Believe, Understand, Live: Emunah Beyond Doubt
Have you ever felt that moment of dizziness? That moment when certainties waver, when one wonders if the Creator is really there, by our side? A frantic mother once came to see a Sage. Her son, she said, had “lost everything”: his faith, his practice, his bearings. But what this mother experienced as a tragedy is actually a stage that many go through. The real question is not why doubt exists, but to redefine what faith, Emunah, truly is.
In the light of Parashat Yitro and the giving of the Torah, let’s discover together how to transform a fragile belief into unshakable knowledge.
-
Knowing Rather Than Believing
The first of the Ten Commandments proclaims: “I am the Lord your God” (Anokhi Hashem Elokecha). For centuries, Sages have wondered: how can one command belief? Faith cannot be ordered like ordering one to eat a salted fish! It is a matter of the heart, of intuition.
This is where the Rambam (Maimonides) offers us a fundamental key. In his masterful work, the Mishneh Torah, he does not say that the commandment is to “believe,” but to “know.“
“The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of all wisdoms is to know that there exists a Primary Being.” (Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 1:1)
For Bnei Noah, who seek to connect to the Creator through reason and morality, this is a powerful message: faith is not an abdication of the intellect. On the contrary, it is an inner work. Studying the Creation, reflecting on Providence, understanding the structure of the world: that is what it means to “know” God. Emunah must not remain a vague spark; it must become an intellectual and emotional compass.
-
The Sinai Experience: An Overwhelming Encounter
Why is faith based on the Torah so solid? Because it does not rest on miracles, which can be illusions, but on a collective encounter. At Mount Sinai, it was not just one person who “saw” God, but millions.
The text tells us that the people heard the first two commandments directly from the mouth of the Divine Power: “I am the Lord” and “You shall have no other gods.”
The light of the Midrash: This encounter was of such intensity that it surpassed human capacity. The Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 88b) teaches that with every word spoken by God, the souls of the children of Israel fled, unable to bear the revelation of Absolute Truth. God had to bring down the “dew of resurrection” to revive them. This teaches us a profound lesson: the true encounter with the Divine disrupts our small material existence. It requires that we make room within ourselves, that we set aside our ego to let in the infinite light of the Creator.
-
Faith is Your Deep Identity
Sometimes, we think we have “lost faith.” But the Lubavitcher Rebbe always reassured those who came to see him with these anxieties: “Don’t panic. You didn’t invent Emunah, so you cannot lose it.”
Faith is not an accessory that one wears; it is the very essence of our being. When the Torah describes the creation of man, it is written: “He breathed into his nostrils a breath of life” (Genesis 2:7).
The mystical teaching (Zohar and Tanya): The Zohar comments on this verse with a striking formula: “He who blows, blows from his inwardness” (Man de-nafach mi-tocho nafach). Unlike speech, which is external, breath comes from the depths. This means that every human being carries within them a particle of the divine essence. You do not believe in God as one believes in an external object; you believe because God is within you. As the Baal Halakhot Gedolot explains, one does not command someone to breathe or to love themselves; it is innate. Your spiritual quest is only the awakening of your true nature.
-
Abraham: From Intuition to Certainty
Abraham, the father of monotheism and the example for all Bnei Noah, was not born with infused knowledge. The Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah) tells that Abraham began to seek God at the age of three. He looked at the stars, the sun, the moon, seeking the Master of the Palace. But it was at age 40, the Rambam tells us, that he reached perfect knowledge, after years of reflection and trials.
The lesson of Abraham is that doubt and seeking are part of the process. Trials are not there to punish us, but to transform a naive faith into an unshakable conviction, which does not depend on our material comfort.
-
Living with “Da’at” (Knowledge)
The world around us is noisy. As Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev used to say, this material world “shouts” and seduces our eyes, while the truth of the soul is silent and hidden in books. The challenge is to silence the noise to listen to this silent truth.
One day, Rav Adin Even Israel (Steinsaltz) told the Rebbe that he had come “alone.” The Rebbe immediately corrected him: “What do you mean, alone? You are here with Hakadosh Baruch Hu (God)!”
This is the ultimate goal: to reach Da’at, the intimate connection. Do not let your faith be an abstract theory. Make it a living reality. When you wake up in the morning, ask yourself: “What does the Creator want from me today?”. Study, reflect, and bring this knowledge into your heart. For you are never alone; the Divine Breath is within you, ready to illuminate your life.
May this reflection help us all to transform our doubts into certainties and to reveal the divine light hidden in each of us.