#BlogElul 7: Understand

In “Letters to a Buddhist Jew”, Rabbi Akiva Tatz writes, “Understanding a thing and all its consequences clearly does not guarantee that you will live in accord with your understanding, that you will be loyal to it. Not at all. It takes work to live up to the truth. That work is emuna.

As with so many things R. Tatz says, this is what I’ve come to think of as “radical intellectual honesty”, a viewpoint that is at once direct, concise, unforgiving, and inescapably true. It’s a truth that shines so brightly it’s sometimes hard to look at directly. It’s truth that cuts deeply, and only our capacity to accept it can save us. If we resist, it will wound and scar. If we accept, it has the chance to excise something unhealthy from us, leaving us healthier than before.