REVIEW: Questioning Belief
Raphael Zarum, Questioning Belief: Torah and Tradition in an Age of Doubt (Maggid Books), 360 pages
According to Professor Alan Brill, “one of the first usages of the term Modern Orthodox (with a capital M) was in 1892, when the Reform scholar Claude G. Montefiore applied the term Modern Orthodoxy to the branch of Judaism with which his friend, and head of Jews’ College, Michael Friedländer, affiliated. And what prompted Montefiore to write about his friend? It was the publication of Michael Friedländer’s book, The Jewish Religion (1890).
Friedländer (1833-1910) was a German-born rabbi and orientalist scholar, who served as Principal of London’s Jews’ College. While The Jewish Religion is not well known today, its publication was of significance when it appeared. Yet, while Montefiore praises Friedländer and notes that, “nothing is kept back; there is no hedging, and there is no reserve… [Friedländer] is never afraid of his opinions, and seldom, consciously perhaps never, attempts to cover them,” he also sharply criticizes Friedländer:
In reading his book we seem transported out of the nineteenth century. Its philosophy…is almost confined to the scholastic Jewish theologians of the Middle Ages. Passages from their works are continually quoted [but] the author does not seem to realise how different the problems which they sought to answer were to the problems of our own day.
Specifically, Montefiore expresses frustration by Friedländer’s apparent dismissiveness of Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed, writing: “Dr. Friedländer thinks that ‘it may fairly be said that Maimonides has done far greater service to his brethren by the composition of a systematic code of laws than by his philosophical Guide,’ and even maintains that ‘the Guide would scarcely relieve any one of his perplexities in matters of religious belief.’” Of course, this accusation seems particularly strange given the fact that it was Friedländer who translated the Guide into English in 1881.
However, what particularly frustrates Montefiore is Friedländer’s lack of engagement when it comes to matters of religion and science: “How about faith and science, which, by the way, so far as we believe in its results, is only a synonym for reason? The conflicts between Genesis and Geology, between Genesis and Astronomy, between Genesis and Biology, are too obvious to have escaped our author’s attention.”
For Montefiore, there is what he calls “rigidness” in Friedländer’s Modern Orthodoxy which, “has not yet mixed enough with the big outer world and with the wide stream of general civilization. Hence its utterances seem sometimes provincial, and sometimes out of date.”
Responding to Montefiore’s critique, Friedländer noted that,
if Mr. Montefiore thinks that I “do not greatly approve of philosophy” he is mistaken. In love and regard for philosophy and science I yield to none, but I will not deceive myself in accepting as final such solutions as at best can only be proposed as suggestions or hypotheses, and of which from time to time “the old has to be removed because of the new.”
To this he then adds:
Mr. Montefiore asks, “Why not say frankly, I choose to believe the truth of the Bible, although I am unable to prove it?” I do say so. Turn to pages 2 and 6 of my book. He asks further, “Why not say frankly, I choose to believe it, although it be contrary to reason?” Simply because I do not believe so. I am convinced that the contradictions are only apparent; they disappear when thoroughly examined. What the Torah teaches is true, but, or rather, therefore, I am unwilling to shut my eye to the results of science. So long as the distinct line of demarcation between faith and reason (The Jewish Religion, pages 6 and 12) is not ignored, there is no fear of injury to either, and a complete reconciliation—not a half-and-half reconciliation, as Mr. Montefiore assumes—is obtained. When a contradiction presents itself to our mind, we must be mistaken, either in that which we believe to have been proved by reason, or in that which we believe to have been taught by Holy Writ; either the former is a mere hypothesis, and not a fully established fact, or our interpretation of a Biblical text is erroneous. The critic, ignoring this standpoint of mine, discovers contradictions in my book where there are none.
Though Friedländer rightly dismisses much of the criticism directed towards him, it is clear that he doesn’t feel that the Torah should need to respond to every scientific claim or that any apparent contradiction between religion and science can be resolved.
Sixty-four years later, another Principal of Jews’ College, Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein (1894-1962), wrote The Faith of Judaism: An Interpretation for Our Times (1954). The title makes it very clear that Epstein set out to achieve a different goal than Friedländer’s The Jewish Religion.
As Epstein writes in his preface:
This book is an attempt to describe the Faith of Judaism in the light of modern knowledge and in relation to our times…. It may well be that what I have written will not receive the approbation of all. I can only say that I have sought in these pages to give expression to thoughts which I, personally, found helpful in meeting squarely the modern challenge to Israel’s ancient faith; and it is in the hope that these will prove equally helpful to others that I present this work.
In contrast to Friedländer who either avoids the subject of science and religion, or who offers somewhat elementary and unsatisfactory solutions to some of those issues, Epstein provides a more nuanced approach which, rather than being dismissive of scientific discovery or insistent that every discovery can be reconciled with Jewish teachings, he holds the view that, “as science comes more and more into the full possession of the truth as to the manner in which God worked in those days of the beginning, the unity of the Bible and science, of Torah and natural knowledge will be more discernible and complete.”
Fifty-seven years later, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who at that time was the President of the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS), an adult education center which emerged from the closure of Jews’ College’s rabbinical training program, wrote The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning (2011). As Rabbi Sacks explains in his introduction:
I want, in this book, to argue that we need both religion and science; that they are compatible and more than compatible. They are the two essential perspectives that allow us to see the universe in its three-dimensional depth. The creative tension between the two is what keeps us sane, grounded in physical reality without losing our spiritual sensibility. It keeps us human and humane.
Rather than being rigid, as Montefiore accused Friedländer, or seeking to reconcile Judaism and science as Epstein endeavored, Sacks aimed to show how “science takes things apart to see how they work [and how] religion puts things together to see what they mean.”
Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum
This now brings us to Questioning Belief: Torah and Tradition in an Age of Doubt, written by Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum, Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies and holder of the Rabbi Sacks Chair in Modern Jewish Thought.
Significantly, while Friedländer’s Ph.d. included the study of mathematics, neither Epstein nor Sacks were trained scientists. In contrast, while Zarum has spent much of his professional life in the field of Jewish education, he completed a doctorate in theoretical physics alongside his numerous qualifications in Jewish studies.
Admittedly, like the earlier works by Friedländer and Epstein, Questioning Belief is not exclusively about science and religion. Still, a number of its chapters do address matters relating to science, and the fact that Zarum has a deep knowledge of the field and an appreciation for the discipline of scientific proof and argumentation, undoubtedly strengthens the value of Questioning Belief.
(Before proceeding, it is important to disclose that I have attended many of Zarum’s lectures over the years, and have been the beneficiary of his advice and mentorship. While eight years my senior, we both grew up in the same London neighborhood of Edgware, and his references to our hometown in the opening sentence of his acknowledgements brought a smile to my face. While Zarum has written and published various articles and small booklets over the years, many of his students and followers, myself included, have eagerly awaited his first full-length book.)
The question I would now like to address is: Where does Questioning Belief fall in the above-mentioned works touching on similar topics and written by former heads of the institution which Zarum now leads?
As one would expect, Zarum frequently references Rabbi Sacks whom he was privileged to meet with on a regular basis for over a decade. In a similar manner to Epstein, he writes at the end of his introduction that the book “reflects my own thought process. It represents my personal outlook and the fruits of a long journey. It contains many of the reasons why I keep my faith… My sincere hope is for this book to be helpful to you and to anyone, religious or not, Jewish or not, who is questioning belief” (xxx). [Read the Foreword and Introduction to Questioning Belief.]
Having spoken of where he was raised, Zarum then speaks about his father, Arieh Zarum z”l (to whom Questioning Belief is dedicated), who was a Yemenite Jew, born in Tel Aviv in pre-state Israel, “who knew the Bible by heart and adored Maimonides” (xv). On its own this fact may seem nothing more than tangentially related to a book of Jewish thought. But, as one reads Questioning Belief, these facts, along with the author’s deep interest in prayer, become very prominent. As he writes,
you will find that I have quoted Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, the great twelfth-century rabbinic scholar and philosopher known as Maimonides or Rambam, more than anyone else in this book. His influence on Judaism is immeasurable. Though he lived over eight centuries ago, his writings are still so exciting and challenging to read. The Yemenite community held him in such high esteem that they included his name in their version of the Kaddish prayer. As a Jew of Yemenite descent, I am very proud of this association (xvi).
He writes: “I believe serious questions should be treasured,” and that, “inquiry is the springboard to further knowledge and new perspectives,” and it is for this reason that Questioning Belief addresses twelve varied questions which are divided into three categories: Torah’s origin narratives; some of the Torah’s “ethical positions”; and Torah’s “presentation of God and belief” (xxi, xxiv).
To be clear, while Zarum offers a range of refreshing approaches to these questions, Questioning Belief is less a book of answers and more a showcase for his own methodology regarding how one approaches difficult questions. In fact, Questioning Belief is, as the author acknowledges, “proudly apologetic” in the formal sense of the word – meaning that he seeks to defend “some value, cause, or religious belief through systematic argumentation and discourse” (xxii).
In Chapter 2 he asks the provocative question: “Has Evolution Made Genesis Redundant?” In doing so, he guides his readers to think about what they likely regard as a taboo questions. In terms of this specific chapter, though he frequently quotes Rabbi Sacks, Zarum is doing something different than Friedländer (who believed in the possibility of a complete reconciliation between religion and science but who showed a level of scepticism towards some scientific developments), and Epstein (who asserted that the Bible and science could be united), and Sacks (who speaks about the creative tension between the two realms). As he writes,
today there are those who still say that evolution is unproven and “just a theory.” They try to argue that certain complex organic processes cannot be accounted for by evolution and hence reveal God’s hand in creation. However, their approach has been debunked time and again. Evolution is harnessed in laboratories around the world for biological research every day, especially in the design of molecules, enzymes, and drugs for life-enhancing and life-saving medical purposes. Evolution is now accepted as the central unifying concept in the field of biology (28).
In short, more than arguing for the legitimacy of religion, Zarum is arguing for the legitimacy of science, and how “the study of evolution can actually enhance Jewish faith” (33). Perhaps some may consider this radical. I believe that the confidence with which he presents his approach that, as he notes, has taken him some years to crystalize, is reflective of his commitment to Maimonides demand for reason, and the fact that he does not look towards science as an outsider.
In Chapter 4, Zarum addresses the question of “Did the Exodus Really Take Place?,” and as in his earlier chapters, he speaks directly and openly about his beliefs and what his research has shown:
I have been studying the Exodus for a long time. No matter how much I would like to, I know of no way to prove the veracity of the story as literally recounted in the Torah. An honest assessment of the information and facts precludes any scientific attempt to confirm its occurrence. Despite all this, the Exodus remains central to Jewish faith, of utmost importance to religious life, and essentially true (80).
And how is this so? Because “the Torah does not aim to give us a historical account of the Exodus; it has a very different set of purposes” (98).
In Chapter 5, Zarum addresses the question of “How Can Slavery Be Condoned?” Here, he draws his method from Rabbi Sacks’ teachings. That being said, Zarum’s reflections on his visit to the Whitney Plantation and his description of the life of a slave genuinely brought me to tears.
Chapter 12 addresses the thorny question of prayer, and the admission that, “for today’s Jew, prayer has become unrelatable, uncomfortable, ineffective, and unnecessary” (286). Here, Zarum argues that insurance policies undermine our reliance on God, while he sees prayer’s regular reminder “of our weaknesses and limitations” as being a problem – notwithstanding the fact that other theologians consider the core of prayer to be our reflection on dependence on the Almighty. Beyond this, while he writes that prayer “enables us to live intentionally rather than reactively” (298), I am not sure why it must be just one or the other.
While some responses provided in Questioning Belief may be more satisfying than others, this is a book in which the author shares his feelings honestly on a range of Jewish values and practices, and it is this candor and vulnerability, along with some of the original approaches which Zarum presents, which makes Questioning Belief an incredibly refreshing work.
Questioning Belief is in no way a rigid book. It does not look for simple solutions to reconcile science with Judaism. Nor does it seek to conceptualize religion as a purely right-brain activity. Instead, Questioning Belief is an original engagement with these issues from a true seeker who wishes to share some of his approaches with others. As for me and the many others who’ve known Rabbi Zarum for some time, we have been waiting for this book for a long time, and have been rewarded for our patience.
Rabbi Johnny Solomon is the Chief Learning Officer of WebYeshiva.org where he teaches and works as #theVirtualRabbi, and lectures on Tanakh, Halakha and Jewish Thought for Matan, Melton, and Herzog College.