BECOMING SECURE

Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993) Russian born and USA immigrated Jewish rabbi and scholar stated that although he felt that he successfully transmitted the facts and laws of Judaism to his students, he felt that he failed in transmitting the experience of living an authentic Jewish life. He stated that many of his students “act like children, and experience religion like children. This is why they accept all types of fanaticism and superstition. Sometimes, they are even ready to do things that border on the immoral. They lack the experiential component of religion, and simply substitute obscurantism (the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known) for it. After all, I come from the ghetto. Yet, I have never seen so much naïve and uncritical commitment to people and to ideas as I see in America … All extremism, fanaticism, and obscurantism come from a lack of security. A person who is secure cannot be an extremist.”

Truth of the Gospel of the Kingdom brings security and this security stops theological extremism.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus