RELIGION – PART 1

RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

            For the last several weeks we have spoken about covenant.  God made a covenant with all humanity, known as the covenant of the children of Noah.  And God made a separate covenant with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people.   Out of this covenant grew the three great faiths of the Western world – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Now it is time to look beyond Western faiths to explore a universal human institution, religion.  How ought we to view the religions of the world, both east and west?  Can so many religions possibly be true?  And should we perhaps be living in a time beyond religion, when science and humanism rule?

            Let us begin with a statement I hear all the time.  “Rabbi, I am a very spiritual person but I do not believe in religion.”  “Rabbi, spirituality is important but who needs religion?”  “Rabbi, I have tried various religions and most of them are not very spiritual.”  What is spirituality?  And what is religion?

            Spirituality is the attempt to connect to that dimension of reality which goes beyond the physical and the material.  (For more on this, see my messages about God.)  Spirituality begins with the claim that the physical world of space and time, of matter and energy, is not all there is.  There is a reality beyond the physical.  If we can connect with that reality, we can sense the underlying unity of the entire universe.  We can see our own lives as something greater than our particular limited existence.  Spirituality is connection to that reality which cannot be measured in a laboratory.  Some people claim there is no spiritual reality; all that exists is the material world we see.  (We call this view materialism.)  But most humans sense there is a greater spiritual reality, and want to connect to it.

            Religion can be a deeply spiritual experience.  Many find spirituality in the traditional prayers, rituals, and meditations of the classical religions.  But people can find spirituality in a variety of ways.  Some find spirituality in nature, perhaps by walking along a beach, viewing a sunrise, or climbing a mountain.  Some find spirituality in the arts, in classical music, ballet, a beautiful painting or sculpture.  Many find spirituality in relationships, an encounter with a lover or a deep conversation with a dear friend.  During the sixties, many turned to drugs as a source of spirituality, a movement that often led to tragedy.  The key issue is that spirituality is highly individualistic.  Different people will connect to the spiritual dimension in different ways.

            Spiritual moments are also fleeting, lasting a few moments.  Eventually we must come back to earth even from the most profound spiritual moments.  As humans, we need to come back into the real day-to-day world of space and time, matter and energy.  There are a few unusual souls who manage to dedicate whole lifetimes to spiritual encounters.  Some people become monks, living a cloistered existence and spending their days in meditation.  The Torah speaks of Moses who sat on the Mountain of the Lord for forty days and forty nights, neither eating nor drinking.  Yet even Moses had to come down from the mountain again, confronting the rebellion of the Golden Calf.

            How do we leave our spiritual moments, reenter the world, and take the feelings with us?  Perhaps the question was best asked in the lyric by Oscar Hammerstein from The Sound of Music – “How do you keep a wave upon the sand?”   How do you carry these intense spiritual moments into the real world?  That is what religion is all about.

            Let me offer a definition of religion that works for me.  “Religion is the human attempt to capture the spiritual and build institutions which apply those spiritual moments to life in the real world.”  Moses could not stay on the mountain forever; he had to come down to share his teachings with the people Israel.   Most of the great religious traditions of the world began with the spiritual insights of some great figure – Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed.  The religions have taken their wisdom and insights and built institutions that can be shared by entire communities across the generations.  Religion is applied spirituality.  By applying spirituality to day-to-day life, religion meets an important human need.

            What does this mean?  First, religion is a human institution.  Like politics, military, sports, or the arts, religion has all the glory and also all the folly of any human institution.   Religion may be a human attempt to reach God.  But to confuse religion with God is a form of idolatry.   One of my goals as a rabbi is to scrutinize my own religion, Judaism, and see what is God given and what is human.  I will never say that everything Judaism teaches is God given and unchangeable.

            Second, since religion is a human attempt to capture the spiritual, a variety of religions can contain spiritual truths.  No faith can claim, “We have the exclusive truth and all other religions are false.”   I am believing Jew.  And yet, I am always looking for those spiritual truths in Christianity and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and for that matter, ancient Paganism and modern humanism.  “Ben Zoma said, Who is wise?  Whoever learns from everybody.”

            Religion is applied spirituality.  And we need some more spirituality in our world.  That is why religion can be such a powerful force for goodness and transformation.  However, religion can also be a source of bigotry and hatred, war and oppression.  Next week we will deal with the negative side of religion.

RELIGION – PART 2

WHEN RELIGION IS EVIL

      Rolling Stone magazine recently listed the 500 greatest songs of all time.  Number three on the list is John Lennon’s beautiful song Imagine.  The melody is haunting and the lyrics are poetic.  It is an image of a Messianic time when all humanity will live in peace.  As lovely as the song is, one lyric has always disturbed me.  “Imagine there's no countries, It isn’t hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too.”

            To Lennon, religion is to kill and die for.  Of course, that never stopped the great songwriter and former Beatle from becoming an ardent follower of the Maharishi, a Hindu meditation leader.  But Lennon would probably argue that this was spirituality, not religion.  He had little use for religion.  He would probably make the same claim that I have heard from countless people who have attacked religion.  “Rabbi, the world does not need religion.  Religion has been the cause of more wars and more hatred than any force in history.  Too many people have died in the name of God.”

            Too many people have been killed in the name of religion.  Nonetheless, the two greatest evils of the twentieth century, nationalistic fascism and atheistic communism, killed millions without belief in God.  People have been killed in the name of religion.  They have also been killed in the name of nationalism, race, sex, even family.  Part of the tragedy of being human is that we kill each other for any reason or for no reason.  Religion at its worst becomes just one more excuse for killing.  But religion at its best presents an ethical vision of a Messianic age.  Religion at its best gives spiritual solace during times of crisis.  And religion at its best teaches the underlying unity of the cosmos, which includes the unity of all human beings.

            Let me repeat the definition of religion I gave in part 1.  This is a definition that works for me.  “Religion is the human attempt to capture the spiritual and build institutions which apply those spiritual moments to life in the real world.”   Religion is a human institution.  And like any human institution, religion can be misapplied and misused by human beings.  Sadly, we humans are capable of great cruelty.

            Certainly great evils have been carried out in the name of religion.  We all know the litany of cruelties – the inquisition, the crusades, the wars, the pogroms, the massacres, the witch hunts, and of course, modern terrorism.  Sadly, I have seen cruelty in the name of religion on a much more local level.  I have seen people who have cut themselves off from family members because they did not approve of those family members’ religious observance.  I have seen petty squabbling and anger over minor religious rituals.  And I have seen cruel comments such as “This is God’s punishment” for people who are suffering illness or loss.  Religion can be evil because it is a human institution, and humans can be evil.

            Does that mean that we dismiss religion?   Not at all!  Religion is a reflection of great spiritual moments and insights.  And religion at its best can apply those spiritual insights to the realities of life in this world.  Many if not most of the righteous gentiles who saved Jews from the Nazis were inspired by their religious faith.  Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. changed race relations in this country based on a religious vision of racial harmony.  People have been known to make enormous sacrifices, both financial and personal, based on their faith in God.  Religious institutions raise huge amounts of money to help the poor and the suffering.   And I believe that it is a religious vision that will bring together Jews, Christians, and Moslems, Buddhists and Hindus to build a new world based on peace.  Religion gives us the vision.  Religion can bring out the best of human beings.

            In summary, religion is a human institution.  Like any human institution, it can bring out either the worst or the best in us humans.  Part of our job is to find those strands in our religious faith which inspire and transform us.  We must find the voice of God in the sacred texts of our various faiths.  By doing so, we will find ways to use religion to transform the world.

RELIGION – PART 3

ARE ALL RELIGIONS TRUE?

            There is a question I propose to my Confirmation Class every year.  I ask them, “The ancient Aztecs used to practice human sacrifice as part of their religion.  When Spain conquered the Aztecs, they outlawed human sacrifice.  Do you think the Spanish did the right thing?”  Every year I get the same answer.  “We may not believe in human sacrifice.  But they were practicing their religion.  And we have no right to judge another religion.”  These kids were raised in a liberal, non-judgmental milieu, where all choices are equally valid.  No religion is better than any other, and no one has a right to question anyone else’s religion. 

            I think this moral relativism and neutrality when it comes to values is part of the danger of contemporary society.  Nothing is right and nothing is wrong.  There are no absolutes.  Religious truth is in the eye of the beholder.  This is precisely what the Bible speaks of when it describes the period of judges as “Everybody did what was best in their eyes.”  According to this outlook, all religions are equally true.

            I gave a definition of religion that works for me.   “Religion is the human attempt to capture the spiritual and build institutions which apply those spiritual moments to life in the real world.”  If religion is a human attempt to capture the spiritual, then different humans will find that spirituality in different ways.  Since religion is a human institution anyway, what is wrong with saying that all religions are equal?

            In truth, I believe there are some absolutes by which I must judge any faith.  These absolutes grow out of those spiritual insights we spoke about.  Perhaps the most important absolute reflects the words of Hippocrates, “First do no harm.”  Does this religion hurt people.  In particular, does it hurt innocents?  Does it inspire acts of violence or racism?  Does it destroy human beings?  No religion that practices human sacrifice can be justified by these criteria.  Neither can a religion that advocates terrorism, or issues a Fatwa against innocent victims.  Neither can a religion be justified that calls for murder, shunning, public embarrassment, theft, or hatred.  Sadly, too many acts of evil have been justified as God’s will.  It strikes me as fundamental that if there is a unity between all human beings, no religion can justify ever hurting an innocent human.  I am willing to say that such religious teachings are wrong.

            There is a second criterion by which I am willing to judge religions.  Do they transform those who practice their faith?  Do they make people better, both in how they treat others and how they cope with life’s crises?  Is it a faith that inspires.  I have seen too many faiths that simply heap guilt on people.  I have seen faiths that seek to paralyze their practitioners with fear.  I have seen faiths that make people cruel, judgmental, frightened, or unable to cope with life.  If religion does not make us better, it has no reason to exist.

            There is a third criterion I use to judge a faith.  I will admit that this one grows out of my Jewish view of the world.  Does the faith passively accept the world as it is, seeking salvation in some future life?  Or does the faith actively seek to transform this world?   Has the faith given up on this world, seeing it as a temporary stopping place before going to the place that truly matters?   Or does the faith see this world as a place worthy of perfection, with an emphasis on how to live in this world.  In my mind, religion has an obligation to make this world better.  If it does not or cannot, why bother being religious?  That is why I believe the central question any faith needs to ask is not, “Will I get to heaven?”  Rather it is, “How can I create heaven here on earth?”

Perhaps this point is best illustrated in a story I told in my book The Ten Journeys of Life.  A man went before God and said, ALord, show me the difference between heaven and hell.@ God first took the man to see hell. A group of people sat in a banquet room, with piles of delicious food on the tables. Nobody was eating, and everybody looked strained and unhappy. The man looked more closely and saw that no one had an elbow that bent, so no one could bring a fork to his or her mouth. God said, AThis is hell.@

God then brought the man to a group of people sitting in a banquet room, also filled with delicious food, with everyone rejoicing and looking satisfied. The man noticed that here also no one had an elbow that bent. God said, AThis is heaven.@

The man said, AI don=t understand. What is the difference?@

God answered, AIn heaven, they feed each other.@

Not all religions are equal and I am ready to judge religions.  I judge them by two criteria.  Does this religion transform its adherents?  And does this religion transform the world?