Thinking for ourselves – creating a personal connection with emuna

11 Pesach 1/2 – Thinking for ourselves – creating a personal connection with emuna

There is an aspect of emuna which people are less aware of. It can certainly have ramifications on the way we experience Leil Haseder and the mitzva of והגדת לבינך . So it will certainly be worthwhile looking at these ideas in the weeks running up to Pesach. 

Emuna is predetermined

Our emuna is essentially predetermined, that is to say we know from the outset what emuna is. Emuna is not based on one’s own personal investigation as to what emuna is, and then making a personal decision. From such ideas can easily be born apikorsus. We already know what we are meant to believe in. Never the less it is specifically in the realm of emuna that the torah comes with the demand – “והשבת אל לבבך” [1] that emuna is essentially a personal issue, it is in my heart. Similarly, the posuk in Chavakuk “וצדיק באמונתו יחיה” [2] asserts that emuna is very much a part of my life, and that is certainly very personal. So how can it be that on the one hand everyone believes in the same thing, and on the other it has to be personal?

Problem solving as against thinking

Here lies an opening to one of the most important subjects of our times – the necessity to think for ourselves. But we really have to understand what ‘thinking’ means. Research has been made on so many different topics such as cognitive science, or research into how the brain works. But there is nothing regarding what it means to think. We have to understand is that ‘thinking’ begins only once something is already clear. As long as something is still unclear we have to use tools in order to problem solve. Once something is clear we can begin to think about it. 

In the times of Moshiach there will be no more questions, no one will have any more problems in understanding torah. However, we can be sure that the times of Moshiach will not be a time when we will be “braindead”. Thinking of nothing. That certainly cannot be the Olam Haschar that we have been working towards. So if there will be no more problems understanding torah, and our problem solving skills will thus be redundant, what will we do when Moshiach comes? 

The truth is that people associate problem solving with thinking. But the truth is that problems people can solve with information from from other sources, whereas thinking needs to be done alone. After something is clear, it is only you who can think and broaden the subject, you alone have to deepen your understanding and thus identify with the subject that much more. When people hear that they have to think by themselves, they get stressed, they think that thinking on your own will cause hefkeirus.  

I was once at a kenes for Mashgichim. I mentioned that it is important to educate bochrim to think on their own. There was a Mashgiach there who said to me that today everyone thinks by themselves. But a real Mashgiach understands that things do not happen by themselves – you need to educate people and give them skills to think. What he calls thinking is actually hefkeirus. When there are no givens, when there is no clarity, then whatever comes from that could well be considered hefkeirus. What we have been talking about is thinking about a given – thinking of emuna for example which is clear from the outset. That is what והשבת אל לבבך is all about. 

Thinking on Leil Haseder

If we want to translate what we have spoken of as regards our avoda on Leil Haseder, we will immediately find that we have a problem. Because the moment we have thought for ourselves and have connected to something, when we come to explain our own connection to others, we stop thinking and start preaching. The opposite of thinking is preaching. Our aim on Leil Haseder has to be to cause others to think about points which are clear to them, so they can identify with those ideas more deeply. 

Our avoda on Leil Haseder is not to think of new vortlach into the Haggodoh, to find A one thousand page Haggodoh which can’t be finished even after all the seven days of Pesach. The Haggodoh, which is emuna, is there not to solve a problem, it’s there to enable us to forge a deeper connection. But how do we do that? 

So the place to start is that we live in a world which very often seems to contradict our emuna, and there we have to think more deeply in order to deepen our emuna. 

We might give an example, that very often when we have a problem, it might look to us that the Borei Olam doesn’t care. That is when we have to deepen our understanding as to what it means that the Borei Olam cares. What was already clear beforehand now has to be understood on a deeper level. 

It could be that we have understood that the Borei Olam cares for Klal Yisroel, but perhaps we have not fully understood that He cares for every individual, not only as an individual who is part of the Klal. The Haggodoh in that way is an experience for deepening our connection to emuna. 

Topics in the Haggodoh which can deepen our emuna

Avrohom Avinu was thrown into the fiery furnace in Ur Kassdim. It was not an easy experience. Being at the Akeida and having to do something which was contradictory to all he stood for was also a true nisoyon. Avrohom had to believe that his wife was going to give birth to a nation when his wife didn’t even have a womb [4].  Avrohom Avinu himself was born against all the odds [5]. 

The Borei Olams involvement in the wanting to alleviate the suffering of Klal Yisroel is perhaps another important message of the Haggodoh. We learn of Klal Yisroel in Egypt, where Klal Yisroel suffered terribly, much like a concentration camp. We know the end of the story – Kabbolas Hatorah, but they suffered and many did not see the end. One of the greatest Tzadikim who ever lived, Amrom, who died בעטיו של נחש [6] is still buried there, he never saw the end of the story. That is the focus of the Haggodoh, not the plagues. That part of the Haggodoh is over with spilling a bit of wine. The focus of the Haggodoh is that even in such a terrible reality the Borei Olam is still there and interested in Klal Yisroel. Whether it be Klal Yisroel in Egypt or Klal Yisroel as represented by Avrohom Avinu.

That is where we might find that thinking about emuna effects our emuna. Emuna is clearly defined, but you have to think about it, and as you think about it your emuna develops and is deepened. 

For example, one might begin to think how Avrohom Avinu was worshiping avoda zora when he began to think and ponder the world around him, and how everything pointed towards the Borei Olam [3] – yet the entire world was against him. So where could he see that the Borei Olam was interested in him? What gave him the strength to continue, when the reality he was living in did not seem to express his beliefs? By thinking, we find that we have to work with the knowledge that the Borei Olam is interested in us, and He cares, even when things are not clear. We haven’t changed anything about the definition of emuna – but we have deepened our emuna. 

Educating our children to deepen their emuna

That is how we can educate our children in emuna. We can approach topics such as tfila at times when we feel so far away from the Borei Olam. That’s how the Haggodoh can lead us to speak of how as maaminim we can cry out to the Borei Olam even when we are במ”ט שערי טומאה. The Haggodoh leads us to think of emuna on our terms – without changing the foundations of emuna. The Haggodoh brings us to a more intense realization that the Borei Olam is always interested on us. 

Thinking as a way of making torah personal and more meaningful

However, in this generation ‘thinking’ as we have discussed it scares many people. They feel insecure about thinking by themselves. They don’t know themselves, and they certainly don’t know their children. But we have to realise that thinking and deepening a given is the answer to a problem which the generation is grappling with. People are trying to emphasize to their children the novelty of torah – and how much more exciting it is then the outside world. But more information is not the solution to make torah more novel and exciting. Thinking is the solution. Because thinking of a given, actually develops a place where you are connected personally. A connection is not built through new ideas – that’s not how things become more exciting. If you are looking for excitement there is no way to compete with a roller-coaster. If you are trying to compete with using torah as a wellspring for new ideas, it will be difficult to compete with the new gadgets that are being marketed every half an hour. But thinking takes something like emuna – and makes it personal. That is something which we can give to our children. Developing ones personal connection to torah, means the connection becomes deeper and more meaningful. That is something which one will want to preserve no matter what excitement the outside world seems to offer. 

We have to realise that today we have reached a point that the Yeshiva world is basically made up of elitist institutions. And the truth is that new insights to solve problems in a sugya are rare. In a sense, the Yeshiva world is truly built in a way that אחד יוצא להוראה [7] – for that one special person who out of one thousand students will be able to pasken, but what of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine? What are they supposed to do? The answer is what we have been speaking of. Problem solving is not the only thing which is important. Thinking on your own and deepening your understanding, that is where your own personal relationship with torah can be built. Taking something where the basis is clear, like emuna, and then thinking about it, that is something we can all do. You can’t come and say you have found a new concept of emuna, but you can build a new connection to emuna by thinking by yourself. That is the sort of novelty which we can experience in torah and which we can pass on to our children. That is something which can be passed on through the Haggodoh. It is new and exciting, and can be experienced by everyone. 

This year when I will sit with my grandchildren on Leil Haseder I will speak to them about Klal Yisroel in Egypt and I will ask them how they think Klal Yisroel were able to have emuna when everything was going wrong. How could it be that without torah and mitzvos they were still able to stay connected? Could it be that they had to experience the מ”ט שערי טומאה in order to realise that they had nothing to rely on other then the Borei Olam? On such a low level you can’t just say a phrase like 

כל מאן דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד – and then move on with your life, you have to really live it. So we will ask ourselves on Leil Haseder how we too can start living like that. That will be the focus of our discussion – and that is how we will start thinking for ourselves in the sugya of emuna on Leil Haseder.    

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[1] דברים פרק ד פסוק ל”ט

[2] חבקוק פרק ב פסוק ד

[3] רמב”ם הלכות עבודה זרה פרק א הלכה ג “…ואביו ואמו וכל העם עובדים עבודה זרה והוא היה עובד עמהן, ולבו משוטט ומבין עד שהשיג דרך האמת וכו'”.

[4] יבמות ס”ד: “אמר רב נחמן אמר רבה בר אבוה שרה אמנו אילונית היתה שנאמר ותהי שרי עקרה אין לה ולד אפי’ בית ולד אין לה”. 

[5] ע’ בדברי האר”י הקדוש שער הפסוקים ריש ספר איוב “…כי כאשר תרח בעל אמתלאי אשתו – היתה נדה” 

[6] בבא בתרא י”ז. “תנו רבנן ארבעה מתו בעטיו של נחש ואלו הן בנימין בן יעקב, ועמרם אבי משה, וישי אבי דוד, וכלאב בן דוד”. 

[7] “בנוהג שבעולם אלף בני אדם נכנסין למקרא יוצאין מהן מאה למשנה, יוצאין מהן עשרה לתלמוד, יוצא מהם אחר להוראה” [ויק”ר ב א, קה”ר ז’ מ”ט]