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Search Judaism
Judaism's Answers to a Changing WorldRabbi Yitzchok Fingerer
Search Judaism
Is religion really the opiate of the masses?
Is there any scientific evidence for the existence of G-d?
Does there really need to be absolute morality?
How do we reconcile the Holocaust with our perception of a Benevolent G-d?
Search Judaism answers the searching Jew’s questions about the relevance of Judaism in the twenty first century. Search Judaism is a book that will fundamentally change your perception of Judaism.
In this intelligently written and researched work, a veritable Guide to the Perplexed for the 21st century, Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer of Aish HaTorah New York demonstrates Judaism’s relevance to every Jew today. Each chapter deals with the provocative and philosophically perplexing questions that challenge modern Western man, and develops some surprising answers.
Book Excerpt from Search Judaism
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Search Judaism
In Search Judaism, Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer of Aish HaTorah New York asks and answers philosophical questions about the truth of Torah, the existence of G-d, and the role of science and morality. He answers the searching Jew's questions about the relevance of Judaism in the twenty first century.
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Soul Defined:The Human U-Turn
What exactly is the soul? How can we relate to it? The following true story should give us a glimpse into the power and nature of the soul. Late one night in Auschwitz, a starved and emaciated Chas- sidic man was rummaging through the garbage, desperately seeking a bit of food. Suddenly he heard a noise. He ducked for cover, fearing that an SS guard had spotted him. Instead, a skeletal Jewish teenager emerged from the dark. He had also come to the garbage dump to scavenge for food. The Chassid emerged from his hiding place and beckoned to the boy. He told him that he wished he could offer him some food, but all his scavenging had yielded nothing. He could offer him something else, however. He told the lad that God loves him and that he also loves him. Then he embraced the boy.
Both the Chassid and the boy survived the Holocaust; they remained in periodic contact. When, many years later, the Chassid died, the boy, by now a middle-aged man, came to the family in mourning and told them the story of their father's hug. He claimed that their father's hug had saved his life. It had made him feel human again. That hug had given him faith, fortitude, and the will to survive.
How can a hug save a life? If human existence is limited to the physical dimension, how can something as ethereal as love stave off death?
Joseph Greenstein was a sickly child who was told by physicians that he would not survive past adolescence. Devastated by the news, he ran away from home and joined the circus as a water boy. There he became acquainted with the circus strongman. The circus strongman took the diminutive Joseph under his wing and taught him that strength is not just a matter of developed muscles; rather, strength is the product of will power, stamina, resoluteness, and the power of the mind. Eventually, little Joseph grew up to become the legendary circus strongman, the "Mighty Atom." Although only 5'4, he was able to perform what the circus billed as "superhuman feats". And he lived well into his eighties.
How can strength of mind counteract the weakness of the body? Which is the real determinant in human life - physical reality or spiritual reality?
Each of the following cases exemplifies the power of the spirit to forge beyond physical limitations:
- Helen Keller, blind and deaf from infancy, broke through her silent, dark world at the age of seven. She learned to read and write using the Braille system. She graduated with honors from Radcliffe College, served on the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, and traveled and lectured around the world. She authored seven books, one of them a vivid description of her rich spiritual life. Aimee Mullins was born without the bones that connect the knees to the ankle; her legs were amputated below the knee on her first birthday. She learned to ski, and also set records for the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, and long jump at the 1996 Paralympics.
- Mikey Butler was afflicted with cystic fibrosis. When he was a baby, the doctors told his parents that he wouldn't survive a month. Against all odds, Mikey not only lived twenty-four years, but also went to college (carrying his oxygen tank from class to class), played drums at concerts for disadvantaged and developmentally disabled children, and became an inspiration to other patients.
The above examples suggest that an invisible, non-physical component can profoundly affect corporeal reality.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains where this non-phys- ical spirit comes from:
In the creation of man, only the inert substance was taken from the soil; he was turned into a living individual by the breath of God Himself. It is this breath of the infinite, which formed the freedom, the immortality, and indeed, all the greatness of man... It was only through the spirit that he received life, and it is to his spirit that his soul ad- heres. When his spirit departs from his body, the remains that are buried do not include that which was "alive" in him, for man's life is bound up with his spirit not his body. This is why his physical survival does not depend on his body alone. Even if all seems to have departed, a human being can go on living by his spirit, on sheer willpower alone, for it is the spirit that also preserves life.
The relationship between the human spirit and body is an emerging field of scientific investigation. Although the soul cannot be measured, its effect on the physical body is manifest in many groundbreaking experiments.
The New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark study demonstrating that a patient's thoughts and expectations can be as effective in healing the pain of osteoarthritis as surgery. In the experiment, one group of patients suffering from osteoarthritis underwent standard arthroscopy of the knee. The other group of patients underwent sham arthroscopy. They were brought into the operating room, given local anesthesia, and surrounded by sterile drapes. The surgeon requested all the instruments used in the true procedure, and he manipulated the knee as if arthroscopy were being performed. The surgeon and his staff also imitated post-operative care and follow-up procedures, although in fact no surgery was performed. The results showed that the sham surgery worked just as well as real surgery!
Another study involved Parkinson's disease. One of the most debilitating aspects of Parkinson's is the progressive loss of voluntary muscle function. Boosting the level of dopamine with certain drugs can significantly improve the symptoms. In this experiment, neurologists used PET, a brain scan, to assess dopamine activity within the diseased parts of the brain. One group of Parkinson's patients was injected with a drug proven to boost dopamine levels, while the other group was injected with a placebo. Prior to treatment, the diseased areas of the brain appeared as a pastel blue on the computer screen. The drug that releases dopamine caused these circuits to light up as a glowing orange. With the patients who believed and expected that they were receiving the drug but were instead given a placebo, the PET scan revealed the same intensity and type of color change. In other words, the placebo - or rather the patients' expectations - caused the brain to release as much dopamine as the active drug!
That thoughts, hopes, and expectations can produce such demonstrable physical effects reveals the power of the spirit.