Murray Haar On Religion: August 2016

Thursday, August 25, 2016

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.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

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.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

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.

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