Shut Down the Bible Department?

A response to Shut Down the Bible Department by Elliot Resnick, Published March 21at, 2013

Dear Elliot,

I read the article you wrote about your proposal to ban Intro to Bible classes in YU. Yours might not be a bad idea. On the other hand, maybe there is an altogether better idea of what to do with that class.

I understood from your writing that you felt the class undermined a lot of (what you thought were) your unshakable beliefs. Before dealing with restructuring the class it might be a good idea to rethink your ideas about belief.

            You write that “…the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews grow up believing that Moshe wrote every word of the Torah as dictated by G-d. They also believe Moshe received the entire Oral Law at Har Sinai, and finally, they believe biblical Hebrew is holy and contains hidden wisdom of one sort or another.

            “I, too, believed all this….until I took Intro to Bible. In that course, my professor challenged all three beliefs. No longer was it clear that Moshe wrote the entire Torah.”

Elliot,

            Did Moshe write the entire Torah and received the Oral one directly from G-d at Har Sinai? Did he write it with holy letters that contain hidden wisdom, or he did not? What do you mean by writing “Orthodox Jews grow up believing...No longer was it clear”?

Are you not sure about your history? What do you mean when you write that you used to believe all this?  Despite what you believe, did all of that happen 3325 years ago or did it not? Do you know?  Before the class did you know? Did you believe, or did you simply have faith in it because your mom told you to?

What does it mean to believe? Is belief a stubborn allegiance to an idea regardless of credibility?

Stubborn allegiance is not belief; it is faith. There are people who have faith in all kinds of things regardless of probability or credibility. Faith is blind: “I have faith in the truth of the bible no matter what you say.”

Do you think the creator expects us to follow him blindly? Are we meant to surrender to him without verifying that he in fact is the one behind his alleged words? If that were true, why would he give us a mind that can challenge him? If he gave us a mind then the mind must be essential to our service of him. Also, it must be that through our mind we could find him.

            Belief is not based on faith. Belief is confidence in an idea based on knowledge. “I know that the bible is true based on study, investigation and understanding therefore I believe everything that is written therein. Because of my knowledge, I believe that anything that contradicts the bible is wrong and will be disproven or fall away with time.” Belief does not get challenged in the face of contradictory ideas. When you believe something, you have confidence in it. If you know longer have the confidence then either you lost touch with your belief or you were never really in touch in the first place.

Until I was in my early twenties I had faith in the divine origin of the Torah. I did not try to verify the history, I did not research the facts and I did not question any of it at all.  I had faith. They said the Torah was divine therefore I had faith that the Torah was divine. In my experience faith meant accepting that something is true based on trust.

The experience you encountered in Bible class is not unique to you. The experience was not necessarily a negative one. This kind of experience is a fact of life. At one point or another every person bumps into someone who believes something that contradicts their own ideas of reality. It is then that faith is no longer enough.

For me that shift happened several years ago. It was in my early twenties that I began to question my faith. Why do I have such strong faith in the divinity of Torah? Maybe someone made a mistake somewhere along the way and now I follow a man-made code of laws? Maybe I religiously lead a life based on a mortal’s idea of right and wrong? It was then that I needed knowledge in order to continue to be congruent with my belief. In order for me to remain vulnerable to everything it says in Torah I needed to know that everything in it is in fact 100% true and verified divine.

Investigate I did. And now I know. But this is not my story. It is yours.

Once you realize that all these years you relied on faith alone, you now have the chance to start searching for the facts that support what you always thought must be true. This is your chance to start filling the holes in your education with answers to questions you never had. You now have the opportunity to back your faith with knowledge you never thought to seek. This is an exciting stage to enter and your belief will never be the same.

Historians, Scientists, Philosophers; each one is a man just like you. They think and wonder and study and inevitably find data to support whatever theory they try to create.

Your heritage is not rocket science; it is history and timeless, infinite wisdom. What the rest of them have are speculations. Don’t dismiss them, address them.

Now it is your turn to look into it. If you believe that every word written in the Torah is divine, study your own history to find the holes in their theories. Write a new Intro to Bible class based on your findings. If you know that the Aleph Bet are more than just a man-made tool for communication find out more about them. If you know that they are actually the building blocks of creation, the vibrations that keep each thing in existence, learn more about it. It’s your Torah, it’s your life and it’s your G-d.

You know that not everyone believes what you believe. If you care about it than you have your work cut out for you. The only reason you might have found the opposing view uncomfortable is if you don’t really feel secure yet that what you have faith in is in fact true. Don’t worry. None of it is anything a bit of knowledge cannot fix.

Are you worried that for 140 generations your ancestors passed down home-made myths and legends?  Are you afraid that Torah cannot stand the test of a good, thorough investigation? Are you afraid you are the first to have these doubts and thoughts?

And if for all these years you were aligned with a bible that was never true to begin with is it not time you found out?

            Do not allow yourself to be intimidated by a fellow man. The chances are high that he too is passing along information he “believes” based on a collection of “facts” he researched.

            I do not think the key to the future is to take away these classes. They will be there no matter what we do and we do not need to feel threatened.

The future is secure when our young ones have a chance to truly study their own Torah. Not just study it for many hours, but truly absorb what each word means in an unhurried and personal way. Every Jew must have a chance to learn our history. Study our Torah. Know our G-d. Believe in every word he says.

Today I know that nothing anyone can say will shake what I know to be true. My belief is not based of faith alone, it is based on knowledge. I bless you that sooner rather than later yours will be too. Obviously, what you know or do not know will not change what is, but it will change how you view the world and the resulting impact you will have on it.

You made a point there about the professor being responsible to give the students ideas for how to reorient their Judaism according to their (the professor’s) views. When you land in his class at the age of nineteen it is not the job of your professors to present you with a sophisticated perspective on Judaism. Judaism is not a subject, it is who you are. If you want to know more about who you are, there is an infinite amount of information available for you to find.

I most certainly agree with the last point you write in your article. It is no Mitzvah to inject doubt into the minds of impressionable students. Instead of including in our curriculums the passing studies of every philosopher who comes along and uses his limited understanding to create new theories, why not instead encourage our youth to delve into the depths of everlasting, unchanging Torah wisdom and begin to extract its invaluable knowledge so that we may continue to do the work we were sent here to do.

So what does a real Intro to Bible class look like?

Learning the words of the bible without learning their hidden meanings is simply no longer sufficient. Today we have so much free time on our hands, so much blessed time to think, that we cannot suffice with teaching ourselves one fifth of a deep and multilayered truth. We always knew of the four dimensions of Torah words; Pshat, Remez, Drush and Sod, but do we study Torah in this way? Maybe intro to Bible class can begin to introduce to each student the many levels on which the Torah needs to be studied. When he says “…An eye for an eye…” what does the creator mean? What does “G-d’s right arm” look like? Did Reuven really sleep with his father’s wife Bilhah? If he did not, then why does G-d say those words in his Bible?

If there is one valuable gift we can give our children and students it is the ability from the age of 12/13 to start to live. As an adult in the biblical sense it is time for each young man and woman to grapple with their own faith and begin to get to know their creator, their world, and their mission through real study. Should there really be so many of us at the age of nineteen that still rely on faith and have not yet discovered the knowledge to back our belief?

Maybe we should do away with Intro to Bible class.

Then again, maybe there is a better way. Maybe it is finally time to bring in the real introduction and stop wasting valuable time on transient speculations.

May Intro to Bible class live up to its name and introduce the Bible, and with G-d’s help may it be just that: an introduction!