Facing the Unknown - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ZT'L

the place of doubt in judaism is very interesting because most people define faith as certainty i define faith as the courage to live with uncertainty we don't for a moment believe that the existence of god is so obvious and overwhelming that you've got to be crazy not to believe in god and this is dramatized in the early chapters of the book of exodus there's pharaoh who doesn't believe in god and god sends plague after plague sign after sign and he still doesn't believe in god and i love the interpretation it's a medieval interpretation that phrase that god hardened pharaoh's heart and most people say that means god took away pharaoh's free will but one commentator says no god had to keep giving pharaoh free will he strengthened his heart because otherwise god would be on him like a ton of bricks and he'd have no place for doubt and god wanted pharaoh to be free to doubt his existence so he strengthened his heart the truth is it's pretty obvious now you can look at the world and find it meaningless you can look at the world and find it meaningful and if you're looking for a life without doubt without risk and without uncertainty stop living because you cannot really live without taking risks in fact the bible makes it pretty clear that god took a massive risk when he created humanity and that risk didn't play out terribly well because by genesis chapter 6 god regrets that he ever created man in the first place and it grieved him to his very heart a key sentence for me and one of the most beautiful in the whole of judaism occurs early in the book of jeremiah we say it on rosh hashanah i remember the kindness of your youth the love of your betrothal the eretz loves how you were willing to follow me into an unknown unsewn land jeremiah is saying god loves the jewish people because they had the courage to take a risk to go into a place they'd never seen before with no map and no roads just the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire means the courage to take a risk if you like the courage to take a risk you will never get married if you get married you will never have a child if you're a businessman you will never start a new business the whole of life is facing the unknown because even though we can look up to the heaven and see 100 billion galaxies each of 100 billion stars and when you can look within us at the human genome with its 3.1 billion letters of genetic code we can know everything but there is one thing we will never know what tomorrow will bring we face an unknown and unknowable future that means that every single course of action we take every commitment has its underside of doubt it's the ability to acknowledge that doubt and yet saying nonetheless i will take a risk that is what faith is not the absence of doubt but the ability to recognize doubt live with it and still take the risk of commitment you