Kant said the most profound and important fact about spirituality: that when pure reason ventures into the area of uncondioned reality, it comes up with self contradictions.
This you can see in the Torah itself in the verse The hidden things are to the Lord our God הנסתרות להשם אלהינו והנגלות לנו ולבנינו לעשות את כל דברי התורה הזאת [note 1]
Thus God can do miracles by means of people that we would not consider as worthy. And thus all the questions that people have about spirituality fall away because we simply cannot know. Not just human reason, but even pure reason can not go into areas of spirituality, -- because if it does, it will destroy itself.
All we can do is to learn and keep the Torah.
So when I hear about miracles, my tendency is not to dismiss anything because I know God can and must work in ways that if we try to understand them will cause self contradictions. He works in ways on purpose that to us must not make sense.
On a related note I must mention that sometimes people make exaggerated claims. This undermines their credibility. The best thing is the old traditional Litvak approach "Learn Torah," and not to make claims beyond what the Torah says.
In my opinion this applies to everyone. I have heard that Christians think they do not have to keep the commandments of the Torah because of the phrase, "until it will all be fulfilled." In any case they are depending on Paul against the testimony of Peter and James to support and interpretation that is against the simple explanation. See the Recognitions of Clement and you will see that Peter and James and all the in fact disciples were all holding the Law of Moses is forever and obligatory. They were not Judaizers. They were simply being as loyal to their teacher as they could. Saying the not one jot or tittle of the Law will be nullified means that when it says, "Thou shalt do such and such" that obligation continues.
[I also do not hold by individual interpretation. Laws mean something. And they way to understand the laws of the Torah is by rigorous analysis, not by feel good emotions. But to do the rigorous analysis is hard. Therefore there is a short cut. That is the מורה נבוכים, חובות לבבות, שערי תשובה, אורחות צדיקים and the other classical Musar books from the Middle Ages.
The Middle Ages were characterized by the rishonim that did painstaking and rigorous thinking about what exactly does the Torah require.
[This is not to knock Paul entirely. Rather it is in order to get some perspective. I can see the points of Paul as related to the people he was addressing.]
I should add that there is an obstacle to keeping Torah and that is תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים false teachers. Since false teachers are all to common in the religious world. The trouble is that the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] has gone deeply into it. Thus avoid the religious world completely, and learn Torah at home or make sure the place you learn Torah at does not teach Torah from the Sitra Achra.
[note 1] ["The hidden things are to the Lord our God and the visible things are to us and our children to do all the words of this Torah."]
This you can see in the Torah itself in the verse The hidden things are to the Lord our God הנסתרות להשם אלהינו והנגלות לנו ולבנינו לעשות את כל דברי התורה הזאת [note 1]
Thus God can do miracles by means of people that we would not consider as worthy. And thus all the questions that people have about spirituality fall away because we simply cannot know. Not just human reason, but even pure reason can not go into areas of spirituality, -- because if it does, it will destroy itself.
All we can do is to learn and keep the Torah.
So when I hear about miracles, my tendency is not to dismiss anything because I know God can and must work in ways that if we try to understand them will cause self contradictions. He works in ways on purpose that to us must not make sense.
On a related note I must mention that sometimes people make exaggerated claims. This undermines their credibility. The best thing is the old traditional Litvak approach "Learn Torah," and not to make claims beyond what the Torah says.
In my opinion this applies to everyone. I have heard that Christians think they do not have to keep the commandments of the Torah because of the phrase, "until it will all be fulfilled." In any case they are depending on Paul against the testimony of Peter and James to support and interpretation that is against the simple explanation. See the Recognitions of Clement and you will see that Peter and James and all the in fact disciples were all holding the Law of Moses is forever and obligatory. They were not Judaizers. They were simply being as loyal to their teacher as they could. Saying the not one jot or tittle of the Law will be nullified means that when it says, "Thou shalt do such and such" that obligation continues.
[I also do not hold by individual interpretation. Laws mean something. And they way to understand the laws of the Torah is by rigorous analysis, not by feel good emotions. But to do the rigorous analysis is hard. Therefore there is a short cut. That is the מורה נבוכים, חובות לבבות, שערי תשובה, אורחות צדיקים and the other classical Musar books from the Middle Ages.
The Middle Ages were characterized by the rishonim that did painstaking and rigorous thinking about what exactly does the Torah require.
[This is not to knock Paul entirely. Rather it is in order to get some perspective. I can see the points of Paul as related to the people he was addressing.]
I should add that there is an obstacle to keeping Torah and that is תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים false teachers. Since false teachers are all to common in the religious world. The trouble is that the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] has gone deeply into it. Thus avoid the religious world completely, and learn Torah at home or make sure the place you learn Torah at does not teach Torah from the Sitra Achra.
[note 1] ["The hidden things are to the Lord our God and the visible things are to us and our children to do all the words of this Torah."]
