Worship Through the Intellect

This statement was written at the beginning of the last century, but it is relevant many times over to our own generation. There were times when questions about faith would be settled with an answer of feeling, or simply with the word “just so.” “Why do we keep the Sabbath?” Just so. “Why must one put on tefillin?” Just so. And so forth... We have developed; the world does not accept “just so” as an answer, and it demands to understand deeply and to investigate. This phenomenon, though at its outset it brings a terrible heresy (the Enlightenment movement of the eighteenth century), together with this it builds new and immense layers in faith and in the service of God. In this time, we must explain the matters of faith, Torah, and mitzvot in an intellectual way; the one who studies Torah must be, in addition to being a person of heart and faith, also a person of learning and knowledge in the matters of Torah and mitzvot.

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