Wide-Eyed Faith

by Andreas Wittenstein

"I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage: You shall have no other gods besides Me." [Exodus 20:2..3, Deuteronomy 5:6..7]

"It wasn't with our parents that the Lord made this covenant, but with us the living, every one of us who is here today." [Deuteronomy 5:3]

Many people believe one should have blind faith in God and Torah. Should one? Is that what God wants of us? Is that what the Torah demands of us? Is blind faith even ethical?

In the first commandment, God commands us to forsake other gods. Why? Not just on blind faith in God's or Moses's authority, but because God brought us out of the house of bondage. The second commandment contrasts God with idols, whom we mustn't worship or even create. The difference? God isn't a hollow idol. Through plagues and miracles, God gave the early Hebrews reason for faith in God. The golden calf they then worshipped instead had done nothing to earn their faith. Many other biblical figures, such as Jacob [Genesis 28:20..22] gave a list of preconditions before accepting God.

But that was them, there, ages ago; What about us here today? Moses prefaced the commandments by stressing that God made the covenant with "every one of us who is here today." This is just as true for us, so every Passover we recall personally being led out of our own metaphorical Egypt. If your faith in God is unjustified, don't just shut your eyes and pretend; demand a sign, give God preconditions, and keep your eyes wide open. Believing in God on another's authority reduces God to an idol! Before praying, we first praise God "... " "Baruch 'atah..." --why?-- not just to butter God up, but to remind ourselves why we believe.

God doesn't want us to have unquestioning faith in any authority --not even God's own. God wants us to grow up and act ethically by ourselves, without being commanded, without obeying unless we believe the reason. By wrestling with an angel of God, Jacob earned the Hebrews the name Yisrà' 'Él --the people who "fight God" [Genesis 32:25..29]. As Israelites, our religious duty is not blind obedience, but continual wrestling with God to reevaluate our ethics as we grow wiser.

Jacob's grandfather, whom God "singled out that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what's just and right" [Genesis 18:19], on occasion strayed from "what's just and right" by neglecting to fight with God. Abraham did bargain with God for the Sodomites [Genesis 18:22..32]. Yet he failed a critical test of faith by refusing to question God's baseless demand to murder his own child, as we see in the Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah [Genesis 22:1..18]. Blind faith so crippled Abraham that he didn't even consult Sarah, of whom God had said in an earlier parental spat about Isaac: "Whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says" [Genesis 21:12]. Though God opened Abraham's eyes in time to spare Isaac, and though patriarchal tradition stresses God's blessing Abraham for loyalty, Abraham paid dearly for his blind faith, losing the wide-eyed faith of his beloved wife Sarah, who then left him, as several feminist scholars have pointed out [Genesis 22:19,23:2].

If blind faith in God can lead to unethical behavior, how much more dangerous are blind obedience to humans, blind allegiance to institutions, and blind adherence to abstract ideas! By reminding us that God rescued us from slavery before demanding that we renounce other gods, God set the standard for judging others (including ourselves) by their behavior, not by their faith or their position of authority.

If a would-be savior's actions return us to the house of bondage, it's time to rebel. If a job promising economic freedom enslaves you instead, if a militant government protecting its citizens exposes them to greater terror instead, if a philosophical ideal supposed to yield prosperity and justice increases disparity and corruption instead, it's time to wrestle with authority, depose idols, and reconsider "what's just and right". To be ethical, faith must be wide-eyed and justified.

—from our September 2002 Newsletter

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