The Theological Uncertainty Principle
Needed: A New Orthodox Theology
Rabbi Herzl Hefter
Yeshivat HaMivtar- Torat Yosef
The recent racist “letter of the rabbis” forbidding the renting of flats to Arab citizens of the State of Israel once again uncovers the vulnerable underbelly of Religious Zionist Orthodoxy. Unfortunately, we have been witness to numerous embarrassing declarations by rabbis presenting their positions on various social and political issues in recent years. For example: in 2007 a leading Rabbi ruled that the State of Israel should not allow refugees from Darfur to enter its territory on account that Sudan fought against Israel in the 1948 War of Independence. Back in 2005 another prominent rabbi, with a very large following in the religious Zionist camp, declared confidently that the disengagement from Gaza simply would not happen. As someone who is privileged to live in Israel, I must admit that it has come to the point that when I hear a religious functionary being interviewed on TV or the radio I raise my voice to heaven with the simple prayer, “Please God, I pray he doesn’t say anything stupid (or worse).”
There is a disturbing common denominator to these pronouncements. While the intellectual acumen and proficiency in Halachah of many of these rabbis is undeniable, there is much knowledge but very little understanding. Their approach is fundamentalist (traditionally
very uncharacteristic of Chachamim, students of the Halacha);the world is seen in terms of black and white, good and evil, friend and (mostly) foe, right and wrong. We sense no hesitation, no self scrutiny. Grey simply doesn’t exist. The so human characteristic of grappling with uncertainty, opening oneself up to the possibility that perhaps the situation before me is novel and that the world may actually have something to teach me, is totally absent.
Beyond the particular content of this letter or that statement, what I find particularly pernicious is the tone; the certainty and presumptuous condescension of he who knows the Truth.
Religious Zionist orthodoxy requires a theological paradigm shift, a new way of thinking, which would pre-empt many of the phenomena we have been witness to in recent years.
The shift I propose does not concern particular articles of faith such as the existence of God or the Divine origin of the Torah. The acute issue at hand is not what we believe but rather how we believe. We are accustomed to thinking that our core beliefs as derived from the corpus of tradition, point in a clear way to objective metaphysical truths. This is what I mean by how we believe.
I fervently believe that our tradition possesses the strength and resilience to face the challenges of those who would corrupt it from within. I contend that if we adopt what I refer to as the Theological Uncertainly Principle, enlightened (here I must be the one to apologize
for the pretentious tone) Zionist Orthodoxy will confidently be able to reject and disassociate itself from the noxious mix of fundamentalist religiosity and ultra-nationalism.
The Theological Uncertainty Principle
The Theological Uncertainty Principle emerges from the teachings of Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner (1800-1854) (henceforth RMY) and his son Rabbi Ya’akov Leiner both of Ishbica .
Let us consider the following commentary of offered by RMY in his work the Mei HaShiloah (henceforth MH) on Parshat Yitro:
“I (Anochi) am the Lord your God”. The verse does not state “Ani”, for if it stated “Ani” that would imply that the Holy One Blessed Be He revealed then the totality of His light to Israel, precluding the possibility of further delving into his words, for everything is already revealed. The letter “kaf” (of Anochi) however, denotes that the revelation is not complete rather an estimation and comparison to the light which God will reveal in the
future.”
The “kaf” of “Anochi” is the “kaf hadimayon”, the kaf of comparison. The correct translation of the verse would be “I am as the Lord…” [!] Even the revelation at Sinai, the paradigm of all subsequent revelations, must be comprehended as a partial and incomplete picture of the divine, as “as if”.
This came to me a true shock, given my previously held belief that the revelation at Sinai was perfect and that subsequent Jewish history is an effort to recapture the clarity of that pristine and intimate moment with God. The MH not only claims that God’s revelation is imperfect, but that it must be so.
“The reason that Commandment of Thou shall not make for yourself a graven image [follows the commandment of anochi]…is because a graven image is cut according to specific dimensions, perfect, lacking nothing. …this is to teach us that nothing is revealed to man completely.”
If one were to claim perfect clarity and understanding they would essentially be transgressing the second commandment of constructing a graven image. Certainty and perfect understanding exist only in the idolatrous world view where the gods are of distinct and finite dimensions. Rabbi Mordechai Yosef equates certainty with
idolatry. Total comprehension of the Divine leaves no room for human development and is a distortion of the revelation. This is because God and His Will are infinite and we mortals are finite with limited capacity to understand. Insisting upon perfect knowledge of God and His
Will is necessarily idolatrous in that the “perfect perception”, at the end of the day, turns out to be but a projection of ourselves. The words of the Tanya are particularly relevant here:
“…for man visualizes in his mind all the concepts which he wishes to conceive and understand- all as they are within himself. For instance, if he wishes to envisage the essence of Will or the essence of Wisdom or of Understanding…and the like, he visualizes them all as they are within himself. But in truth the Holy One blessed be He, is “High and exalted” and “Holy is His Name”, that is to say , He is holy and separated many myriads and degrees of separations ad infinitum above the quality, type or kind of praises which creatures could grasp and conceive in their intellect.”( Sha’ar HaYichud VeHaEmunah, chapter 8)
We will be guilty of creating God in our own image.
In his commentary above on parashat Yitro, RMY draws a sharp distinction between “God as He is” and “God as He is perceived”. The space between those two is occupied by uncertainty. I refer to this as the “Theological Uncertainty Principle”. Rabbi Ya’akov Leiner states this very clearly.
“Creation is merely a veil generating an appearance of a world distinct from God. The Blessed One established a shield and a barrier concealing His light in this world… in order that people should experience themselves as separate and autonomous creations. To this end God created the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that is the tree of uncertainty which envelops the entire world in which the Divine light is concealed to the extent that it is possible to doubt the very existence of the Creator.” (Beit Ya’akov, parashat Bereishit 6)
The ramifications of the Ishbica approach are monumental on both the individual-religious and national-narrative planes. On the individual-religious plane, prior to this approach we generally equated certainty and steadfast faith as being more “religious”. In fact, according to the “Theological Uncertainty Principle” of the MHS and R.Ya’akov Leiner the exact opposite is true. Uncertainty is an essential part of the God- created spiritual topography which we inhabit. It is precisely in the landscape of uncertainty where we develop as religious beings.
On the national-narrative level, Ishbica teaches us that a system with pretensions to explain all in the most certain terms must be naïve and ignorant of the complex and constantly changing world in which we live. The Theological Uncertainty Principle renders a Jewish tradition not obsessed with reconstructing eras of perceived perfection, rather engaged in the constantly changing present with its’ infinite possibilities and surprises. But even more importantly, the uncertainty principle provides an opening for authentic humility and a more profound faith in God.