Community Magazine February 2014

22 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE RABBI DOVID SAPIRMAN We live in a world that, for the most part, has forgotten about the Creator. Even those who profess belief in Him do not really care about what the Creator wants from them. We, however, are ma’aminim bene ma’aminim – believers, children of believers. We maintain our faith against all odds, just as we have done throughout our long history. Whether it was the idol worshippers of the First Commonwealth, the Hellenists and Sadducees of the Second Commonwealth, the Karaites, Christian missionaries, radical Islam, or Reform and Conservative Judaism, we forge ever forward in the knowledge that we possess the eternal truth about the Master of the universe. T oday we face a new, additional adversary: atheistic science, which attempts to circumvent any necessity to believe in a Creator. By waving the Evolution wand, they hope to do away with that which is here to stay forever: the belief in a Creator. Although we have not fallen prey to their alien beliefs, living among people with this mindset has certainly had a weakening effect on the clarity and conviction of our  emunah (faith). Anything we can do to strengthen and enhance our confidence in our faith is a great benefit to us. In this short article we hope to provide a bit of hizuk  (reinforcement) of the belief in the Creator. Does Electricity Exist? The Sefer Hachinuch  tells us concerning the first of the Ten Commandments – the command to believe in Gd and His providence – that this belief must be so clear in our minds to the point where we feel “it is impossible otherwise, and we would prefer death rather than ever intimate the possibility of the contrary.” Perhaps it sounds far-fetched that we should be able to come to such a high level of  emunah , but it is really not difficult at all, and is attainable for each and every one of us. When I speak to youngsters about  emunah , I ask them how many of them have ever seen electricity. Invariably, a few raise their hands. Then I ask the rest to explain to their classmates why they have never actually seen electricity. They answer that electricity is an invisible energy. We cannot see it; we can see only its effects in the various machines that are run with that invisible energy. Then I ask them how many of them have ever seen Hashem. Of course, not a single one raises his hand. So I tell them that we can see Hashem through his wondrous works, precisely as we see electricity through what it does. Just as no one doubts the existence of electricity, even though they’ve never seen it, the existence of the Creator is similarly beyond any doubt when we view the awesome handiwork of the Creator. Rav Elchanan Wasserman z”tl noted in this context a story told in the Midrash of an atheist who confronted Rabbi Akiva and asked him who created the world. “The Almighty,” the rabbi replied. “Prove it!” the atheist snapped back. Rabbi Akiva responded by asking the man who wove his suit. “A tailor,” the man said. “Who else?” “Prove it to me!” Rabbi Akiva demanded. No longer desiring to converse with the atheist, Rabbi Akiva turned to his students and said, “The same way that the suit testifies to the tailor, the house to the builder and the door to the carpenter, similarly, the entire world testifies to its Creator.”  The woolen garment you’re wearing didn’t look quite the same while it was still on the back of the sheep. It needed to be shorn, combed, cleaned, dyed, spun into threads, made into cloth, and cut to size in order to produce your jacket. The building in which you sit wasn’t made by a tornado passing through a junkyard, which just happened to drop down all the materials in the form of this building; windows, doors, floors, walls, electricity, plumbing and all. You may never have met the builder, but you know without a shadow of a doubt that there was a builder. That piece of wood in the doorway IT SIMPLY CAN NOT BE OTHERWISE