Changing beliefs

Every Thursday I start the day with listening to a shiur, a talk, by my son, Rabbi David Sedley, which he gives as an interactive course on Web Yeshiva http://www.webyeshiva.org/class.php?cid=1174 to an audience all over the world . I am very privileged. This week he talked about the Shabbatean heresy, and disputes among rabbis, disputes that divided the Jewish world. He talked about beliefs in amulets, and the Zohar as a source of answers to Jewish beliefs. Although the period that he covered today was the second half of the eighteenth century, he acknowledged that such divisions persist to the present day. For me, an adherent to a rational world view, it is hard to comprehend that there are still people who believe in the efficacies of amulets and rabbinical blessings, but the reality is that such people exist, and they fervently believe in such magic. Which made me think that beliefs and belief systems change not only over centuries, long periods of time, but also over generations. I certainly don't think of myself as a religious man, even if some others who see me in the synagogue from time to time think of me as such. I recite, read my prayers without believing that by praying for health, for prosperity, for peace, my prayers would be answered by a benevolent God. I am grateful for the good life that was granted to me, and I don't bother to consider whether this was a favour to me by a divine being. It is not a benevolent and just God that I believe in but in my strand of Zionism, the belief of the existence of Am Yisrael, the People of Israel. I faced persecution for belonging to the People of Israel, I take pride in the unique qualities and achievements of Jewish people. My belief is rooted in this. But this kind of belief changed in every generation. My religious children believe in a different set of tenets, just as my father and father-in-law had beliefs different from mine. My father, who was a non-believer, fasted every year on the anniversary of the time when he stumble as he was shot at, and was left for dead, and miraculously survived as his column of prisoners was marched across the mountain pass from the main concentration camp of Mauthausen to the sub-camp of Günzkirchen. My father-in-law, an outright atheist, asked 'who would say kaddish for me' when his only son died. Why fast? Why does saying kaddish matter to you if you don't believe in God? Each has his own set of beliefs. If faith in amulets and rabbinical blessings gives comfort so be it, as long as this faith does not preclude tolerance of others who do not share it.