Among the letters I received in response to last week’s column “I’m in Kollel but My Life is a Sham ” was one from a reader in Beit Shemesh that expressed skepticism not only regarding basic emunah but also regarding some of my views on the matter. Here is a passage in the letter-writer’s own words:

“While I believe that unfortunately there are more frum people around that keep all the mitzvos to the best of their abilities but don't have emunah I am skeptical that there are so ‘many among us who could easily help’ answer these unasked questions. Because if it were so easy would you not have given the relevant answer in your article?

“Actually if you or any other reader or writer of Mishpacha can give easily understood all-encompassing answers to this question(s) I suggest strongly to use this medium of the printed word in one or a series of articles to give over the fundaments of faith or at the very least give suggestions of where a frum person can get these answers without fear of his surroundings.

“I and my family have considered participating in an Arachim Shabbaton to give all of us chizuk but I am not sure if this forum would be the appropriate place for an observant family. Why should I expose some of my still young children to not-yet-religious people and their ideas?”

Since I believe this is a vital matter that deserves my attention I will address my honored reader’s questions one by one:

My reader is correct in saying that there are many among us whose observance of mitzvos has no basis in emunah. This does not mean that there is no answer to the unasked question implied here. It may be unasked but it isn’t nonexistent. It is unasked because of some primal fear of stirring up something too deep and powerful to deal with.

Rav Shlomo Wolbe ztz”l taught us two principles: (1) There are no apikorsishe questions. There are apikorsishe answers. (2) No one ever became an apikores because he started thinking but only because at a certain point he stopped thinking. In other words we have a choice in the matter.

At the same time however I still maintain that among a large portion of Torah-observant Jewry there is a clear correlation between keeping the mitzvos and truly believing in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Our reader seems to feel that the Torah and mitzvos of  a majority of the frum community is a fraud.

Instead of using a family magazine to make convincing arguments for belief in Hashem it is preferable to take the issue of emunah and to set up educational workshops for its study not fearing the students’ questions but answering them. It is incumbent on us to know that questions do come up in young minds. Certainly the world we live in where wicked apikorsim are constantly attacking our emunah on the one hand and on the other hand there is great hesitancy to voice the resultant doubts out of fear of an angry reaction gives rise to many “half-breed” Jews who observe mitzvos and live in the chareidi community while their hearts aren’t there.

To the honored reader who wrote the above-cited letter I say there are answers! A whole educational program for instilling emunah can be built on the following foundations:

First an understanding of the wonders of creation. Professor Cyril Domb a world-renowned Torah-observant physicist one of the most distinguished scientists in England a generation ago once told me that when he was a young university student it was hard to be a believer. Today he said it is hard to study physics and be an apikores.  He gave me an example: many physicists of recent generations examined natural phenomena and were led to believe unequivocally in what is known as the principle of entropy. According to this principle the world developed in stages and at each stage it knew what to do next in order that life should be created on earth. This points to the existence of a higher guiding force. Those who grasped this principle properly found in it a powerful motivator for belief in a Divine Creator.

The study of nature as a source of emunah is brought as a halachah by the Rambam: “And what is the way to attain love and awe of Him? When one observes the great and wondrous works of His creation and sees the unfathomable and infinite majesty he will naturally come to love and praise Hashem and be filled with a great desire to know Him” (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah chapter 2).

This is halachah in the Rambam; surely it deserves to be studied in a regularly-scheduled shiur not just to be mentioned in passing. In the Arachim seminars when we met people raised on the theory of evolution we would begin to analyze the wonders of the universe in an orderly fashion item by item citing the statements of many great physicists that their scientific investigations were precisely what brought them to believe in a Creator. We weren’t concerned about the fact that some physicists vociferously dissent; for all their outspokenness various surveys show them to be in the minority. Have such things ever been tried in a systematic fashion with our youngsters? Not to raise questions but to create a core of wonder and excitement at the marvels of creation in our educational approach and to encourage sensitivity to the powerful ways in which the Creator is revealed through nature. And to inculcate the knowledge that as Albert Einstein said to a group of Jewish students if laws are discerned in nature then someone must be making those laws. I heard this from a man who was part of that Shomer HaTzair group and became a baal teshuvah as a result. It doesn’t matter that Einstein himself knew scarcely anything about Judaism and had a different concept of a Supreme Power. That was because he lacked the other essential component of emunah the knowledge that the Torah was given by G‑d at Sinai.

If we can instill this wonderful consciousness in the minds of our youth in their childhood if they meet it often in the context of the rest of their studies then the awareness of Hashem’s existence will become relevant in their lives and the passages in our daily tefillah that speak of the wonders of nature will help to inculcate that emunah ever more deeply. The Rambam states it as a halachah and who among the sages does not concur?

On a number of occasions I hosted groups of secular youth at my home where I discussed these matters with them as well as other proofs that our Torah is the truth. Many of these youngsters became great yirei Shamayim. I remember one such evening when they asked me “Do yeshivah bochurim know all these things that you’re teaching us?” No I told them they don’t. “But isn’t that sad?” they wanted to know. Yes I had to tell them. It certainly is.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 348)