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What We Jews Believe - A Two Part SeriesDecember 2002From the Desk of Rabbi CohonPart Two: What is God? Three Contradictory Jewish Views that Work for Me... One of my favorite pieces in the little book "Children's Letters to God" comes from a boy who asks "How come God did all those miracles in the old days and doesn't do them anymore?" In a small way, this cuts to the heart of our contemporary problem with Jewish belief. Most of us don't believe in the God we grew up with, the one we think we learned about in Sunday school. So just what do we believe in? The most striking development in theology--that is, religious belief--in the 20th century was the evolution of the concept of religious existentialism, which focuses on authentic personal experience as the centerpoint in our development of personal belief. In other words, your own experience and ideas have a central role to play in what you believe, at least as important as the tradition you inherit. On a personal level, this has great resonance for me, and as a Jewish existentialist the best way to explain my understanding of contemporary Jewish belief is to explicate my own. I hold three different, perhaps mutually exclusive views of God. While a rigid rationalist might find some difficulty accepting such a contradictory belief structure, I actually find it stimulating and meaningful. Perhaps you will find it instructive or, at the least, helpful in informing what you might choose to believe about God. First, I believe in God as the Creator of the universe--but in a different sort of way. For me, this is the God who established the structures and processes in nature that allow the earth to remain in orbit, the forces of gravity and attraction that control the way things work, the amazing, miraculous laws that make life possible and elegant. I feel God's presence, in this way, when I view the spectacular beauty of the Grand Canyon, or the intricate elegance of the wing of a dragonfly. This is God as oseh ma'aseh b'reisheet, the Creator of the work of genesis, who set in motion the evolution of this amazing universe of wonder and magnificence. My second conception of God is a mystical one, the God who is present in elemental ways in everything. This is a Kabbalistic understanding, that we are all connected by the holiness implicit in each of us, in every part of the universe. Everything is not God--but God is in everything, and if we try in the right kinds of ways we can become aware of God's presence, and connect with it. This is the God we sense when we fall in love, and whenever human beings act with great kindness, selflessness, or heroism. This is God as kedushah, the holiness we feel if we allow ourselves to be open to it. And finally, I also somehow believe in the God to whom I actually pray most of the time, my own, personal, Ribono Shel Oilem--a God with a personality who cares about me, and about our people. This is the God to whom I can kvetch, the God I ask to set aside the laws of nature for my own personal benefit (especially when I run late), the God who gets all the blame and all the begging. This is God of the Berditchever Kaddish, the God with whom I argue and remonstrate and to whom I apologize when I fail. This might be the least rational of my own conceptions of God, but it is the one who sometimes resonates the most: it is hard, after all, to pray to the creator of the forces of nature or the element of holiness in everything, but it is easy to ask this God for help. It is often said that in today's Judaism most of us are not so ideologically motivated: we are Jewish because we are Jewish, and we leave it at that. But having a grown-up conception of God is both liberating and motivating. It helps form a sense of purpose and meaning that can otherwise go missing, and connect us to our tradition in new and powerful ways. May we each come to understand, and know, God in ways that bring holiness and direction into our own lives. Ken yehi ratson--may this be God's will--however conceived! L'shalom v'rei'ut, in peace and friendship, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon P. S. Interestingly, my own conceptions of God--contradictory or complementary--are just three of many different ways we Jews think about God, and all fall comfortably into the realm of being authentically "Jewish". For a fairly good, concise explanation of some of the most popular understandings, there is a very accessible book called "Finding God: Ten Jewish Responses" by Rabbis Rifat Sonsino and Daniel Syme. |
