One of most familiar words in vocabulary of religious life is AMEN. Its use in Judaism dates back to Torah. It has been generally adopted in Christian worship as a concluding word for prayers and hymns. In Islam, it is the standard ending to Dua (supplication) and the "Sura Al-Fatiha”, the opening of the Qur'an.

Pronounced in different ways: AH-men, O-meyn, A-men. A-min.  (sing).  All come from the same tri-letter root in Hebrew. אָמֵן. Affirmation. Same root as word emunah, It means to be firm, affirm, confirm, reliable, faithful, have faith, believe, trust. I trust what you are saying. I believe in what you are saying. I can rely on what you are saying.

Faith appears in our Torah reading as a verb. "צְדָקָֽה לֹּ֖ו וַיַּחְשְׁבֶ֥הָ ‘בַָּֽ֑ה וְהֶאֱמִ֖ן". Because he had faith /trusted the Eternal, he considered it to his merit." Today, I want to look at the context of that verse, discuss two different types of faith, point to a novel way to understand Avram’s faith, and direct us back into the contemporary world.

In old age, Avram receives a message from God, telling him that he will produce a child who will inherit Avram's property and his father's covenant with God. In younger years, Sarah had been infertile. Now her body no longer throbbed with the monthly cycle of women. Pregnancy was not a possibility. Sarah also said that her husband was too old to father children. Despite this biological reality, God told Avram that he would have a child, and that his descendants will be like the sand by the sea and the stars in the sky! God's promise would strain the credulity of even the most devoted follower.

In response to God's astounding promise, the Torah states simply that "because he put his trust in the Eternal, he reckoned it to his credit." The sentence is ambiguous. Yet in that verse we discover two different understandings of faith. 

For some religious people, "faith" means belief in certain claims about reality. Faith is perceived as a mental acceptance of an external reality. HH Price described this as “belief that”. I believe that if I let go of this object, it will fall to the ground.

In medieval philosophy, for Christians, Jews and Muslims, this meant that true faith required an intellectual understanding of certain statements.  Faith was propositional. Christianity, for example, articulated creeds, statements that one is called upon to affirm (amen) as a commitment of faith. In response to the emphasis on propositional faith in both Islam and Christianity,  the great thinker Maimonides became the first rabbi to codify principles of faith, statements of belief to be affirmed for one to be a good Jew.

Paradoxically, through this understanding, faith became a willingness to refrain from too much thought, to avoid or dismiss questions raised by life experience. As a result, when questions arise, this "faith" can be destabilized or destroyed.

In contrast, the biblical-rabbinic understanding of faith is relational. It is more akin to “belief in”, I believe in someone means that I trust, I can rely upon the other. “They believed in the Eternal and in Moshe, God’s servant”.

Our parashah portrays Avram as a man filled with tensions and doubt, following God, but worried about his family and his own life. He lacks serenity, peace of mind. We see Avram worrying about his lack of an heir, about the state of his covenant with God, and about his relations with the neighbors.

In the midst of all those struggles, God calls out to Avram and the two have a bit of a discussion.  The Torah points to faith as more than a proposition that we affirm or deny. Avram comes to understand that faith is not a passive acquiescence to an idea, nor does it require avoiding doubt.

Faith is a willingness to trust, despite one's doubts and through one's tensions. Faith is trust. The most simple reading of our biblical verse is that God reckoned Avram's trust to his merit. Our friend, the medieval French commentator, Rashi, explains that God credited Avram's trust to his tzedakah (merit) because Avram "did not ask God for a sign."

Rabbi Barukh Epstein from Russia in the late 19th and early 20th Century, read our ambiguous sentence differently. “‘בַָּֽ֑ה וְהֶאֱמִ֖ן, Avram trusted God; צְדָקָֽה לֹּ֖ו וַיַּחְשְׁבֶ֥הָ  and considered God's promise as evidence of God's trust/ righteousness”.  Let’s unpack this interpretation.

We take for granted that we live in a habitable universe. The days and nights cycle through the skies. (notwithstanding that tonight we change our clocks). The seasons change with predictable regularity.  The earth produces organic material which nourishes living things. Human beings produce and raise children, live and die.

All this is actually quite improbable. On Thursday, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks pointed to the book, “Just Six Number” by Sir Martin Rees. There are six, and only six, mathematical constants which govern the entire emergence of the universe, that set parameters for the size and texture of the universe and for the properties of space. If any one of those factors were slightly different, and the margins of tolerance are incredibly fine, then life would not have emerged. Add to that the improbability of inanimate matter becoming animate, the shift from something which we would not call living to something we would call living, Then, how did life become self-replicating life? How do you get cells that beget cells? It is also improbable that life grown in order and complexity, against the basic tendency of the universe, which is entropy that is gradually losing order, losing differentiation. More strange and non-functional is the emergence of consciousness and self-consciousness. What on earth is the conceivable purpose of Shakespeare's sonnets, Mozart's symphonies, Isaiah, Plato or the whole of the human quest for meaning?

The current situation of science may not in any way prove the existence of God but it is certainly the case that science is intimating certain points of mystery which remain when all the facts are in. We end up with the sheer improbability of human life and consciousness. 

Do you recall the 'Sherlock Holmes principle'. You will remember Sherlock Holmes' famous remark, "Dr Watson, I draw your attention to the curious incident of the dog at night." And Watson says, "But the dog did nothing at night!" And Holmes says, "That was the curious incident."

While the world may be far from perfect, it is--nonetheless--regular, reliable and vital. Avraham looks at the world and trusts it as good, to the merit of God as the Creator.  We look at the history of Jews- who have outlasted and outlived the empires that sought to destroy us. Most improbable.

Whether one follows Rashi and takes the verse to show God's willingness to trust Abraham; or you follow Rabbi Epstein to understand the verse as Abraham's willingness to trust God; both are far from predictable. Both represent the miracle of trust.

Avram and God present faith as a willingness to trust, despite the reality of setbacks and suffering. Rather than some pale recital of a creed, Judaism insists on a rich trust. That emunah, trust, is not a demonstrable proposition, an articulated creedal statement about God, or a blind faith. It is a trust in the living reality of God, a trust that we can rely of God even when things seem improbable, a trust that our actions demonstrate our relationship. “The righteous shall live by faith”.

For all this, let us say, O-men