I am pleased to let you know my blog is back.  And I begin with an announcement: My new book:  Reflections of an Unconverted Convert: Elie Wiesel, the Problem of God and One Jew's Return home has been published by Wipf and Stock Press and is available on Amazon and other places where you get your books.

I hope you enjoy it and feel free to comment.

My best,

Murray

Hannukah, Christmas and Covid

 

The Hannukah and Christmas lights have begun to be lit.  We humans are determined, persistent and tenacious:  the darkness will not overcome the light. Well and good!  But all the candles and lights in the world will not diminish the terrible effects of the Covid pandemic.  Even as the promised vaccine is on its way, we continue to experience the darkness. 

As for God, it is hard to say what the deity is doing.  Some people assume the best.  God, they say has been at work with the first responders; or God is at work on the vaccines; or God is walking with people through the craziness of the virus.  I suppose all this sounds comforting and might be true.  But I am not so assured.

I am puzzled how any kind of loving deity can watch almost 300,000 people in the USA and over a million throughout the world die and not be moved to act.  And if there is a God who has decided free will and laws of nature are more important than any human life then I respectfully disagree.  I refuse to make excuses for God.  3,000 people a day are dying in our country and all the lights in the world will not diminish the darkness, pain and graves created by those dying.  I am not satisfied by theodicies and theologies, Jewish or Christian which think they can rescue the injustice of God from obvious guilt.  

Having said my piece about God, I will light the candles and enjoy the lights.  I will howl against the darkness and hurl my prayers at the silent sky and the leafless trees.  Hannukah and Christmas belong to two communities who have continued, for millennia, to hope against hope, to yearn against yearning, to refuse to give up.  They are two communities obsessed with remembering and waiting.

I say to you and to me, light the candles, bring the trees into your homes, sing the songs again and give the gifts.  Repeat the old stories, tell the darkness where to go, refuse to give in.  Perhaps this time God will hear the commotion and be moved to act.  We shall see and then we shall know.

 

The Time Has Come

 

It takes a certain kind of person – and a certain kind of temperament - to stand in front of a classroom full of students and lecture. A person with a certain sense of themselves – a certainty in their knowledge and a need to share that knowledge with the world. Professors are convinced our insights are necessary to the well-being of the world.  We gaze at our reflection in the faces of our students.  We are Narcissus, gazing into the pool.

Joseph Epstein, in a fine article entitled Narcissus Leaves the Pool, notes we are in the pool – the classroom, in my case - for a relatively short while and no one ever really wants to exit the pool when the whistle blows.  Nonetheless, the time has come for me to exit the pool. I have been teaching at Augustana University for forty-two years.  I will be on sabbatical this next year and will retire at the conclusion of that year.  I did what I could do, and it is time to let go.

During my years at Augustana I have been embraced and encouraged to teach the courses which gave me life. It has been my honor and privilege to be able, semester after semester, to stand in front of caring students willing to study difficult questions vital to any person of faith. 

Many of these questions had to do with the Holocaust. As some of you know, I am convinced the Holocaust presents us with a “novum,” a new revelation about the nature of Man and the nature of God.  I urged my students to grapple with this revelation and for the most part they were willing to walk with me.  It has been my highest honor and privilege, to teach a Capstone course (Light in the Darkness:  Courage and Evil in the 20^th Century) for over twenty years with Professors Sandra Looney and Peter Schotten.  We taught some of the finest students ever to pass through Augustana’s hallways. 

Above all, in my classes, I yearned for my students to learn Jewish people are human and to understand the evils of antisemitism and indifference.

I will miss my students. So many have extended me the courtesy of listening and wrestling with difficult and aggravating theological questions – those questions vital to any person of faith. Thank you.

I will miss my colleagues, particularly in my department who listened to and respected the questions and views I expressed.   They are my friends.  Our hallway conversations were important and insightful. Thank you.

And now what?  I plan to continue writing my blog.  I hope to write a book dealing with Elie Wiesel and the problem of God.  I will keep on reading books and listening to music to nourish my soul.  I will keep on teaching where I can.

Finally, to all of you who took time to listen to me and honored me by taking seriously the questions that gnawed at and continue to gnaw at my soul, thank you.  I am a lucky man who, as a young boy, ran away from my family and tradition, returned to that tradition, and was lucky enough to land in a place of caring and grace called Augustana.  

I must go.  I can hear the whistle blowing. The office and classroom doors are shouting. “Out of the water, Narcissus.”

Remembering Mr. Zucker

 

In Jewish tradition we are wont to say, “The secret resides in the doing.”  As the Talmud teaches, “If you want to know the character of a person, do not listen to the mouth, but follow the feet.”  It means, if I want to know who you are and the character of your faith, I will ignore what you say, but watch what you do.

In that spirit, I want to tell you about Mr. Zucker.  When I was in my teens, living with my parents in the Bronx, I used to attend the local Conservative synagogue, Nathan Strauss Jewish Center.  Every Saturday morning, I would get dressed and walk the few short blocks down Gun Hill Road to this shul.  Week after week, I would sit in one of the back rows by myself.  The service began about 8:30 and concluded close to noon.  No one said anything to me.

But one Sabbath morning a man, who told me his name was Zucker, approached me as I sat in my back row.  He said, “I see you here week after week, all by yourself.  Where is your father?”  I said, my father is working.  I explained to Mr. Zucker, “Even though it was the Sabbath, my father told me he has to work because the family needs to eat.”  My Dad was a clothing operator.  He worked in a dreary sweat shop eight to ten hours a day.  My parents were quite poor. They lived paycheck to paycheck.  Mr. Zucker’s eyes looked pained, and he seemed near tears.

Mr. Zucker was an elderly man with kind eyes and a caring soul.  He was a Jew and a mensch.  And it seemed his soul ached that my father could not afford to go to shul and pray.  I tell you there were tears in his eyes. 

In those days, to attend synagogue during the High Holy Days, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, you had to have tickets.  That may sound strange to some of you.  But Jews do not collect a weekly offering, so one way to collect funds and maintain the synagogue is to sell tickets.  Since my father could not afford tickets, we did not attend shul during those days.

But, every year after that Sabbath morning, Mr. Zucker bought tickets for me and my father to attend High Holy Day services.  And by the way, the seats were not in the back.  They were in the front close to the altar and the Torah. 

I never knew Mr. Zucker’s first name, but I am remembering his face today.  He taught me what it was to be a mensch (a person of character) and that it is possible for a human being to be a mensch.  I suspect Mr. Zucker is long gone but I raise my voice and my studying to his honor.  May his memory be for a blessing.  May what he did instruct us all.

No Justice, No Peace???

Our scriptures command us:  Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof Deuteronomy 16:20: “Justice Justice, shall you pursue.”

One of the first things young children learn to say is, “That’s not fair.”  From a young age we learn to believe in the possibility of justice.  We yearn.  We thirst.  We demand justice.  But, as we have so often heard, “The world is not fair.”

Some protesters marching for justice in the streets shout, “No Justice, No Peace.”  I am sympathetic to their impatience for fundamental change and as much as I can understand their insistence and persistence, it will help us to know why justice is so elusive.

Why has it been so difficult to achieve justice?  The problem, as our scriptures know, is people.  The nature of human nature is ambiguous, contradictory, and inconsistent.  We know what is right, but we do not do it.  For all our songs about love and peace we are too easily seduced by fear.  Everyone says they want peace but there seems to be little peace.  We like to sing about love, but sometimes we are not very loving.  People claim they want justice, but justice remains elusive. It sounds nice but . . .

While justice is elusive, we are commanded to go after it as best we can.  We must do what we can to effect change in an imperfect world amidst imperfect human beings.

We are not permitted to be indifferent. Indifference is decadence. An indifferent person is already dead but he or she does not know it. 

Elie Wiesel has written, “The one who thinks about God, forgetting Man, runs the risk of mistaking his goal: God may be your next-door neighbor.”  Chaos and injustice will always be with us.  But we must do all we can do to hold back its craziness. 

The Hebrew word “tirdof” means to run.  Run as fast as you can.  Run after justice.  Run, run, and do not stop running.  Justice, Justice shall you pursue says the scripture.  We can almost touch it and 

yet . . . Run, run and in that way, you will be running with God.

Racism and Religion

At the heart of most religions is faith, a trust that what you believe is true.  Racism, the belief that one race is inherently inferior to another, is a faith which stems from fear.  People who are racist are viscerally convinced that another group or race is out to hurt them.  They are afraid and that fear is palpable.  They feel it and they trust that fear.  You will not be able to convince them they are wrong because, that is their faith.  They trust what they have heard, and their trust affirms their fear, and this fear is so clear to them, it cannot be wrong, all facts to the side.

What exactly is it that is feared?  The key word is infection.  When you were a child your parents were always concerned about your friends.  Their fear centered around being friends with the wrong crowd which could infect you causing you harm.  The person who is different, black, Jewish, Gay is not only a threat but is repulsive, disgusting and highly infectious.  This person looks human but is not really like you and me. 

The fear having been inculcated and established is not easily removed.  Once you are afraid these people are going to hurt you, you are no longer able to listen to reason or facts.  This faith and fear trumps love and truth. When enough people have or support this fear in one place it can become part of a system to which most people know the rules.

The only way to change this faith is through experience.  During World War II, there was a Lutheran pastor who was part of the Confessing Church, a group of Christians, mostly Pastors, opposed to the Nazis.  I met one of these Pastors and listened to his remarkable story.  When he was done, I asked him why the Confessing Church did not speak out about the persecution of the Jews.  He became quiet and the after a long pause said, “We did not know they were human.”  He went on to say he had never met or spoken to a Jew.  I was shocked!  Then I asked him, “When did you find out that Jews were human?”  He said when the Nazis threw him into a concentration camp, he met a Jew who gave him a piece of bread.  He said, “That’s when I realized Jews were people, they were human.”

Every semester at Augustana, I have encountered students who have told me I was the first Jew they had ever met.  Experience changes who we are and what we believe.

You can pass all kinds of laws requiring people to act decent toward each other.  And that is fine.

But, until you change people’s hearts, until they see and experience for themselves:  Black people are human, Jews are human, Native Americans are human, Gays are human; until that happens racism and hatred and fear will not be abolished.

Theodicy is Important

The word theodicy means the justice of God.  Theodicy questions God’s ways of working with the world.  Some people think theodicy is a waste of time either because they don’t believe there is a God, or they think God is so problematic and mysterious that asking questions about the justice of God is absurd or some think theodicy is a sign of a lack of faith and an arrogant pride trying to investigate the glory of God.


While there may be some legitimacy to the above reservations concerning theodicy, I disagree with all of them.  Theodicy is a human attempt to understand and question the ways of God in a world of so much underserved suffering.  Theodicy is a faithful human attempt to trust God and stay sane at the same time.  Theodicy wonders about the methodology and fairness of God in our world.  And it does so as an outgrowth of faith and not against faith. 


Asking questions about the moral character and intent of God is also Biblical.  Abraham argues with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Moses confronts God regarding God’s attitude toward the Israelites and their long suffering under slavery in Egypt. Hagar laments to God as she lingers in the wilderness. Job challenges the morality of God and is vindicated by God.  In the book of Ezekiel, God laments that there is so little faith among the Hebrews that no one is willing to challenge God to keep God’s promises. And of course, in the New Testament, Jesus ends his life by crying out a question about God’s abandonment.


Theodicy is an inherent part of a faith that refuses to let God off the hook by making excuses about what God is not doing to defeat suffering and evil. We are presently living through the Coronavirus which has already killed almost 60,000 people in the USA. What is God doing amidst all these deaths?


There is a fine book called, Pathways in Theodicy by Mark S. M. Scott.  Scott reviews the different ways theodicy has been approached but does not favor one approach.  He argues we need to keep the theodicy question open and on the table. And I agree.


Why do I care so much about theodicy? Because faith is a risky business.We are proclaiming our faith in an invisible and highly problematic God.  Our faith should be honest and mature.  We ought to be intellectually and spiritually truthful about where our faith works and where it does not work.  In all my years of teaching I have tried to encourage and aggravate my students, particularly those who espouse faith, to tell the truth about the fragility and difficulty of faith.  Such thinking may cause some to doubt but doubt and faith are two parts of the same coin.  Theodicy is important!!!

Caught Between Faith and Facts

Whenever an event as evil as the Coronavirus rears its head and delivers its destruction upon us, we religious folk are caught between our deep desire to have faith and the facts our eyes are communicating to us. We are caught between faith and facts.


For Jews this happens because Jews trust the heart of God is revealed in the Torah.  God loves his people so much he gave them his only Torah to teach them what it meant to live a human life.  Whatever has happened to us across the centuries, we Jews trust against trust that God is for us and not against us.


Christians trust the heart of God has been revealed to all people in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  God loved his people so much he sent his only son to die and be raised.  In Jesus, God shows how much God loves humanity and does not leave them alone.  And Christians trust “nothing shall separate them from the love of God.”


And Muslims trust God so loved the world that he sent his final revelation through Muhammad and had it written down in the Quran.  Muslims trust that everything that happens to human beings is in some mysterious way the will of God.  Five times a day Muslims proclaim their hope and trust that Allah is truly God, for us and not against us.


All this is well and good.  It is our faith. And we want our faith to be true.


But when the craziness and horror of evil lives among us, people of faith are compelled or forced to live in the tension between faith and facts.  And the fact is:  despite the Biblical assertions of God’s commitment to justice and love, hundred of thousands are being killed.  Despite prayers upon prayers upon prayers, the silence of God lives among us.  Of course, we can and will give the usual reasons or excuses to make God not look so bad.  After all, look at all those who survive the virus.  We can sing more hymns.  We can babble on about the mystery of God’s ways.  And let’s face it, theologians and religious leaders have honed their craft over the years to disqualify or eliminate any questioning of the deity.


But this is nothing new.  Faith and facts collide in the Biblical stories.  And those of us who have studied the Holocaust are aware of the silence or indifference of God.  Years ago, Elie Wiesel opined that Jesus was most Jewish and most honest when, on the cross, he implored the deity, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”


So, this is our predicament.  We have just come through two holidays, Passover and Easter, where God’s deliverance was rehearsed and celebrated.  Despite all that, if we religious believers are willing to be honest, we will admit we are aware of the tension in which we are compelled to live. 


After all, Jews and Christians and Muslims are communities who have always been waiting for God to act like God.  In the meantime, believers are caught in the tension between their faith in God and the facts screaming at them in the face.  So, I say again, Stay sane out there.

A Few Words About God and the Coronavirus

When the entire planet is wrestling with the Coronavirus, what, pray tell, is God doing?


We are all in the middle of trying to avoid getting the Coronavirus.  We know such occasional viruses and pandemics are part of being human.  We humans are amazingly agile and fragile.  As to God’s part in all this, I am convinced that such a virus is not the will of God.  God does not send a virus to kill people as part of God’s mysterious plan.  So, no need to blame God for this outbreak.


But, let’s not be too easy on God.  Assuming there is a God, this God created a world where viruses are part of life.  They come and they go hurting and sometimes killing hundreds and thousands of people.  But they too are part of God’s “good” world.  And I say again, we ought not absolve God too easily of some responsibility for their existence.  From earthquakes to tornadoes to hurricanes, to monsoons, to Tsunamis, to volcanos, to cancers of all sorts, to diseases upon diseases, to viruses upon viruses.  So rumbles nature from day to day without a conscience, going on and on and on churning away in its wild unruly manner.


Perhaps as has been suggested, we need to forgive God for creating such a dangerous chaotic world.  That sounds right to me.  Much better than assuming everything that happens is the will of God.  How absurd!


What do I think God is doing in our present virus?  I certainly do not know.  But I presume, if our religious traditions are right, God is at work with us as a partner in the universe doing what can be done to minimize the effects of nature.  As in the Biblical texts God is wrestling with nature to create order.  Is it enough?  No.  It is insufficient.  God is not in control of nature.  And such is the precarious nature of life on our planet.


If we are going to trust in a benevolent deity, that’s fine but let’s be honest about our dilemma.  When the chaos of nature rears its head as it too often does, we are and will be forced time and again, to trust without knowing for sure.


Are any of these words helpful?  Probably not but we say what we can say and do what we can do.  Such is the nature of intelligent religious faith.  And the fact is nature can be startingly creative and monstrously destructive.


I wish us all well as we walk through this present calamity and trust against trust, we are not walking through it alone.

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.

Do Thinking and Religion Mix?

In all my years of teaching I have encouraged my students to think about and understand their religious faith and tradition.  I have urged, provoked, agitated and aggravated them buttressing my words with the quote from scripture, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind.”  


But there are times when I wonder if I am right.  The more I spend time thinking about parts of my own religious tradition, the more problematic that tradition becomes.  Many of us were brought up to think critically, to ask questions, to assume the authorities could be wrong.  But when we do this in the area of religion, it seems to create doubts, unbelief and abandonment of key parts of our religious tradition. Does thinking about religion work? Or does religion work best when we don’t ask too many questions?


I suppose it depends what we mean by the word, work.   If the goal of our thinking is to defend and support what our religion teaches, then, critical thinking can weaken what has been taught.  It raises questions about why we do what we do.  Did all this stuff come from God?  Or did people make it up and declare that it came from God? And is our tradition always right?


But, here’s the thing, religious traditions have always been mingled with puzzling mysteries, inconsistent stories, unreliable declarations, and allusive and elusive scriptures urging us to trust and act in particular ways. The easiest way to proceed is to bow our heads and believe, no critical thinking required.


But for many of us the old days of just believing without thinking are over.  Thinking and religion do mix if you think and trust that real and truthful religion is not frightened of questions and integrity. Maybe thinking does not support the most naïve faith but it does support and endorse the most honest faith.  


Having said all that, I remember being in India and asking a Hindu holy man, where he thinks the notion of reincarnation came from.  He looked at me with a wry smile and with a certain mellow wisdom in his voice, said, “That is a very Western question.  It will not bring you to the truth.”  For him reincarnation just is and that is all he needs to know.


So, are we Westerners asking the wrong questions?  If we want our religious faith and tradition to have integrity, what else can we do?  For us thinking and religion must and do mix whether such thinking bolsters our faith or not! 

The Complexity of Faith

Sometimes we are given the impression that faith is a simple thing.  Just close your eyes, trust, sing a hymn, and you’re done.  God is at work and nothing bad will ever happen to you.  Trust in the reliability and promises of God and your life will go well.  Everything happens for a reason.  Heaven is waiting.  Faith is simple.  Keep singing the old hymns.  Every day brings new hope.


But it’s not true.  Faith is complicated.  It has to do with trusting without knowing for sure and trusting when trusting makes no sense.  

We have five senses by which we comprehend and decode reality.  Theology, talk about an invisible God, is not simple.  It is complex and it becomes extremely complex when we are living through chaos.  Chaos is the feeling of being out of control or forced to live with little or no order in our lives.


In the scriptures God is pictured as constantly wrestling with chaos, the chaos of nature and the chaos of human nature.  Sometimes God succeeds and sometimes God fails.  Chaos is chaotic and hard to control. It is an inexorable part of life.


Sometimes we need to ask ourselves what it is we are trusting God to do.  Some will assert, God gives us the strength to survive the chaos.  But that is not always true.  Some people do not survive the craziness of life and are swallowed up in its tumult.


All I’m saying is trusting in the providence of God is not easy.  Atheists and agnostics have a point we ought not ignore.  Trusting in God is a risk we take, hoping against hope, God is there and cares about us.


Faith is complex because it occurs despite the chaos of life, in spite of the chaos of life, and to spite the chaos of life.  Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin.  And there will be times when the doubt side of the coin makes the most sense.


I am not against faith.  I am a person of faith.  But our faith needs to be honest and steeped in integrity.  Faith is not simple.  Faith is complex.

Religions are Fine But Not Divine

Why is there religion and where did it come from?   The world’s religions did not drop down from the sky.  Religions were invented by human beings because they responded to certain vital questions and experiences.


Since human creatures have been wandering on the earth, they have wondered how did we get here, what are we doing here, how shall we live our lives, is there a God or gods, is there life after life?  Great spiritual minds wrestled with these questions. 


These great minds had faith they had received certain true revelations from the beyond in the here and now.  They came to believe the invisible is more important than the visible.  That what does not meet the eye is greater than what meets the eye.  And if you believe you will see the truth.


Stories, rituals, holy people came to articulate the revealed truths.  And from there, religions, scriptures, liturgies, creeds and traditions developed. 


What and if God had anything to do with all of this is hard to say.  Each of us within our respective religions believe our revelation has the truth or at least a proper glimpse of the truth.


Religions are fine but they are not necessarily divine.  If anything, the major religions of the world may be a glimpse of the truth.  But there is so much extraneous material in each religion, it’s difficult to figure out what is true and what is not.


The religious questions which began all this are still with us.  How and if God interacts with these different religious traditions and believers is impossible to say.


Let’s all then be humble and honest about what we trust and remember we could be wrong.  Another religious tradition may be right.  Since our religious knowledge is tentative at best, believe what you want to believe, defend it to the hilt, but respectfully disagree with those who differ.  This seems the better part of wisdom.

The Secret and Mystery of the Shofar

Soon, it will happen again.  In a few days during the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the shofar will be blown.  It is always a special and holy moment when the shofar or ram’s horn is blown.


As a boy I remember being mesmerized by the beautiful sacred haunting sound.  It was part of the majesty and mystery of the high holy days.


The Rabbis teach us many reasons for the blowing of the shofar.  Some say it stems from the ram caught in the thicket which Abraham offered instead of his son, Isaac.  Others say it is a cry of repentance on the part of the Jewish people.   Still others say it is reminiscent of the shofar being blown during the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.  And there are many other reasons . . .


The one I appreciate the most: the shofar creates the sounds of the victims throughout history wailing their pain, struggle and faith in a desperate attempt to awaken God from his slumber. The shofar is a plea of hope and sanity.  It is a sigh, a cry, and a prayer too great for words.


More than anything the shofar brings Jews across the world together again.  If there is anything Jewish in your soul, you will come to hear its sound.


This year, Rosh Hashanah (literally head of the year), is the Jewish New Year 5780.  It begins a ten day period of introspection and reconciliation with those you have hurt during the past year, leading to the holiday of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, when Jews as a community ask God for forgiveness and implicitly forgive God for his silence in their suffering.


Soon, it will happen again. The shofar will sound its eerie notes encouraging us to trust against trust and imploring God to act like God.  It is indeed a holy moment.