I don’t often get into theological debates with other people—for instance, arguments about God’s existence, or the nature of God, or Judaism’s veracity. It’s not that I don’t want to hear other opinions on religion and Judaism; far from it, actually, because I believe that it’s valuable to hear different sides of arguments and issues even if I know for sure I won’t agree with the other side. But when it comes to theological debates, I know that not only will neither side be convinced—I’m not convincing any atheists to believe in God anytime soon, and they’re not shaking me from my belief in Him—but that debating belief systems is tricky since they are, well, BELIEF systems. They function on what a person believes to be the truth, not based on some objective truth, and thus it’s essentially impossible to bring up concrete evidence to any argument for or against a religious argument. I know there are “beyond a reasonable doubt” arguments and the like, and I certainly wouldn’t advocate blind faith toward any religion—Judaism, in my view, does lend itself to scrutiny and discussion; isn’t that the whole point of works like Moreh Nevuchim (Maimonides’ “Guide for the Perplexed”) anyway? But there does come a point where it seems that debate isn’t going to get anyone anywhere, and that faith ends up coming into play.

However, this past summer, I received an interesting insight that helped me out somewhat with this challenge of faith, which I’d like to share here. After all, as I prepare for my year of study in Israel, which will be a year largely focused on faith and Jewish learning, it’s an idea that I’m going to take with me as I further explore my Jewish identity. It’s not a “proof” for Judaism per se, but it’s an idea that helped me affirm my faith.

First, some background. At the beginning of the summer, I had the honor of attending the Tikvah Institute for High School Students, which is run by the New York- and Israel-based Tikvah Fund. For two weeks, I was part of a group of high schoolers and recent high school graduates who attended seminars together on issues relating to both the Jewish and secular world. During the first week, I took a seminar on technology, but not in the “technical, how it works” sense. Rather, in the mornings our group discussed the Jewish view on certain controversial medical innovations, and in the afternoons we discussed, from a secular perspective, whether technological innovation is a positive phenomenon or whether it takes away our humanity. (Of course, first we had to struggle to define what “humanity” even is!)

If I tried, in this column, to showcase what we discussed and learned in the seminars, I wouldn’t be able to do any of it justice (also, I’d need the length of this entire newspaper, and then some, to fit it!). But one element we discussed during the first week is an idea that I realized I can apply to my own ideas of theology.

During one of the afternoon seminars, our professor brought up the idea of “rationalism” being a category that is contained in the larger category of “reasonable.” That is, what we define as rational and logical is certainly reasonable, but things we define as reasonable aren’t necessarily rational—they might make sense for irrational and illogical reasons. In context, if I remember correctly, we were discussing arguments against having modern technology encroach on our lives too much (i.e. implanting someone with a chip that could control them). Our professor mentioned that while our rational arguments for this were easily refuted, there were reasonable arguments we could make that would be more effective. For instance, perhaps using technology in those ways is bad because of the collective culture or because of religion. These aren’t rational reasons, per se, but it’s reasonable to follow a culture or religion that your people have been following for a long time and/or that you have always followed!

Sometime after the class, I realized how I could tie this idea back to my own theology. I may not be able to give anyone a definitive proof for God’s existence or for the veracity of Judaism. After all, if there was a rational way to do so, there wouldn’t still be more than one religion! But it’s REASONABLE for me to believe in God and in Judaism, because it’s a culture that my family has followed for countless years, because it’s a religion I’ve been steeped in all my life and because it’s a world I was born into and want to be a part of.

Anyone can apply this line of reasoning to their own set of beliefs, of course—but to me, this doesn’t hurt my Judaism; rather, since this is a personal idea, it helps me respect others’ beliefs. I can understand how they find their beliefs reasonable, because of their backgrounds and cultures.

Of course, this line of thinking has its limits when extended into different ideas—if someone is born into a terrible family situation or difficult circumstance, is it reasonable that they should stay there? Of course not. Should Judaism remain static because it’s reasonable to keep things how they’ve always been? I would argue that Judaism has always been dynamic, and that it’s unreasonable to think it never has changed and never will. But when it comes, simply, to my belief in God and my religion, and to respecting others’ beliefs, this idea is one that has helped me immensely and is one I hope I’ll keep in mind for the rest of my life.

Oren Oppenheim, 18, is an alumnus of Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan and lives in Fair Lawn, NJ. This coming fall he will be attending Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem; he will start college at the University of Chicago in 2017. Contact him at [email protected].