Steven Gotlib: Some Rabbi Grapples With His Faith [Rationality 2/4]

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

there are so many people who are listening to this, and I hope that the material resonates. But I think more than anything else are the individuals who reach out and connect particularly with what 18Forty is doing, share with us how this has touched their lives, and the connections that we have been able to build through this process. Steven Gotlib: I think that there’s no other topic, as I mentioned before, that got as much feedback and support and people reaching out and trying to find their way than rationalism. When we did it the first time so many months ago so many people reached out, and I was honestly quite surprised. I didn’t think that this topic would really garner all that much attention. It’s not the most exciting topic, there are a lot more topics that we could have had, bigger names, bigger celebrities. But that’s not really what we’re about, and I felt that this was an honest approach to really grappling with some of the most important religious issues. David Bashevkin: I want to read two emails that I got, which has really spurred me and motivated me to say, “You know what? We should return to this topic.” All the topics that we cover, I hope to return to them many, many times over the years, but the reason why I wanted to return to this so soon, to cap off the year as we go into the summer… It’s not really a summer topic. We have some great summer topics planned. This is not one of them. It’s not exactly what you expect to be listening to on a long drive to the mountains with the air kind of breezing and you wearing some sunglasses, looking out the window, and then hearing long discussions on epistemic rationality. If that is your idea of an amazing summer drive and summer experience,

Jump to a moment

1. 0:41there are so many people who are listening to this, and I hope that the material…
2. 6:35rationalism, AI theories. He’s no longer in yeshiva and thanks to his rationalism, he no longer…
3. 13:12on the scale when they’re presenting an argument from their own views, but I wanted him…
4. 19:4714, 15. I was davening at the amud regularly and really very engaged. Which is why…
5. 26:12to where I wanted to go, but to go to Derech Ohr Somayach, instead. Where they…
6. 33:13I didn’t want the approach where I set myself aside and forgot about all the secular…
7. 39:11statements. Is this something that is true on an objective or at least a rational level?…
8. 45:39came from Sinai. You could throw all the proofs to the contrary at me from beginning…
9. 52:13trying to make your experiential claim relevant to someone who doesn’t necessarily experience it. David Bashevkin:…
10. 58:34David Bashevkin: I think that is fair to say. I come into it that I don’t…

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