Description

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD talks about the difference between faith and knowledge with European MTV host Eden Harel

Transcript

The Difference Between Faith and Knowledge

Eden Harel: If the idea is to really bring us close to the Creator, and to be closer to Him, then I can actually, well, that’s the question, if I can sit at home and talk with Him… Meaning, why do I have to invest so much time in studies?  I can simply sit and talk to Him.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: What, you have a connection with Him, a special phone number?

Eden Harel: Love, basic love. No, through faith. Not love, we’ll call it faith. Isn’t that enough?

Rav Laitman: Love is something very, very dangerous.

Eden Harel: So faith.

Rav Laitman: Faith, I don’t know what faith is. What’s faith? I know knowledge. I know. So what does faith mean? What, that maybe it exists?

Now look, in Kabbalah, this concept doesn’t exist. Faith… Faith’s a lack of knowledge. If instead of faith you had clear knowledge, proof that it exists, wouldn’t it be better? Meaning, faith is something incomplete.

Eden Harel: From time to time the doubts appear.

Rav Laitman: Look now, if we go towards the revelation of Godliness, so as if each time we throw away the faith, what you call faith, and each time receive knowledge in its place. So why should we live in faith? It’s something neither sure nor good.

Eden Harel: But then how do you receive the knowledge?

Rav Laitman: Revelation. Through the method.

Eden Harel: Okay. So if you learn the method, you say revelation, is this revelation in the corporeal world?

Rav Laitman: No. Now you are asking this: we grasp the world with our five senses and here we need to grasp something additional. How do we grasp it, with what?

Eden Harel: With our sixth sense.

Rav Laitman: Yes, with our sixth sense. Where is it? Does it exist or not?

Eden Harel: Where does it physically exist? I don’t know, here? I don’t know.

Rav Laitman: No, the third eye?

We have some kind of starting point, the sixth sense called soul. That’s what we call it. But also this is not exactly what we usually think it to be. The sixth sense, or soul, is exactly the same sense that feels Godliness. Other than that, nothing.

Eden Harel: Okay. So where’s is it found?

Rav Laitman: It’s not found in a person.

Eden Harel: What, so it’s found here for instance? Or out here, somewhere in the universe?  

Rav Laitman: Not here. If we say “here,” that’s also some kind of place. There is no place. If we’re talking about spirituality, there’s no place.

Eden Harel: How can I grasp something that I don’t even know where it is? Where?

Rav Laitman: Where? Let’s leave that since we won’t find it.

Eden Harel: But if it exists, where is it?

Rav Laitman: Later we’ll see what’s called no place and no time.

Eden Harel: But it’s as if… Okay, I understand you.

Rav Laitman: What can be said is that it exists within my feelings, and the problem is that only within this point can we develop it.