Daily Wisdom Post: The Israel Moment: Reclaiming Uncertainty as a Spiritual Value

Excerpt from the most recent article to be found at iEvolve.com, the Center for World Spirituality:

Before beginning our journey, however, it may be of value for the reader to have at least a very bare outline of the three reasons I hold uncertainty to be ethically and spiritually essential. These underlying motifs will guide our entire discussion.
1) First, only by holding uncertainty can I attain higher certainty. The embrace of false certainty always prevents me from reaching the higher clarity and vision that is mine.

2) Second, we hold uncertainty in order to avoid the seduction of false certainty. False dogma, be it religious, national, spiritual, or secular, is the ground out of which the dynamic of human evil always feeds. Most of the evil in the world is committed by people who are one hundred percent convinced they are right. People who hold uncertainty as a spiritual value rarely perpetrate massacres. Uncertainty is one of God’s protective mechanisms against hubris and it’s devastating consequences.6 Indeed, the cruel shadow side of modernity, which killed no fewer than a hundred million people in the last century, stems largely from its refusal to hold intellectual uncertainty. Instead of holding safek (uncertainty), moderns feel the need to claim their safek as Vaddai–clarity. Modernity, however, has ample precedent in almost all of the religious systems which history has produced. Uncertainty is sublimated by excessive and often fatal displays of religious or secular zeal and certitude.

3) Third, I need to hold uncertainty because only in uncertainty do I reach spiritual authenticity. This third level of uncertainty is never resolvable in favor of higher certainty. This uncertainty is higher than any certainty and is reflective of the deepest nature of both spiritual and physical reality.

From Uncertainty
Dr. Marc Gafni
6. See Abraham Kuk who expresses this notion in one of his letters.

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For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org