One of the leading journalists of the Hebrew and Yiddish press, Hillel Zeitlin (1871-1942) experienced a religious awakening midway through his life, returning to the strict observance and regular Torah study of his youth. Despite this personal change, Zeitlin’s journalistic career continued unabated. He remained very much part of the largely secular Warsaw Jewish intelligentsia even as he wrote frequently on religious themes, often displaying a strong mystical inclination. Sam Glauber translates and examines his 1922 essay “On the Depths of Being”:
The second [section of the essay] is an imaginary dialogue between Zeitlin and one who desires to have faith in God, although he feels himself unable to come to it. It does not take much imagination to realize that Zeitlin’s interlocutor is himself at an earlier period of his life, as he sought for many years to recover the lost faith of his youth. Zeitlin’s answer is chilling in its simplicity: there is no path to faith other than faith itself. Pressed to offer a solution to this paradox, Zeitlin surprisingly states that the initial source of faith (emunah) is denial (kfirah)—which can also be rendered “heresy.”
Through denying all theories and doctrines, one empties himself of all notions and turns to God. Zeitlin’s God is a personal God, whose presence is achieved through individual experience, not through any doctrine which could be defined or communicated [in words]. Zeitlin’s [approach] is likely influenced by the writings of Lev Shestov, the Russian mystic who was the subject of a monograph published by Zeitlin the same year.
Read more on Between Two Worlds: https://samglauber.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/on-the-depths-of-being/