Torah and Ruach HaKodesh
The question is HOW we test things.
Supporters of a cult frequently make two pleas to people who wish to assess
or criticize it. FIRST, we are urged to approach it with an open mind. We are told to attend
meetings for ourselves - and not critically. SECOND, we are urged to judge the phenomenon by its fruits - to look at the long-term results, not the immediate manifestations.
See for Yourself ...
However, it is far from an invariable Torah principle EITHER that we should assess claims
to God's activity personally and uncritically, OR that we must look at the fruits to make an
assessment.
Unbelief in cults
is a sign of faith in Torah!
Look at the Fruits ...
Similarly the challenge to assess a cult by its fruits can be met. We need to
take seriously Torah warning about the plausibility of false prophets.
But again, as one writer has already observed, it is difficult to assess a movement by its fruits
when the fruit is still not ripe.
We must recognize from history that a movement may have a powerful - even beneficial
- impact in the short term and yet be disastrous in the long term because of its fundamental
Torah weaknesses.
A Question of System
How then can we `test' any cult? If we cannot trust personal experience or short
term gains, what can we trust? The answer is basically a matter of system.
Unfortunately, system has not been a particularly strong feature of the
Jewish Anglo-American scene for some time. There is hesitancy about religious
systems which seem to claim too much. But there is an important
distinction between a systematic belief that aims at a SYSTEM, and one that more modestly
aims at being SYSTEMATIC.
We need to recognize that systematic belief is a Torah concept.
But we also need to recognize WHAT IS the system contained in the Torah. The
best key to this is, I would argue, the Torah approach. The particular feature of
this approach is that it recognizes and identifies in the Torah CONTINUITY. There is the continuity of ONE great theme, from start to finish and there is
the DEVELOPMENT of that theme through Torah.
Only a systematic Torah approach allows us to give coherence to our experience and expectation of
God. And more specifically, only a system allows us to recognize that whilst God
CAN do anything he DOESN'T do everything.
A Necessary Limitation
Those who reject the cults are often accused of limiting the actions of God.
GOD'S activity IS limited - by God himself - but it is limited in a way which is not simply
arbitrary but consistent with the overall framework of the Torah. Understanding that framework
will enable us to understand the limits of God's activity - not so that WE may limit it, but so that
we may limit what is CLAIMED for it. Thus when we test the cults, which makes
particularly claims about the activity of God , we need
to ask whether it is consistent with the TOTAL picture the Torah presents, particularly in relation to the life of the believer.
System
The context here is the SUFFICIENCY of the Oral and Written Law of Moses.
And this is a NECESSARY fulfillment of the promise to Abraham,
Torah is the NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT precondition for us to receive the
the blessing promised to Abraham. Positively, this
means the Spirit is certainly received by hearing the Torah with faith. Negatively, it means the
Holy Spirit is only received through hearing the Torah with faith.
Questions come to most people in relation to suffering. At the start of our lives we are
generally ignorant of the fact that suffering can be a blessing. See the חובות לבבות It has to be explained from Torah. It is usually only when this is done that we begin to realize
suffering is indeed a blessing which we can incorporate into our experience.
If nothing else, one must admit that cults are packaged impressively for maximum sales. Popularity does not mean that something is true. If it did, Santa Claus would be real. Popularity does not automatically equal truth, nor can it create truth."
