Weekly Jewish Wisdom:..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Doubt and Freedom

By Dr. Erica Brown

"Man's trust in and doubt of Elokim [God] is paralleled

by God's trust in and doubt of tzellem Elokim, the divine image.

Wherever a relationship involves at least one free agent,

there are immediately implied the possibilities

of both faith and doubt in that free agent." 

Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm

            One of the thorniest issues of religion today is the place of doubt. Is doubt a natural and anticipated emotion and aspect of intellectual inquiry or does being religiously faithful imply no moments of doubt? Every theologian worth his or her salt has dealt with this question personally and professionally. Recent letters attributed to Mother Teresa reveal the "dark" shadows that doubt cast on her faith. If a contemporary saint admits her doubt, is it unrealistic to give the rest of us a break?

             Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, cited above, was president of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Yeshiva University from 1976-20002 and is currently its chancellor. He is the author of almost a dozen books on issues of Jewish philosophy and law and, in that capacity, tackled some of the most troubling issues that Judaism faces in confrontation with modernity. Our quote is from his famous essay "Faith and Doubt," found in an anthology of essays of the same name. Rabbi Lamm discusses biblical evidence of doubt and its realistic appearance in what he calls "cognitive faith." He does, however, make a distinction between cognitive faith and functional faith.

            Functional faith is the normal practice of Jewish law. There is hardly a human relationship that does not house some moments of doubt, even the fleeting thought that a relationship may not be the best or right one for us. But if a man doubts his choice of spouse or a person doubts the loyalty of a friend, he or she would be wise to still engage in the practices and behaviors that sustain that relationship until reaching "the other side," that safe space where there is an affirmation of fidelity and commitment. Rabbi Lamm advises that doubt not secure a place so strong in a believer that he or she renegs on the rituals that underpin a working, whole relationship.

            But Rabbi Lamm also entertains a notion much more radical than this. He questions if God sometimes doubts us. After all, a covenantal partnership is made up of two sides. What if God questions us just as we are questioning His existence? In his own words:

"The fullness of faith can be attained when, instead of doubting God, we come to the sudden and terrible awareness that God may be doubting us; that our human existence has yet to be affirmed by God who may not be convinced of its worth; that God may have lost faith in us because we have betrayed him. That must be the focus of our concern…What a tragic fate! To be tossed between the torment of doubting God and the terror of being doubted by Him."

Religious doubt is suddenly cast in an entirely new light. What have we as humans done to alienate God, to show our distrust of God's very existence, to shun the appearance of authentic religious feeling? The list of such betrayals is lengthy, indeed.

            What Rabbi Lamm leaves us with is the important and nagging sense that in any partnership, free agents have the right to question each other and doubt each other's commitment. When they can do that while sustaining a safety net of practice, chances are that the relationship will heal or be positively affirmed. All relationships, divine and human, follow cycles. They are not linear. We hold on to faith just as we hold on to doubt, in the hopes that our relationships will find balance, even as we know that that fragile point of spiritual equilibrium will soon change.

Shabbat Shalom