Murray Haar On Religion: All Beginnings are Hard

Friday, September 1, 2017

All Beginnings are Hard

It's that time again. Chaim Potok wrote, “all beginnings are hard.” Such is the rhythm for those of us who teach. September means beginning again. I have walked through this beginning many times. You would think I would have it down by now. But there is still a nervous fearful anxious feeling in the pit of my brain, a sense that the wonderful exciting dread time is once again upon us. Soon, I will have to stand up and talk.

And I am asking myself, what makes for such stress and nervousness? Is it fear of failure? Is it fear that I have lost my touch? Do I wonder if I am getting too old to do this anymore? Do I wonder if it is fair and right for someone who was Christian and now Jewish to teach Christians about their tradition? I suppose all of those are factors. But, I sense it’s something more.

The fact is I love to teach religion. But teaching religion is not easy. It’s not just a matter of getting up and talking or sharing information. This is necessary and this I will do. Teaching religion is teaching young people to think about their faith. And this kind of thinking is hard work. Let’s face it: When it comes to religion, many people have not been trained to think. They have been trained to believe.

And when I stare into their young and mostly innocent eyes, it scares me to have to tell them: God, Jesus, the Bible and religion are a bit more complicated then they might have thought. My goal is not to hurt their faith but to deepen it. I do not teach for the tradition, nor against the tradition, but within the tradition. So, deepening the faith of students involves telling them some things they may not want to hear such as: The Bible was not dictated by God to the writers. Adam and Eve were not real people though their story is true. The notion that everything happens for a reason has some problems. Not all Christians believe Jesus died for our sins. Sometimes the best way to express your faith is to hurl questions at the deity. Judaism and Islam have millions of followers, who believe Christianity is wrong.

To possess a mature faith means to trust without being afraid of the questions. It also means to think that you could be wrong.

So, here we go again. All beginnings are hard. I am excited and apprehensive. Despite that, I am committed to the notion that a religious person who is not afraid to think and has his or her eyes wide open is closer to the truth. And wherever the truth is, that’s where God is as well.

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Notes from The Door

Whenever you care for the neighbor in pain, at that very moment, God is real. At that very moment, the Messiah has returned. In every situation where there is pain and injustice do what you can do to stop the pain. Murray Haar
Religion was not created by God but by people. What God thinks of our religions only God can say. If your religion teaches you to love God and to stand with your neighbor in pain, it is a good religion. If it teaches you to hate and to be indifferent, it is a bad religion. Murray Haar
Get Busy livin or get busy dyin (Shawshank Redemption)
The Holocaust teaches us that it is possible to be alive but no longer human. Murray Haar
I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. W. H. Auden
For the most part, Christian pastors and priests are not taught to think but to transmit. They go to a vocational school called a seminary where they are taught how to transmit and proclaim the gospel but not how to teach their people to think critically about what they believe. They do not know how to teach their parishioners that Christianity could be wrong. Pastors and Priests are not prophets; they are religious functionaries who care about people and love Jesus. They themselves are usually nice people, will visit you in the hospital and give you bread and wine but they are not, for the most part, great thinkers. So, to expect them to reform the Church is just not realistic. Occasionally though, pastors show up who can think and believe at the same time and it is in them that there is hope for a reformation. I have met them. They are real and I have hope in them. Murray Haar
We do not believe in the Bible. We believe in God. The Bible is a vector toward God and the neighbor. When the Bible points us toward God and the neighbor, it is true. Whenever it does not, it is not true. We have to learn not only to read the Bible but to argue with it. Then the text will become real. Murray Haar
“In religion, the question is more important than the answer to the question.” A Midrash
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas
“He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud
“We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.” Joseph Epstein

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Friday, September 1, 2017

All Beginnings are Hard

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