The Torah in Jewish Tradition

In the Book of Exodus, the ancient Israelites built an ark, and a tabernacle to carry the commandments wherever they went.  Having been rescued from slavery the Hebrews would wander in the wilderness for a long time.  The Rabbis tell us this was the beginning of the mobile Jewish tradition.  Despite the relatively short times when the Temple existed, for most of its history Jews have carried the Torah with them wherever they went.


The word Torah means teaching.  It is the teaching of God concerning how to live a life well lived.  The Torah can be understood narrowly as the ten commandments and more broadly as the entire Tanach (Hebrew Bible), and even more broadly as including the Talmud (a 72 book Rabbinic multi-generational commentary on the Tanach.)  Torah can also include the word midrash which refers to stories or commentaries which make explicit what is implicit in the Biblical text.
   

In Jewish tradition studying Torah is a holy activity.  As the old cliché declares, “When I pray, I talk to God.  When I study God talks to me.”


But the old Rabbis add another role for the purpose of the Torah.  They say, “when Jews went through the hardships and terrors of their history; when they felt alone and abandoned, when they were being murdered day in and day out, when they had no energy to carry the Torah, the Torah carried them.”


What does that mean?  Our religious traditions assure us that whatever we are going through, wherever we are, we are accompanied, carried and given strength to meet the day.  I am not sure this is true, but I like the notion that sometimes when we have our doubts and irreligiosity, reject our tradition, yet we are accompanied.  It is even said the letters of the Torah are watching over us day and night to keep us sane. 


So, as you go through what you are going through, think, it may be possible you are not alone.

Remembering Mr. Lipton

As a boy I attended a Yeshiva (Jewish parochial school) in the Bronx.  We began the day with six hours of Hebrew subjects.  After lunch we had five hours of English subjects.  My 4^th grade teacher for one of those English classes was Mr.  Lipton. 


He was tall, with red hair and a quiet way about him.  He struck me and my friends as a kind-hearted person who cared about his students.
  

Mr. Lipton introduced us to Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.  We would take out our books and Mr. Lipton would read to us from the books as we followed along.  He had a fetching voice which drew you into the story.  I remember being entranced by the books and I still remember them.


Then there was his guitar.  Mr. Lipton taught us to sing folk songs, some were Spanish tunes.  Here we were, 4^th grade Yeshiva students and he opened our eyes to a wider world of which most of us were unaware. 


Part of being Jewish, we learned from Mr. Lipton, was not only loving and studying Jewish texts.  It was not just being immersed in Jewish questions.  It was Mr. Lipton’s legacy every weekday afternoon to remind us there was a larger world out there and we should be aware of it.  And most important he taught us to think and ask good questions.


To Mr. Lipton, thank you for being you.

Antisemitism, What Can I Say or Do

As a Jewish teacher, I feel I should say something about the recent rise in anti-semitic attacks, something helpful, something which would make sense out of such craziness, but I am not sure my words will make any difference.


History teaches us the persecution and killing of Jews will never stop.  We cannot change the world and we feel helpless.  But it is precisely because we feel helpless, we should do everything we can.
  

Wherever you live, you can say, “Not here, Not in my Town, Not in my place!!!”

You can stand up and speak out.  Do what you can do wherever you are.


Happy and sane New Year 2020,


Murray Haar

Chanukah and Christmas After the Holocaust

The Holocaust, arguably, has been the most studied event in human history.  And yet, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, has anything changed?


I would say yes but not enough.  Many of us who have studied what happened in those days, are horrified by what happened and have discovered the capacity for evil inside human beings.  We have learned how an entire society can be overtaken with hatred and fear.  We have been forced to see the capacity of human beings to kill other human beings in large numbers.  And today we are compelled to see the ongoing “lethal obsession” with hatred of Jews.


Let’s be honest: Despite all the hoopla surrounding Christmas and Chanukah, the Holocaust was a time when the darkness overwhelmed the light.  The Holocaust years were a time when human evil defeated the divine purpose of redeeming the world.  And no amount of religious piety should diminish what happened during those days.


If we Jews and Christians keep on talking, teaching and exhorting about the Holocaust, it is because we refuse to believe that human beings cannot be human.  We refuse to believe hate and fear will have the final word.  We refuse.

This Chanukah and Christmas let us commit ourselves anew to remember those days, to teach them to our children, and to do everything we can to prevent the darkness from overcoming the light

The Wounded Memory

There is an old Jewish saying, “In memory lies redemption.”  In many ways this saying rings true.  But memory is not always redemptive.  Sometimes its wounds are old, lie within us and will not go away.  My parents survived the Holocaust, but their wounds accompanied them all their lives.  They wanted to forget but they could not forget. At night my father would scream out loud haunted by those days.


In a recent article in Christian Century, which I highly recommend, Shelly Rambo who teaches at the Boston University School of Theology wrote an important piece, “How Christian Theology and Practice are being shaped by trauma studies.”


In this article, Dr. Rambo is critical of theologies which glorify pain and suffering or use their existence as a way of explaining the will of God.  Her point is the wounds carried by the wounded are not so easily explained or wiped away by justifying theologies or theodicies.  Our job is not to do away with the wounds but to help people figure out how to live with them and through them.


In Jewish tradition we teach: Salvation does not come through suffering, evil or death.  To be saved from the power of sin, death and evil is to consciously and intentionally be honest about and defy these three.  Jews, Christians and Muslims each have their own way but not by theologically blessing the wounds, rather by facing the wounds caused by life and not submitting to their power. 

Can God Evolve?

We do not know much about the mysterious force at the heart of the universe we call God.   In the Book of Exodus, when Moses asks God his name, the Hebrew tells us the best but ambiguous translation is, “I will be what I will be.”


Maybe God is not some paternalistic stable entity sitting on a golden throne with a plan but a God who interacts with human beings constantly evolving to accomplish a particular purpose?  Humans have a certain measure of freedom.  They are constantly making decisions.  Perhaps God agrees or disagrees with these decisions.  Perhaps God is a spiritual energy force which keeps trying to influence our decision making.  Perhaps God is sometimes successful and sometimes not?


What if it’s all about physics?  What if the nature of nature and the nature of human nature is a constant interaction based on the principals of physics?  


It seems clear whatever power God possesses it is not being used to stop all the suffering and evil in the world.  Perhaps God’s commitment to human free will and to letting nature be nature means living on this planet has always been and will continue to be a precarious endeavor.
  

To paraphrase William James, philosophy is a peculiar stubborn obsession to think clearly.   Theology is a peculiar stubborn obsession to believe and speak honestly.  One of the things we can do to remain sane is to pursue these two obsessions with all we’ve got and hope for the best.

Is Anybody Driving the Bus?

We live in a time when increasing amounts of people are concluding there is no God.  More and more of my students are either agnostic or atheist in their religious affiliation.  When I first came to Augustana, most students were either Lutheran with a minority Roman Catholic.  Today, less than half are Lutheran, a quarter Roman Catholic and another quarter with little or no religious tradition.

What can we say about this phenomenon?   

The world is a chaotic place and each day the News media informs us of ongoing catastrophes and evil.  If your expectation is God is supposed to stop these terrible things from happening, then it makes sense to conclude that is no one in charge of driving the bus.  And the bus seems to be careening down the highway, no one at the wheel, with periodic crashes and tragedies.


When we say or pray the word God, what do we mean?  What image do we picture in our minds?  The image we possess determines our expectations or disappointments.  If we assume it is God’s job to keep the world orderly and civil, we will not be happy.
  

Some will argue God gave human beings “free will.”   Others speak of the mystery at the heart of the universe.  Some say there is a hidden plan or purpose which we cannot understand.

But the increasing numbers of atheists tells us the old defenses and explanations no longer work as well.  


Is anybody driving the bus?  Some say, they are convinced someone is there and God is real.  Others are equally convinced no one is there.  We will not know the truth until the day we die. 


Meanwhile, we ought not be frightened of the question.  Let’s admit we have never been sure of what is or is not there.  Is there anybody at the wheel?  

For people of faith this is nothing new.  We have always lived inside this tension.  We were always aware that faith is trusting without knowing for sure.  So it has been and so it will be.