At the beginning of “An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” Daniel Rynhold tells the following anecdote:
“Sometime in the 1990s, a philosophy department with which I was involved held a meeting at which candidates for admission were being reviewed. A colleague noted that a young woman who had been admitted believed in God, prompting another member of the department to retort: ‘Well, we’ll soon knock that out of her.’”
Rynhold quotes Bob Dylan in his assessment of that meeting: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Faith is disappearing. A 2022 Gallup survey found that 68% of adults aged 18–29 said they believe in God, compared with 81% of those aged 30–49 and 88% of those aged 50–64.
This reality is true throughout the Western world, but it is a sharp departure from the rest of the world. Joseph Henrich coined the acronym WEIRD, which stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The very culture of WEIRD societies fosters a bias against religious belief. Charles Taylor explains that the modern self is “buffered”: separated by a clear boundary from everything beyond the individual, including family and community. This boundary prevents people from reaching beyond themselves and experiencing authentic spirituality.
People in WEIRD societies no longer search for transcendence; God loses meaning when individualism and materialism reign.
Abraham grew up in a culture not so different from ours; his entire community was pagan. As Maimonides describes it, “He had no teacher, nor was there anyone to inform him. Rather, he was mired in Ur Kasdim among the foolish idolaters.”
But Abraham found faith on his own. How he did so is a matter of debate.
At what age did Abraham arrive at monotheism? In the Midrash there are two views, and even a millennium later, two medieval rabbis continued to debate this question. Maimonides writes that “Abraham was forty years old when he recognized his Creator.” The Raavad, Rabbi Avraham ben David of Posquières, immediately points out in his commentary that “there is an aggadic tradition that he was three years old.”
The views of Maimonides and the Raavad are autobiographical. They reveal how each approached faith. One can search for God as a philosopher or as a poet, through logic or inspiration. Maimonides was a philosopher. His Abraham is a wise forty-year-old who searches for the truth. Maimonides draws on a rich midrashic tradition to depict Abraham as someone who studies physics carefully and wonders how a world could be in constant motion on its own. He debates pagans about the absurdity of their beliefs. He preaches to others about what he has learned.
Maimonides’ Abraham is a mature man who finds God through logic.
But a three-year-old isn’t a philosopher. When the Raavad cites the tradition that Abraham was three, he is pointing to Abraham’s heart as the foundation of faith.
This debate remains relevant today, because we are all Abrahams again. We cannot take faith for granted, even in our own community. When I was growing up, a relative who was a highly accomplished academic always had some interesting things to say about God at the dinner table. In every synagogue I have led, congregants have approached me to declare their non-belief. Even colleagues have shared with me their own struggles with faith and doubts about God. They are all people I love, and some are genuine heroes. These encounters have both challenged me and shaped my understanding of faith.
So how does a contemporary Abraham find his way?
First, we need to think about the topic of God seriously. Sam Lebens, a professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa, wrote “A Guide for the Jewish Undecided.” It is a rigorous philosophical exploration of Judaism. More books like this are desperately needed.
One point Lebens makes at the outset is that one doesn’t need a decisive proof in order to believe in God. Even arguments that belief is more plausible than atheism are significant. For faith to be a worthy option, it need only be more plausible than the alternative.
For faith to be a worthy option, it need only be more plausible than the alternative.
Lebens then offers several such arguments. The laws of physics seem fine-tuned to allow the universe to support life; the odds that the cosmological constant would be finely tuned to the single point that allows life to arise are one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion. Yes, one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion.
In addition, the very notion of an orderly universe is far from a given, considering the other possibilities. As Einstein put it, “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” We can expect the laws of nature to continue unchanged. We know the sun will come up tomorrow, even if we have absolutely no proof that it will do so.
Religious philosophers raise many other arguments, from the mystery of human consciousness to the riddle of why humans evolved into a philosophical species instead of simply becoming clever predators.
When we consider all the elements that are necessary for our world to be as it is, the question is obvious: What are the odds of all this happening on its own?
If Maimonides were alive today, these are the types of arguments he would make.
But the Raavad’s Abraham deserves our attention as well. Even a three-year-old can connect to a faith that begins in the heart, with the inner intimations of the divine.
One example lies in our intuitions about morality and love. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks sees this idea as the foundation of Abraham’s faith. Sacks quotes the following Midrash:
“Rabbi Yitzchak said: This may be compared to a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a palace in flames. He wondered: ‘Is it possible that this palace has no one to look after it?’ The owner of the palace looked out and said to him: ‘I am the owner of the palace.’ So too, because Abraham our father wondered, ‘Is it possible that this world has no one to look after it?’ the Holy One, blessed be He, looked out and said to him: ‘I am the Master of the World.’”
Like the palace, the world has enormous beauty. And like the palace, the world is in disorder. Evil reigns, ready to destroy all that is good.
Man is called to fix the world. As Sacks puts it, “Judaism begins not in wonder that the world is as it is, but in protest that the world is not as it ought to be.”
Abraham’s journey to God begins with his moral consciousness.
Our instinctive sense of morality is a foundation of faith. Without God, all is permitted; morality has no firm anchor. This argument also goes in the other direction: There is something about love that is so transcendent that it gives us a glimpse of the otherworldly.
Belief also arises from the experience of awe.
Dacher Keltner, in his book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” defines awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”
Experiencing awe is still possible if we open our hearts. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about the importance of wonder, of being able to find the transcendent hidden in the mundane. He writes: “Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation … What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.”
This search for wonder starts at the beginning of the day: Upon waking each morning, we recite the short Modeh Aniprayer, which thanks God for granting us another day of life. We begin amazed by the blessing of our very existence. This brief prayer opens the door to wonder in the hours that follow.
Keltner notes there are many sources of awe: nature, love, beauty, intellectual epiphanies. Some people feel God is with them when their children are born. Others experience a moment of transcendence on seeing the beauty of nature. There are times during prayer when many feel an encounter with something greater than themselves. Most people feel a profound sense of awe when witnessing “moral beauty,” the courage and kindness of heroes.
Even Jewish history can be a source of wonder. Blaise Pascal wrote, “For whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy … of Athens and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since perished, these ever remain, and in spite of the endeavours of many powerful kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians testify.” Pascal knew a long shot when he saw one. He recognized that the very survival of the Jewish people is a statistical wonder.
But it is lonely to be a long shot. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik describes Abraham during his early years, before God appeared to him:
“The Almighty did not immediately respond to Abraham. … Cynical pagan opponents asked: Why doesn’t the Almighty answer you? Why can’t He prove His existence to us?…Abraham exposed himself to the worst of all tortures: ridicule …
“Abraham believed in an invisible, unapproachable, silent Being. … The pagans could not grasp it! They ridiculed Abraham’s irrational loyalty to God. Their lack of understanding turned into hostility, and they began to persecute Abraham.
“However, Abraham’s faith was not affected.”
So many lonely Jews today feel the burden of this very same ridicule. But we carry on, ignoring the trolls and hecklers, pursuing goodness and inspiration.
Just as Abraham did.
