(31) And when Israel saw the wondrous power which יהוה had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared יהוה; they had faith in יהוה and in God’s servant Moses.
AND THEY BELIEVED IN THE LORD. That God is truth and that Moses is His servant and will do only that which the Lord commands him to do.
ואמת. והמלה מגזרת אמונה
"AND TRULY". The word emet comes from the same root as emunah (faith)
† אֱמוּנָה n.f. firmness, steadfastness, fidelity Ex 17:12 + 46 times; אֱמוּנוֹת Pr 28:20.
1. lit. firmness, steadiness: Ex 17:12 וַיְהִי יָדָיו א׳ his hands were steadiness (i.e. steady).
2. steadfastness, אֱמוּנַת עִתֶּיךָ steadfastness of thy times Is 33:6.
3. faithfulness, trust: a. of human conduct ψ 37:3 Pr 12:22 Je 5:3; 7:28; 9:2; in office 2 K 12:16; 22:7 2 Ch 19:9; 31:12; 34:12;
Emunah in the Bible...has the sense of affirmation and trust, a commitment of the entire self to the truth as told, seen or witnessed. "Israel saw the mighty hand that Y-H-W-H had used in Egypt. The people became devoted to Y-H-W-H and trusted in Y-H-W-H and His servant Moses."
..."[b]elieve is too intellectual a term. To believe can mean to lend credence to a particular set of propositions. In later philosophical Hebrew, the word is used in just that way. But for the Bible as well as for the early Rabbis, emunah connotes affirmation with the entire self, affirmation even unto martyrdom. This is more than one would do for mere "belief" in an idea, especially one that is not proven.
So, in contrast to the popular (and "classically Christian," viz., Hebrews 11:1) notion of faith as "believing in that which cannot be seen," our Tradition suggests that it was precisely the fact that the people saw that allowed them to believe/trust/have faith. Cultivating that sort of emunah, it seems to me, is precisely why we practice. What does the "insight" in Insight Meditation mean, after all, if not that we apprehend in some way which is real: emet ve'emunah. We don't practice because a book tells us to; we practice because it is the ground of our lives. We practice in order to gain an awareness of what is, to discover where we sit amidst the ever-changing reality of what is happening right now.
† אֱמֶת n.f. firmness, faithfulness, truth (contr. for אֱמֶנֶת, from אָמֵן) Gn 24:48 + 106 times; sf. אֲמִתּוֹ, אֲמִתְּךָ ψ 91:4 + 18 times
1. reliability, sureness: דֶּרֶךְ אֱמֶת sure way Gn 24:48 (J); שׂכר אמת sure reward Pr 11:18; אות אמת sure token Jos 2:12 (J); זֶרַע אמת Je 2:21.
2. stability, continuance: שָׁלוֹם וֶאֱמֶת peace and stability Is 39:8 (= 2 K 20:19) Est 9:30 Je 33:6 Zc 8:19, cf. שׁלום אמת Je 14:13.
3. faithfulness, reliableness: (a) of men אִישׁ אֱמֶת faithful man Ne 7:2; אנשׁי אמת Ex 18:21 (E); הָלַךְ בֶּאֱמֶת walk in faithfulness, faithfully 1 K 2:4; 3:6 2 K 20:3 Is 38:3 cf. 1 S 12:24;
זוהר בלק (ג:קצח:)
ר' חִזְקִיָּה פָּתַח, וְהָיָה צֶדֶק אֵזוֹר מָתְנָיו וְהָאֱמוּנָה אֵזוֹר חֲלָצָיו. הַאי קְרָא כֹּלָּא אִיהוּ חַד. מַאי חִדּוּשָׁא אָתָא לְאַשְׁמוֹעִינָן, דְּהָא צֶדֶק הַיְינוּ אֱמוּנָה, וֶאֱמוּנָה הַיְינוּ צֶדֶק. אֵזוֹר מָתְנָיו, הַיְינוּ אֵזוֹר חֲלָצָיו, לָא אַשְׁכְּחָן קְרָא כְּהַאי גַּוְונָא. ...
אֱמוּנָה, בְּשַׁעֲתָא דְּאִתְחַבָּר בָּהּ אֱמֶת, לְחֶדְוָה. וְכָל אַנְפִּין נְהִירִין, כְּדֵין אִקְרֵי אֱמוּנָה. וְאִית וַותְּרָנוּתָא לְכֹלָּא...וּכְדֵין אִקְרֵי אֱמוּנָה, וְלֵית אֱמוּנָה בְּלָא אֱמֶת.
Zohar 3:198
R. Hizkiah opened (with a verse), "And righteousness צדק shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness אמונה the girdle of his reins" (Isa. 11:5).... Righteousness is faithfulness, and faithfulness is righteousness. ...
Faithfulness, at the time that she is joined with Truth אמת, for joy. And all faces smile. Then she is called 'Faithfulness'. There is absolution for all...
Then she is considered Faithfulness and there is no Faithfulness אמונה without Truth אמת.
שיעורים על ליקוטי מוהר"ן, הרב שג"ר
תורה ז:ב ...אי אפשר לבוא לאמונה אלא על ידי אמת כמובא בזוהר: "והיה צדק אזור מתניו ואמונה (ישעיהו יא:ה)-- היינו צדק, היינו אמונה" (זוהר ג:קצח). ואמרו שם: 'אמונה אתקריאת, כד אתחבר בה אמת'...
הרב שג"ר האמונה שייכת למישור הסובייקטיבי ואילו האמת משקפת את ההכרה האובייקטיבית; יש חיסרון עמוק אם אדם פועל מתוך תודעה הנותרת בתחום החוויה הסובייקטיבית בלבד. באותו אופן, האמת האובייקטיבית, המנותקת מעולמו של האדם, נותרת מנוכרת. רק כאשר לוודאות הסובייקטיבית של האדם תצטרף ההכרה האובייקטיבית, דהיינו השגתו את המציאות כהווייתה שלא מנקודת מבט אישית בלבד...תיווצר אמונה שביכולתה להביא לגאולה ולתיקון.
...רבי נחמן...מחנך את שומעיו להגיע להרמוניה הרצויה בין האמת לאמונה, לשילוב היוצר אמונה ממשית מחד גיסא, ואמת הנוגעת בחיים של האדם מאידך גיסא.
...בכך שונה תפיסתו של רבי נחמן מתפיסות מודרניות המעמידות את האמונה על חוויה בלבד...
Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (HaRav Shagar, 1949-2007), Lessons on Likutei Moharan of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810)
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Torah 7:2 ...It is impossible to arrive at faith (emunah) other than by means of truth (emet) as in the passage from the Zohar: "Justice shall be the girdle of his loins, and faith (Isaiah 11:5) -- justice and faith are one and the same" (Zohar 3:198, Parashat Balak). And it is stated there, "It is called faith when truth is joined to it".
Harav Shagar Faith belongs to the subjective plane, while Truth reflects objective cognition. There is a serious shortcoming in acting on the basis of a consciousness that remains in the region of subjective experience alone. When that is the case, objective Truth, detached from one's own world, remains alien. It is only when one's subjective certainty is joined with an objective recognition (that is, one's understanding of reality as it is rather than from one's personal point of view alone)...that a faith may be formed that has the potential to lead to redemption and reparation.
...Rabbi Nachman...educates his listeners to reach the desired harmonization of Truth and Faith, to a combination that can create real Faith on the one hand and a Truth that concerns one's own life on the other.
....In this respect Rabbi Nachman's view is difference from modern perspectives that establish Faith on the basis of experience alone...
I get some truths and moral guidance from religion. “All people are created equal.” “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind.” However, the ultimate gift of religion, for me, is not a specific truth but the very acknowledgment that there is a sphere of existence that transcends me, that there is a Beyond. And that in the search for it, we declare our inadequacies. The truth will matter again when we realize we don’t have it. And that’s what religion means to me.
Revelation is true but not absolute. That distinguishes it from ideologies and fundamentalism. I dance between human discovery and evolution on the one hand and guiding principles and truth on the other.
...Philosophy, science, and religion hold hands in affirming the objectively valid, rooted in nature, the mind, history, or revelations. The crime of postmodernity is having murdered the objective. Through that crime, we became orphans of transcendence.
Orphans of transcendence, our youth, have fallen into ideological abysses. Thirsty for something valid and lasting in a world empty of truths, they uncritically grab a cause. They experience meaning deprivation. I feel their pain and disorientation. When, in the name of the Self, we castrated religion, the gates of meaning narrowed. Politics and ideology substituted critical thinking, piety, and the search for the transcendent. Fortunately, the return by many to wisdom belief systems may serve as an alternative to the ideological war. As we hope for universities to steer back into the path of debate and the search for truth, we may consider living according to those old beliefs that foster humility as much as empowerment and servitude as much as self-realization.
[The religious experience] is as varied as the countless individual human beings in the world, and potentially as multifarious as the moments in each of those human lives. In the midst of life, our ordinariness is interrupted. This may take place as we touch one of the edges of life, in a great confrontation with the new life of a child, or of an approaching death. We may see it in the wonders of nature, sunrises and sunsets, mountains and oceans. It may happen to us in the course of loving and deeply entering into union with another, or in profound aloneness. Sometimes, however, such a moment of holy and awesome presence comes upon us without any apparent provocation at all. It may come as a deep inner stillness, quieting all the background noise that usually fills our inner chambers, or it may be quite the opposite, a loud rush of excitement that fills us to overflowing. It may seem to come from within or without, or perhaps both at once. The realization of such moments fills us with a sense of magnificence, of smallness, and of belonging, all at once. Our hearts well up with love for the world around us and awe at its grandeur. The experience is usually one that renders us speechless. But then we feel lucky and blessed if we have enough ties to a tradition that gives us language, that enables us to say, "The whole earth is filled with God's glory!"