Faith Above Reason – Veyera – In the Eyes of Kabbalah

In this weekly Torah portion of ‘Vayera’ – A question arose about how we can we hold faith above reason, like Abraham.

A student asks:

Abraham walked in his faith above reason, he was able to see that he was doing good. When I think of faith above reason, there’s nothing to see by. And so, when the passage said that, because he walked there, he was able to see that he was doing good.

Rabbah answers:

We think that faith is devoid of knowledge, of knowing. In order to go above reason, I have to have reason to go above it. It’s a step, meaning that you give up, not because you’re so generous, but because you understand that whatever you are able to perceive is so limited and you understand that without stepping on it or stepping above it, you will not be able to get closer to a more intimate proximity with a true knowledge or the true knowing of the Creator of you and another being if you don’t give it up.

Meaning you cannot actually proceed, there’s no place for coming closer because, if you keep that which you know, you say there is a limit to the proximity and intimacy that I can be with the creator.

So, you have to have some reason and it’s growing to step on it. So, this is for example, why we deposit everything that happens to us in the lesson. Because otherwise you cannot come tomorrow or the day after, or the hour after with a request to surrender, you want to surrender not only to enter, but to reenter to a new place, not with what you’ve studied yesterday. Because what you studied yesterday, you hope that you deposited already.

But there is a residue in you and your residue is the memory of the light that was yesterday. So, you’re coming with the hope of remembering one thing: if you remember belief as going above reason, this is the way, or the tool, the means in which you know that you can achieve the next step of coming closer.

So, it’s not what we usually think about belief as a media to clear something that we cannot understand. That is called in Hebrew “below belief.” It’s below the reason. You have to go above reason, not below reason; meaning that if you cannot justify something it means that you cannot say, “I don’t have to make an effort to understand or to feel.” That’s going below reason.

We associate belief with feeling. If you think about belief, you associate it with the heart. It’s actually a higher mind. It’s to do with a different mind; with the mind of the Higher, not with the feeling. People are very emotional usually when they speak about their belief. But basically, it’s the Higher, or the mind of that Light, you can say, the thought, the will of the Higher that is visiting them, and they get excited because they don’t know how to hold it.

So, it has to do with fear, awe of the right kind, which will be the vessel of the higher mind. You can say that in Hebrew, it’s the way Binah counts the createe. This is the opening of the word faith; meaning Malchut is being taken up to Binah and Binah is the understanding.

So, every time I need to be able to be raised up to Binah in order to understand better how to stay in connection with the Creator, because this is the aspect of Binah, and this is faith. So, faith is Malchut, but Malchut in her wish to be raised to Binah.

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