Online Kiruv Training - Jewish Misconceptions: Judaism is Based Upon Faith

we have to appreciate that many Jews particularly those less affiliated get their understanding of religion and even Judaism from Christianity that's the society we live in and one idea that is prevalent is that religion is based upon faith it requires a leap of faith to believe well that's certainly true about Christianity and many other faiths but Judaism is not so much faith based as it is knowledge-based even the word for belief or faith Judaism emunah has a much different context emunah comes from the root Aleph mem Emma Emma means internalization swear mother has a baby the word Uman a craftsman a craftsman has his knowledge deeply internalized and doesn't even think about what he's building who main means to train or educate in Hebrew and modern Hebrew all these ideas point to a deep internalized knowledge not really a faith I think it's closer to the idea of trust when you trust the doctor it's based upon the track record that you have with the doctor and the knowledge of how he has worked with you in the past if he recommends a medication you have a Munna trust warbeck tejon that he will act with you then in the future as he has done in the past it isn't a leap of faith when I would say at the very most it's a skip of faith that's our idea of emunah it's really knowledge and evidence-based the roshani prophets love Elvis many others hold that the midst of emunah is to know through philosophical proof through evidence that there's a god the rambam describes the mitzvot as ley de shi a Chanel acha know that there is a God many times where you're going to roll on the parathas it says Dolloff anemia tahoe made know before whom you stand delano via da da hai jaan fahisha vosa ella no today and return it to your heart that's Judaism based upon evidence you should know as an aside that many people particularly today aren't so interested in philosophical proofs or evidence they into it along the way as they get more connected the truth of Torah the truth of God through the family relationships the mead owed the meaning in life the Torah as well that's where they get their evidence in fact what they really need is not so much evidence for belief they need permission to believe as rabbi Lawrence Kellerman famously says in his book about evidence for God permission to believe meaning they intuitively know the reality of God in Torah they just need some evidence because the Yates ihara is nagging them saying unique philosophical proof you need to be scientific you need to be rational don't worry we have evidence for that and a whole lot more after sharing with less affiliated that Torah really is based on evidence you might want to share too micheline one is very nice for evidence for God one is very nice for evidence of Torah we'll start with evidence of Torah national revelation at Sinai there was an Indian chief he died had three sons and he didn't leave a will appointing the next chief they were all fighting had their relative arguments why each one of them should become chief the holdest one was the warrior the middle son was the businessman and the younger song was the focal one day the holcomb the young son runs into camp and says break out the war paint i'm the new chief they all look at each other and say no like what's your evidence he says papa running bear came to me in my dream last night and he said that i'm going to be the new chief wow pop and running became to your dream they didn't know what to do they were a little flustered when an old wise indian from the back said son if your father really came to you in a dream last night and wanted to be the chief he shouldn't have come to you in your dream he should have come to us in all of our dreams that's the difference between the national revelation at Sinai and all other claims of Revelation any other religion very powerful when you think about it for more in-depth understanding of the subject you should see the great acecomm article that God speak at mount sinai by rabbis Zeldin minh and coopersmith another muscle you can give is based on the design proof that the world is so beautifully coordinated designed such that it had to be created by an intelligent being god sir fred hoyle a nobel prize-winning astronomer surmised that the chances of a bacterium being created randomly without God without intelligence is less than the probability of a tornado ripping through a junkyard and out popping a Boeing 747 I once joke with a friend of mine it's like taking a banana peel which is much more advanced than the bacterium throwing it in your backyard and thinking that in two billion years you'll have a conversation with that banana peel if that's the probability required for a simple bacterium how much more so the entire world I'd say it's just virtually impossible I found that most less affiliated Jews once hearing that Judaism is not based on faith just that we understand it's based on knowledge and even being given very little evidence such as the to Mashaal I'm that I just mentioned to you most of them don't even want to engage further they just want permission to believe evidence a belief they already have in their neshama however for people who want to go deeper I want to get more evidence there are a variety of great resources available in the end is very comforting for them and for us to know that you use them is solidly based Oh