I was 16 when my childhood Rabbi first suggested I think about following in her footsteps. I rejected the idea extremely strongly. I was an assistant teacher at the cheder, involved in RSY, my dad was chair of the synagogue, and we were there an awful lot. I had even picked Religious Studies as one of my A levels. But I did not want to be a Rabbi. In part this was because I didn’t see myself as able to be the erudite and serious speaker my rabbi was, but it was also because I didn’t really believe in God. That hadn’t stopped me spending huge amounts of time in my community, with our movement, and explaining my Judaism to my non-Jewish friends at school. Then while at university, on a trip to Berlin with a group of Reform Jewish students I had an experience which for me personally sorted out the God questioning, and allowed me to accept the path that my Rabbi and others had seen for me well before I was ready to accept it.
The God-wrestling has come and gone at different times in my life. From praying for healing when it doesn’t come to watching the horrors of the last year play out. One experience of the divine and years of theological study and grappling haven’t left me immune to the wrestling and questioning that our people are well known for. The name Israel is given to Jacob after he wrestles with a divine being, and so the Rabbis argue, our name as a people means ‘to wrestle with God’.
Last shabbat I started a new book, and not necessarily what you’d expect a Rabbi to be reading during the 10 days of Awe; ‘Religion for Atheists’ by Alain de Botton. I haven’t yet finished it (we get quite busy at this time of year), but his premise is, I think, one that we as Jews have known for a long time, even if not consciously.
He writes that:
One can be left cold by the doctrines of the Christian Trinity and the Buddhist Eight Fold Path and yet at the same time be interested in the ways in which religions deliver sermons, promote morality, engender a spirit of community, make use of art and architecture, inspire travels, train minds and encourage gratitude at the beauty of spring. In a world beset by fundamentalists of both believing and secular varieties, it must be possible to balance a rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts (p.12).
Now I’m not suggesting we abandon faith, but the old joke; 2 Jews 3 opinions; is perhaps funnier because it is so true. Sitting in this room I suspect we embrace a full gamut of theologies from absolute faith in a God who intervenes in some way in this world, through to absolute atheism. And yet we are all here together, taking a day out of our hectic lives to pray, repent, learn and reflect together, and for many in this room, this building is a regular part of how they connect to their own identity and to their sense of peoplehood more broadly.
God often has nothing to do with why people walk through our front doors. De Botton explains that he was raised in a thoroughly atheistic home, and yet his father still had a Jewish burial at Willesden cemetery. Many people still join synagogues to be buried as Jews. But I was very moved by the comment of one of my conversion students this week, who has Jewish heritage, and who said he came to the community because he wanted to die as a Jew, but we are teaching him how to live as a Jew. And live well we must.
This has been a year of God wrestling for many in new ways. How can we praise God when such horror is unfolding. Realistically this has always been true. But it has felt particularly close to home this year. The first scroll we read on Yom Kippur morning contains the start of an answer to all of this. Moses asks to see all that is God. The answer from God is no. No one can see all of God and survive, the human mind just can’t contain it all. In other words, at the heart of revelation lies the idea that no one, not even Moses, can know it all, or understand it all. This is a huge comfort to me. Not knowing has essentially become the roots of my personal theology. And of course, as a born and bred Reform Jew, the idea that Torah is literal Truth rather than a meaningful book of truths with a small t has never been an issue. There is always more to know and something to be learnt from all. Each of us has a glimpse of truth to share, and we can expand our own glimpses by hearing each others.
This can be a professional hazard – people exploring their Judaism or coming with questions often prefer a black and white answer. I don’t have a lot of those. But I have found that one of the most meaningful parts of being a Rabbi has been helping people to find meaning in Jewish rituals and teaching. And this is where Alain de Botton and I really agree. Judaism has so much to offer us beyond the part about God. That’s not to malign the God stuff… which is a part of my life. But at those times when it isn’t part of your life, or if you know it’s not something you can meaningfully get on board with, that doesn’t mean there is nothing your Judaism has to offer or say to you. We are the product of 3000 years of not only wrestling, but reinventing and reinterpreting our tradition, and our communal life choices to speak to the time we live in now. Judaism has never been a simple faith, but a way of life that binds a community together.
The nineteenth Century French philosopher Auguste Comte preceded Alain de Botton’s thinking and went into great detail exploring how a secular society might maintain religious structures and rituals. Otherwise, he argued, society would become devoted only to the accumulation of wealth, absorption of entertainment, and romantic love. I’m not sure the model needed reinvention. Judaism offers us space where believers and non believers are bound together like a family. Sharing ways to mark and honour life’s journey, to support one another on that journey, and to make the path as meaningful as possible for each individual.
A Midrash[1] about the creation of the world agrees with Comte in trying to maintain a balanced life. It suggests we do this by valuing both the material and spiritual. In the midrash Rabbi Naḥman bar Shmuel says in the name of his father that God describes creation as ‘very good’ twice, referring to the fact that we were created with both an ‘evil’ and a ‘good’ inclination – but both have something to contribute, something ‘very good’. We might better understand the evil inclination as a material one – which ensures we build houses, have children, and strive to build industry with which to support ourselves. Allowing these motives to go unchecked would lead to a narcissistic and cruel society, but they have a positive role to play. The spiritual inclination is of course positive too, but if left unfettered, would leave us sitting in a cave, meditating alone rather than engaging in the world.
Judaism has a unique message for us expressed through our weekly work and shabbat balance. Both spirituality and being active in this material world are valued, and help bring a meaningful rhythm to our lives, ensuring we make time for the things that matter and that we don’t burn out. God might well be a part of what you are making time for, but spirituality can also embrace a wide range of practices and beliefs that add to our lives and bind us together, for example expressing gratitude through brachot for the tiny daily moments we so easily take for granted, like different kinds of foods and going to the toilet! This intense month in the Jewish Calander similarly gives us the structures and time to reflect and create meaningful change in our lives, if we allow it to. You might experience teshuva as a return to the divine, and you might experience it as a return to a truer form of yourself. But together we are able to walk through the process, confess communally, and then wait to discover what the year ahead has in store for us.
This year the support of community, regardless of each individuals faith, has been particularly powerful as we have tried to process the horrors in the Middle East: Supporting one another and our friends, families and colleagues in Israel through a variety of gatherings and services. But it has also seen us running more together groups than ever before, supporting our more vulnerable and elderly members through telenet volunteers, drawing together 80 to 100 babies, toddlers and their carers every Friday morning for Stay and Play and so so much more.
Today is said to be the day we are closest to our own deaths. Judaism has plenty to offer when it comes to processing and carrying death through life. Ultimately we do this so as to live as well as possible, and like my student, I hope we all find ways this year of making our Judaism a meaningful part of how we live, not just how we die, whether God is a part of that not. We are here as clergy and as a community to help you do that, whatever brings you through the door.
May we all be blessed with a year of meaning and healing, community and/or the divine just when we need it. Gmar Chatimah Tovah.
[1] Bereishit Rabbah 9
