Knowing & Believing - Rabbi Akiva Fox

continuing with our series on Emunah on faith and faithfulness in Jewish thought Jewish philosophy there are two concepts that seem to play an important role in our belief one is called idea idea means knowledge from the word yo daya to know to know something and the other is called Emunah belief now technically these two concepts would seemingly be contradictions to each other why would that be because if you know something you don't believe it because you know it for example I know that this paper is white so if I know that the paper is white then I don't have to believe it's white because I know it and if I have to believe something then apparently I don't know because if I knew it then I wouldn't have to believe it cuz I know it so how do these two things work out together are we supposed to believe or are we supposed to know now in a certain sense both of these concepts do appear both in the Torah for example it says the ADATA hyoma you will know today P Hashem Wallow Kim that Hashem is the God but we also say we also find that the puzzle says by Aminu Basham they believed in a Shem / Moshe after an emotion of the servant so there is both concept of belief and also of knowledge so which one is it or is it both and if it's both and how do they both work out in tangent with each other so this question was posed by the illustrious rep who passed away about 1517 years ago who was the leader of world Jewry who lived in Bnei Brak in Israel the undisputed leader of world Jewry and her if shock posed this question in a book that he wrote and he asked this question to his rabbi who was known as the brisker of Yitzhak save salivate check now repeats with Zev salivate chick told Rep shocked that he had been troubled by this question also so he posed it to his father who was the great Russia Shiva of Elijah and rapine salivation Anaheim Salib a chick explained that emunah belief starts where you dia where knowledge ends meaning there is a certain amount that we can know there is a certain limited restricted amount that we can contemplate that we can understand and after that begins and you know of course we want we try we strive to achieve as much knowledge as we can about God but there is a certain blockage a barrier that we cannot penetrate we cannot get past and that is where am you know that is where belief and faith comes in I like to give the following muscle imagine there's a person as a little disk on key or a hard drive or whatever these little thingamajig that you stick into your computer car and it's got like 2 gigabytes so a person walks in to Google headquarters wherever that may be and he says to this CEO of Google here I have the two gigabytes if you don't mind just download everything you have in Google onto my little hard drive is that uh can you do that for me and the guy laughs at him he's like what want me to put everything Google has on your little hard drive you only have 2 gigabytes all right you know what all right I got a bigger one in my pocket it's got 4 gigabytes here try it on this one and again the CEO will laughing at me you want everything that Google has on your little hard drive with 4 gigabytes like wow you drive a hard bargain alright I got one with 6 gigabytes but I'm not going any higher no matter what he says no matter how many gigabytes his little hard drive has he will never be able to download all of that information why because he does not have the capacity to retain so much it's almost infinite and to put that on a very finite little drive is impossible the same thing is when it comes to understanding God when it comes to understanding Hashem it's crucial to remember that we're talking about the creator of the world the creator of all the systems of nature the creator of all the wonders and all the wisdom infinite Hashem is eliana coloureds he has exalted supremely is way beyond human capacity there is no way that a person any human no matter what level he has reached no matter how intellectually is even Albert Einstein and I'm afraid to say this you may not believe but even me I know I know it's hard to believe I understand but try to soak it in for a minute no matter how brilliant a person is he doesn't have the capacity to understand to connect to retain to the concept of God let alone to God himself so there are certain things that we can know that we do know about the way that God runs the world and those he has only allowed us to see but beyond those things beyond that limited very restricted knowledge is a world an infinite world of God and that we cannot know and that's when belief starts that's when Emunah begins it's important for us to remember this because we are finite people we are so limited in our perception we are so restricted in what we understand and to say oh sure I know God good friend went to college together to connect with even the concept of ocean to be able to understand to fathom God is the impossible for two reasons because God is so infinite and because we are so finite so in order to begin the journey the Emunah journey a person has to realize number one God is so great and number two that I am so limited so I cannot know certain things I cannot understand certain things I will never be able to understand yes there are many things that will help us in our journey to come closer to understanding to come more awareness more connection more knowledge and intellect yes but on the other hand we will never be able to understand completely and that is where emunah begins there is a famous Jewish story an old Yiddish a story with two brothers they were the great tsadikim the Reber of le MELAS the normally melech from legends and his brother the Reber Abzu and they had an argument between them in those days when people argued and when Sadiq and when great righteous people argued it wasn't about little petty things like you know who's gonna inherit what it wasn't about you know who's gonna get that the cotton candy when they had an argument it was a philosophical argument that they each wanted to understand something that was instrumental in their growth in the service and the closeness daishon Reb le melis and the rebbe reb zu shah had a question the question was what comes first in the stepladder of coming closer to God in service of God does realising the greatness of God come first or does realizing the the minut characters that we are how miniscule we are what comes first realizing how humble how little we are or realizing how great God is so they both went to their red bow their own Rebbe who told them both of you are correct without getting into the depth of what that means but one thing is clear in order to grow in service of a sham in order to start the journey of Emunah begin the path of coming closer touch him both of these concepts are critical number one know how great how infinite Hashem is and number two is realize how finite how minuscule how limited how restricted we are because only then can we share both of these things to come to India to knowledge to understand certain aspects of our religion of our belief of our connection with our M but also to realize that we need to believe we need to have faith because there's so much we don't know because there's so much we can't know and when we realize that it's not just a leap of faith it's not just a leap off a cliff but it's a leap into a world that is so brilliant that is so full with wisdom and wonders that is the world of God that is the world of ocean you