 The Jewish people are a nation that was chosen by God to repair a broken world. That is going to be done by creating a righteous society and modeling lives that are centered on God, centered on holiness, spiritual growth, kindness, and righteousness. In order to have such a model society, this destiny requires that we have a home base, a homeland. So the land of Israel is critical in order for this plan to really be actualized. We need a land, a country to be able to build this model society. What Judaism believes and what the Bible speaks about is that one day the message of the Jewish people will be accepted by the rest of the world. That means that the knowledge of one God will spread to the entire world. All of humanity will come to know God and ultimately what will spread will be peace throughout the entire planet. Now the teachings that God gave us to guide us as a people toward perfecting our lives, both as individuals and as a society, these teachings are found in the Torah. And what we saw last week that the Torah is a complex combination of revealed teachings, revealed by God that were committed to writing. So some of what God revealed to us was committed to writing. We call these writings the Bible. Also, we're teachings revealed by God that were supposed to remain oral. Number three, we observed that having these two parts of God's revelation, a written part and an oral part provides a stereoscopic view, understanding and a richness to God's revelation. What is not entirely clear or entirely spelled out in the written text is complimented and filled out by the oral teachings. And finally, we saw that what's part of the Torah is the input of human beings who engage the Torah, think about the Torah, the leading teachers of the Jewish people who have input into the understanding and application of Judaism's teachings. Now we last week ended by pointing out that the core, the core of Jewish living is captured by the words expressed by the Jewish people as they stood at Mount Sinai and God was about to reveal the Torah to them and the people, the nations said to God that whatever you tell us, naase venishma, we will do and we will try to understand, we will try to hear and understand. So the basic two major poles of Jewish living are captured by the idea of naase, we will do, which means living according to, living and following the teachings of God that are part of the Torah and secondly, striving to understand the Torah, striving to understand through a lifetime of study the meaning and significance of the Torah's laws and teachings. And again, the goal of all of these teachings is to help us actualize our potential as individuals and as a nation, to serve as a catalyst to bring about a perfected, restored utopian world. Now what we're going to be doing tonight is continuing our exploration of basic Judaism with a focus on what are the beliefs and the philosophies of Judaism. Now many people have observed that the Torah and other books in the Hebrew Bible really focus primarily on deed rather than creed, meaning what the Bible seems to focus on is instructions on how to live rather than a developed and well articulated philosophy, a system of philosophy. And on some level, there's some truth to this observation because for example, when you go through the five books of Moses it contains at its core 613 commandments, which are 613 directives focusing almost exclusively on how we are supposed to live, what actions are virtuous and what actions should be avoided. But this would not be an entirely accurate assessment. For example, the idea of focusing our lives on God, which basically means faith in God, belief in God, is a most central part of the entire Torah system. For example, we saw that historically one of the things that was the most significant about Abraham and his contribution as the progenitor of the Jewish people was his discovery and his personal commitment to faith in the creator of the universe. And then we will see that when we get to the Ten Commandments, the so-called Ten Commandments that are revealed by God at Mount Sinai, the very first one involves following the will of the commander. The very first commandment speaks about faith, belief in God. Now on a deeper level, it's important to remember that these are not just commandments, where God says do this and don't do that, because the root of the Hebrew word for commandment, the word in Hebrew for commandment, mitzvah, is also related etymologically to the word in Hebrew for connector or connection. So really the Torah's commandments are not simply rules and regulations, they are connections, they are things that connect us both to God and to our own souls. Now, while the Bible itself does not contain an explicitly and clearly formulated set of dogma or doctrines or beliefs, there are certain ideas that emerge from the Bible that do form the philosophical and conceptual framework of Judaism. What we'll try to do tonight is look at some of these major ideas. Now, of course, in addition to the Bible itself, we have to remember that the full repository of Jewish teachings is also contained in the Oral Torah, which is basically the Talmud, and it is here as well where we'll have to look in order to discover the basic philosophical and ideological components of Jewish thought. Another stream of Jewish thought comes from our mystical literature, based upon the Kabbalistic teachings in the book of the Zohar, the Zohar book of splendor, Zohar means radiance, and it's here where you find the basic mystical teachings of Judaism as well as in later writings of the Jewish mystics. And these writings contain a lot of philosophical thought. For example, the Bible speaks about God creating the world. The Bible begins in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and giving mankind the Torah. However, numerous questions arise. If all you had was a Bible, you would have very, very important questions to ask. For example, when it says in the beginning God created, well, who is God? How are we to understand God? What is the nature of God? And the Bible doesn't really ever go into a deep analysis of how we as human beings are to understand God. It uses the word God a lot, but how exactly do we understand God and the nature of God? Well, that is not discussed so much in the Bible, but in our mystical literature it's discussed at length. Secondly, the Bible begins by saying in the beginning God created the world, but a good question would be, well, why? Why did God create the world? What was his goal? What was his purpose? What was his intention? So the Bible doesn't discuss that, but our mystical literature discusses what might have been the motivation for the creation of the world. And then the Bible speaks about the creation of mankind, human beings. But what exactly is a human being? I mean, we take it for granted because we're humans. But what exactly is the makeup of a human being? How are we composed? What is our nature? For example, we know that God took a human physical body and breathed the breath of life into us. What is that breath of life? Was it simply like artificial respiration that you get with CPR? Or was it describing the planting of a spiritual soul into a human physical body? And if it's speaking about the fact that the human being has a unique soul, which by the way is not described with any of the other creatures in the creation story. We're not told that dogs or giraffes or lions have a breath of life as a soul. They're alive, but is there something unique about that breath of life that God breathed into the human being? And if so, what is that spiritual soul? What is the nature of the soul? Are there components to the soul? How do we understand the soul? Again, these are not described in any detail at all in the Bible, but our mystical literature discusses these questions. And then we have a Torah. We know where there are hundreds of directions, hundreds of commandments. But what are the purpose of these commandments? When you read through the Bible's many commandments, it never tells you exactly what is it supposed to accomplish? What is its purpose? What is its goal? Why did God give it? What does it do? What is its meaning? That's almost never discussed in the Bible. That's discussed in our mystical literature. And finally, what is the relationship between an infinite transcendent spiritual God and a finite physical world? How does a spiritual God interface with a physical world? How do human beings relate to God? How does that work? How does it take place? Again, the Bible assumes that it can happen, but exactly how does it happen? That's discussed in our spiritual mystical literature. And then what happens after we die? I mean, the Bible speaks about people being alive and people dying. Is that it? Is there something that happens after you die? Well, the Bible says a little tiny bit, but not much. And so those kind of questions are dealt with in our mystical literature. Now, there have been numerous attempts to compile a comprehensive Jewish ideology over the past primarily 1,000 years. Until about 1,000 years ago, you don't really have many attempts to put together a comprehensive systematic approach to Jewish theology and Jewish philosophy. The most well-known and widely accepted of these systems of theology was the list of 13 principles of Jewish belief that were set forward by Rambam. Rambam is an acronym for rabbi Moses Ben Maimon. Moses is the son of Maimon. We call him Maimonides. He lived from 1135 until 1204. Over 700 years ago, he was born in Spain and lived the rest of his life in Egypt. Now, we're going to look tonight primarily at his collection of 13 foundational beliefs of Judaism. I want to make mention at the beginning tonight, though, that they haven't been entirely uncontroversial, meaning there have been many people who have critiqued various elements of Maimonides' list of 13 beliefs. Some have questioned, why 13? Couldn't they have reduced it to a few less than 13? And why these? And do they all belong? And are they all accepted across the board? And certainly we will find that although these 13 have been basically universally accepted over the course of most of Jewish history among modern, non-traditional Jews, I would say that many of these beliefs are not necessarily accepted. But I would be safe in saying that if you wanted to find the one presentation of basic Jewish ideology that has been the most accepted by most Jews over most of Jewish history, that's what we'll be covering tonight. Now, these basic beliefs are found in Maimonides' commentary to the Mishnah. We saw last week that the Mishnah was the first codification of the oral law. And Maimonides wrote a commentary to the Mishnah and he articulates these 13 principles of Jewish faith in his commentary to the Mishnah. They became so popular, that's how popular they became, that they were later popularized and condensed into a series of declarations that we find in many prayer books called the Ani Ma'amin. I believe they begin 13 statements saying Ani Ma'amin Be'emunash Lema. I believe with perfect faith that and then these 13 are listed each one. So that condensed form of Maimonides' list of 13 principle beliefs became popularized as this list of 13 Ani Ma'amin's and also a poem that summarizes these 13 beliefs which also became part of our liturgy is also included in the daily prayer book. The poem is called the Yigdal. It's often sung either at the beginning or the ending of every morning prayer service in synagogues across the world for many hundreds of years. So what I'd like to do right now is just list for you the 13 principles of faith and then we'll go and explore them one at a time. So number one principle is the existence of God. There's a God that exists. Number two, that God is one, the unity of God. Number three, that God is incorporeal. God is not physical. Number four, God is eternal and he created the world out of nothing. Number five, that we should direct our worship to God alone. Number six, the reality and authenticity of prophecy. There is such a thing as prophecy. Number seven, the unique nature of Moses' prophecy. He was a prophet that was unique among all the other prophets. Number eight, the divine origin of the Torah. Number nine, the eternity and immutability of the Torah. Number 10, that God is omniscient. Number 11, the principle of reward and punishment. That God rewards those who are virtuous, punishes those who are not virtuous. Number 12, belief in the coming of the Messiah and the messianic age that he will initiate. And finally, number 13, the resurrection of the dead. I often joke that there will also be a resurrection of the Jefferson airplane, but the dead is fine. Okay, so what we'll do now is explore each of these 13 one at a time, analyze them a bit, and then at the end tonight, I'm hoping to maybe have time to focus with you on one major issue of Jewish philosophy that's not tackled by these 13 principles of faith, although it is related to them. Number one, affirming the existence of God. First of all, is there really a commandment in Judaism to believe in God? Is there really such a commandment? It's not expressed in the Bible as a commandment. When you go through the 10 commandments that were given at Mount Sinai, so nine of them are expressed as commandments. Thou shall keep the Sabbath. Thou shall honor your mother and father. Thou shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. But when it comes to God, it doesn't say, Thou shall believe in God. All it says is, I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery. So the 10 commandments is basically not a commandment expressed. It's a statement of fact. The question is, does that imply a requirement to believe in that fact? Secondly, by the way, one of these believes it is so. And most Jewish commentaries believe that there is an obligation upon us to believe in God. But a second problem arises. Does it make any sense for God to command that we believe in Him? When you think about it on a certain level, it makes no sense. Why is that? Because if you are someone who believes in God, then you don't need God to command you to believe in Him. It's not necessary. If you're a believer already, there's no point in commanding people to believe in you. And if you're someone who doesn't believe in God, you can't just turn on that belief because God commanded you. There are certain things you can't turn on and off like a water spigot. So what does it mean for God to command us to believe in Him? It's not so simple. This Hasidic Rebbe passed away about 10 years ago in Israel. So he explained what the commandment of belief really is. He suggests that when the authorities, like Maimonides, speak about an obligation to believe in God, what it really means, the slalom of Rebbe says, is for us to seek God. For human beings to seek God, to strive to have faith in God. To try to make His existence real to us. Now, for the non-believer, that might mean, what does that mean? So for the non-believer, it might mean studying the arguments that had been proposed for the existence of God. When you read through Jewish literature, there have been thousands of pages written by people trying to give reasons and arguments and proofs for God's existence. So someone who does not yet believe, the commandment for them would be to try to believe by at least exposing themselves to the arguments and proofs given for God's existence. Or, and or, interviewing. Let's say the person who doesn't believe will take time to interview 15 people who do believe and speak to them and try to understand where they're coming from. But, according to the slalom of Rebbe, the commandment to believe is basically a commandment to seek, to strive, to try to find God. You can't do more than that. You can't command someone to start believing. Otherwise, it's very shallow. What is the point of a non-believer starting to say, I believe, I believe if it doesn't really believe? And for the person who already believes in God, the commandment is to strengthen their belief, to deepen their belief. You get a couple that's married. Hopefully they love each other on their wedding day. But hopefully 10 years later they love each other even more because they know each other on deeper levels. So what the slalom of Rebbe says is that both for the believer and the non-believer, the commandment is really to seek, to strive, to yearn. Now what are some, I stress the word some, of the classical pieces of evidence pointing to God? This could be not just a lecture in itself, this could be six weeks in itself. Number one, Maimonides himself suggests that if you really want to come to an appreciation of God, you should study the complexity and the beauty and the wonders of the natural world. There are people who say to appreciate the fact that the world exhibits incredible design and complexity you will come to appreciate that there must be a designer. There's been many expressions of this. There's a famous story in the Talmud where someone comes to Rabbi Akiva and says do you believe there's a God and Rabbi Akiva says of course I believe there's a God. And this person says prove it to me. So Rabbi Akiva says what are you wearing? Are you wearing a garment? Are you wearing a cloak? Rabbi Akiva says who made the cloak? And the fellow says a tailor made it. Rabbi Akiva says prove it to me. What do you mean prove it to you? It's obvious that this thing didn't pop into existence overnight. It must have been made by someone. So Rabbi Akiva said to him can't you hear what you're saying? If it's obvious that your garment must have been made by someone it's certainly more obvious that the entire universe must have been made by someone. There's another famous presentation of this where someone comes into someone's office and sees a beautiful painting on their desk and says how did you get that painting? It's beautiful. He says you know what happened? He says a few weeks ago my cat jumped on top of my desk and knocked over a couple of jars of paint and this beautiful painting emerged. So the person said are you crazy? That's impossible. That it's going to happen all by accident so the person said exactly if you think it's impossible for a paint factory to blow up and to produce the Mona Lisa so you're saying that the world just big bang came into existence and everything was beautifully designed and perfectly formed. So there is one approach to encountering and discovering the creator by coming to appreciate the beauty and the complexity of the creation itself. A number of books that have been written refer you to these books that really explore this topic more deeply. One is a book called Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. Another book is called Designer World. Another book is called Our Amazing World and another book is called Our Wondrous World but there are many many books that have been written to explore the complexity of the world itself. Also scientists have pointed out something called the Anthropic Principle. The Anthropic Principle basically points out that when you look at the world we're living in every single element of our world is very precisely designed to support life on this planet. If we were a little bit closer to the sun this planet could not support Earth. If we were too far away from the sun even by a little bit we couldn't have Earth life on Earth. If the axis of the Earth existed the way it is we would not be able to have life on this planet. And scientists have gone through every single element of the nature of the world we're living in to find that it was calibrated exactly to support life on this Earth. It seems that there was some conspiracy to make things work out so that we could have life on this planet. Another approach to encountering God is when you go through the Bible itself it doesn't say in the Ten Commandments I am the Lord your God who created heavens and Earth. That's a pretty big accomplishment. I created the entire universe. All it says on God's CV on his business card he says I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt from the house of slaves. So why didn't God write down on his CV the creator of all existence? The answer is very simple we didn't witness the creation of heaven and Earth but they themselves experienced the miracles that took place in the exodus from Egypt. So one of the principle ways in which we understand God's reality is that as the Bible says God showed us God showed us that he is real. In Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 35 the Bible says you were shown so that you should know that the Lord he is God there is none other. So Jews that went through the Ten Plagues in Egypt if you read the biblical account of these Ten Plagues it is absolutely mind-blowing. It was very clear that these Ten Plagues were not coincidental they couldn't have been performed by magic tricks even the Egyptian magicians at one point acknowledged this is the finger of God and then God takes the Jews out of Egypt they are about to cross the Red Sea they are pursued by the Egyptians the sea splits for them they go through on dry ground as they finish coming through the Egyptians pursue them the waters come upon the Egyptians and kill the Egyptians and our prophets tell us that that experience itself of the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea was so dramatic that the simplest Jew achieved the highest levels of faith in God these experiences of the miracles in Egypt the splitting of the Red Sea coming to Mount Sinai and hearing God speak were times in Jewish history when we as a nation became electrically aware of God's presence that's how powerful these experiences were and so the Bible is constantly telling us that you should remember these experiences teach them to your children every year make a special holiday where you relive the Exodus from Egypt and you remember it because these are the primordial experiences these are the embryonic experiences where our faith was formed Isaiah 43 10 the prophet Isaiah chapter 43 verse 10 tells us Atem Adai you Jewish people are my witnesses we are people who testify to the reality of God in this world for example the Torah predicts something amazing the Torah predicts and by all accounts the Torah the text is several thousand years old the Torah predicts that the Jewish people will be an eternal people that is an incredible thing to predict because almost every single civilization from thousands of years ago great civilizations humongous civilizations cease to exist we don't see the Holy Roman Empire anymore the Greek Empire the Persians the Egyptian Empire the Babylonians the Assyrians the Hittites and the Chivites and all these ancient peoples that were much greater than the Jewish nation they've disappeared this tiny group of Jews we still exist thousands of years later how did the Bible make such a prediction and what's incredible is that the Bible predicts that we will have none of the characteristics that will help a nation survive meaning that if you wanted to find what might help a nation survive thousands of years so you might say they're going to have a secure homeland that will not be ever bothered by other people like the Swiss they're behind the Alps there no one bothers them they can stay safely there forever or the Chinese there are a huge number of people behind this great nation at the end of the world no one's going to move the Chinese but the Bible specifically tells us that all of the characteristics that you might think would help a nation exist eternally the Bible says you're not going to have those the Bible says you're not going to have a land where you're going to have a home base the Bible says you will be thrown out of your land twice you'll be exiled and scattered all over the world that's not a great recipe for survival disconnected from a homeland now you might think that if a nation if everybody loved them maybe people would be invested in keeping these people around the Bible says no everyone's going to hate you that's not a recipe for survival here we are not just scattered around the whole world but living in a world where everybody wants to exterminate us that's not a recipe for survival and then the Bible says you might think that we're going to survive because there are billions of us the Bible says no you're going to be the smallest of nations and throughout all of our history we've been a very very small people so the Bible gives us all these elements that show we don't have any chance to survive and yet the Bible says you're going to be an eternal nation and so the prophets say you will be my witnesses because you yourselves as a people will testify to the fact that God is real that he keeps you alive now where does this leave the skeptic or the doubter what is the role what is the place what is the hope for a skeptic or a doubter within the life of Judaism so as I said before the slalom of Rebbe says skeptic or a doubter should at least try to have faith they don't have to necessarily artificially turn it on but at least make an attempt to try to have faith number two the Talmud says famously an amazing teaching the Talmud quotes God this is an amazing quote where God says better they don't believe in me God says better they don't believe in me but at least they will live according to my laws because God says because it's through the light of the Torah through the beauty and the wisdom and the light of the Torah they will probably come one day to see me as well so what the Talmud is teaching us is that for the believer for the believer we have to live our lives with an awareness that there is a God for example we live a life with trust in God I don't have to work three hours a day to support myself I have to work like a normal human being and have trust and faith that God is going to make sure that I survive so a believer has to live their life as if there is a God that's real and they have to have trust and faith in that God but for a skeptic what the Talmud is saying is not live life with the faith that there is a God you don't have that yet so live your life as if there was a God as if there was a God the way we say this in modern parlance is fake it till you make it number two in my mononies is 13 principles the idea of the unity of God that God is one now this is a very difficult and complex idea what does it mean that God is one so on the simplest level what it means is there's one God and not many Gods right? there's not three Gods there are not four Gods or ten Gods there's one God which means God is one is a denial of polytheism because again the first principle says you're supposed to believe in God so fine you say I believe in God there are many other Gods but I believe in the Jewish God so the idea that God is one is saying there are no other Gods number two here that it's saying God is one that God is in his essence indivisible there's an absolute unity in God for example you don't have God represented by local deities there's no trinity within God God is not three parts or two parts or ten parts God is not a duality God is absolutely one in his nature a third part of understanding God is one means that God is one in the sense that God is unique God is unique unlike any other thing in the universe nothing can be compared to him the prophet Isaiah says and his existence is absolute what does it mean that God is unique it means that really nothing else in the world has to exist only God has to exist everything else their existence is contingent only God's existence is necessary so he is one in the sense that he is unique a fourth part of understanding God's unity is that he is the source of all that happens in the world both positive and negative this gets a little bit more difficult to appreciate you know Zoroastrians we still have them Zoroastrians here in Toronto Zoroastrians try to understand there is so much duality there is light and darkness there is good and evil there is all this duality and to them it must have implied in their minds that there must be two powers in the world a light of darkness and a light a God of darkness and a God of light and to the Zoroastrians this was a very easy way of explaining the things that happen in this world when things are going well for you for the world that's the God the God of light that's doing very well and when things are going horribly that's the God of darkness that's doing well so they saw basically more than one power in this world and what the idea of the unity of God is saying is that no, God is the source of everything that takes place both positive and negative the prophet Isaiah says I create light and form darkness I make peace and I create evil that the Bible says that God is the source of even the evil things in this world positive and negative an example Christians tend to see Satan what they refer to as the devil but Christians tend to see Satan as a competing force against God in this world they see God Satan interlocked in an eternal practically struggle for who's going to be dominant over the world either God's going to be dominant or the devil's going to be dominant but in Christianity they see the world in very dualistic terms as a matter of fact the New Testament calls Satan the God of this world in Jewish thought we don't see this force called Satan as leading a competing team as Jews we see Satan as on God's team in Jewish thought Satan is simply a force in the world that tries to derail us from our spiritual goal Satan basically is a word in Hebrew that means obstacle obstruction so we live in a world where there are obstructions obstacles roadblocks to making spiritual progress it's not easy to go through life when you find a pile of $50,000 in the street that money is tempting to keep for yourself there are many times every day where you're tempted to do the wrong thing our rabbis tell us that this satanic force really lives inside of us that inside each person there is a self-destructive force it's what Freud might have called the ego or the id it's the part of us which just wants to be eating all day long and wants to take whatever is in front of us there's a part of us which is selfish which is hungry which is amoral not immoral amoral and then there's a part of us which is we call it the our yates or our good inclination so every human being has these competing forces Christians externalize the negative force as Satan as the devil but they see this force as competing over and against God and as Jews we believe that no there isn't any force other than God and in God's plan it's very good to have in our lives this force that tries to derail us because the only way for us to have virtue in life is to overcome negative resistance so it's part of God's plan for us to live in a world where there is an opposing force we often see God as a little bit mixed up right we see God as merciful as kind as tolerant and yet we see God even in the Bible described as tough and stern judgment and a God of justice well what is it is God a God of justice or of mercy in our prayers we address God as Avinu Malkenu our father our king a king I'm terrified of because a king can chop my head off because I don't do the right thing my father will love me unconditionally what is God a father or a king that it's not one or the other God is a unity everything somehow resides within God God is both merciful and just so by saying that God is one it means that God is the source of everything in the world number five and this is not an easy concept if it was easy by the way if all we were learning by the unity of God was that God is one God of three Gods if that's all it was teaching us we wouldn't have to say every day for a whole life two times a day we're commanded in Judaism to say Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 twice a day every morning and every evening to declare that God is one if the entire message was you know boys and girls there's one God and not five Gods you just tell it to a kid for the rest of their life why don't we have to say it every day morning and evening because you know what it's not such an easy concept to grasp so one of the things that's communicated is not just that God is the source of everything in the world but that God is all that exists is God there is nothing else in reality everything that exists is an expression a manifestation of God everything points to God but there's only God that's one number three on my mononies list of 13 principles God is incorporeal God is not physical now if God occupied space if God did occupy space he would be limited because he would be here and not there you can't have a physical being that occupies space being in two places at the same time so a physical God would be a limited God and we don't view God as limited the Bible emphasizes that God cannot be compared to anything else in existence so if God is physical you could compare God to any human being just bigger than we are so we're told that when God revealed himself at Mount Sinai you find this in the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy chapters 4 and 5 when God literally revealed himself to us at Mount Sinai God emphasizes twice in the chapter says remember you didn't see any form on the mountain you only heard a voice the Bible emphasizes that there's nothing physical about God now you do find many anthropomorphisms in the Bible when you read the book of Ezra for example the book of Ezra says numerous times Ezra says and the hand of God was upon me now what is that supposed to mean that if you were at the place there with Ezra you would have seen this immense hand coming out of the heavens and a lighting upon Ezra's head is that what it means obviously Malani's teaches that these are anthropomorphisms they are basically it's symbolic imagery and by saying God's hand was upon me Ezra is saying that I felt supported by God I felt God was assisting me in my life when the Bible speaks about in the book of Exodus that God redeemed us from Egypt with a mighty hand with a mighty arm and outstretched hand again there wasn't a huge hand that came and took them out of Egypt it's imagery for God's might and God's power number four in Malani's list of principles is God's eternity God existed before the world existed God created the world out of nothing there wasn't anything in existence for God to then make the world with that everything was created we say out of nothing in Hebrew there was something that came out of nothing not from material that was already here we're taught in this principle that God exists outside the parameters of time and is not limited or bound by time God created time and God transcends time God is the uncaused first cause and God has always existed and God will never cease to exist even if the world ceases to exist number five in Malani's 13 principles is the worship of God exclusively we cannot pray to other gods or even pray to intermediaries to God not just other gods but you can't even pray to something which you believe is an intermediary to the true God the point is that we direct our prayers not to the wielder of power but to the source of power for example one of the mistakes that many Israelis made after the six day war in which the Israeli army miraculously defeated all the invading Arab armies in six days right the battle cry of almost all the Israelis was call Haqqavod latsahal who goes to the Israeli defense forces that's a mistake because it wasn't the Israeli defense forces all by themselves that were able to vanquish their enemies they were basically the puppets at the end of the stick in the same way Moses did not redeem the Jews from Egypt God redeemed the Jews from Egypt and he used Moses at the end of his staff so we're not supposed to direct any of our prayers or hopes or aspirations to any thing that wields power in this world we're always supposed to look to the source of all power for example we shouldn't put our trust and our faith in our doctors the doctors are merely agents and tools of God and when a doctor thinks that he or she is healing that is a huge mistake it's God that brings about the healing the instrument that God uses to heal the doctor prayer is a very important activity for us by the way because through prayer we bind ourselves with God and prayer does not seek to change God one of the big problems with prayer is that it sounds like we're changing God's mind that right now God has not given me something my lumbar pendulum hurts and I'm going to pray for God the way prayer works is not by changing God, prayer changes us and when we change then what we receive from God will change number six in my monotheism 13 principles is the idea of prophecy prophecy is the opposite of prayer prayer is when we speak to God prophecy is when God speaks when God communicates with people God did not just create human beings and then abandon the world as the deists maintain, deists believe that God created the world and then took a vacation in Florida for the rest of his life we don't believe that as Jews we believe that God created the world and communicates with the world because our belief is that a God who is benevolent a God that cares a God that loves has to communicate with his creatures if your parents gave birth to you and they never spoke to you for the rest of your life that's child abuse so God created the world formed the world but God communicates with the world there are important things that we need to know now my monotheist considers prophecy a faculty of human potential that can be developed anyone can develop the faculty to become a prophet to be a fitting vessel to receive prophecy from God normally prophets receive this communication in a dream or in a vision this leads us to the seventh principle of monotheism which is the special nature of Moses prophecy prophecy of Moses was totally different from the other prophets the other prophets were asleep when they received prophecy they received it either in a vision or a dream Moses was totally awake when he received prophecy he didn't see a vision Moses prophecy was direct verbal communication now the Talmud describes the difference between Moses and other prophets the Talmud says that Moses experienced God through a Aspachloria Hameira a clear lens and the other prophets experienced God through an Aspachloria She'enomira that the lens through which other prophets saw God was not totally clear it was like frosted glass and they didn't have the same clarity as Moses now what's important about the prophecy of Moses is that we have clear knowledge as Jews that he was a prophet and that God spoke to him because God spoke to Moses initially in the hearing of all the Jews that were at Mount Sinai if you want to check the source for this chapter 19 in the book of Exodus verse 9 where God says to Moses I'm going to come to you in the thick cloud and I'm going to speak to you in the hearing of all the people so that they will all hear as I speak to you and they will believe in you as a prophet forever so the prophecy to Moses was a public revelation it wasn't the private revelation like all the other prophets received and therefore it's only Moses that received laws from God none of the other prophets presented any new laws to us the other prophets only encouraged us to follow the laws of Moses or scolded us for not following the laws of Moses but the laws of God came exclusively through Moses number 8 in Maimonides list of 13 principles is a divinity and authenticity of the Torah he basically teaches that the Torah was not a product of Moses it was something that Moses made up everything in the Torah comes from God the only problem by the way of the last 8 words in the 5 books last 8 verses I think last 8 verses in the 5 books of Moses where it speaks about the death of Moses so the Talmud discusses this if Moses is writing down what God told him in the 5 books of Moses how could Moses write about his own death so the Talmud offers 2 opinions number 1 the Talmud says Moses wrote these words with tears by the way the commentary say not tears about his impending death but he was crying because in these 8 verses he had to say and Moses was the greatest prophet that ever lived he was so humble that it broke his heart to have to write these words and then the other opinion in the Talmud is that actually Joshua wrote these last 8 words the Torah that we have today my mononies teaches us is the same Torah revealed to Moses and that's why we put tremendous care into preserving the Torah when you read in the Ark here there are scrolls of Torah these are meticulously written by a scribe and there are meticulous laws and how careful the scribe has to be it's not something which is done casually and then these scrolls are read publicly in front of the whole congregation where there is quality control because everyone in the congregation has a printed Bible and they're watching very carefully to make sure that the person reading doesn't make a mistake and if they make a mistake they have to put away the scroll and correct it so over the course of thousands of years we've maintained incredible quality control over the accuracy of the maintenance of these scrolls to the point where after 1948 when Jews began returning to Israel from all over the world they compared the different Torah scrolls from all over the world they found that there were eight letters that were different that's all there were between all the scrolls and these were letters that didn't affect the meaning of any of the words it would have been like a silent letter that didn't affect the meaning of anything but we maintained incredible quality control over the Torah number nine in my mononies' principles is the immutability of the Torah which means the Torah is eternally valid and true and binding eternally valid true and binding it will never be modified or changed there'll be no other Torah ever given to us according to our mystical literature God looked into the Torah as a blueprint through which he created the world that's how critical the Torah is the Torah was the blueprint spiritually for the creation of the world we're living in number ten in my mononies' thirteen principles is God's omniscience which means God is aware of all of our actions and thoughts not just our actions but our thoughts as well God supervises everything that happens in the world God didn't create the world he sustains the world not like a carpenter who built this table here and the carpenter could build a table and then drop dead and the table will continue to exist but God did not create the world like that when God created the world he maintained his connection to that which he created he continually wills the existence of every molecule in the creation and if God disconnected his will and his thoughts from anything in the world it would cease to exist so what it means is that God is in charge of everything that happens in the world and can intervene at his discretion for example Israel would not exist as a nation today if it were not for God's intervention in history on our behalf totally impossible problem this is a big big problem now how do we reconcile God's foreknowledge if we say God knows everything how do we reconcile God's foreknowledge with human free will we are free agents we have free will so if we understand God knows everything then it would seem that that interferes with my free will now this is a very difficult problem to resolve I'm going to share one approach which will involve invoking the number four principle that my monies shared above and here is how we would approach this the problem of God's foreknowledge interfering with human free will only is a problem if we conceive of God as operating within the confines of time what does that mean if we understood the way the world works is that right now it's nine o'clock and we're going to say now at nine o'clock that God knows that when I get home tonight the first thing I'm going to do is go to the refrigerator and I'm going to grab some orange juice so if we said that God knows everything and includes the future so if that's our concept if that's what it means to say God knows everything that at nine o'clock God knows what's going to happen at ten o'clock so that would mean that when I got home and I got to the refrigerator I couldn't grab the bottle of water because if I grabbed the water instead of the orange juice it would prove that God didn't know what was going to happen so what we're saying here is if we're saying now that God knows what's going to happen at ten o'clock that would seem to interfere with my free will because if I didn't do what God knew that would prove that God didn't know so my mononies told us already that God does not operate within the confines of time it's not what happens God does not exist in the present and look into the future God exists in the present in the future and the past all at once for God there is no time for God right now he is looking at a movie of what's going to happen in all of human history as if it happened already so it's not as if God's knowledge interferes with what I'm going to do an hour from now because God is not looking into the future anyway it's a bit of a conundrum you can think about it for the rest of the night it'll be quick to chew on that number eleven in his principles reward and punishment very simple idea this assumes we have free will if we didn't have free will to do what we're supposed to do and avoid what we're not supposed to do otherwise God could never punish us it would be absurd for us to be given rules by God and we don't have the free will to carry them out and then God's going to nail us for not carrying it out so reward and punishment assumes we have free will and that God is just and fair and he's actually more than just and fair God is patient and compassionate God gives us many chances the Bible says in Ezekiel chapter 18 the Bible says that God is not interested in punishing people who are wrong God waits and waits for them to do repentance to change to get their act together so God gives us every chance in the world to change to improve ourselves ultimately God wants change he doesn't want to punish us and the truth is it's a great kindness for God to judge us that's why by the way Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year is a holiday Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment but we consider it a holiday when we get dressed up and we have fancy meals because what it's saying is you know what God cares about us God would only bother judging us if he cared about us and he has great faith in us that we can change so judgment is not a bad thing it's actually a beautiful thing and the truth is that God doesn't really punish us so much as correct us or reprove us the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 5 just like a parent corrects a child so too God corrects us the parent is not interested in punishing the child the parent is not invested in making the child suffer the parent wants the child to improve to grow and so the parent sometimes has to give a punishment to the child the truth is that punishments are not so much punishments from God they are simply the consequences of the deeds that we do we will either achieve a blissful life for eternity or we won't not based upon what God does to us based upon how much work we put into changing for example when you're a high school student are you going to get into a good university or even get into a university what does that depend on? it depends on how hard you worked in high school so if you don't get into university it's not a punishment it's a consequence and so all of these are the system of providence that God runs the world number 12 in his 13 principles is the belief in the coming of the Messiah and the messianic age the Messiah basically is the Jewish king that will preside over a rectified world it's a world where Jews will live in peace in their homeland where the knowledge of God will spread through our teachings to the rest of the world and the world will come to be a place of peace Maimonides says that we should await the expectation of the Messiah with great expectation because it would be terrible for us to ever lose the awareness that the world as it exists now is broken one of the great tragedies is when people get used to the world we live in now the belief in the Messiah is a belief that you know what the world is not supposed to be like this the world is supposed to be a better place and the great tragedy is when we get used to a broken world one of the things that the Bible says about the redemption from Egypt God says I'm going to take you out mitachat sivlot misrayim on one level what that word means I'm going to take you out from the sufferings of Egypt but the word sivlot in Hebrew is related to the word savlanut in Hebrew savlanut means patience meaning that the Jews in Egypt became tolerant of their suffering in Egypt they got used to it it wasn't a problem anymore that was normalcy it was a new normal to live under servitude and so what happened is God had to take them out of their toleration of their suffering our rabbis teach us the worst is when you don't even know you're in darkness and that's one of the great terrible things if we stop yearning for the coming of Messiah and we think that the world we're living in now this is the way the world should be God forbid the world can be a much much better place and finally the last principle of mitachat sivlot is the belief in the resurrection of the dead if God is truly just and God truly rewards people it's impossible to conceive of life as being limited to the 70, 80 or 90 years we live in this world Judaism believes in the immortality of the soul after a person dies their soul does not cease to exist and when the world will be perfected in the messianic utopian age God will restore our souls in a body because it's the body with the soul that constitutes what a human being is human beings are not angels just a soul just a spirit a human being is by nature physical and spiritual now it's not exactly clear what this restored body will be in the resurrection of the dead it's debated greatly among the rabbis what is this post resurrection body going to be like Maimonides basically says that we will be resurrected into a more spiritual body but then we will die again Maimonides believes that after the resurrected body dies then we will only exist as a soul eternally everyone else rejects Maimonides and says no after we come back into a body it'll be a different body than we have now better looking of course but it'll be more spiritual it won't be the same kind of gross physical body we have now but that will exist forever now I want to conclude tonight with your permission with one philosophical problem that is not addressed directly by Maimonides but it's really the most ticklish philosophical problem that we face as human beings probably the most difficult impressing issue is understanding how it's possible for God to allow innocent people to suffer in this world now it will be impossible for us to cover this topic in a few minutes that we have remaining tonight we will be devoting an entire lecture to this topic in the spring lecture series at Shari Tfilah on May 25th that night will be entirely devoted to this question it's called in philosophy theodicy which means how do we reconcile and explain the ways of God especially when it comes to suffering in the world but let's at least try to define the problem the problem of suffering is dependent upon three factors meaning that there will be no problem of suffering unless you have three things in place number one you have to have the reality of an omnipotent God you have to have a God that's all powerful number two you have to have a God that's not just all powerful but totally benevolent and number three evil has to be real suffering has to be real for example if you could show that the evil isn't real the problem that's a way as an example if a Martian came down tonight and went to Toronto General Hospital and went into a surgical theater and saw the surgeons cutting open someone the Martian might think that the doctors are torturing this poor person and they would think this is the most evil thing in the world if you explain to them that no the doctors are doing something very helpful to this person they're saving the person's life so then we won't look at this surgical procedure as evil there's nothing evil going on so first of all for there to be a problem you have to have something that's truly evil number two we have to assume that God is benevolent because there'd be no philosophical problem for us to worry about if people were suffering at the hands of a cruel and sadistic God if God by nature was cruel and sadistic so we shouldn't be surprised if people that are innocent and righteous are suffering what else do you expect so the only time you've got a problem to deal with is if it's really evil people are really suffering and if we understand God as being truly benevolent and good and the Bible describes God as exactly that Psalm 145 we say in our prayers three times a day we say God is good to all and his mercies extend to all his creatures so we have a God that's good not a sadistic brutal cruel God and number three there's only a problem of suffering if God is omnipotent so what do you say if God is omnipotent and he is benevolent and yet people really suffer so to deal with this question there was a rabbi years ago his name was Rabbi Kushner I think it was Lawrence wrote a book, I may be wrong about the first name Harold Kushner wrote a book called when bad things happen to good people and he tried to understand this problem he went through himself a very very tragic situation he had a son that had a terrible disease called perjurya here a little child that looks like 97 years old it's a very devastating illness and he was angry at God how could this happen to my beloved son so he had a big problem how could he maintain a relationship with God he couldn't dismiss the fact that God was good he couldn't dismiss the fact that there was really suffering horrible going on the way he answered the problem was to say well you know what God is not omnipotent his answer to the problem of theodicy was to say God isn't all powerful and so I can't expect that God can make everything good now the problem with this approach which does take the blame off of God is that it's not how Judaism understands God according to the Torah God is all powerful and you can't get him off the hook so easily so suffering remains a very serious theological problem well I'm going to do briefly in the next three minutes before we close is to share a number of thoughts again this is far from exhaustive but just four thoughts to think about number one we have to appreciate that at the end of the day we as human beings cannot fully understand God what we're trying to really do in understanding suffering we're trying to understand how does God allow it to happen so what we're really trying to do is to understand how God thinks now the problem is it's not possible for me as a human being to enter into the mind of God I always give this example you would not be able to explain to your chihuahua why you love Mozart try as you may your dog is not capable of understanding your appreciation of classical music and you can't explain it to your dog your dog exists at a different intellectual level than you and so even if God came into the world and had a conversation with us he wouldn't be able to explain to us how he thinks so one problem is that the question itself is trying to accomplish something that we're simply not capable of doing because of who we are as a famous philosopher said in the middle ages if I knew God I would be God number two would we really want to live in a world where there was no free will after all much of the evil in this world comes about through human misbehavior would I want to live in a world where every time someone was about to do the wrong thing someone was about to send a nasty email and before they push the send button a big hand came out of the heavens no you don't and every time I walk down the street and I avoided giving someone charity that needed money God put his big hand in my pocket and took my hand and forced me to give the charity and every time someone was about to rob someone or kill someone or rape someone God would stop them in their tracks would we want to live in a world where we were basically robots and we had no free will I don't know if we would want to live in a world like that number three is it possible that there is ever some positive benefit to suffering maybe sometimes there's a positive benefit to suffering can we learn from suffering I've read I don't understand this myself personally but I've read dozens of articles where people write this with all honesty that the best blessing they ever had in their life was when they got diagnosed with cancer I don't understand how they could say it God forbid it should never happen to any of us but we know there are people in this world that deal with dreadful situations and they see it as a greatest blessing and they say you know what had this not happened I would have lived my entire life on automatic pilot never appreciating a moment now at least I'll appreciate the next few years of my life can suffering be a catalyst for spiritual growth can ever something positive come out of it we always know by the way that in life there's no gain without pain so is a life without pain really that great a life maybe there's some positive benefit to it sometimes and finally do we ever really see the whole picture if life that we see the life that we see is just a tip of the iceberg I mentioned that we live in this world for 50 years 70 years 80 years 90 years whatever we live in this world is a tiny tiny fraction of our lives we're going to live eternally eternally it's a very long time it's an infinite amount of time so we don't see the big picture if we're going to live eternally is it possible that our suffering in this physical life will be offset or compensated for in the world to come