Let My People Know

"The search for the perfect answer must not be carried to a debilitating extreme"

 
The study of the Oral Torah is largely a matter of posing questions, then answering them.

While many are answered immediately, others remain "unresolved," "in need of further study," or "in need of much more study." 

The problem is that one cannot remain stuck forever on a complex issue.

One must move on, setting that issue aside until later, when, as often happens, it may appear in a different light, turn out to be soluble in a different formulation, or cease to be an issue. 

This intellectual method of attacking difficult problems—at times by direct investigation, at other times in a roundabout fashion or by reformulation—is the very one by which progress is made in every branch of science. 

So it is in Judaism. 

If people have questions, they deserve to be taken seriously and, if possible, to be answered.

But the search for the perfect answer must not be carried to a debilitating extreme.
 
Avoiding that extreme calls for inner clarity, forward momentum, and spiritual maturity. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From "Problems of Faith" in Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz