RELIGIOUS LIFE – PART 1

PRAYER

          It is almost Rosh Hashana.  For the past year I have been writing my weekly spiritual messages based on my own faith.  I have entitled these talks Reflections on Twenty-Five Years in the Rabbinate.  I have covered a variety of topics – God, humanity, covenant, religion, revelation, ethics, holiness, love, family, Israel, and redemption.  (To read all the past messages, go to my website http://www.heartfelt.com/message.asp.) I have tried to be brutally honest about what I believe on each of these topics.  Now, before returning to a weekly look at the Torah portion, I want to deal with one last subject.  Perhaps this one is the most important.

          What does it mean to be a religious human being?  What does it mean to live one’s life in the presence of God?  How does religion change us for the better?  What is the role of prayer, ritual, synagogue (or church), and community?  If all the subjects discussed over the past year do not serve to refine us as human beings, then all our theological discussions are meaningless.

          Let us begin with a question I often hear.  Does God really need our prayers?  When I was first exploring religion in my younger days, I had this image of God with a big chart in front of Him (or Her).  Jews, at least Jewish men, are obligated to pray three times a day – shachrit, mincha, maariv.  I thought about God marking on the chart whether I prayed the particular prayer or not.  “Michael Gold went to bed without praying the maariv service; he gets a zero.  He better make it up tomorrow.”  I hope my views have grown more sophisticated since then.  I still pray three times a day (except when I miss one.)  The question is why.

Does God really need all those prayers?  No!  People misunderstand what prayer is all about.  We don’t pray because God needs prayers; God does fine without them.  It reminds me of an old story.  There were two Jews.  One prayed all the time, every day, three times a day - shachrit, mincha, maariv.  He said blessings before he ate and after he ate, when he got up in the morning and when he went to sleep at night.  The other never entered a synagogue, never opened a prayerbook, never said a prayer.  They both died on the same day.  And they both stood outside of the gates of heaven.  Heaven opened up and the non-prayer was allowed to enter.  The other man was left standing outside.  He screamed, `God, how can you do that?  I prayed every day, he never set foot in a synagogue.  He gets to enter while I stand outside.’  A heavenly voice entered, `Him - he never bothered me.  You nudged me all the time.

          People think we pray because God needs these words.   We pray because we need those prayers.  The Hebrew word for prayer is l’hetpallel, literally “to judge yourself.”  Prayer is something we do for ourselves.  We pray to connect to a community.  We pray to connect to a tradition and a history.  We pray to be part of something bigger than ourselves.  We pray to learn about what is important in life.  And we pray to connect to the spiritual dimension of life. 

          Fundamental to the religious life is the discipline of regular prayer.  Does prayer always work?  No.  But the discipline of daily prayer is like the discipline of daily exercise.  We do not see the results immediately, but we certainly feel it when we neglect our routine.  Part of my commitment to being a religious Jew is to stand before God and express myself, using both traditional words (yes, in Hebrew) and my own personal words.  The goal is not to transform God, but to transform me.  I believe that I walk away from those daily encounters with God a better person.

RELIGIOUS LIFE – PART 2

RITUAL

          Every Friday evening shortly before sunset my wife lights two candles in our home.  If she happens to be out of town, I light them.  We have done this every week since we have been married.  We do not light them because candles are magical, and yet, if we missed a week, we would feel a deep sense of discomfort and incompleteness.  The lighting of Sabbath candles is one of those rituals that define how we live our lives.

          Traditional Judaism is built around ritual.  Our days and weeks are touched by rituals. We have mezuzot on our doors, little cases with parchment containing Biblical verses.  When I pray each weekday morning I put on a tallit (a garment with fringes) and tefillin (small boxes on my arm and head also containing Biblical verses.)  Each week we not only light candles but also bless a cup of wine and a braided challah.  On Saturday night I say havdalah, blessing a twisted candle, spice box, and cup of wine.

          Our year is also touched by ritual.  Throughout the course of the year we hear the shofar blown and dip apples in honey on Rosh Hashana, fast on Yom Kippur, eat in a fragile, branch covered booth and wave a lulav on Sukkot, light Hanukkah candles, make noise to drawn out Haman’s name on Purim, eat matza and tell the story of the exodus at Pesach, eat cheese blintzes on Shavuot, sit on the floor and hear the book of Lamentations on Tisha B’Av.

          Rituals also have defined key moments of our lives.  My wife and I were married under a marriage canopy, with me placing a ring on her finger and breaking a glass.  Our two sons were welcomed into the world with a ritual circumcision, and our daughter with a formal baby naming.  We celebrated our children’s bar and bat mitzvah with their chanting a haftarah in synagogue, and of course that important ritual event, the candle lighting ceremony.  Sad times have also been marked by ritual.  We mourned the loss of parents by tearing a keriya ribbon, shoveling earth into a grave, and saying a mourner’s kaddish.   As Jews, rituals define our lives.

          It is intriguing to note that the Reform Movement, in its early years, removed most of the rituals mentioned above.  Today ritual has come back into the Reform Movement.  The symbolic acts seem to satisfy a deep human need for tradition and stability.

          Why ritual?  Perhaps it is the power of doing a symbolic act that is being done by people all over the world.  And perhaps it is the power of doing a symbolic act that has been done for hundreds if not thousands of years through history.  Ritual takes us out of space and time, linking us to a reality, which goes beyond our day-to-day world.  In ritual, we become part of something greater than ourselves.  Is that not what religion ought to be about, joining that which is greater than ourselves?

          I wrote a sermon last year for Yom Kippur about chaos.  I had no way of knowing it at the time, but the sermon was delivered as a hurricane was bearing down on us.  I wrote about a wedding by a survivor of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and how ritual gave them a sense of stability after the chaos of those sad events.  “Ritual is a steady anchor in a sea of change.  Ritual gives our lives order when chaos reigns around us.”  That is why ritual has become so central to Judaism, and to most other spiritual traditions.

          Having said that, I must offer a caveat.  As wonderful as ritual can be, it can also become a compulsion.  After all, people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder often define their lives by rituals.  The light must be turned on and off a certain number of times, the hands must be washed in a certain way, or else they cannot function.  I have met Jews for whom such rituals also become compulsions.  They become deeply depressed and perhaps frightened if the rituals of Judaism are not performed exactly right.  They panic if they forget to light Shabbat candles.

          It is vital to remember that ritual behavior is never the end.  It is the means to an end, worshipping God and connecting to the spiritual in our lives.  We do not worship rituals.  They are very old and venerable tools in our religious lives.  Ultimately the goal of any religious ritual is to bring us closer to God.

RELIGIOUS LIFE – PART 3

FINAL THOUGHTS

            This is my final message on this year’s subject, Reflections on Twenty Five Years in the Rabbinate.  It has now been twenty-six years since I was ordained a rabbi, and I pray my thinking continues to grow as the years pass.  After the holidays, I will resume writing about the portion of the week.  This is the week to sum up in one brief message the essence of what I have tried to teach throughout the year.

            What does it mean to live a religion life?  Ultimately, the words are up above the ark in synagogues throughout the world.  “Know Before Whom You Stand.”  To live a religious life is to live constantly in God’s presence.  It is to ask the question each and every day - what would God want me to do?   At the heart of the religious life is an ongoing sense of living in the presence of one’s Creator.

            Perhaps the best way to understand this idea is through a metaphor.  Imagine an adult child living in the presence of his or her parents.  The child is constantly aware of his or her actions because the child does not want to disappoint the parents.  This is not about punishment; an adult is too old to be punished by parents.  But the child cares deeply about what the parents think.  Is the child perfect?  Of course not - parents know their children are not perfect.  We all make mistakes.  But the question is, what is the overall thrust of the child’s life?  Is it a life of kindness, of goodness, of holiness?   Is the child fulfilling the purpose for which he or she was placed on the earth?  Are the parents disappointed, or are they proud?

            Others may use a different metaphor, perhaps even more contemporary.  Rather than seeing our relationship with God like one between a parent and child, let us see our relationship as one between lovers or spouses.  After all, the Rabbis saw the beautiful verse “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine” (Song of Songs 6:3) as a metaphor of the love between Israel and God (or perhaps between all of humanity and God.)  How do we behave in the presence of our lover or spouse?  Do we act in a way that enhances the relationship, making our beloved proud of us?   Or do we act in a way that disappoints the one we love and moves us farther apart from one another?  Again, no one is perfect.  We all sometimes hurt the one we love.  But what is the overall thrust of our lives – do we act in a way that allows love to grow?

            These are metaphors for the central religious question.  What does it mean to live one’s life in God’s presence?   Christians ask, “What would Jesus do?”   Jews ask, “What does it mean to live as part of the covenant God made with the people Israel?”  Both begin with the statement, “Know Before Whom You Stand.”

            The basic religious assumption is that we are not on this earth by random chance.  A will or an intelligence placed us here.  (Call it intelligent design if you will.)  We were given a mission – a purpose for being here.  What does it mean to live our lives with that sense of purpose, to fulfill that mission?  That is the question that a religious human being needs to grapple with every day.

            Next week Rosh Hashanah begins.  This is the most universal of Jewish festivals.  “Today the world was created.”  “Today all humanity passes before You like sheep before a shepherd.”  The purpose of the entire High Holiday season is to examine our lives, what we are doing right and where we have gone wrong?  How can we live our lives in a way that makes our Creator proud?   If Judaism, or any other religion, helps us live such a life, then it has achieved its purpose.

            May you be written and sealed for a joyous New Year.