Mr. Brandon Floch is currently a senior at Dartmouth College. He is a Government major and a former Sinai Scholars presenter. Last year he presented a paper entitled Torah min ha-shamayim: A Young Jew’s Exploration of Divine Revelation. He recently completed an independent study with Professor Lewis Glinert in Tanya, focusing specifically on Shaar HaYichud. He will be presenting a paper that he completed for that course. He plans to work for one year and then attend Law School.
Brandon's Paper: "Intellect and Faith in Tanya: The Never-Ending Circle"
A footnote in Chapter 7 of Shaar HaYichud says that “True belief implies pure faith which transcends the realm of the intellect. First one must strive to understand to the extent of one’s intellectual capacities. Beyond that limit, he is to believe with simple faith. Simply put, ‘where knowledge ends, faith begins’”(Tanya 313). The goal of this paper will be to elucidate that final statement—What does it mean to say 'where knowledge ends, faith begins'? What do R. Schneur Zalman's writings reveal about his belief regarding the relationship between intellect and faith? Faith and intellect seem to be complete opposites; our intellectual capacities cause us to question, to doubt, to re-examine. Our faith causes us to do the exact opposite—to accept, to believe, to surrender.
R. Schneur Zalman believed that intellect had a significant role to play in faith, and I try to examine how R. Schneur Zalman reconciled these seemingly contradictory human faculties in his written works.
The paper also analyzes R. Avraham of Kalisk’s main objection to Tanya; R. Avraham believed that it was dangerous to encourage the broad group of Hasidim to approach G-d intellectually. I argue that R. Schneur Zalman’s approach is the better one, an approach that leads to a much firmer faith in G-d and G-d’s unity.
I conclude by showing that not only does an intellectual grappling with G-d lead to faith, but faith also leads one to engage his intellect.
This presentation was delivered at the Sinai Scholars Academic Symposium 2011. The Sinai Scholars Symposium is a yearly conference for university students, hosted by the Sinai Scholars Society. Students from around the world gather with an esteemed panel of Ivy League professors, world-class Torah scholars and experts in their field to study, discuss and present their thoughts on various subjects that deal with Judaism and the modern world. Each student prepares an academic paper which they present to their colleagues and a panel of judges.
Paper: Intellect and Faith in Tanya
