Thursday, August 21, 2008

"Blind reverence for people who are not really worthy"


“One can go from believing nothing to believing everything, from utter skepticism to utter credulity and a desperate effort to convince oneself of a thousand and one notions that may be not only spurious but actually even forbidden.

Acceptance of the Torah and the mitzvot turns into a kind of magical rite, belief in the Sages becomes blind reverence for other people who are not really worthy of such uncritical acceptance, and faith becomes hopeless fatalism.”
--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From “Seriousness and Restraint” p. 49, in Teshuvah by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz