My Evolved Relationship with Torah and Religion

In the 49th episode of the "Jewish Wisdom for Business and Life" podcast, host Levi Brackman discusses his personal journey with Judaism, timed to coincide with the festival of Shavuot, which marks the giving of the Torah.

Brackman explores his evolution from rabbi to business person, highlighting how his faith has changed over time. He shares his experiences growing up in a Hasidic household, where religious texts were paramount, and recalls the impact of Rabbi Schneerson's death on his beliefs.

During his journey, Brackman spent around five to seven years refining his understanding of Judaism, reaching a point where he doesn't view religion and the Torah as the ultimate "truth", but rather as a collection of meaningful "truths" that provide moral guidance. He uses the concept of kindness and the idea of a non-physical reality as examples of these truths, and mentions the challenges in discerning the ultimate truth, which he suggests science might bring us closer to, but doesn't own.

Brackman interprets the Bible's teaching to distance oneself from falsehoods as an argument against viewing it as absolute truth, and suggests that seeing its stories as conveying truths can mitigate many faith-related conflicts.

He concludes by sharing his current perspective on the Torah as a source of wisdom and cultural heritage, cautioning against presenting it as absolute truth due to potential conflicts with scientific facts. He ends with a teaser for the next episode, the final one of the current season, promising a review of Masechet Sotah and hinting at a fresh approach for the upcoming season.

Transcript

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This is Levi Brackman with the Jewish wisdom for business and life podcast. Thank you so much for joining today. Is the 49th episode of this podcast. So one before the 50th. And that actually is very symbolic because in the Jewish world, we are now on the 49th day. From Passover. And on the 49th day in the evening, we celebrate shove what, and tonight we are celebrating Shabbat. So on my 49th podcast on the 49th day of the Omar. Which tonight to shove wat I am recording. The. 49th episode of the Jewish wisdom for business on my podcast. So I thought. That it would make a lot of sense to talk about shovel SWAT or the festival of weeks because 49 days. It's seven weeks and that for the festival of shove, what is really called the festival of weeks. There is another name for the festival of Shabbat. And that is called Xmen. Matan Torah Taino. The, which means the time of the giving of our Torah. Now the Torah is the five books of Moses and its associated books. And the VM. To VIM. And a lot of people also include in that. The Tom mode and what's considered to be the oral law written law, which is the scriptures. And then the oral law. Which is the mission. And the Talmud. So today I want to do something a little bit personal and different than what I've done in the past. And that is, I want to talk about. My own evolving relationship with Judaism and religion in general. Because this isn't something which I've really discussed a lot on this podcast. But you might as I've started recording these podcasts and also in video, you might see there's a lot of books behind me. And I was a rabbi and a teacher of Torah for many years. And I'm an hour. Startup founder, business person, PhD in psychology. I still study Torah every single day. And I love it. I really enjoy studying Torah. Now, but my relationship with Tara has changed. Significantly. Over the years and my relationship with religion and how Torah. And how I see Tara in my life has also changed significantly over the years. And, as one grows and one becomes more knowledgeable and one gains more insight, and one is able to. Assimilate more data. What happens is that one changes one's perspective. One, one is a child. One is. Has a very primitive, if you like a very sophomoric, a very junior kind of view of things, because one only knows what one is taught and the people who teach one as a child usually are not that knowledgeable either. They know more than the child knows, but that doesn't mean that they're very knowledgeable about things as one grows older, one case knowledge, one case insight. One assimilate some more data. And one changes one's perspective and that is a good thing. That's called growth. I think one shouldn't just stagnate a lot of people. They peak in high school and then they never grow. And they never think about things again, and they continue to have views. I have a high schooler, all views of an adolescence. Some people they stopped growing in their twenties and they, their views are set. That's what they are in their twenties. But those of us who are thinking individuals, we continue to grow and we continue to evolve. So I want to talk a little bit about my personal relationship with Judaism and religion and what shove, what means to me today. At my age of 45 years old. And after I've evolved significantly. So a little bit about like, where I came from, I came was brought up. In a Hasidic a house. So my father wasn't Hasidic, but my mother wasn't because of that was went through Hasidic schools. The Abod Lovich. Variety. And it was a pretty intense upbringing, I would say, especially my education because we weren't taught English or math. We studied either Tom wood or Hamas or the Bible all day long. And we actually would talk in Yiddish. So I speak fluent Yiddish and that's because that's what we were taught. Growing up. And I've spoken about this on other podcasts, that kind of upbringing was pretty intense. My father was a scientist, so we did get a dose of kind of unlike some of my peers who didn't get it, but we did get quite a bit of a dose of open-minded and we were exposed to science as well, not from an educational perspective, but my father being a scientist. We got exposed to that. And won't get into all those details because it's not as interesting as what I want to discuss, which is. What it means to me today. And the reason why I think it should be relevant to a lot of people who will listen to this is because I'm sure if you've listened to this podcast, It's because you're thinking person and you're a person who. Likes. And appreciates. A. Pretty open and well full town view of things. And did that for, I think I owe it to you to give you a more nuanced approach to religion. Because I think it's very, have been very helpful to me and maybe therefore, very helpful to you as well. How I've come about. To think about things. So let's start off with. The. Way in which religion was presented to me. As a child and it was presented to me as this is the truth, the only truth, and in some ways this truth, rivaled scientific truth, and the way it was presented to me as a child was that while science changes. Religion never changes. The Torah is the fact and the truth. Everything is in the Torah. There's nothing which can't be found the terror even. And for example, Einstein's theory of relativity of that too, is found in the terror. And if you can't find it there, that's only because you don't know how to look for it well enough, but if you look for it well enough. It will be in the terror because the terror is a source of all knowledge and everything is there. And it is that the ultimate of all truth. And that's the way it was presented. And the Torah the world was created in six days, six actual days of 24 hours. God said there should be light. And in fact there was light and that is what happened. Got a threatened Noah, that there would be a flat, and I told them to go out there and get the people to repent. And if they didn't there would be a flood and youth kill old people. God got angry. People didn't listen. He created a flout and killed off most of humanity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These were all facts taught to me as this is just the way it is. And we didn't question it. We believed it. 100% and we wasn't exposed to anything different. So we didn't have an opportunity to believe anything different because this is just the way it was presented to us. And. We obviously were taught that somehow the terror was superior to science changes, sign. Scientists change their mind the whole time. Tara and ever changed this mind. It's always true. I remember one teacher telling us that. What is called a lying river, a river, which dries up once every seven years is called a lying river because it's not truthful because I'm when she's truthful. It's always the same forever. And science is something which changes. And since the subject changed, therefore it's not true. It's false. Whereas the Torah and religion never changes and therefore. It is. It is the truth. And that's how it was presented to me. So we have the truth, very fortunate that we are able to accept the truth. And that is the way it is now. Over time. Has I grew up I started to notice that maybe things didn't seem to be the absolute truth. As well as presented to me. Maybe there are. Things in the world, which seemed to. Contradict this truth of the terror and specifically. We were taught that. Rabbis and what they were called, Saudi Kim or wrappers, where these infallible individuals who could never mistake and they were, could never make a mistake. And they. Always. Did what was right. They were presenting the word of God. On earth to us and we need to listen. To what they have to say. So when every generation you have this person called. Sadek. And that Sadiq is this person who you have to listen to because he is the conduit for God in this world. And, as a hustle, we had the big Sadik who was in our life at the time rabbi Schneerson and he was. Somebody Mohamed. Harrison. He was somebody who we revered. We would wake up in the middle of the night because we were in England and he would give these long talks for five, six hours. Starting at 9:00 PM. New York time. So 9:00 PM. New York time. That's two P 2:00 AM in the morning. We would wake up at 2:00 AM. I was a little kid. And we wake up to a Yenta listen to him, talking Yiddish for hours, mood, go to sleep at 6:00 AM. After he had finished talking again, that was part of part and parcel of what we did. And we revered him and he was this person who, every question we had asked him and my mother would in particular going, asking questions for she wouldn't tie a shoelace, so to speak without asking him which way she should tie it. And that's how we lived our life. And but over time, This started to show some cracks because. It just came, apparent that. You read the Bible and you read this read even the stories of Genesis. And. Really. The Walt was created in six days, six actual days. And by God saying it, and this is the sum total of how the whole of existence came into being. And. The story of knowing the flat. Because God decided that he wanted to bring the flood. Therefore the flood came and. Yeah, the story of of Abraham and the Kings and on all the stories, they just, as I read them, they didn't. It didn't sit well with me. And I struggled with this. Being the truth. And the ultimate truth, a true. The truth with which rivaled science. And. I it. Just became really apparent to me. This might not be the case. And then when I was about 16 years old, this great. Rabbi who we revered and who he seemed to indicate very strongly that he was the Messiah. And he was the person who was going to bring about the redemption of all of this was, he was the combination of all. The prayers and everything, which I've all of history. If you like was going to happen through him. And he was going to be the Messiah, redeem the Jewish people from the exile and take us all back to Israel on these clouds of glory and he spoke in these. Very messianic terms. And a lot of us, his followers really believed that he was going to be the Messiah. And together with that, he wasn't that he wasn't going to die. And he was actually very sick. It's suffered a couple of strokes and he was very sick man, but we didn't believe that he would die. We believed that he would. He would bring about the messianic age and somehow he would direct us to become well again, as messiahs do. And he would create this. I'm not sure in this messianic age, this miraculous age. Where all spirit of impurity would evaporate from the land and we would live a land of. Excuse me, we'd live a life of absolute and total. A utopia. And we really believe that. And then he passed away. And that was a massive jolt to my faith. Massive. Huh? Kahn on the estimate. W what a significant job that was to my faith. We really believed that with complete sincerity as children. And we were taught that we're taught to this was the greatest man to ever exist. And that was a lot of it was encouraged by him. And that crisis of faith evolved over a long period of time. It had the multiple phases of it. But I think it probably came to a head when I was mad 30. So I went to about 15 years ago. And I realized that I just didn't really believe in this. And I needed to make some major changes. But here's the thing that happens when one realizes that one really doesn't believe in something that one was brought up with because. It's a very destabilizing thing to take place. Because once entire value system is entirely wrapped up in this. Belief system. And once that goes away. W what happens to one's values that also disappears and one's values makes ones who one is. And because it's not just a belief system, it's also like how you think about life, what your morals are. How you behave. What your identity is. Oh, when that goes away, it's a very significant crisis. And a one which should not be at all on the estimated for anyone going through that. But I realized that. I needed to evolve this slowly and carefully. And really think it through. And that's what I did. It took me a very long time to. Reevaluate everything I was ever taught. Everything I knew about Judaism. Everything I thought about religion. I had to now reevaluate and re-examine from the ground up. And I. When took me probably about six or seven years to actually go through that process. A tremendous amount of very deep study. At reading books, some of them multiple times, some of the great. Works of Judaism. And some of the greatest thinkers. To ever live. And that books and try to understand where they came from and reading them months and twice. Thinking about it. And then also reading other people's books from other religions. And I can give a, some other point, perhaps a a Booklist. But spent a tremendous amount of time studying, thinking, analyzing and rebuilding. Rebuilding is key. I think that what I've realized over time now that I'm a few years removed from this. Is that is actually how all intelligent people should go about their lives. And the way I think about this as you can go. To buy a suit. You can go to the store and you can take a suit. Off the shelf and put it on and it fits Ben. It's never going to be. Fit 100%. It's somewhat ill-fitting that's easy way to do it. Or one can go and get one tailored. And that it fits you perfectly. It's tailored. 100% for your body, and that is the better suit to wear. So I often, when I think about this, I think that. Most thinking people should really tailor their world view to who they are, rather than just take one off the shelf. It's the harder way to do it. It's the path less traveled. But it's a very valuable thing to do because then you really have an assimilated perspective. There's Different types of religious. Motivation has found by psychologists as a theory of human motivation called self-determination theory. And in it, they have as part of that, they have these two states of religious motivation, one called introjecting religious motivation. And the other one, which is called identified religious motivation Intro objected religious motivation. Is when you are motivated to be a part of your religion because. Of something outside of yourself. It's because perhaps you are wanting to be a part of a community who you're scared that if you don't do it, you'll be thrown out of the community or because you're scared that you don't want to go. You're scared of going to hell for example, or because you are I'm worried that your family will disown you. If you don't or you want to be more part of your family, whatever, the reasons I it's not because it's you and identified religious motivation. Is this concept that the reason why you are motivated to be part of the religion is because you fully identify with ideas within the religion. And what they find is that people with identified religious motivation have a healthier. Attitude towards religion. In fact, a much more likely to be more. Tolerant of others and also not to be as dogmatic, whereas people with interjected religious motivation, I'm much more likely to be dogmatic. And they're much more likely to be intolerant to other people who have opinions that are different than their own. The reason why I bring this up is because it is, I think that thinking person should go through. A process where. They. Re learn their religion. And we learn the basis for their religion, to the degree where they have an identified religious motivation, where they feel that the religion, which they practiced, that is part of their life. Is really identified with who they are on the deepest levels, and that doesn't happen on its own. That happens through a process. So it's a process. One needs to go to two. Rebuild within myself. Or to build from the get-go. This This motivation or this basis for religion. And for one's relationship with religion, which is very much identified with who one is on one, on the deepest of levels. So I went through this process and it took me probably five, six or seven years. Till I got there. And at fast forward, I just want to let you know where I got to. Because today I still study religion and I studied the Torah and I started the town with very regularly. And. I studied though, from a complete different perspective, then I studied. Studied it previously. Today, I don't see religion and the Torah has been the truth. Rather, I see it as containing truths. And what do I mean by this? The truth would be this thing, which is the ultimate of The facts, the ultimate of. What exist? But truths are things which are. Constant. In the world. They teach you something fundamental about how things are. Rather than the way. The way things are. How things are rather than the way things are. And what I mean by that is. When you have a truth, you can say something like For example. There is something beyond the physical. Now that's a truth. Is it the truth? Maybe we don't have any evidence for it. So therefore we don't know that it's the truth. But it's a truth. It's a truism. It's something that you can live your life with. One should be kind to one's fellow. Now, what is that the truth or is it a truth? It's a truth, right? This is a difference. It's interesting that today we have this thing called in in, in the political realm you have Truth social. So truth social again, it's trying to tell you, this is the truth, but the reality is that humans have a great difficulty finding the truth. Everyone has their own truths and religion offers you. Once a, some truths to live by, and that's incredibly valuable to have that in one's life. Rather than the truth. So often one gets confused between the truth and truths. And the truth is a baby. Science can get closer to the truth because we have ways in which we can measure things. Quanta science. But even science doesn't own the truth. So the truth is something which is a very challenging thing. As a matter of fact, the word truth almost doesn't exist in the Bible. Interestingly truth and and is acquainted with kindness as it has. Abraham says to his 17, he has to do with me a truth and a kindness. In other words, the idea of truth doesn't mean this is factual. This is the truth. Constant forever. Rather it means that this is something which is acquainted with kindness. Which is do me a truth and a kindness, another do me a solid. Do me something good. Is what it means. So that doesn't mean that one shouldn't be truthful. I want you to try to be truthful. As a matter of fact, there is no obligation in the Torah to say, once you'll be truthful, it just says keep a far away from faucets. So don't be fraudulent. Don't be false. It doesn't say to be truthful because. The Bible had enough truth within it enough for the truth to understand. And this is one of the truth of the Bible. Which I rustically modern day religion just completely. Doesn't talk about and actually makes us if doesn't exist. It doesn't say. You obligated to be truthful or 2, 2, 2, 2, 2. For the truth, because one doesn't have. The ability to know what the truth is. That's not possible. But one does have the possibility to keep as far away from falsehoods as possible, because one knows what seems to be false. So if you keep as far away from false, from far as possible, then you'll get closer to the truth. But the idea of this is the truth. The ultimate truth in this is not something which even the Bible itself makes a claim for. It just tells you to keep away. And keep a distance from faucets. So the way it was presented to me as a child, that this is the truth, and this is this one, man. This is the man who in bodies. All of truth. And it never changes because it's the truth. It's just simply not the case. And even the Bible itself, the Torah itself doesn't present itself as such. It presents itself rather it's book of truths rather than the truth. So take back to. The world was created in seven and six days. Is that. The truth. I would 10 contented. They absolutely not. The world was not created in six days. The halt was evolved over billions of years, but that six days of creation is teaching us a truth. Not the truth, but a truth. Which is incredibly valuable to us in our life. It teaches us. That the world didn't just come about just out of nothing rather. It was an intentional thing that was created. By a being that is high than ourselves. Nan, it spoke that way to the ancient sea mites in a way in which they would also be able to comprehend. This truth. So therefore the story, which is a very powerful story was created in a way in which they would understand the truths that were being conveyed through the story. Now, if one sees all the stories of the Bible, that way the Mon. Doesn't have the same kind of challenges that I had as I was growing up. It doesn't look around and say, Hey, this isn't true. And if it's not true, what else? Isn't true that I've been taught. Y rather, these are truths and these stories convey truths that you. You can take into your life in a very powerful way. And by those truths. And those become very valuable in your life. Very valuable in your life. Because through that, you can actually gain truths, which can help you live your life. The best life. Live your life. Our life well lived. Because the teaching you truths science doesn't teach you truths. Science teaches you how things are. What things are rather than how things should be. Whereas the term religion teaches you how things should be. And this is a very important distinction which should be made. So today, what is my relationship with the Torah? The relation with. it's not that this is the book of truth. But this rather, this is a book of truths. And through those book of truths, I'm able to learn things and gain insight and wisdom. And bring some of those ideas into my life in a way in which learning is incredibly valuable and can help me live a life. Lived. And therefore. I still have it as very valuable in my life. And I look at it. Ah, as a valuable book and as a book, which I should continue to study. And learn. It contains the wisdom and truths of my people. My heritage. And for generations upon generations, some of the smartest people in the world have read this. I put the time and effort into studying it and giving commentaries about it. And therefore it's valuable to me, this part of my heritage. And it conveys these truth that you are incredibly valuable to me and in my life. And today, therefore, as we hit Shabbat, the 49th episode. Of this podcast on the 49th day of the Omer. And Schwab. What is coming. We celebrate the giving of the Torah. The giving of this book, which contains truths. Timeless truths. That can help us live our life and live a life. Lift. From now and into the future. And for many people in the past. But I would just caution people. Please. As you teach. As you teach the tear up, just be truthful about what it is and to be either irony that I'm using the word truthful. This the terror itself never claimed to be a book of the truth, but rather a book of truths. And if you, one is much more honest with one students that this is a book of truths and one which one should read and then try and assimilate these ideas and true this in one's life in the best way possible for liver. On a life best well lift. Then that is a much easier way in which one can accept. That this is a book of value. Other than saying, this is the truth and it rival science because at that point it becomes something which one could demonstrate to be false. And then you are now. Contravening the idea of tear Hawk of please keep as far as possible away from faucets. So if teachers kept that in mind, Fewer people will come to a crisis of faith because rebuilding. When everything's destroyed is a very hard thing to do. I can tell you from. Personal experience. I hope this has been helpful. This has been Levi Brackman with the Jewish wisdom. Jewish wisdom for business. On life. Podcast. Thank you so much for joining. And next week I'm going to do the hydrogen on the bull that their review on Maseca. So Tara, which we finished, and that will be the 50th episode and the final episode of this season of the podcast. So next week, the grand finale. And then in the coming season, we'll do something a little bit different for this podcast and maybe it just won't be me. I'll bring in some other people to also talk about. Jewish wisdom and Jewish ideas for business and life. Meanwhile, have a very happy show of what. And till next time.