Permit me dear readers to elaborate on the crucial issue of emunah that has engendered so much discussion recently on these pages. This is indeed a critical question: why would good Jews feel that they don’t truly believe in HaKadosh Baruch Hu?
It would seem that some of the letter-writers made a valid point when they argued that emunah is a matter of feeling something that is either present in a person’s heart or not and that its seeds are planted and cultivated in early childhood by one’s parents. To this I would add that plain logic compels a person to believe. Simple common sense recognizes that nothing gets made by itself. Although the Rishonim (the Chovos HaLevavos and others) brought various analogies to prove the point logically I will choose a modern illustration I once read by a non-Jewish physicist who wrote that anyone who claims the world was formed spontaneously might as well be saying that the Encyclopedia Britannica was formed by an explosion in a print shop.
In that case if the logic of emunah is so compelling then why doesn’t it convince people in our own camp who were raised on Torah and yirah? Why is it not obvious to them? Didn’t their parents and everyone in the community around them implant this conviction in their hearts? What happened to them on their way to adulthood to real life? Perhaps some answers might be found in the following.
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Professor Aharon Katzir Hy”d was a world-renowned Israeli physicist. He was killed in an attack on Ben Gurion Airport by Japanese terrorists in the 1970s. Before his tragic death an extensive interview with him appeared in an Israeli newspaper. One of the things he spoke about was an experience he had while lying ill in the hospital. His roommate it seems was a distinguished rabbi. As is natural between two people sharing a common experience a friendship developed between them. The rabbi at one point asked the physicist to explain the major concepts of modern physics to him in general outline — Einstein’s theory of relativity the theory of the expanding universe and so on. The professor took up the challenge and began a lecture for the elderly rabbi about the size of the universe and the laws governing it. As he was describing the infinite expanse of the universe with its myriad galaxies spreading out ever more distant from one another he suddenly stopped. A disturbing thought had struck him: perhaps he was spoiling the innocent faith of this rabbi who believed that somewhere up there some kind of G‑d was sitting on a throne watching us and running the whole system. And here he was telling him about the universe’s incredible vastness and endless expansion.
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