I had a short discussion with my rabbi about my lack of faith. At one point, we discussed morality and whether I thought the world was or should be amoral. I told him that I thought morality was needed in this world and that Judaism's moral code is a good one. I haven't studied alternative systems, but I recalled Hasidic Rebel's post about faith and how other moral systems have their own problems. Anyway, to that he responded that I should think about the fact that the same book that provides this comprehensive code also commands us to perform other, less rational duties. So, I'm thinking.

It is a conundrum. Is it possible to accept the moral code described in the Torah and Talmud and reject the rituals? Perhaps it first comes down to how you view the code. If you accept it as the best among many options, then I think it is possible to reject the God "component". However, if you accept the moral code as absolute truth, a description of how things should be, then it's not possible to reject the other parts of it. To accept it as truth, though, requires faith that the Torah is devine. I am not a philosopher. I don't know if one can even prove that a moral is "true" or "right". All I know at this point is that the Jewish morality I do know feels right to me.

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As I re-read what I just wrote above, I realized that Judaism doesn't claim to know the "truth". Passages in the Torah are disected and interpreted by the sages and they may be wrong. There is a famous talmudic story about such an event where Rabbi Eliezer argued against the majority's ruling in a Jewish court. Rabbi Eliezer invokes miracles and even a voice from heaven telling the court that his ruling is right. However, these acts are not enough to convince the court to change its mind and one of the other rabbis informs that the Torah is "not in heaven". The law is that majority rules and the story illustrates that is true even when they are wrong. To me, it also illustrates that there is no truth except for what man decides. (Well, the truth may be there, but it must be interpreted and ends up distorted.)

I've added comments. It was easy. Now I just need to get some readers... That's hard.

I'm now in Tel Aviv. We drove in from the north thinking it would be easy to get a hotel room without a reservation. After all, Israel is in a recession and the tourism industry is in the toilet, right? According to the many hotels we tried to get into: wrong. They are all full. The only explanation I can think of is that they really are full, or they are running a reduced number of rooms to save costs.

We tried hotels in Hertzlia and in Tel Aviv and finally found a room in the Dan Tel Aviv. It's a great executive room - fully done up. It's also costing us. Oh well. We go home tomorrow.

I'm reading The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig) for the first time. In it, Pirsig explores modern life and the split between rational man and artistic man (he calls the categories "classical" and "romantic"). His story also touches on faith and religion. A couple quotes I really like so far:

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is frantically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. (p. 134)

and

...To doubt the literal meaning of the words of Jesus or Moses incurs hostility from most people, but it's just a fact that if Jesus or Moses were to appear today, unidentified, with the same message he spoke many years ago, his mental stability would be challenged. This isn't because what Jesus or Moses said was untrue or because modern society is in error but simply because the route they chose to reveal to others has lost relevance and comprehensibility. "Heaven above" fades from meaning when space-age consciousness asks, Where is "above"? But the fact that the old routes have tended, because of language rigidity, to lost their everyday meaning and become almost closed doesn't mean the mountain is no longer there. It's there and will be there as long as consciousness exists. (p. 168)

He does miss the fact that the other thing Moses' message has going for it is mass revelation. 600 000 people, in addition to Moses, would be institutionalized after claiming they heard the voice of God. However, that doesn't take away from his main point.

Firstly, I've noticed I've had my first few visitors. Welcome. Send me an email if you think I need to make my life (or my postings) more entertaining.

I am currently travelling through the Golan and Galil areas of Israel (the North) and have stopped off in Tiberias on the Kineret. It is hot and humid here making for lots of sweat and short tempers.

On Friday morning I was at the Banyas springs (one of the Jordan river's contributors). It was beautiful but the serenity was interrupted by gun fire. Really loud gunfire. It was so loud, I thought artillery may be landing near the park. I don't often get scared, but I was at that point. Later in the day the BBC World news (the only English news feed I could get) reported that Israel had shelled Hezbolah positions after they attacked a border outpost near Sheeba farms area in the Golan. Some of the artillery must have been within a kilometer of Banyas. I had no idea it was so loud - and that was the firing end.