I’ve finished my study with Rabbi Yehoshua and I didn’t really see what I learned until I’ve looked back. I spent most of my time asking really hard questions about God and the Bible, and I learned to do that. I learned to let myself articulate why it doesn’t make sense and recognize all the regurgitated theology I had floating around. It was an education just to study with someone who had absolutely no problem not answering my questions when there weren't clear answers, someone who would say over and over, the best we can do is not understand. I needed that, to be mad for a minute and disassemble all the hollow answers that have been built around my questions and to let it all fall apart. I needed someone to tell me to relax, that in fact I won’t find the hidden solutions or the missing existential puzzle piece that would make sense of all. He asked these questions with me, because they’re there, and as a highly educated religious man he explored the options with me, gave a little advice, and mostly nodded his head in empathy. When we finally ask the questions and accept the unanswerable, when we stop trying to cover the gaping holes of the unknown and just ponder them, when at last we accept the mystery of our religion, only then can we begin to learn, only then can we begin to develop faith; which is of course, the capacity to believe anyways.
“The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, 'God'.” – A.W. Tozer