no one is born with emunah (Jewish faith) – no matter who your parents are. With that in mind, when teaching religious Jewish children of high school age, it is good to regularly bring up topics of interest. emuna/ and also encourage all questions. Students should approach their relationship with God as mature people and not spend their whole lives observing Torah lightheartedly but perfunctorily. That sort of thing might work to some extent, but they will surely miss out on most of the joy and substance of Torah and if they are ever challenged, the results could be disastrous.

Now there are two kinds of emunah: emunah peshuta (simple faith) and emunah from chakra (faith through analysis). emunah peshuta Isn’t that the faith of “old Jewish ladies” who sit all day with their psalms because “my father told me that’s the way it is…” If that were the whole faith, there would be no qualitative difference if the ” old ladies” was Jewish or Hindu. Quite, emunah peshuta It is that clear and intuitive knowledge of God that comes only to people raised from childhood in a pure, uncorrupted world, separated from foreign values ​​and thoughts. The other form of faith, however, comes through an analytical process.

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible in our world to raise children with this kind of purity: even if you didn’t grow up with a television, the first time you saw an ad extolling this model of car or that breakfast cereal as the answer to all problems of the world your values ​​diverged from those of the Torah. This consumer lifestyle is what is real and everything else is not. Who is really important? John F. Kennedy or Michael Jordan or the Beatles! How can one believe in God, scientists don’t give it much value, do they? God will have to take a back seat in our consciousness.

So emunah peshuta it is, perhaps, beyond our experience.

Emuna via chakra would therefore be the alternative route. Now this analytical process can take more than one form: for some people, the very complexity and balance of the Torah itself testifies to its truth (somewhat like the reaction a British mathematician had to reading the calculations of a unknown and self-taught Indian gentleman). “Honestly, I can’t say I fully understand what he’s doing, but anything that complex has to be true!”). Every once in a while, it’s worth pausing during Bible or Talmud learning and marveling at the Torah’s completeness and perfection: no human being could have invented this.