Monthly Archives: May 2015

How do we define God?

We now touch on the whole subject and definition of God — the object of our trust. How exactly are we to understand Him?

In his Introduction Ibn Pakudah defines God simply as the one who “directs everything”, and the entity from whom “all good and all harm” comes and upon whom “all authority rests”.

Notice that he doesn’t define Him as the Creator, but that’s because God is more than that, and also because His being the Creator is a given in his eyes: after all, what or whom would there be for Him to direct had He not created the universe, what good or harm would there be, and upon whom would His authority rest had He not created the universe?

At bottom this comes to an expression of pure and radical monotheism.

Notice, too, that Ibn Pakudah makes the point of saying that both goodness and harm — good and evil — derive from God. This isn’t the point to expand upon this vital though theologically vexing issue, but at bottom it comes to this. Since God created everything, He obviously created evil as well. Others have argued that evil is an entity unto itself or that another god had to have created evil, given that it seems to be absurd to attribute any malevolence whatsoever to God, but that’s not so. God created everything and maintains everything, too, including evil.

We’ll see, though, that this is an inadequate definition of God. We’ll first touch on the problems of the above definition, expand upon it, and then bring it back to trusting in Him in due time.

 

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

 

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

 

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

 

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

 

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal

The Advantages of Trust

There are very many advantages to trusting God. As Ibn Pakudah worded it in his Introduction to Gate 4:

One who trusts God serves no one else but Him …. He does not seek the approval of others, nor does he flatter them or agree with them …. And he is neither frightened of them nor intimidated by their arguments. He eliminates the straight-jacket of the need to satisfy them, and the burden of the need to thank them or repay them.

Wouldn’t we modern-day slaves to the approval of others do well to learn a lesson from this? He goes on:

The worldly advantages to be had from trust in God include: freedom from worldly cares, and the tranquility that comes from the lessening of physical desires …. He lives in perpetual repose, security and tranquility…. One who trusts God enjoys the peace of mind and well being that comes from not having to do arduous and exhausting labor. And he no longer needs to be loyal to kings and their laws, or to their looting underlings. He is satisfied with an easy profession that earns him a good reputation that allows him enough leisure time to reflect and fulfill his obligations to study Torah and do the other things he must do…. He has very few professional cares, even when his product does not sell, when he cannot collect money owed him, or when he becomes ill. For he knows that the Creator controls his affairs rather than he …. And finally, he is pleased with everything, even if it goes against his grain. Because he trusts that God would only do what is best for him all the time, like a loving mother who bathes, diapers, dresses or undresses her child whether he asks for it or not.”

There’s trust and then there’s naiveté, to be sure. But the truly sophisticated student and adherent of trust can’t help but be inebriated by the freedom allotted by such blithe trust in God Almighty.

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Trust is ingrained

Ibn Pakudah offers an astounding insight into human nature with the remark that, “If you don’t trust God, you’ll inevitably trust someone or something else” (Introduction to Gate 4). That’s to say that we’re hard-wired to trust in something or another.

Let’s see an illustration of this. We’ll quote from Erich Remarque’s, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, which sets out to depict the bleakness and ugliness of war. The protagonist is speaking about the soldier’s visceral reaction to sudden violence.

To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often forever.

 ….. At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. One cannot explain it.

A man is walking along without thought or heed;–suddenly he throws himself down on the ground and a storm of fragments flies harmlessly over him;–yet he cannot remember either to have heard the shell coming or to have thought of flinging himself down. But had he not abandoned himself to the impulse he would now be a heap of mangled flesh. It is this other, this second sight in us, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without our knowing how.

This is an instance of purely instinctual trust in and dependence upon something basic — the earth, in this case. The soldier simply knows in his heart that he should surrender himself to the earth; he doesn’t have to think about it. That reaction is inborn, primitive, and native to his humanity. That’s the sort of raw trust in something or another that we submit to when we need help desperately.

Ibn Pakudah’s point is that we should trust God just as viscerally if we’re wise, which is our concern here.

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

“The overriding principle in trust is this”

The text we’ll be citing the most is Bachya Ibn Pakudah’s Chovot HaLevovotThe Duties of the Heart, since it expands upon both the notion of trusting in God and on His makeup.

Here’s what it says about both in conjunction with each other.

“The more you know about God and the more you believe He guides you and provides for you so well, and to your advantageous, the more you will trust Him. For, after all, a baby trusts his mother’s breasts at birth …. And he only begins to trust his mother herself when he begins to perceive all the care she bestows on him more clearly.” (4:7)

He’s clearly referring to a visceral and basic trust in one’s provider. Let’s offer an illustration of that.

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

 

Introduction to Trust and to God

People of faith are taught to trust in God and to depend on His decisions for us. But we neither understand what trusting in Him entails nor who God is. So, we’ll examine both here from a classical Jewish perspective.

And we’ll begin with R’ Tzadok HaCohen’s statement that everything we say and teach should serve to explain the fact and make-up of God (Pri Tzaddik, Metzorah 10), and Bachya Ibn Pakudah’s remark that “The philosopher was right when he said that, ‘No one serves The Cause of All Causes and The First of All Firsts but the prophet of the generation, who comes to it naturally, and the master philosopher, who comes to it through wisdom. Everyone else worships someone else.” (Chovot HaLevovot 1:1).

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.