the end of the world maybe i have a very meaningful life but at the end of the day i gave up things i didn't have to give up right so that would be that would be considered bad let's say it doesn't not to be religious not to be religious and there is a god is that good or bad very bad right and let's say decide not to be religious and there's no god is it good or bad good i ate cheeseburgers and got away with it right so that's called good okay now of these four which is the best possibility good right this one what well if if there's a god and i live a religious life so even if it meant i'd be miserable in this world which he might have believed because he was christian but we don't believe but even if i was really miserable in this world right so eternity is a long time and i'm finally going to get eternal reward in heaven which is going to be greater pleasure than i could ever get in this world so this one offers me eternal pleasure right absolute pleasure for eternity right and this one offers me limited pleasure for a limited amount of time but nevertheless which one's the second best option this one which one is the worst option good not being religious and there is a god that sounds pretty bad right right and which one is the third you can do it good that one right now if you ever try this with a decision you have to make right if it comes out like this you hit gold because what usually happens is that well no sorry this is where you would have a difficult decision to make right if the no sorry going this way you fit gold right because this way offers you the best possibility without the risk of the worst possibility this way gives you the risk of the worst possibility without the possibility of the best possibility right if it happens the way it usually happens at a good decision and like a hard decision this is one this is four this is two and this is three right but in this case this was an easy decision right if i'm religious i could strike gold and get the best possibility and if there isn't a god it's not the end of the world it's not so horrible this way the best thing is not the best possibility and the worst thing is really bad right so therefore this is the right decision to make and i'm telling you this is a good right anytime you have to make a decision it's helpful to make a chart like this that's what game theory is and politicians and world leaders use this kind of thing right so therefore he concluded that it is better to be religious right on balance it's the good risk to take now is this a jewish concept or not pascal's wager why not because you're not like being religious or believing in god purely because like of how it'll like benefit you in this world and like you're not making like that type of reasoning because you need like not just blind faith but your reasoning in a much different way okay good so in other words i'm doing this for my own based on my own logic and for my own benefit what are you going to say nicole very good right you're just hedging your bets right and therefore what can't exist in this system good a relationship with hashem right this is not a voter's hashem this is like let me keep you know a bunch of segulas right like it's good karma if i do this and it's bad karma if i do that right so the mitzvot would become not opportunities to for a vote as a shaman for my relationship with hashem they become opportunities for me to earn points or lose points which we don't believe is a jewish concept because we have and we'll see it might be according to many the one of the 613 mitzvos is havamuna believe in god so if you say well i don't know if there's a god or not but i'll just hedge my bets what about the mitzvoth right okay so this class is going to discuss why this is not a jewish concept okay is that clear i mean you often i've heard people say this like i don't know if there's a god or not but it's worth the risk right that's very nice and that might be a good thing to get you started on the path right but at the end of the day if there's no relationship with hashem if you're not sure if there's hashem there can't be a relationship there's no relationship we're missing the whole point right okay so let's see where this idea comes from of a mitzvah of a muno first of all we're going to see most of the rishonim learn this is not only one of the mitzvos where does it where do we find it it takes its place amongst a very famous group of mitzvos the ten commandments which one number one right which there's number one commandments but it sounds pretty important to me right so the first of the ten commandment says right i am hashem your god who took you out of the land of mitzrayim from the house of of slavery lo and the second commandment says don't have other gods before me literally on my face right okay so those are the first two commandments now another source i want you to see about amuna and then we're going to look at the rashonim is there's a gemara that was anybody he was a prophet and he was one of he wrote one of the books of the the small books of the prophets right and the gemara does something very interesting in this passage in macos we're going to see part of this together right but this gemara says if you look carefully at the words of different prophets different prophets took all the 613 mitzvos and and said really they all divide up into categories they're like 613 branches right but there are 10 roots right the 10 commandments and then somebody else came along and said no it's not even 10 it's 5. it's not even 5 it's 3. and then came and said it all boils down to one all 1613 mitzvos boiled down to one it says came along and said there's this really all the myths stand on one right and that is the whole torah right all 613 mitzvos boiled down to this right that a person should live in his umuna right so the moon we're going to see is obviously very very central it's not just one of the 613 mitzvahs it's the first of the ten commandments and according to habakkuk the whole torah can be boiled down just to the mitzvah muno right okay now we're going to see three different opinions in the rishonim about whether or not this is considered one of the 613 mitzvos this mitzvah okay [Music]