The Source of Faith Examined.

Abstract

Someone who wants to understand the content of Jewish faith can pick up nearly any article or listen to any number of sihot by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, and find an illuminating treatment of some aspect of that issue. The same can be said of someone who seeks to know what being a ma’amin [believer] entails, what sort of intellectual stance and emotional attitudes are required in order to be a faithful Jew. But the same cannot be said of someone who asks, especially in light of everything else he knows and all the intellectual challenges he confronts as a religious Jew, whether he should or at least may have such faith. This essay explores how and why religious ethics, theology, and the phenomenology of faith figure prominently in R. Lichtenstein’s thought; whereas normative epistemology does not.