I have always considered myself, by nature, a scientific rationalist. I seek evidence for what I believe and, as much as possible, try to avoid leaps of faith. At the same time, I recognize that science is fundamentally a method for understanding the material world. Its extraordinary power is also its boundary: science can tell us much about matter, energy, causation, and the observable universe, but it may not be equipped to answer every question about existence itself.
I have dedicated much of my life to science, and I do not intend to abandon that commitment. Quite the opposite. I believe I owe it to myself to exhaust scientific explanations before turning to anything beyond the material. When confronted with a phenomenon, my first instinct is to search for a natural explanation. I am skeptical, but I am not a logical positivist. I do not believe that only propositions empirically verifiable by science are meaningful. Rather, I see myself as a realist armed with Occam's Razor: I prefer the simplest adequate explanation, but I remain open to the possibility that reality extends beyond what science can presently measure.
This tension has accompanied me throughout my life. I personally believe that there is an essence that extends beyond the physicality of the matter-energy universe. Perhaps that inclination is itself a consequence of my individuality—of my genetics, my experiences, and the particular environmental history that shaped me. I have repeatedly tried to dismiss this intuition and surrender myself completely to scientific materialism. Yet I cannot. Something in me continues to resist the conclusion that physical reality constitutes the entirety of existence.
The concept that has given the greatest intellectual expression to this intuition is the Kabbalistic idea of Ein Sof, literally, "without end." I find something profoundly compelling in the notion that to define the ultimate essence of reality completely is, in a sense, to limit it. If we could fully describe or conceptualize the ultimate, then by definition we would have placed boundaries around it.
I therefore think of Ein Sof as the ultimate ground of existence: omnipotent, inexhaustible, and ultimately beyond complete human articulation. It cannot be reduced to a particular image or proposition, yet its presence is, in some sense, ubiquitous. I envision Ein Sof as multifaceted, and this follows naturally from the idea of omnipotence. An infinite reality may be perceived through many levels of experience without those perceptions constituting separate realities.
For me, the transcendent God—the "Spirit God"—is the transcendence from which our souls originate. The personal God is the one with whom I communicate through prayer and contemplation. I do not see these as competing conceptions. They are intrinsically connected: different ways of approaching the same ultimate reality.
I understand individual souls as somehow derived from Ein Sof. Our emergence from the Infinite does not diminish the Infinite, because Ein Sof transcends the material universe. The laws of physics do not constrain Ein Sof; rather, those laws and the physical reality in which they operate are themselves ultimately products of that greater reality. In this sense, Ein Sof provides an answer to the most fundamental question of existence: why is there something rather than nothing?
If our souls are derived from Ein Sof, then perhaps the way we interact with that Infinite reality is through the way we live. We approach it through goodness—not through the accumulation of dogmas, but through the extension of our sense of self, the cultivation of our own being, and the deliberate assistance of others.
I find an extraordinary parallel in the Hindu Upanishadic conception of Brahman. One formulation describes the supreme Brahman as infinite and the conditioned Brahman as infinite: the infinite proceeds from the infinite, and even when the infinite is subtracted from the infinite, the infinite remains. I find this remarkably close to the way I understand Ein Sof.
I am particularly drawn to the Hindu conception of the Atman, the individual soul, as being in its essence a derivative or expression of Brahman. It resonates with my own intuition that individual consciousness somehow participates in an underlying infinite reality. In both traditions, I see a path toward that reality through meaningful action and goodness.
Yet religious insight can easily become obscured by what I think of as cultural noise. Human beings have built enormous structures around their attempts to understand transcendence—institutions, doctrines, rituals, political identities, arguments, and competing claims to authority. Some of these are valuable; others can become distractions from the very reality they were originally intended to illuminate.
Meaningful belief, in my view, has to extend beyond this noise. It must recover the underlying connection with Ein Sof. When it does, it can produce something that is difficult to articulate but easy to recognize: a profound sense of joy and meaning.
The direct approach toward goodness begins, I believe, with perspective. Perspective determines how we prioritize our goals, interpret daily events, and understand our difficulties. In this sense, perspective is a form of triage for the mind. It places our problems into context so that temporary suffering, disappointment, or anxiety does not overwhelm our awareness of the larger goodness that surrounds existence.
Meaningful acts are ultimately acts of kindness—an extension of the self to include another person. Martin Buber's conception of the relationship between "I" and "Thou" speaks deeply to this idea. When we encounter another person not as an object but as a being worthy of recognition, we transcend the narrow boundaries of the isolated self. Such encounters, I believe, bring us closer to Ein Sof and allow us to appreciate something of its magnificence.
Life must also be lived with purpose. In purposeful living, we discover what I think of as the "spark" of Ein Sof: those moments when existence feels connected to something larger than ourselves. We must also cultivate gratitude. I think of gratitude as a consolidation of reality—a conscious recognition of what we actually possess rather than an endless fixation on what we lack. Once that foundation is established, the mind becomes more naturally oriented toward goodness, and that orientation becomes a catalyst for action.
Every morning, for as long as we are fortunate enough to wake up, we are given another opportunity—at least for the most part—to test ourselves, improve ourselves, and contribute something to the lives of others. The simple fact that we are alive is itself worthy of appreciation. We should recognize that gift and use our lives to help other people.
My relationship with Judaism is complicated but deeply important to me. I consider myself Jewish in the cultural, ethnic, and historical sense, and I celebrate many Jewish traditions. I understand Jewishness in much the way Mordecai Kaplan described it—as belonging to a civilization. Religion is one component of that civilization, but it does not encompass the entirety of Jewish existence.
I have never been able to take the revealed-nature argument for religion completely seriously. It does not, in my view, withstand rational scrutiny. Yet this does not diminish the extraordinary intellectual and ethical richness of the Jewish tradition. The biblical tradition, the Tanakh, the Talmud, and the centuries of Jewish argumentation contain profound insights into human nature, ethics, justice, responsibility, and community.
What I find particularly compelling about Judaism is its willingness to wrestle with God. Judaism does not necessarily demand that one approach the divine with passive certainty. There is room for argument, questioning, doubt, interpretation, and even struggle. That aspect of Judaism is deeply compatible with my temperament.
I was born Jewish and remain proud of my Jewish identity. I celebrate many aspects of the culture and take enormous pleasure in studying its history. Throughout my life, I have struggled to understand what exactly I believe religiously. At various times I have flirted with benign forms of atheism and with French Deism, but neither has held me for very long. The intellectual and existential pull of Ein Sof has always drawn me back.
At the same time, I cannot accept every traditional religious claim simply because it has been transmitted through generations. In particular, I have difficulty giving credence to ancient miracles that appear to contradict the well-established laws of nature. I understand the arguments offered in their defense, including the idea that we once lived in an "Age of Miracles," but that reasoning strikes me as carrying a quality of magic and superstition that is difficult to reconcile with post-Enlightenment rationality.
This tension was ultimately one of the reasons I rejected elements of Orthodox Judaism, even while retaining respect for some of its institutions and traditions.
I do not believe that belief in Ein Sof requires miracles. There is, to my mind, enough philosophical and existential reason to believe in an ultimate transcendent reality without suspending the laws of nature. Indeed, I would argue that if Ein Sof is responsible for the structure of physical reality, then miracles are unnecessary. The universe itself is already extraordinary.
Prayer, for me, must come from the heart. I prefer to formulate my own words because prayer is ultimately a personal conversation. Others may find greater meaning in established liturgy and inherited prayers, and I respect that choice. For me, however, spontaneous prayer creates a more direct connection between the person I am and the transcendence I am attempting to address.
Prayer opens a necessary channel of communication with transcendence. It enriches belief by transforming an abstract proposition into a relationship. On a communal level, prayer also creates solidarity among people who share a religious or spiritual framework. Psychologically, it can serve another important purpose: it can clarify thought, organize emotion, and help us see our lives with greater perspective.
I cannot say that a day goes by without my contemplating my relationship with Ein Sof. This contemplation reaches into the very core of who I am. Without that personal dialogue, I would certainly be poorer.
And yet my faith does not come easily.
In some ways, I envy those who possess an uncomplicated certainty about their faith. They seem to have attained a form of contentment that has largely escaped me. My own faith is more like a tug-of-war. It is complicated by the countless rivulets of thought that have shaped my understanding of the world. I constantly interrogate what I believe. Throughout my life, I have moved from one place of intellectual and spiritual comfort to another.
That struggle is itself part of the relationship.
I do not think that wrestling with God or Ein Sof represents a failure of faith. For me, it is faith. The questions are not evidence that the relationship has failed; they are evidence that the relationship remains alive.
Buddhism is appealing. At first glance, there is an extraordinarily soothing quality to its philosophy. It often presents itself in a gentler and more welcoming form than some interpretations of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
One particularly interesting distinction concerns the replacement of an all-powerful judging God with the concept of karma—the idea that actions have consequences. Yet when I examine the two systems closely, I find an unexpected similarity. Both ultimately provide a framework intended to guide human behavior toward what is good.
In the Buddhist conception, harmful actions generate harmful consequences and ultimately suffering. In Western theological traditions, harmful actions may be understood as invoking divine judgment and suffering. The explanations differ, but the ethical objective can be remarkably similar.
I sometimes wonder whether karma could itself be understood as a description of how God or Ein Sof distributes consequences rather than as an entirely separate metaphysical mechanism.
My difficulty with karma as a self-contained explanation is that it can seem too convenient and too mechanistic. It risks turning human existence into an equation in which B can reliably be deduced from A. In that sense, karma can resemble a theological version of classical physics: deterministic, predictable, and ultimately too simple for the complexity of human existence.
I believe the consequences of our actions are murkier. The ultimate decider of our fate is Ein Sof, and I do not believe Ein Sof's logic is simplistic.
There are questions that remain profoundly beyond our comprehension. Why, for example, does an infant die at a very young age? We cannot provide an intellectually satisfying explanation. If Ein Sof exists, then perhaps the explanation exists at a level of reality inaccessible to us.
There is an interesting parallel here with the development of modern physics. For centuries, people believed that mathematics and classical mechanics could ultimately allow us to predict the future state of the universe with complete certainty. Quantum mechanics challenged that assumption. The uncertainty principle, wave-particle duality, and the strange probabilistic nature of quantum reality revealed a universe far more intricate and unpredictable than classical intuition had suggested.
There is logic in the universe, but that logic may be concealed behind a complexity that human beings will never fully penetrate. I suspect the same may be true of the consequences of our actions. There is an underlying order, but it may be vastly more complicated than any simple system of reward and punishment.
I also believe that atheists can develop a genuine spiritual dimension.Buddhism and Taoism, for example, demonstrate that spirituality does not necessarily require devotion to a personal deity. More broadly, a person can encounter a sense of transcendence through their own understanding of reality without identifying that transcendence as God.
A scientist who stands in awe of the structure of the cosmos, the complexity of life, or the elegance of natural law may be engaging in a form of spiritual contemplation. One need not attach a particular theological vocabulary to that experience for it to be meaningful.
For me, however, the concept of Ein Sof provides a language for that sense of transcendence. Another person may find that an alternative language may be more appropriate. The Infinite is sufficiently infinite to accommodate different ways of approaching it. This also shapes how I think about monotheism.
God is extraordinarily difficult—perhaps impossible—to define completely. Human beings therefore rely on names, metaphors, symbols, and conceptual constructs to describe divine action. Angels, for example, can be understood as ways of articulating aspects of divine agency rather than as independent pieces of God.
As long as these metaphors do not actually divide the ultimate reality into separate entities, I do not see them as necessarily violating monotheism. They are tools through which finite minds attempt to approach the infinite.
Finally, I believe that free will is essential because it gives us genuine choice. We are not merely automatons moving through a predetermined sequence of events. Free will necessarily carries a difficult consequence: we can choose badly.
Those choices can produce pain and suffering—for ourselves and for others. Yet free will can also lead to lives of extraordinary harmony, generosity, creativity, and love. Both possibilities have to exist. Without the possibility of a bad choice, the good choice loses much of its meaning.
This is where I find some common ground with existentialism, although our metaphysical starting points differ. Existentialism argues that even in a universe without inherent meaning, human beings possess the freedom to choose and must live with the consequences of those choices. I would frame the issue differently. I believe that reality ultimately possesses a transcendent foundation in Ein Sof, but within that reality we have been given enough freedom to make meaningful choices.
We therefore occupy a peculiar position. We are finite beings attempting to understand the Infinite. We are products of the material universe while sensing that there may be something beyond it. We are rational creatures who nevertheless experience wonder, meaning, beauty, love, and transcendence.
I do not claim to have resolved this tension. Perhaps it cannot be resolved.
My intellectual instinct is to question. My scientific training demands evidence. My skepticism warns me against superstition and easy answers. My Jewish identity connects me to a civilization built around argument, memory, ethics, and the persistent struggle with God. And yet beneath all of this is an intuition I have never been able to extinguish: that existence is grounded in something greater than the physical universe.
For me, that something is Ein Sof. I do not pretend to understand it. Indeed, the very nature of Ein Sof suggests that I cannot.
The Infinite cannot be contained by the finite mind. We can only approach it indirectly—through reason, through contemplation, through perspective, through gratitude, through kindness, and through the meaningful use of the brief period of existence that has been given to us.
And so my faith is not a conclusion that I reached once and then stopped questioning. It is an ongoing conversation between reason and intuition, science and transcendence, skepticism and belief.
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