Recap for 23 Sivan, 5774 (Parsha Korach and "The Problem with Skepticism"

This Shabbos, we discussed the week’s parsha, Korach, and Rav Yeager’s commentary on the parsha. We also discussed an article written by David Schlesinger’s father, Dr. George N. Schlesinger, back in 1969 called “The problem with skepticism”.

We discussed how in the parsha, Korach leads a rebellion against Moses and Aron. Korach claims that everyone is holy, and does not see why Moses and Aron get to be leaders and he does not. We discussed how there is also someone named Dathan who was never happy with leaving Egypt in the first place. Back when we were in Egypt, Dathan complained that we were going to anger Pharaoh. There was also a lot of complaining about how our life in the desert was not as good as our life in Egypt. And of course there was all the complaining about the bread we were provided by Hashem, that it was not good enough and we should be getting meat.

We discussed how it may be healthy to have disagreements, but the problem with Korach is that he wanted to play someone else’s position. We discussed how Judaism is a “team sport”. Just like in football, a linesman can not play quarterback, so to - not anyone can be the leader, and/or make sacrifices in the Temple as a Kohen/priest. Korach was trying to play out of position.

We discussed how this concept of Judaism being a team sport is relevant today. For example, if we have a choice whether to daven at home by ourselves or at shul with a minyan, it is better to daven in shul. It is important for us to become part of the community and do things as a team. We were not created to act on our own.

We discussed how the earth opened up and both Korach and Dathan perished. Although it would seem that what Dathan did was worse – rebelling against leaving Egypt in the first place – Korach received the same punishment - because he was influencing others to rebel. We discussed this Shabbos how we have to have faith in Hashem, including the people Hashem chooses as the leaders. We also discussed how there was 3 different types of bread provided to the people based on whether or not they were “playing their positions” on the team and having faith in Hashem.

This Shabbos, David led discussion of an article his father, Dr. George N. Schlesinger, wrote entitled “The Problem with Skepticism”. This article was written back in 1969. The article presents the case of someone who has several questions about the existence of Hashem. He goes off to be with the believers for a while and then comes back. His friends ask him if his questions were answered. He responds that no, his questions have not been answered, but he no longer has these questions.

The article then provides examples of things that we believe in, that have not been proven with certainty. For example, we believe that everyone else around us has emotions. However, it is possible that someone has been programmed to appear to have emotions. Another example, when I leave a space, I believe that things continue to exist in that space. However, it is possible that everything disappears and reappears a fraction of a second before I return.

The truth is that we really can not be 100% certain of much of anything. But things that we observe over and over again, we use inductive reasoning to conclude they will continue happening. If someone were to say that only he or she has emotions, or that unless a human-being is in a space nothing exists, we would probably be referring this person for mental health treatment.

The article then goes on to ask, why is it when someone says that Hashem does not exist, we do not react the same way? The probability that human beings are an accident that came out of randomness, is as likely as the probability that those around us do not have emotions and are robots.

The article then goes on to conclude that the problem with skeptism, when it comes to believe in Hashem, is that society regards this skeptism as normal. In contrast, skeptism with physical things, like all of us having emotions – society regards this as abnormal. Dave W pointed out that society’s views are shaped by whether or not something is physical or spiritual. The article concludes: If society regarded belief in the existence of Hashem as normal, and belief that Hashem does not exist, or may not exist, as abnormal, it would be rare to find someone questioning Hashem’s existence.

This is a summary of what we discussed. No Halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred