Prolepsis

The word prolepsis means living in anticipation of an event before it happens.  Christmas is a proleptic event because weeks and weeks before it occurs people get excited and live their lives as if the event is in some way already here.  When we know that something big is going to happen, our lives are effected for good and for bad,  by the coming event, a trip to a fun place, graduation, surgery, moving, retirement, a grandchild, and many other such anticipations.

Do you remember the old commercial where the singer sang the song, “Anticipation” as the ketchup came out of the bottle so slowly, incrementally and enticingly?  Prolepsis, there it is.

The three monotheisms are all proleptic religions.  Their traditions believe history has a purpose and is going somewhere. Their preachers teach, despite what what you see with your eyes, you ought anticipate a time when God will come soon, defeat the power of evil and bring peace to the world.  Jews, Christians and Muslims wait in anticipation for the coming of this event. All three are communities waiting in anticipation and hope.

Of course, not all their believers believe that there is actually going to be such an event.  We live in a time of much justified doubt and skepticism.  But this teaching that history is important means what you do every day, in every way, to help any neighbor is vital to working with God in this world.  We are, after all, God's partners, working to repair the world.  I am convinced, to the extent we each act like “a mensch” (a person of character) in our everyday lives, we move history towards rather than away from God.

As Christmas and Chanukah approach, we would do well to remember these three communities, Jews, Christians and Muslims, certainly divided by many beliefs and traditions which ought not be minimized. These communities, at their best, are ultimately united by their commitment to care for the neighbor.  They are not optimists or pessimists.  They are realistic yearners hoping against hope that soon, very soon, God will yet be God. Meanwhile, there is a neighbor bleeding that needs your help.  In the midst of our prolepsis,  a restful and peaceful holiday to all.

Living in the Middle

Part of the problem of being religious in our time is for many it feels like you are deceptively engaged in wishful thinking or superstition.  And no one wants to do that!  So there are more and more “nones”, people who have no religious affiliation, and “dones”, people who are done with traditional religion. These people say, “When I see, then I will believe.”  

On the other side are many people who continue to trust their religious tradition teaches the truth.  They do not think they are being superstitious or foolish.  They are serious people of faith. They also have eyes and think their religion reveals the true meaning of life. They argue “If you believe, then you will see.”

To be fair and honest, religion can been good and not so good.  Jews, Christians and Muslims all teach their followers to trust God and stand with the neighbor or stranger in pain.  Not all the adherents of these religions live out this teaching.  Some people are hypocrites.  Nothing new there!   In the name of religion, over the centuries, some people have been terribly destructive while others have been admirably constructive.  Some have been indifferent and cowardly. Others have been caring and courageous.  After all, religious teaching is a vector that we can either follow or ignore.

But I am convinced, in this crazy time, we need to listen to each other more.  People who are agnostic or atheist need to study religious truth and religious people need to listen carefully to the questions and doubts of those who refuse to believe. And what if  religious people could be honest about their own doubts and questions?  And what if, nones and dones, atheists and agnostics had more doubts and questions about their own positions.  Remember, think that you may be wrong.

My question:  Why is not possible to live in the middle?  Maybe our religion is right about some things but not absolutely right. Maybe our scriptures proclaim the truth sometimes but other times they can be wrong.  Maybe there are parts of our way of thinking about God that need to be changed or rethought?  The question we need to ask about our respective religious traditions or lack thereof, is what about them works and what does not work?   What parts are no longer applicable and what parts are still quite valuable?  The goal of religion is not to be religious.  The goal is not to possess the truth, it is to pursue the truth.   Faith is trusting without knowing for sure.  For good or for bad that is our situation.  So, let's live in the middle between religious absolutism and religious relativism.  Whatever God is about, I cannot believe the Deity gave us minds so that we do not use them.  Live in the middle and we'll see, yes, we will see.

A Jew Talks about Christmas

That time is coming again.  Where I live, when it is Christmas, it is Christmas! Everything becomes part of Christmas.  The movies, the TV shows, the commercials, the malls, the stores, the decorations, the sales, and especially all the lights.  Everything, for good and for bad, gets sucked into the massive vortex that has become Christmas. 

From a Jewish perspective, we have come to expect this electrical lighting cosmic celebration every December.  The hoopla around Christmas though has made our holiday of Chanukah more important than it used to be.  The word Chanukah means dedication.  In the year 165 b.c.e. the temple in Jerusalem was rescued from Greek desecration and rededicated by the lighting of candles in the temple.  There was only enough oil for one day. But, by some miracle, the candles stayed lit for eight days.  So, the Rabbis took that event and made it into a holiday of celebration that occurs every December.  The lighting of candles for eight nights demonstrates the power of Judaism over assimilation and God over evil.

Is it possible to connect Chanukah to Christmas?  Why should we even want to connect them?  Isn’t it easier for you celebrate yours and we will celebrate ours?  Some would say, let’s not mix what should not be mixed.

I disagree.  In my life I have come to understand Christmas as a holiday of hope, that the light will and can overcome the darkness. Near as I can tell, Jesus was a Rabbi who tried to teach Jews and non-Jews that the light was greater than the darkness.  Chanukah candles proclaim that the darkness shall not prevail over the light.  I am not sure Jesus ever celebrated Chanukah but I think he would have celebrated the lighting of candles on the Sabbath and other holidays to symbolize God’s light over the darkness.

But we have to say that all the talk about how the light overcomes the darkness can sound hollow in the midst of terrorism, cancers, drug addictions and the many other calamities of life. Better and more honest to say, the light is always struggling to overcome the darkness.  Sometimes it succeeds.  Sometimes it does not.  And that tenacious struggle not to allow the darkness to prevail is the true meaning and connection between Chanukah and Christmas. So, light the candles, Jewish or Christian and let us, each day, do what we can do to hold back the darkness. A restful holiday season to you all!

Moving is a Schlep

Moving is a Schlep

The word “schlep” is a Yiddish word that means “hauling something very heavy from here to there.” In a few months we will be moving from a townhouse to an apartment in Sioux Falls.  That doesn't sound very stressful and yet it is.  And I ask myself, why is that?  First and foremost, you have to pack and leave your home.  You have to say goodbye again.  Leaving home is not easy.  Home is not only where the heart is; home is where everything is settled and you’re safe.  You are in control. At home, you can close the door on whatever is going on outside.  You can walk around in your underwear. Unless your home is a crazy place, you yearn to be home.

Moving, even across town, is a schlep.  More so for my wife, whom I thank here, since she packs and organizes so much of our stuff.  Moving takes away from our sanity.  It messes with our roots and our stability.  It makes us crabby with each other. It’s not fun even if you like where you are moving. 

So, what to do?  Moving happens.  It’s part of life.  We move for a new job, for a new school, for a new place that will keep us safe.  It’s part of the restlessness of life in America.  We are always looking for the right place to live.

And moving has a certain rhythm.  We have to work through the stress, frustration, exasperation, of finding and packing boxes upon boxes, of determining what to keep and what to dispose, of hiring the right movers, deciding whether to downsize to one car, changing all the mail addresses, through all this we try to work together. 

It’s what we do.  And it takes courage and pluck to move.  It’s easier to just stay in one place even if it is terribly painful.  I understand that.

In the Bible, the first mover was Abraham. God told him to move, to leave his family, his land and his community.  He traveled far to a strange and uncomfortable place.  He received a promise that he and his people would be taken to a land that would be their home. And so, the quest began. In most of the Bible the people of Israel are either traveling to get to the land or in diaspora away from the land.  So it was for them and so it is for us. We are, after all, related to Abraham.  We leave where we are in search of that place where we will feel at home.

But, moving is not all bad.  It’s an adventure.  Now, adventures are not all they are cracked up to be.  I get it.  But we are moving to a place that will become our safe home, a place where we can hug, be safe under our covers while the wind howls and the snow falls, enjoy and marvel at the wonderful view, wait for the spring and birds to return, stare at the beauty of the trees, be at peace as much as we can be.

I know, in the end, we will walk through it all together, love each other and survive to tell the tale. Yet, no matter how I much I rationalize it, leaving home is a schlep.

My oldest son, when he was fifteen, asked me once, “Dad, why does there have to be goodbye?”  That’s a great question!  I answered, “I don’t know Nate, but such is life and you and I can’t change it.”  And we will walk through it together, encourage and be kind with each other and thereby keep each other sane.  Blame it all on God, Abraham or American restlessness.  But here we go again.  And moving is a schlep.

Being A Religious Skeptic

For some years I have been thinking about religious believers and whether it is a good thing that they get along with each other.  Many would say, of course it is. These days, the fear of inter religious conflict and violence makes us want to have everybody get along.  Let’s emphasize what unites us rather than what divides us. Let’s realize that all religions want us to be nice to each other.  The ecumenical movement of the last century was convinced that getting along was better than arguing about the truth.  But I think all this overlooks what religion is really about.

Every religion promotes and  believes in a distinct set of truths about the way the world works. And let’s be honest, there are important differences between your religious way of thinking and mine.  For example, in my religious tradition arguing with and questioning God’s methodology is considered an act of faith and devotion to God.  Some of my students tell me, in their Christian tradition, arguing and questioning is a sign they have a weak or distrustful faith. In some Christian traditions, you are taught that you ought forgive people that hurt you, seventy times seven.  But in Jewish tradition, forgiveness cannot be given until a person repents and changes their behavior. Some Christians spend a great deal of time trying to convince others to become Christian.  Jews do not actively pursue non-Jews; they actually work to discourage people from converting. 

A religion is created when people believe a fundamental truth has been revealed to them.  They have no option except to bear witness to that truth.  They gather together.  They proclaim the truth and try to get others to see the truth that has been revealed.  There are believers and unbelievers, those who respect the truth and those who disagree.  You see, religions are not created to get along with each other.  They are there to proclaim their truths. When religious truths collide people may feel threatened.  Some resort to verbal or physical violence to defend their revealed truths.

Instead of getting along or getting violent, which merely diminishes each of our truth claims, we religious people would do better to be honest with each other.  All these different religious and theological perspectives are a good thing.  Let’s listen and engage each other.  Let’s talk honestly about where we agree and where we disagree.  Let’s not just respectfully disagree.  Let’s learn to argue creatively.  Let’s come to grips with what works and what doesn’t work in the truths and traditions that we follow.  Let’s take the risk to trust each other enough to sit down and engage another revelation.  We all have much to learn.

But here is the real secret.  The point of religion is not believe but to pursue the truth wherever it can be found, no holds or questions barred.  When the data of life tell us that our beliefs are misguided, we cannot just ignore the facts, we must pursue them.  Faith is never frightened of the questions that call faith itself into question.  Being a religious skeptic can be the most religious statement a person can make.  If you are religious or not religious, remember, you could be wrong.  Our five senses allow us and deny us the ability to see what is real and actually there.  So, let’s listen, respectfully engage and argue with each others beliefs.  The truth about everything is out there and in here.  Keep looking!!!

Thanksgiving Wish

My wife and I are planning a Thanksgiving ritual that concentrates on rest and gratitude. The plan is get up late, make a fine pancake breakfast, later in the day, have "eight hour meat" and sesame coleslaw, stay in our pajamas, watch Aaron Sorkin shows all day. And be grateful that we can do all of that in a safe and warm place.

I hope you have a ritual that allows you to feel the contentment I am feeling today. The contentment of living in a place where you feel grateful for life and air to breath, trees and grass and birds and snow and wind and all that comes with being alive on this planet at this time. And then, eat well, plop down on the couch, enjoy being bored, talk to your relatives, watch your favorite movies and count yourself a lucky person.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A Few Words About Jesus

Most Jews do not spend a great deal of time thinking about Jesus. But, given the decisions I have made in my life, Jesus has always been someone I have had to address.  In the gospels, Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”  This is a fine question.  Here is my response.

I teach Religion at Augustana University because I respect the Christian tradition.  I also teach there and respectfully disagree with that tradition.  So, who do I say Jesus was?

First of all, let me state the obvious: Jesus was Jewish.  Jesus was not a Christian.  He was Jewish.  He was an apocalyptic  Rabbi. His message was very similar to the Jewish prophets.  He got in people’s faces and spoke the truth to them as he saw it.  He called on people to repent and turn their lives around. He urged people to trust in God and stand with the poor, the outcasts and the neighbor in pain.  He came to teach Jews and non-Jews what it meant to live like a human being, a mensch.  He came to make non-Jews as Jewish as possible.  The letter writer, Paul, says non-Jews have been grafted into the Jewish covenants and traditions. (Romans 9-11)

Jesus’ early followers were also Jewish.  The writers of the gospels were Jewish.  The apostle Paul was Jewish.  I may be wrong here but it seems important to remind ourselves that Christianity was invented after Jesus.  For Christians it is less important that Jesus was Jewish, then he was and is the Christ, the messiah that came to save the world.  According to the gospels and Paul, the cross and resurrection are central and they proclaim Jesus is the long awaited messiah. This is their faith. I respect that faith.  I understand it. I respectfully disagree. 

From a Jewish perspective, when the messiah returns, he will accomplish four things: the Jerusalem temple will be rebuilt, all Jews will move to the land of Israel,  there will be peace all over the world and non-Jews will flock to Jerusalem to study Torah with Jews.  Since this has not happened most Jews who think about such things have a problem talking about Jesus as the messiah.  As for me,  I agree with Wiesel, when he says, it’s  a bit late for messiahs.  Too many people, including so many children, have been murdered. I like the idea of someone coming and fixing everything but I'm afraid it’s too late for messiahs!

Many Christians might respond by saying that these Jewish expectations and opinions are not binding on God.  And they would assert, God can do whatever God wants even if it does not meet Jewish expectations.  They assert that Jesus is the incarnation of God.  This is the Christian faith. I respect that faith and I respectfully disagree.

Let’s be honest with each other.  This is what we know about Jesus.  He was a prophet.  He was killed by the Romans.  His followers believed God raised him from the dead and one day he will return to complete his work.  Near as I can tell, after this happened, all sorts of beliefs, creeds, doctrines, and traditions have been cast upon this man.  I am not sure what he would think of all this but I do understand it.  In human history, for good and for bad, Jesus has become the messiah for many non-Jews. I respect that faith and respectfully disagree. 

So, could I be wrong?  Of course.  Can you admit, you could be wrong?  I assume I am justifying my opinions as best I can.  After all, that is what we all do.  We have our beliefs and we work at justifying why we are right.  I may be blind to the truth. I know only this:  I am Jewish because I could not run away from who I am.  But, I will say this.  I would not and could not turn my back on Jesus.  Jesus was Jewish, a Jewish prophet, a Rabbi, a brother in the tribe, one of our boys.  I have returned to the religion Jesus himself practiced.  For all of this, I am at peace with God, my community and myself. 

Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump???

We are a few days from the election.  The people who will vote for Mr. Trump are convinced that he, despite his many flaws, erratic temperament, and treatment of women is the man who can bring needed change to Washington and our democracy.  Some of these votes for Mr. Trump will be out of confidence and conviction in the man, many out of fear or dislike of Mrs. Clinton, some out of frustration and anger at the economic and immigration decisions made by the politicians of both parties, some for fear of future Supreme Court appointments, and finally some will vote for Mr. Trump because that is what we do.  After eight years of one party we like to mix it up by voting in someone from the other party.

Those voting for Mrs. Clinton will do so because they think she, despite her flaws and ethical problems, has the experience and skills to be President; others will vote for her because they fear Mr. Trump is temperamentally and morally unqualified and will do damage to the republic, a number of people think it is time for a woman to be President, still more think President Obama has done a good job and wish to continue his policies, finally there are many who would have preferred Mr. Sanders but will hold their noses and vote for Mrs. Clinton.

Is this a strange election with strange candidates?  I do not think so.  Is it a matter of the lesser of two evils?  No.  Hitler was evil. Stalin was evil. The Holocaust is evil.  Let’s be careful about our language.  Over the past 220 years of our republic, candidates for office have sometimes been more or less qualified.  Some were of high purpose and integrity, some of low character and not much wisdom.  Such is the nature of our democracy.  The best qualified do not always run or win.  And by the way, “less qualified” is in the eyes of the voter.  The question is qualified for what??? 

And why are so many people so angry these days?  It should not come as a surprise.  They have been angry for many years.  This is called populism, the common people raising their angry voices against political and media elites and the intelligentsia.  Between the Tea Party on the right and the anti Wall Street people on the left, we should not be surprised that people are unhappy with government.  Think about it.  Even before the corruption and resignation of Richard Nixon in 1972, George Wallace carried five states in 1968.  And After Nixon, for good or for bad, most people were and are less and less naive about politics in Washington.  Think about it.  They have tried again and again to send outsiders and mavericks to the Capitol to save us all from corruption and the so called elites.  There was Jimmy Carter from Georgia in 1976, Ronald Reagan elected in 1980 as the one who would fix the problems of large and corrupt government; independent candidates such as, Ross Perot, Steve Forbes, and let’s not forget the Newt Gingrich Republicans in 1993 elected to oppose Bill Clinton and finally fix what is wrong; George W. Bush was elected to keep us out of foreign entanglements and avoid bad trade deals, Barack Obama was elected as someone new, the first African American, who would change the world, and now Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton. 

I must admit I am concerned and somewhat frightened of these two candidates and the state of our country.  We seem, as a culture, to be in decline and that is sad.  But I keep reminding myself, democracy is a messy, incremental, imprecise, sometimes ineffective process no matter who is elected.  That is the nature of democracy.  For all our messianic hopes every four years, we are electing people who are quite human, doing what they can in an increasingly complex and dangerous world.  Mr. Churchill was right and perhaps we need to learn/hear it again and again:  “Democracy is the worst form of government but better than all the others”  And whether Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton is elected, we can vote them out in four years and correct our mistakes.  Anyway, either of them will probably not be able to get through most of what they propose since the Congress and the courts will stand in the way, as they should, checks and balances being at the heart of our system.  At least, we hope so.

And, since this blog is about religion, what does God have to do with our election?  I certainly do not know.  But after all these years, I suspect God, whatever that word means, is well aware of the nature and character of democratic politics and is not surprised. God will do what God will do.  What can I tell you?  Vote and stay sane out there.  This too shall pass.

Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses Our Teacher

Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses our teacher, is the way he is known in the  Jewish tradition.  Like Joseph he lives among non-Jews, marries a non Jew; becomes famous,  defends Jews,  kills a man who is beating a Jew, runs far away, and talks to God through the fire.  He has three children that love him.  He is indeed lucky.  But there is a deep sadness about the man.

There is no one in the Jewish Bible closer to God than Moses.  They talk again and again.  Moses gets to ask all the questions we would like to ask.  He is not shy.  He persistently inquires.  He argues with God.  He learns what he needs to know but not much more.  He receives God’s teaching to the Jewish people, the Torah.  Yet, it is clear that Moses both respects, is aggravated and puzzled by God’s methodology. 

Since the beginning of Genesis God has promised to bring the Hebrews to a promised land.  Moses has questions and he is not afraid to ask.  Why this terribly circuitous route?  Why slavery?  Why so long?  Why the desert?  Why are there other people already living in the promised land?  Why wars to get the land promised?  Why can Moses, the closest friend God has, not go into the land?  Most important why the ongoing hatred for Jews?  His doubts and questions are overwhelming, generation after generation he watches, Jews being persecuted and murdered, the Holocaust; it is only with questions Moses is able to pray.

Moses has no choice but to accept and live with the nature of things.  He becomes a passionate teacher urging his students again and again and again to remember and not forget.  Sometimes they listen.  Sometimes they are too tired and bored to listen.  Sometimes they think they already know.  But Moses is tenacious.  He does not stop.  He tries and he tries harder and harder. He is obsessed, like most eccentric and committed teachers, with being heard.  He warns, sings, screams, intimidates, cajoles, nags, preaches, teaches, shows film after film, stands on tables and chairs, rhetoric upon rhetoric, he does what he can do, he is indeed Moshe Rabbeinu. 

Writing and Blogging are Strange

Writing and blogging are both strange processes. You struggle to find the right words to express what you are thinking.  You work, rework and rework your every word. You choose one word and thereby omit another.  Then you wonder if anything you are saying actually matters. And that wondering does not stop. You decide to finally post on the blog.  You agonize over the whole text again and again and still again.  You post.  Nothing happens.  Your wife tells you that what you wrote was very good.  One or two students write to say they liked it.  Then, nothing.  You do not hear much more from anyone.  The world goes on as if you had not written at all.  You may feel good having written but most everyone seems to be signaling that they would be just as fine if you did not write.  But go ahead, if you need to.

So, I am asking myself, why bother to write?  What are you hoping to achieve?  I really do not know.  I have struggled with these thoughts for so long that it seems right to put them down and share them with others.  My long departed friend, Fritz Rusch, used to say that he did not write because everything he was thinking was derivative anyway.  Fritz struggled a lot with depression. He might have felt better had he written his stuff down. I loved him and I miss him.

Blogging is strange because you write and people read through their own lenses and tell themselves that they get what you are saying.  But, there is none of the back and forth of the classroom that I love.  I can't see their eyes.  Maybe it has to do with effect.  Those of us who grew up in the sixties were arrogant enough to think that we could change the world.  So, we set about trying to do that.  Now, as we approach that terribly strange age of 70 ( a nod to Paul Simon), we see that the world remains much the same as it was and will get along quite well without us.  So much for effect.

So, why write?  I get up early every morning and write.  Why bother to have such a discipline?   Maybe to say in some way, “Hey listen, I was here for a brief while.  I tried to think through what we are all doing here.  I wrestle with God.  I wrestle with religions and religious questions.  I think that the truth lies in wrestling with the most difficult questions.  I think the questions are more important than the answers to the questions, especially when it comes to religion.  Can you see and hear me being here and trying to think this all through?  It seems to make me happy to get all these thoughts out of me and written down.  Maybe, it will help someone along the way.  But, I feel compelled to keep on with it and so I will.  I do hope that something I have written will help you to go on and remain sane.  More to come . . .

The Journey of Joseph to Himself

Joseph always feels different and strange.  He always feels alone, even when he is with friends.  His parents loved him but did not understand him.  His brothers were jealous of his brains and good looks.  He is the quintessential Jew, determined to be different and desperate to belong.  For all sorts of irrational reasons he wanders far away from home, feels lost much of the time, becomes a well respected man in a strange land but is never sure why. 

When he is forced to leave home, he keeps running and running, ends up minimizing his Jewishness.  He mingles with gentiles so much that eventually becomes one of them.  He forgets who he is for many many years.  He tries to pretend that he is one of them.  They accept and like him.  They think he is good looking and interesting to listen to.  But a strange thing happens.  Incrementally, gradually and cumulatively the longer he lives with gentiles the more Jewish he becomes.  Instinctively, deep in his soul, he remembers that he belongs to another tribe.  And when he meets his brothers, Joseph is Jewish again but it takes him a while to figure out how and why. 

Joseph has certainly had his share of dreams and adventures.  He remembers them all very well.  It has been quite a trip!  As he gets older he is, for the first time in his life, deeply in love, comfortable in his skin, sleeping at night, able to be who he is from the depths of his soul.  Despite everything, Joseph is profoundly Jewish, determined to be different and desperate to belong; some things do not and cannot change.

The Secret to Marriage

The late Erma Bombeck wrote in one of her many columns, “Marriage is what happens after you get out of bed.”  Now, I am all for romance and love, but after being married over forty years, all be it, to two different women, I think marriage has less to do with being in love than being committed to working at marriage.  In the Bible, one of the first commands from God is to get married.  The text asserts, “It is not good for man to be alone.” 

Let’s try and be honest.  People who are married can certainly be loving, considerate and caring. Many times they are just so. But they can also be exasperating, annoying, uncaring, thoughtless, mean, and selfish.  Such is the nature of the human being.  We are inconsistent, ambiguous, unreliable and complicated.  And we don’t always listen well. 

Love can be a deep, passionate soul to soul feeling;  marriage is an adventure.  The goal of marriage is to work and play at making the marriage work.  Easy to say and hard to do.  Marriage is not for the faint of heart.  The person you marry will change and change and then change back.  It can be wonderfully passionate and terribly difficult.  There are moments when you feel exhausted and have reached your limits.  You keep on anyway.

And, sad to say, sometimes you do need to stop. Sometimes you have done everything that you can do and  the marriage is over. It is sad but necessary.  I never thought I would get there.  I always thought that I would keep on anyway, that I was tenacious, that I was determined to make it work, that I could and would fix what was wrong. But I could not do it and it shocked me more that I can tell you.  For years I refused to admit it.  Divorce was very sad and akin to dying.  It was also the end of a chapter and the freedom and sanity to try again.

I love marriage.  I married again.  We love and care for each other.  More importantly, we are diligently working at it.  But our marriage does not depend on whether we love each other.  It depends on whether we are working at caring about each other.  It requires intentional listening, doing, and a new thing.  I have realized that it is not my job to fix everything that is wrong.  It is our job to work at it and to learn to live with and for each other in the midst of all our quirks, eccentricities, imperfections and flaws.  By the way, that is real love.

If you are thinking of getting married, ask yourself, not if you are in love, but can you work with this person when they are not lovely; are you willing to work on being married?  Marriage has less to do with being in love than being mindful that you are married, delicately caring for the marriage after you get out of bed, and enjoying the crazy, rigorous, fascinating adventure of caring so much for another person that their soulful health is your greatest concern.  Go for it and enjoy!

Three Secrets to Staying Sane

My oldest son told me that one thing I have been right about in life has been sleep.  When he was younger, I belabored and nagged him about getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night. 

In the Bible one of the first things God does is put Adam to sleep.  And in those stories even God rested after all of the creating. 

Sleep is imperative and next in line is staring.  Take time to stare into space.  Staring can be restorative and inspirational.  When I stare I feel like am keeping myself open for the muses to enter my brain. And they do, helping me to write, teach and think.

Finally, take time to sing out loud.  For years, I have been singing old and new songs, religious songs, the Israeli and the Russian national anthem, songs from the sixties, songs where I can’t remember the words so I make some words up, Christian hymns, Jewish liturgical songs and whatever songs come through my brain.  Singing is medicinal and sanity producing.  Try it.

So, sleeping, staring and singing.  These three will make the day better and saner.

The Mystery and Necessity of God

The mystery and the necessity of God is a puzzlement that will never go away.  There is something inside us that needs to worship or believe in something outside us to remain sane.  Even those who do not believe in a God find that they have to defend to themselves if not to others, why they do not believe.  So, why do people believe in God or Gods or Religion?  First, it is a matter of control and sanity.  We live in a world that is and seems terribly random.  Everyday things happen to us and within us that seem completely without meaning.  Some of these things can be nice and happy things; others can be difficult and painful, still others could be aggravating and exasperating.  Do any of these things that happen to us matter?  The contingency and absurdity of these events would seem less crazy if we thought and trusted that somehow there is a purposeful God at heart of the universe that is for us and not against us.  This God could be a force, an energy, a personal God, or a law of nature.  In any event meaning is vital to keeping us sane. 

Even if a person says there is no God and no force, that it is all in our minds, that we invented God and have forgotten that we did so, this person has to meet the day and stay sane.  So, suppose, when something bad happens, this person says, ‘That’s life!  Even that saying is an explanation that he or she believes in, that life is like that.  That is the meaning, that is the God. A person trusts that life is like that and this explanation provides all the meaning that is needed to meet the day. 

By the way, any God worth his, her or its salt is not worried about whether you or I believe their existance.  If the Biblical stories are true, God is more interested in our caring for the neighbor in pain and living a humane life.  The rest is just commentary.

A Word about Messiahs

People seem to love messiahs.  The thought of a Superman showing up to do away with evil and keep us all from any danger or harm is seductive and enticing.  The belief in apocalyptic expectations began over 2000 years ago and to this day still holds many people in its messianic claws.  I know some people become tired, fearful and angry.  They become convinced that the evil we are experiencing is so great that God must soon be convinced to act and end it all.  Maybe this hope keeps many such people sane.  But, think about it, in so many ways it is too late for messiahs.  Too many children have been murdered beyond what any Jewish, Christian or Muslim messiah could redeem.  Too much craziness and innocent suffering has occurred to be part of any messianic salvation.  But, people love the idea of a messiah and that hope will never die. So it goes . . .The real messiah is here when any one of us bends down to help a neighbor, when any one of us stands with some one who is hurting, whenever we resist the terrible temptation to be indifferent.

Interpretation and Its Pitfalls

There are many different ways to be a Muslim.  Muslims are people called upon to submit to the will of Allah.  And the will of Allah is written in the Qu’ran.  But once it is written it requires interpretation.  And therein lies the rub.  Once you have a written text you cannot control who reads the text, who interprets the text, the way they interpret the text, and the way they act after they interpret the text.  This is the great blessing and the terrible curse inherent in having your revelation come through a scripture.  This is true for Muslims, Christians Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and any other religion that possesses a scripture

Interpretation is loaded with all sorts of cultural preconceptions, self serving commitments, and the desire for power.  When a person believes or thinks that he or she really understands a text, it means they have control of that text.  Interpretation is all wrapped up in the possibility of self deception.  This does not mean we ought not engage in interpretation.  It is inevitable and necessary.  The very text beckons us.  But interpretation is best done within a community of readers who can call each other out and tell each other that we/you might be wrong.  Interpretation requires humility for it to be effective. Interpretation of any text is by nature tentative and only a glimpse of its meaning.  So, be careful, think that you may be wrong.

Regrets are a Good Thing

I have a number of regrets in my life.  When I was too young to know better I made some not very good decisions.  For too long I beat myself up about these regrets.  It took me a long time to realize regrets are not a bad thing.  They are a sign you did the best you could do until you knew better.  As Bruce Kramer, the man with ALS in Minnesota taught us, regrets are our teacher.  A life well lived is a life full of regrets. Regrets teach us what to do and what not to do again.  Regrets are our Torah, our teacher. Take time to learn from your regrets.

The Secret Resides in the Doing

The goal of life is not to be religious.  Monotheistic religions were invented by human beings as a vehicle or vector to point us toward God and the neighbor.  The goal was not and is not to be religious.  The Torah, Jesus, and the Quran are not interested in your believing in them.  They want you to be transformed into a human being.  The goal of all these religions is to turn us all into human beings of character.  If your religion teaches you to love God and care for the neighbor, then, it is a good religion.  If it teaches you to hate and be indifferent to the neighbor, then, it is a bad religion.  An old Jewish saying:  “Do not listen to the mouth, follow the feet.”  If I want to know whether you are a religious caring person, I will not listen to what you believe, I will follow you around all day.  Then I will discover who you are by what you do.  The secret of life resides in the doing and the choices we make each and every day.

The Most Important Difference Between Jews and Christians

The most important difference between Jews and Christians is that a Jew can never stop being a Jew while a Christian can decide to no longer be Christian.  Jews are Jews because they are  born of a Jewish mother or convert into the religion. Christians are Christian because they hold a particular faith.  While a Jew cannot be unborn, a Christian can stop believing.  Because of this, Jews have much more freedom in their religion to argue, accuse or question God, not believe, or even decide there is no God.  There are all sorts of Jews including atheist, agnostic, secular, humanist and religious Jews including Hasidic, Ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and a number of variations within and outside each of these groups.  They are all Jewish because they are members of the tribe by birth or conversion. Any Christian who declares that he or she does not believe that Jesus is the Christ would no longer be seen by the majority of Christians as being Christian. Finally, and maybe most important, for Jews, God is not Jewish and people do not need to become Jewish to be “saved”, while some Christians believe that being Christian is the only way to be saved and that God is evangelically Christian.  The fact is, and we have to face up to it, God is not Jewish. God is not Christian and God is not Muslim.  God is God.  God is not a member of any religion.  God is not bound by any religion.  God is God.

Faith and Questions, Part III and Conclusion

Part III, Conclusion

In asking these questions we are following a number of scriptural examples of people who wrestled with God: Abraham, Jacob, Rachel, Hannah, Moses, Job, Jeremiah, Jonah, and Jesus.  These prophets in our tradition show us the way to take the words and promises of God seriously.  After all, the name “Israel” means “to wrestle with God.” And part of what it means to be faithful to God is to have the courage and tenacity to wrestle with God.  Wrestling with God can be wonderfully intimate and gracefully comforting. And it can also be argumentative, accusative, and sometimes quite harsh.  Sometimes we feel close to God and sometimes we feel there is no God.  Such is the nature of trusting, not trusting and living with an invisible mysterious God. 

In wrestling with this God we are obligated to have a broad notion of revelation.  Revelation can certainly come through our scriptures, traditions, creeds, confessions, doctrines, rituals, and theological opinions.  But there is more, much more, that we must pursue in our wrestling with God.  We must listen and carefully study the various religions of the world, the natural and social sciences, the arts, the writings of atheists and agnostics, the influential works of the great philosophers and so on.  Our wrestling with God and the truth may require a great deal of work but our fidelity to our  varying traditions propels us forward.  We have no choice but to skeptically raise any question which would gain us entry to the truth.

Our questions should not be against the religious tradition, nor for the tradition but within the tradition.   We are, all of us, heirs to these religious traditions which have in many ways, for good and for bad, influenced our morality, our understanding of the way the world works and the meanings we give to what goes on in the world.  So, the questions we ask need not be particularly hostile or friendly.  The questions must be intended to pursue the truth.  They ought not be polemical or rhetorical.  They must be direct and honest.  People within particular religious traditions may want to address their questions directly to their deity based on the divine promises made to that community.  People outside religious communities can express their questions through their vocations, their readings, and in discussions with their friends and neighbors.

But, really and honestly, what can actually be accomplished by asking all these questions?  Many people have been wrestling with this deity for thousands of years and have not received a tangible or definitive answer.  Spending all this time formulating and asking unanswerable questions can seem like a waste of time and energy.  If we scream questions at a silent sky, day after day, what have we accomplished?  Sometimes lying in bed in the middle of the night, asking questions, I wonder is anyone listening except the ceiling? 

All this may be true but I do not think we really have a choice.  We humans are meaning seeking creatures.  It is in our nature to ask “why” when terrible things happen.  While it may be true that “excrement happens” we are not content with such a philosophy.  We want to know if there is any justice in the universe.  We want know how it is possible for someone we love to be here, with us, one moment and the next to disappear.  The fact is: as human beings our lives are terribly fragile.  We are here and then we are not here.  What is that all about?  Sickness and death seem to happen indiscriminately or randomly.  Is there no meaning to such events?  Religions have always asserted that there is more than meets the eye.  Is there?  How can we know unless we raise our questions and pursue what might be there.  And even though we have not received the answers we may want, we have discovered through our various scriptures, through science, through nature, through art and literature, glimpses of the truth. 

So, the questions we ask take on a holy or sacred quality.  They are a form of prayer.  Think about it.  Each of us gives our lives to certain questions.  And the questions we give ourselves to, the questions that grasp hold of us, determine the course of our lives.  

Finally, and most importantly, the fact that faith and questions are intimately and inextricably connected does not mean that we are left without anything to do except sit around wondering.  Ultimately, we do not know who God is but we know what God wants.  And that is vital!   God wants us to be human beings.  God commands us to care for the neighbor who is in pain.  God commands us to run after justice, to do what we can do to change the world where we live.  There can be no excuse for being indifferent.  In every small situation where you live, ask yourself, what can I do to help, to change what needs to be changed, to help one neighbor, to do one kindness, to speak out against injustice?   Sometimes, it is true, there is not much that can be done but try to do something.  I know I cannot fix the many broken people and situations in the world.  I admit it.  But I can do something.  The secret resides in the doing.  It is in the doing each day that we become more human.  And questions about God are no reason to be indifferent.  Embrace the questions, be embraced by the questions and do what you can do in every situation to stand with the neighbor. In doing this you will approach becoming a mensch, a person of character. Such is the vital power hidden inside faith and questions.

Faith and Questions, Part II

Part II

Some Christians following Augustine and Luther want to do away with the questions completely.  They say to ask these questions is to try to gain access to the hidden parts of God and they call such a search a theology of glory, trying to enter into the glory or mystery of God.  Such an attempt they say is an act of pride.  Rather, the believer should be content with the revelation of God as provided  in and through Jesus Christ.  Through this revelation, we are told God is ultimately for us and not against us. Any attempt to go beyond the revelation is an act of sinful pride.  They assert, God is God and you are not.  I must admit, such an approach does succeed in stopping the questions but it is not a very pastoral or human response.  You can tell people to shut up and believe but that is not the biblical or human approach that is actually honest and cares about the the truth. 

In the scriptures all sorts of people question and accuse God seeking information as to how and what God is doing to accomplish his purposes.  The human being is caught living his or her life everyday under the umbrella of natural ambiguity.  Life is by nature ambiguous.  Some days I feel fine and safe. Other days I  can experience all sorts of problems and disturbances, some of them mundane and not very serious, others quite severe.  And this ambiguity seems to be rather random without much meaning.  How is the human being to live in such a world and remain sane?  The biblical response seems to be that we are called upon to trust and inquire.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.”  You have a mind not so you can deny its curiosity but to pursue the truth with all that you have inside you.  Pursuing the truth is not sin.  The truth and God are not opposites.  Wherever the truth is there is God and wherever God is there is the truth. 

To place questioning God off limits is to suffocate the human soul.  But, some will argue, isn’t it possible and maybe likely, that allowing or even encouraging people to question their God or their faith or their religion will only cause them to lose their God, faith and religion?  Yes, that may happen but what it means is that the faith they had was too simplistic and that they were insufficiently loving God “with all their mind.”  This is the risk biblical texts are willing to live with.  Faith without questions is too simplistic, questions without faith are dishonest.  The fact is we are here and how we got here remains mysterious and problematic.  We are not able to get beyond the “Big Bang” and have not answered the question why there should have been anything around for there to be a “Big Bang” in the first place. That does not mean that we should not pursue this question. 

There is a holiness to the questions that is more important than the answer to those questions.  Why so?   Because the questions bear witness to the inadequacy of traditional religious answers which in effect served to close off the conversation and kill the questions by equating the questions with unbelief. 

Many religious traditions gives us a glimpse into the truth about God.  We are right to hold up and be faithful to each of our traditions and the glimpses they each provide.  But since they only give us a glimpse into the truth we are compelled to seek, to knock, to persist in trying to get at what is really going on.  The questions we must ask are questions that demonstrate respect and doubts about certain parts of the tradition.  We are obligated to ask the questions because God has made covenants with our communities and thereby opened God’s very self to the importance of questions.  Covenants, be they Jewish, Christian or Muslim,  are promises that God makes, unconditional or conditional.  We are called upon to uphold our parts of the covenants.  By virtue of these covenants, we are married to God and God is married to us.  In this marriage we are called upon to take each other seriously.  We and God love each other by grace alone, we care for each other, we question and sometimes argue with each other because we are covenantally obligated to do so.  Sometimes in the midst of calamities that cause great suffering, be they natural or moral, we may doubt each other and wonder if our faith has been misplaced.  Our questions are more a sign of our faithfulness than of our pride or lack of faith.  Because we are trying to trust in the promises of God we are compelled to raise questions with God as frontally and specifically as possible.  To not raise these questions would be a sign of unbelief.

Questions and Faith: A Lethal or Vital Mix???

Part I

The mystery and the durability of God and religion is a puzzlement that will never go away.  There is something inside our brains that needs/wants to worship or believe in something outside ourselves in order for us to remain sane.  Even those who do not believe in a God find that they have to have some kind of theory or explanation about why things are the way they are; they feel the need articulate and defend this theory they believe in.  Their theory has become their God or religion.  This theory keeps them sane.  So, why do people believe in God or Gods or religion?  First, it is a matter of control and sanity.  We live in a world that is and seems terribly random.  Everyday things happen to us and within us that seem completely random and without meaning.  Some of these things can be nice and happy things; others could be difficult and painful things, still others can be aggravating and exasperating.  Do any of these things that happen to us matter?  The absurdity of these events would seem less crazy if we thought and trusted that somehow there is a God at the heart of the universe that is for us and not against us.  This God could be a force, an energy, a personal God, or a law of nature.  In any event, meaning is vital to keeping us sane. 

Even if a person says there is no God, that it is all in our minds, that we invented God and have forgotten that we did so, this person still has to meet the day and stay sane.  So, suppose this person looks at the nature of our lives, shrugs his shoulders and  says, ‘That’s life!  Even that is an explanation that he or she believes in, that life is like that.  That is the meaning, that is their God. A person trusts that their belief is the way life is and that the explanation they have provides all the meaning that is needed to meet the day.  That is their faith.  That is their religion.

All of our Gods and explanations in the end do not work on the ground as well as we would like them to, but despite that, we are willing to live with the difficult holes they leave for the sake of sanity.  Regardless of our various explanations, we seem to need all sorts of material helps in order to deal with the gaps in our various ways of meeting life each day.  We need our phones, televisions, music, art, lakes, oceans, mountains, sex, money, the approval and applause of others, a variety of pills and drugs, and anything else that helps us keep things together. All these things are fine in their place, but they are not ultimately helpful.

The Jewish and Christian biblical or religious scriptures were aware of our dilemma and called out our penchant for seeking ultimate material supports, “idolatry.”  Those texts are convinced that we can actually stay more sane and balanced by trusting a God we cannot see than by trusting the “trinkets”  that we can see.  Were they right?  To this day millions of people continue to think so and try to follow their prescription.  In the biblical book of Exodus we see a story about a golden calf that was tried as a substitute for the invisible God.  It did not work.  Why not?  I suspect because as aggravating, unreliable and remote as the invisible God was, the visible shiny object proved to be even more unreliable and ineffective.

So, I reassert, belief in something that a person may or may not call God, an explanation, a creed, a way of looking at or explaining the world such as science, these are all Gods that we trust to keep us together and sane to meet the day. 

But, one of the things that the scriptures knew was that believers had to be given the power of questions. Questions were not merely a way to assert human pride over God’s wisdom.  Questions were a way to try to understand what God was doing in the world.  God’s methodology was always seen as mysterious, problematic and difficult for humans to apprehend.  But this understanding was not intended to tell humans they were not allowed to explore, excavate, or try to understand what was going on.  Pride is the desire to be God; questioning God is the desire to understand God.  To understand does not mean to replace God but merely to remain sane in a world that seems to operate according to random calculations.  This problem of how God works in the world is not new but it remains a difficult if not impossible puzzle to unravel.

The Legacy of Elie Wiesel

In 1979 Elie Wiesel came to our college and in a moving story filled address declared, “In memory lies redemption.”  This was his hope.  He told us if we remembered what had happened to one people, we would remember never to be indifferent to the unjust pain and suffering of others.  Years later he returned to speak at Augustana to state that he felt that he had failed, that despite all of his words, the killing and hatred had not stopped.  He wondered aloud: if the memory of Auschwitz did not stop anti-semitism, what could stop it?  He went on:   “Can you imagine how naive we were in the 1950’s?   We thought if we speak about what happened in those days the world would be shocked, awakened, never again to hate and kill. We were wrong.” 

Throughout his life, Elie Wiesel tried to find the right words to stop the killing.  I would say he was not completely successful but he also did not fail.  Many of us who have read some his many books have been moved “never to be indifferent.”  We heard him tell us, “Indifference is decadence.  Indifference is death walking around. An indifferent person is already dead but he or she doesn’t know it yet.”  We heard him exhorting us, “Don’t be indifferent.  I don’t know what you can do but do something.  Say a prayer, shed a tear, do what you can do.”  And many of us have lived our lives in response to those words.

But, as the years went by, what saddened Elie Wiesel so terribly was that the killing did not and has not stopped.  Seventy years after the Holocaust, what have we, as human beings, learned?  It is now clear, if it has really been unclear, that we will not be able to fix that part of the human being that compels hatred and murder of the other.  Elie Wiesel freely admitted his naiveté.  And yet he did not give up.  In over fifty books, articles, plays and talks, he kept on trying.  At times he spoke about feeling it hopeless and helpless.  To him that was no reason to stop trying.  And he did try; he did do what he could to bear witness on behalf of those who no longer had a voice.

Along with the central theme of human indifference, he spoke about his disappointment in God.  He would not and could not allow himself to let God off the hook.  He could not understand how a caring God, covenanted to the Jewish people, could remain indifferent in the face of the mass killing of a million and a half Jewish children.  He chided the biblical Job for not going far enough and persisting in his questioning of God.  For Wiesel, his questions were a form of prayer. And he refused to stop praying his entire life.

Throughout his writings certain themes beyond indifference were usually emphasized.  It was clear for Wiesel that to approach the Holocaust was to come close to madness.  Not only could the Holocaust make you mad but even attempting to understand what happened could make you mad.  And Wiesel asserted, only the mad could really comprehend what had happened.  Madness was the opposite of sanity.  And when someone approached what had happened in the Holocaust, Wiesel told us, it was like approaching a raging fire that could burn you and make you crazy.  Beginning with mad Moishe in Night there continued to be characters throughout his writings who were mad and because they were mad could now try to communicate what they had seen.  Auschwitz was so horrific, Wiesel thought that when God came close to see for himself he too became mad. 

Why was madness such a prominent theme?  For Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz was a another planet, a place where there were no moral limits, a place where if you could think of it, you could do it, a place that when you actually tried to look at what had happened there you would begin crying and not be able to stop, a place where even when God tried to come near, the place was so dark, God had to retreat, it was a massive insanity, and a place where there was no “warum?” no why?  When one of Wiesel’s friends had the nourished the courage to ask one of guards at Auschwitz, why are you killing us?  The guard answered in German “Hier gibt es kein warum.”  “Here there is no why.”

If it was such a terrible horrible scene how could one find words to describe the indescribable?  For Elie Wiesel, the words were insufficient, human language was unable to come close to the horror.  Language could abstractly and objectively describe what happened there without actually coming close to the horror.  The horror of Auschwitz is that it showed all of us what lie dormant in the soul of human beings.  This is what we could do to each other if we were not careful and aware.  This is what we could allow if we were not aware of the monstrous capacity inside ourselves and inside God.  And this is precisely what made people go mad when they came too close.  They were forced to face the horrific capacities that they themselves possessed.  They were forced to face the silence and absence of God.  What all this meant for Wiesel was that he had to wrestle with the insufficiency of language to communicate what he had seen and what had happened.  He decided that there was only one way and that was to tell stories. 

But he was aware that human beings have an amazing capacity to resist the truth about themselves.  So he constantly strove to find language, words, stories that could break through this resistance.  When a person is writing a story he or she must decide whether to use one word or another.  Each word reveals and conceals at the same time.  What story should be told and with what words should he tell the story?  What could people hear and what would they refuse to hear?  This was Elie Wiesel’s dilemma. 

Wiesel talked about “Night” as that dark place where human beings and God should not let themselves go.  This was the place of absence, the absence of humanity and absence of divinity.  Elie Wiesel was unwilling to justify and excuse the behavior of either and he accused each of them of having been part of that “Night.”  When Elie Wiesel was at Augustana his last time, he was asked whether he hoped the messiah would come in the morning.  He answered that it was too late for messiahs.  If  God and the messiah were not moved by the death of a million and a half children, it was too late .  As he said, “Let them stay where they are, it is too late.” And yet, at the conclusion of his talk, he asserted , recalling the words of Maimonides. “I believe in the coming of the messiah and though he tarry, I shall wait, I shall wait.”  He was determined that people know that the “Night” lives within each of us and can rear its horrific head at any time, if we are not vigilant.  The “Night” is real, it is evil, it is within our capacity.  And God and messiahs will not stop the world from being a dangerous place.

I, personally, will miss his gentle haunting voice and his terribly moving stories. He was a mentor and a teacher for me.  In so many ways my teaching life has been formed by his voice.  I know I will keep reading his books and listening to his words but I will miss him very much.