I came up with a cool thesis topic for a 40 page paper that I will have to write if I get into the Jewish Studies Program in Oxford
I want to articulate an approach to theology and the life of faith informed by the comparison of the Christian mystic tradition with Hasidism, paying close attention to negative theology and the life of faith with or without the manifesting presence of God. This project will also incorporate or be informed by my current research of faith and its connection, or lack thereof, to belief propositions as well as the practice of faith within doubt.
Dostoyevsky in his papers and letters makes the claim that if the Christ were not historically true he would have to believe in Him anyway. I wonder at this kind of faith that does not require the destruction of all deity-doubt. Instead, it enters into life and practice with an intensity of directedness beyond itself, holding as paradigmatic the attitude of the martyr who says “be it unto me according to Thy word.” Yet this faith also includes the attitude of Job, David, and the Prophets when crying out their accusations against a God who often does not respond, or at least not in accordance with the demand. This concern over the silence of God has been expressed by both Christian and Jewish people of faith. It exists in the Hebrew Scriptures and very potently in the post-Holocaust discussion. Elie Wiesel recounted the experience of saying kaddish immediately following his liberation. He speaks with full emotion of his participation in this prayer for the dead while at the same time wondering if God’s name was worthy of honor after His silence during such evil. The presence/absence of God talk also implicates itself upon the life of prayer. Derridian thought suggests that the life of authentic prayer as a casting of oneself before God and an action of duty whether or not God manifests his presence.