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The Five S tages of Faith by Shmuel Reichman
Feel, GrowThink,
The Five Stages of Faith
By Shmuel Reichman
As we depart from Pesach, the holiday of faith, we must reinforce our commitment to the journey of faith.
There is no greater act of emunah than living a spiritual, holistic life in an often chaotic, fragmented world. The famous words “kedoshim tihiyu” (you shall be holy) are not a call to be transcendent, angelic beings, lofty and perfect, completely beyond the struggle innate to the human condition. This is not permission to deny our humanity and restrict our sense of self. This is a calling to be human, to be the ultimate human, to bring transcendence and spirituality into this world. We don’t aim to escape this world; we aim to transform it. Kedushah is not transcendence or escapism, it’s found in the meeting between the transcendent and the immanent. This is the journey of faith, whereby each individual must embark on a quest for internal and objective truth, where we must leave the comfort of the known and travel towards the infinite, towards the future we know we are destined for, towards our own personal and collective purpose.
There are five stages in this journey of faith:
1- Emunah Peshutah (Simple Faith)
The first stage that we experience in life is emunah peshutah, simple faith. If you take a two-year-old child on a walk in the park, all he experiences is life itself. He’ll point at the birds and the trees and exclaim:
“Whoa!” or point at something and shout, “Look at that!”
He doesn’t yet have a categorized mind, so he doesn’t give names to anything; he simply sees reality as it is.
At this stage, you experience life with no questions, and no options – everything is simply pure, true, and beautiful.
2- Blind Faith
Then, you learn how to speak, and the world suddenly becomes a mystery. You walk around in wonder and confusion; you have questions; you’re learning to communicate. If you’re taught to believe in Hashem, you do, not because you have any reason to, but because your parents or teachers tell you that Hashem loves you, that He created you, that He cares about you, and that “He gave you this delicious cookie as a present.”
As you grow older, you are taught increasingly complex ideas: Hashem sees everything you do, Hashem can forgive, Hashem gives you challenges. However, you are still at an age where you accept these facts at face value, believing them because that’s what people tell you is true. At this stage, belief is obedience, not something you’ve discovered.
3- Experiential Faith
However, once you reach a certain age, you begin to want more. You want to meet Hashem, to talk to Him. You want to genuinely, deeply believe in Him, but you struggle. It’s hard. If only you could see Him, touch Him, or even hear Him, then you’d believe! You just want some indication that He’s here, watching and caring, just as you were told growing up.
Every once in a while, a “coincidental” encounter with Hashem, the sublime, occurs. Maybe your life was saved, maybe you just made your flight, or just missed it and later heard it crashed. Maybe you found your soulmate, did well on your test, or got your dream job. Maybe you had your first child, your illness was cured, or you won against all odds. Maybe you were just in the exact right place, at the exact right time.
Suddenly, you believe. It’s real, at least to you. You’re convinced, and you walk around floating on cloud nine. Life is good, pure, true, and beautiful. Here, faith becomes personal, not just something foisted upon you by others.
However, your faith at this stage is simplistic. At some point, this is no longer enough. You want more; you need more. Rational, logical, and philosophical questions come up. “If G-d exists then why…” and “How can G-d exist if….” or “Why would G-d do….” Maybe your life falls apart and you cry out, “How can this be happening to me?!”
4- Rational Knowledge
The fourth stage is the rational stage. You need rational proofs: logic, philosophy, science, math, algorithms, and intellect. So you begin to collect proofs. - The Big Bang may explain how the world came about, but where did the Big Bang come from? Something higher must have set it into action, there must be a source of the very matter that made up the Big Bang.
- The world is so sophisticated
ship with Him. It does not help you
where the fifth level comes in.
and organized, it is impossible for something of such complexity to
truly know Him, to connect to Him on the deepest of levels.
5- Experiential Knowledge
have just randomly come about. It must have been created and ordered this way by something higher.
The Ramchal (Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto) explains in his sefer Da’as Tevunos (Knowing G-d’s Plan) that
There are certain things which cannot be explained rationally. They transcend logical explanation; they
- Quantum physics shows that
the world is an expression of a su
preme consciousness, so Hashem must be the neshama (the self/consciousness) of the world. - Einstein proved that time and space is relative, in that each human being experiences a present in relation to himself. Objectively, though, there is a dimension that
transcends time and space. Hashem must be that which transcends time and space!
This fourth stage is tremendously more developed than the two before it. At this stage, your faith is something you have worked towards rationally, intellectually, and developmentally, something that you have devoted thought and research towards. But, in truth, this stage is limited as well. You may have proven that Hashem exists, but it ends there. Knowing that Hashem exists does not mean that you have a relationrational proofs may reveal Hashem’s existence, but they do not allow for a deeper understanding and knowledge of Hashem. You may know that G-d exists, but what does that mean experientially, how does this manifest in your actual experience of life?
While many people stop at rational knowledge, the fourth stage, we must push ourselves farther. This is
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can only be experienced. These phenomena are not irrational, they are post-rational. Reason and logic lead you to them, but only experience itself can verify them. If you have experienced something in this realm, you cannot prove its existence to someone else, for they must experience it themselves in order to truly know it as well. For example, if someone has never eaten chocolate before, it is impossible to explain to them what it tastes like. They need to taste it and experience it themselves. The same is true for spiritual wisdom: - Love cannot be explained, only experienced. The physiological effects of love on our bodies and minds can be observed, but the power and experience of love cannot be rationally explained. - Although it is impossible to logically and rationally prove the existence of free will, the fact that you possess free will is experienced every time you face a moral dilemma. The genuine pull towards evil and the rich satisfaction when we triumph is inherent to human decision making, and yet it is impossible to scientifically pin down the origins of decision-making in our brains. - True goodness cannot be explained, only experienced. If you ask someone to explain the nature and meaning of what is good and right, he or she may be able to give you examples, but the truth of what is good lies beyond the realm of logic, it is something we know deeply within ourselves. - The fact that life has meaning and purpose is intrinsic to the human experience, and yet impossible to prove. - You know deep down that you are unique, that you were created for a reason, and that you have a unique mission in this world, yet again, it is impossible to prove.
The above phenomena defy logical and rational explanations. They are experienced deep within our consciousness, deep within our existential experience of reality.
Deeper Torah knowledge as well requires this post-rational experience, weaving your way into the inner dimensions of Torah consciousness. At this stage, you see reality as it is. No questions, no options, everything is just pure, true, beautiful.
But then you notice something grand, euphoric, and unexplainable: this was the exact experience you had during the first stage! Your journey through life becomes the creation of an epic and cosmic circle. You lost that transcendent connection to oneness, so that you could journey through life to rebuild it – except this time, it’s real, it’s earned, and therefore it’s yours; you chose it, you built it, and now you get to experience it!
Now comes the most challenging stage of all: living by the emes that you so deeply know and experience, turning the cerebral light of truth into a life eternally guided by that truth.
Life is full of ups and downs, light and darkness, clarity and faith. Belief is not static. It’s a process – something you must constantly build, mold, and develop. When in the midst of struggle and darkness, remember how far you’ve come, remember why you’re here, remember your why in life, and then move forward, push forward, and take the next leap forward in your journey of faith!
Shmuel Reichman is an inspirational speaker, writer, and coach who has lectured internationally at shuls, conferences, and Jewish communities on topics of Jewish thought and Jewish medical ethics. He is the founder and CEO of Self-Mastery Academy (ShmuelReichman.com), the transformative online course that is revolutionizing how we engage in self-development. You can find more inspirational lectures, videos, and articles from Shmuel on his website, ShmuelReichman.com.
