The Jewish Observer

At Temple Israel’s annual Shabbaton this past Saturday, one of our guest speakers, my friend Dr. Parvez Ahmed, conducted a breakout session for those who wanted to gain a better understanding of Islam. One of the questions posed to him went something like this, “In Judaism, we are taught to question things, to constantly argue things out. Is there a similar tradition in Islam?” Parvez answered that there was, particularly in the middle ages when the Islamic world was the intellectual center of the Western world. He mentioned that the great philosophic traditions of the Greeks had been preserved in the Islamic world (as opposed to Europe which at that point was an intellectual backwater). The great debates in Islam between philosophers and theists were vigorous and gave inspiration to the works of Thomas Aquinas. He then added, with a tinge of regret, that in recent centuries, much of the debate, the tradition of questioning had ended in much of the Islamic world.

This spurred me to comment that in the Jewish world the great divide between groups of Jews hinged on a continuation of our long tradition of questioning authority, God, and the law (halachah). For a significant portion of the Jewish world, law and practice have become frozen in time for the past 200 years or so. I would call those who have allowed Jewish law to become ossified, “Chasidim.” It has fallen to Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox Jews to keep alive the dynamism of evolving halachah – each group with its own unique approaches. Key to the ongoing conversation regarding appropriate Jewish law and ethic is our tradition of asking questions.

It begins with Abraham. He argues with God over the fate of Sodom and Gemorah, getting God to agree that if 10 righteous people would be found, the cities would be spared. We get upset with Abraham when he fails to argue – as when God tells him to take Isaac to be sacrificed on Moriah. The tradition of arguing with God continues in the Talmud, the oral law. A great example is found in Baba Metzia 59b, the story of Achnai’s oven. In this tale, Rabbi Eliezer is arguing a point of law with his colleagues. All disagree with him so he invokes God and the heavens to support him. He calls for the stream to run backwards to confirm his rectitude, and the stream runs backward. After a number of wondrous demonstrations that God agrees with Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua gets up and reprimands God for interfering in an issue being decided by the rabbis, saying that since Torah has been given it is up to humans to figure out what is correct, and the majority rules. It is later reported that God’s response was to laugh and say, “My children have defeated me.”

It is the power of constant questioning that creates the dynamism that keeps Judaism relevant. The world changes and Judaism must respond to those changes. The need for continuing responses is what gave rise to the Reform and Conservative movements. The incredible diversity among Jewish perspectives is a strength, not a weakness. Further, there is nothing wrong with pointed, sharp debate. In Yalkut Shimoni we are taught that those disputing Torah can clash like “enemies at the gates.” The Talmud affirms that disputes arising out of the attempt to better understand God’s will, out the desire to find the most ethical path, are really “all words of the living God.”

If we do not continue to question the old paradigms, Judaism will just fade away as an irrelevant relic. The tradition of questioning might be the great contribution we Jews offer to the world. We provide the antidote to intellectual laziness, to a blind clinging to traditions or beliefs just because they have always been held. Indeed, the point of Jewish learning is not really to find answers to questions, but to learn how to pose ever better, more penetrating questions.

My prayer for Jews is that we never lose our drive to question. My prayer for my Moslem brothers is that they recover and strengthen their tradition of questioning. To that my friend Parvez nodded and said, “Amein.”