On Belief and Action (5/11/21)

In the book we are studying (The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently), Professors Levine and Brettler state the following (Kindle edition p. 33):

In Judaism, orthopraxy, what one does, is more important than orthodoxy, what one believes. There are Jewish atheists; technically, however, “Christian atheist” would be an oxymoron.

Somewhat on this theme, this  morning I was reviewing an offering from Torah.com titled: Torah MiSinai and Biblical Criticism: Rising to the Full Challenge by Dr. Rabbi Jeremy Rosen.  Here are some excerpts from the beginning of a longer offering:

Part 1

Tradition and Biblical Criticism: Describing Elements of Confrontation

Biblical Criticism challenges a traditional dogma that all the text of the Torah that we have in our possession today was written down by Moses on the instruction of God during one brief historical period over three thousand years ago. Does this mean that it is incompatible with the belief of Torah Min Hashamayim (Torah from Heaven)? Certainly, the Torah can be from heaven even if it is not from Moses. But what about Torah MiSinai? Does accepting the findings of academic biblical scholarship mean that it is necessarily incompatible with the idea of Torah MiSinai? This essay explores the possibility that the two worldviews are more complementary than many Jews seem to think

Emunah or Belief?

It has always struck me as significant that the Torah does not expressly command one “to believe.” The first of the Ten Commandments is a statement. It asserts that God is the ultimate authority and power. It assumes a total commitment; it is the basis and foundation of our religion. However, the verse does not actually say anywhere, as a command, “You must believe.” Indeed it is inaccurate to translate the biblical Hebrew word emunah as belief. Rather it means conviction, trust, which you might say, is far more significant than an abstract and unverifiable concept.

The term “belief” is open to too many cultural and theological nuances. The Torah uses belief much less theologically than practically. Belief is difficult to legislate. You can check on how people behave but how do you test what someone actually believes? Avraham is commanded to “walk before me and be sincere” (Genesis 17.1). This seems to me to characterize the essence of one’s relationship with the divine more than the abstraction of belief.

Part of the genius of Torah is that it does not try to specify any credo. It was not until medieval times that there was any such formulation in Judaism. The Torah, by not specifying the commands about God in detail thereby acknowledges that the human mind can be led but it cannot be constrained. The Torah tells little about the nature of God other than that God is unique, the Creator and cannot be “seen” by a living being. There are also the “Thirteen Qualities of God,” but they are not formulated as a religious creed, a much later development. Instead, each one of us must find the specific way we can relate to God and make sense of God’s world and God’s Torah. The Torah, in other words is a pre-philosophical text.