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Putting Light in a Cage

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On today’s daf we find that Rabbi Akiva asked Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua a halachic question while they were in the market purchasing an animal for Rabban Gamliel’s son’s wedding. This is the way of gedolei Torah. Even while on their way to a simchah, they only think about Torah.

Rav Eliezer Gordon, zt”l, the first Rosh Yeshiva of Telz, was just such a person. The tales regarding his absolute devotion to Torah even during the most unusual times are astounding.

Rav Gordon was a person who had such a deep-felt ahavas haTorah that he would think in learning at every available moment. While he walked down the street and while he was apparently in repose, he was always immersed in a sugya.

Once, when Rav Gordon was on his way to serve as sandek at a bris milah, he passed by a shul and heard two bochurim discussing a certain difficult question in learning. Rav Gordon immediately forgot everything. He stopped in front of the window and, while standing outside, began to discuss this complex question in depth. He attempted to answer it and the bochurim debated various suggestions he proposed that might resolve the problem.

Two hours later, the guests at the bris were still waiting, but the rav had not yet come. Finally they found an acceptable answer and Rav Gordon continued on his way. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be sandek at a local bris.

When he arrived he apologized and explained what had happened. “Regarding Torah I am like a drunk near a bottle of wine who cannot think of anything else!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Intoxicated by Torah”
Kereisos 15

I know. It sounds kind of irresponsible to me, too. If I have an appointment and people are expecting me, especially for an important event, I really try to be on time and often, I’m a little early. So how can we explain Rav Gordon?

At the threshold of liberation, darkness filled the land of Egypt. But in the homes of those to be liberated, there was only light.

Light is our true place, and light is the destiny of every child of Noah who nurtures the G-dly beauty of this world. As dawn approaches and Darkness shakes heaven and earth in the final throes of its demise, those who belong to Light and cleave to it with all their hearts have nothing to fear.

For darkness is created to die, but light is forever.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Light Forever”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Imagine being filled with light all of the time. You can’t really help it. God is not only on your thoughts and affecting your emotions, but His very Word is interwoven into your flesh and bone. It has invaded your blood stream and is coursing through your veins and arteries like life-giving corpuscles. The light of His Word creates the electrical impulses that leap at lightning-fast speeds across the gap between the synapses in your brain. And all that light within you is inexorably drawn to other light just like it…and you cannot help but run the other’s light, so you can join the light within and the light without.

So too, is Rav Gordon, even to the point of allowing himself to be distracted and to be hours late to a bris.

Or he could have just been one of those people who lose track of time when caught up in a compelling intellectual argument.

Where is the balance between the holy and the secular? It is said that Hillel the Elder, the great Torah sage who lived a generation before Jesus, devoted his life to Torah study while also working as a woodcutter. (Hertz J.H. 1936 The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.) Certainly Hillel knew the meaning of balance in his life.

And then there’s this:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. –2 Thessalonians 3:6-8 (ESV)

I can’t find the source, but I recall reading that it is considered a sin if you study Torah to the exclusion of all other responsibilities, such as feeding your family, and meeting your other worldly obligations.

I can’t lay all of that at Rav Gordon’s feet. After all, he was only distracted for a couple of hours and perhaps justifiably so. I’m in no position to judge.

To tell you the truth, it’s far more common for people to allow the demands of their day-to-day secular life to distract them from their duty to study the Bible, to meditate upon God, to pray, to show devotion on the Shabbat. It is far more common to be lured off of the path to God by your daily grind, than to be late for work because you were praying or studying.

God understands that we have a daily life and indeed, he requires that we do have an “ordinary” job so that we, like Paul, can support ourselves and not be a burden to others. All of the great Torah scholars had some means by which they supported themselves, as did the Prophets, and as did the Apostles. Part of a whole life is not only sharing it with God and joining with that light, but allowing the light to shine into the rest of your world. God is in the act of commuting to work, in sitting at a computer keyboard, in picking your children up from school, in mowing the lawn, in paying your taxes, in taking out the garbage.

And He’s in being immersed in a sugya and in joining two bochurim discussing a certain difficult question.

There’s a passion that must be part of who we are as people if we are to overwhelm the oppressive demands of a human experience with the light of God. In Judaism, each soul is considered to be a shard or a spark of the Divine Light of God, come to earth to inhabit a person. The spark yearns to return to its Source but the flesh chains the holy shard to earth. The bird is caged and cannot fly. If you remove freedom from the bird long enough, it forgets how to fly, and pines for its lost freedom. The notes of its song sour and it loses its way back to the Source, perhaps forever.

So too is the soul within us that is cut off too long from its Source. Humanity is an anchor that drags us to the floor of an impenetrably deep sea. This is the opposite of Rav Gordon and his drive to seek out perpetual light perpetually. But if we pray, if we meditate, if we study the Bible, if we associate, even occasionally, with others who have the same drive and light, if we allow the Word to weave its way through us, the bird is not kept in total darkness and it is allowed to spread its wings. It has a song to sing, even while caged within its flesh and blood prison.

The bird has hope, not only that someday it will return to the Source, but that in the here and now, there is a light within that shines, and a light without to follow.

Someday we will be free.

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Publishing Mistakes

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That doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you recognize the value in researching, teaching, collaborating, and correcting mistakes. That’s why the Move The Web Forward folks went on to encourage writers to “keep your posts updated.”

And that’s why Rebecca Murphey, when discussing how to get better at writing JavaScript, said:

“The number one thing that will make you better at writing JavaScript is writing JavaScript. It’s OK if you cringe at it six months from now. It’s OK if you know it could be better if you only understood X, Y, or Z a little bit better. Cultivate dissatisfaction, and fear the day when you aren’t disappointed with the code you wrote last month.”

In this case, Rebecca was talking about actually writing code, not writing about code. But the same principle applies: you will get better when you make mistakes and correct them.

-Louis Lazaris
“Publish What You Learn”
Smashing Magazine

Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
prisoners in affliction and in irons,
for they had rebelled against the words of God,
and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;
they fell down, with none to help.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and burst their bonds apart.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
For he shatters the doors of bronze
and cuts in two the bars of iron.

–Psalm 107:10-16 (ESV)

No, I’m not a programmer, but a great deal of what these “meditations” represent are writing about what I have learned and being open about my mistakes (which is rare in just about any kind of blogging…particularly religious blogging, in spite of what Lazaris just said).

The Psalm writer encourages us (OK, he was writing to a Jewish audience, but I think I can stretch the interpretation to include all of those who were created in the image of God) to acknowledge God and to thank Him for redeeming us, especially when we have been redeemed from our own stupidity and ignorance.

Publicly admitting your mistakes and even thanking God for getting you out of the mess you created is easier said than done. Even after God has redeemed you and relieved you from the consequences (or some of them) of your actions and the punishment for willful sin, there’s still the guilt and shame to deal with. Thanking God for being redeemed is still a lot like saying that you’re a screw up and you did something immeasurably stupid. Blogging about the same “immeasurably stupid” stuff is making the same admission, except it’s to people and not to God.

And yet, there’s supposed to be some sort of benefit to doing both, even though it makes you (and me) feel like crawling under the nearest slime-covered rock and hiding there for the next 70 or 80 years.

The 73rd mitzvah is that we are commanded to verbally acknowledge the sins we have committed before G-d (exalted be He), when we come to do teshuvah (to repent). This is vidui (verbal confession), the idea of which is to say, ” ‘O G-d, I have sinned, I have committed iniquity, I have transgressed and done …” One should elaborate verbally and ask for atonement on this transgression with all the eloquence at his command.

-Translated by Rabbi Berel Bell
From “Sefer Hamitzvot in English”
Confessing Sins
Positive Commandment 73
Chabad.org

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. –Matthew 23-24 (ESV)

It is said that if we have sinned against God, we must seek forgiveness from God, but if we’ve sinned against man, we must seek forgiveness from that man before God will forgive us. If we do not ask the man for forgiveness, God will not forgive us, either.

And if we do seek forgiveness from man and it is not given, will God then forgive us in the man’s stead?

I don’t know. Logic says that God will forgive you if you’ve made your best effort to seek forgiveness from one you’ve sinned against, but I’m not sure. I only know we are supposed to do our best to live at peace with others, regardless of what they’ve done to us…even if they hate us.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. –Matthew 5:43-48 (ESV)

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. –Romans 12:14-21 (ESV)

The Bible talks about forgiving others and seeking forgiveness from others and seeking forgiveness from God, but it never talks about forgiving yourself. It seems as if the last person you must forgive is yourself. Otherwise, you live with guilt, shame, and condemnation for the rest of your life, paying for a crime that has already been atoned for in Heaven (or so we hope).

There is a common misconception that life is about being in the right place at the right time. In truth, how you experience life has more to do with what is happening inside you as with what is happening outside.

Like riding a roller coaster without being prepared, if you are not well-tuned to the channel of life, a symphony of miracles could come across as cacophony from the boiler room.

This is what the sages call z’chut –sometimes translated as merit. It means a refinement of the soul, so that it will be precisely on the right frequency and static-clean.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Z’chut”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

People can be very cruel and spiteful, sometimes even to themselves. Do I need to have my frequency fine tuned?

Yeah, I know. I sound more like Yom Kippur is coming up rather than Passover.

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Flight of the Sparrow

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Devastating News Today, darn it!

Heidi’s tumor markers not only went up but doubled. So this new chemotherapy failed completely, like the one they tried in December/January. We will hear what option(s) are left sometime tomorrow.

My own outpatient surgery is tomorrow morning at 8am, another unwelcome surprise.

We’re really grateful to all of you for your kindness and support.

My beloved wife has metastatic breast cancer (spread to lungs, bone, liver). I am a prostate cancer survivor and my bladder cancer is in remission. We are both treated at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. But we love God, we love life’s adventures, we love our family & friends. And will do so until God takes us Home. We are followers of Christ.

-Joe Hendricks
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2012

I’ve never met Joe and Heidi Hendricks face to face. I suppose I could, since we live only about a day’s drive away from each other. However, through the “magic” of Facebook, I have shared the last few years of their cancer battle together. The photo I’ve posted is number 56 in their scenes from our cancer battle.

The most startling thing for me about photo 56 is that Joe and Heidi aren’t smiling. No, I don’t expect them to smile after such terrible news, but if you go through their “photo album,” even in the most dire of circumstances, they’re always smiling and joking and pressing on through adversity. Humor is almost the last tool to fail when all other tools have long since burned out in the course of such a tremendous physical and emotional drain. I must admit, mine would have been shot through like swiss cheese in a hail storm long before this. But Joe particularly always makes me laugh.

But not today.

Besides their sense of humor, the thing I admire most about Joe and Heidi is their faith. A lot of Christians say they have faith and trust in God…that is, until something really bad happens. Then it all goes flying out the window and it’s “Why did you let this happen to me, God?” and “How could you be so cruel to me, God?” I’m sure I’d be among that group if I had to face the scenes from Joe and Heidi’s cancer battle first hand.

But no matter how grim it’s been for them, they’ve always grasped tightly onto the hand of God and never let go, just as love has bonded Joe and Heidi together and the never let go of each other.

I’m angry. No, not at God…well, not exactly. I don’t who or what I’m angry at. I think it’s that I feel really helpless and frustrated. Sounds strange, eh? There is horrible tragedy happening all over the world. Every day, someone suffers. Every day, someone dies. Every day, some act of injustice is committed, the helpless are victimized and have no defender, the innocent are made to pay for the crimes of the oppressor. It’s a broken world.

But in the face of all that, I’m angry at the news of Joe and Heidi’s cancer battle today. I know the world isn’t fair, but I’m still angry. It isn’t fair.

It’s like my feelings have mass and can be affected by gravity. It’s like the muscles that hold up my feelings are tired and my sadness is a lead weight, pulling my shoulders down and anchoring me to my seat. I feel as if I’m slowly being pulled to the floor. It’s as if my only light is losing its brightness, and I’m just getting more heavy and silent and it’s getting dark all around me.

The light of laughter is going out in the world.

And where is God?

How many people of faith have asked that question across the long stretch of centuries? How many Christians and Muslims and Jews and whoever else have asked God where He went off to when horrible news, disease, injury, and death stalked us one by one? Is this what ancient man felt like, cowering in some cave in the night, listening to the predators crying out at the moon and declaring to the grey, reflected light that they would find you and consume you?

Is that what it feels like knowing that there is a cancer inside of you and it’s taking over and it won’t be chased away?

I’ve heard the words “God is in control” said countless times in countless church services, but what do the words really mean? God is in control, but people still get sick. God is in control but people still get hurt. We’re alone, and we’re scared, and we need to be able to hang on when our strength, and our stamina, and finally our laughter is dried up like the last drop of water feeding the last wilted flower in the brilliant summer sun baking the vast and endless desert.

I realize that there are forces in the world and forces in our body that we can fight but we can’t always control. At some point, no matter how much you put into the struggle, you (I can only imagine, since I haven’t had to face this) have to let your shoulders relax, let the weight pull you down, look up, put your tiny hand in God’s immense grasp and say, “No matter what happens, please don’t go away.”

I hate crying.

God, don’t go away. Stay with Joe and Heidi, no matter what happens. We all want a miracle, but the greatest miracle is that You even care. If not even one tiny sparrow falls to the earth apart from the will of the Father, then You are mindful of Joe and Heidi, for they are worth much, much more than sparrows.

Stay with them God and, if it is Your will, don’t let them fall. Let them fly.

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Easter, Passover, and Myriad Truths

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When our universe as we know it first emerged, the soil of the earth was imbued with a wondrous power—the power to generate life.

Place a tiny seed in the ground and it converts the carbon of the air into a mighty redwood—a decomposing seed awakens the power of the infinite.

Yet another miracle, even more wondrous: A quiet act of kindness buried in humility ignites an explosion of G‑dly light.

Infinite power is hidden in the humblest of places.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Seeding Miracles”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Depending on your religious orientation, we are entering a “season of miracles” in a few days. If you’re Christian, then you are certainly looking forward to Holy Week, culminating with the festivities of Easter and the celebration of the risen Christ this coming Sunday. If you’re Jewish, then you are busy preparing your home and your soul for the Passover season, which begins with Erev Shabbat this coming Friday evening.

Or you have another sort of religious tradition that has no holidays at this time of year, or a tradition that contains no wonders or miracles at all.

I haven’t celebrated Easter for many, many years but I usually look forward to Passover. My wife and I haven’t discussed plans for Pesach this  year, and there are years when we don’t have a personal Pesach seder in our home. Life gets hectic and my spouse isn’t always up to the challenge of preparing an elaborate meal along with the many other preparations and tasks she performs. I suggested yesterday morning, that my sons and I take a turn this year at preparing the Passover meal, but my daughter (who knows what it all entails) just rolled her eyes (mercifully, my wife wasn’t present when I “shot off my big mouth”).

I’ve been avoiding the obligatory Passover blog posts so far due to the uncertainty of the season and, like corporate fellowship, I may have to admit that there will be no personal Passover for me this year. I suppose because I’m not Jewish that it shouldn’t apply to me anyway, so in that, there is no loss if one less Christian isn’t available to attend a purely Jewish commemoration of freedom from slavery and bonding with God.

While, as Rabbi Freeman says, “infinite power is hidden in the humblest of places,” sometimes only humility is to be found in such places as well. There is a time to rise up, to attempt to exceed your limitations, and strive to touch the hem of the garment of God. There are other times that it’s best to step aside and make room for others to achieve that purpose by making yourself small and still. The latter is what’s best for me.

I used to think that so much time had passed since I initiated this “experiment” that my “alternate path” should be apparent to me by now. However, I realize that only an instant has elapsed and it is my place to sit in the shadows and wait. If there is a “miracle” for me, it will be the silence and the muted shades and the stillness of the abyss as I contemplate my existence and ponder on the wonder of God and His unique, radical Oneness.

And I contemplate my path and consider the fork in the road. I can hardly say that it’s either Judaism or Christianity that presents themselves before me, since my options are not two but rather nearly infinite. Within Christianity, there are a myriad of possibilities, both “formal” and idiosyncratic. Judaism, as an option, really doesn’t present itself to me for the simple reason that I am not Jewish. Yet some part of that voice speaks to me and incorporates itself in the other, more “appropriate” options that I still find available to me. Rabbi Freeman presents the transcendent path of truth as containing two paths, but indeed, it contains so much more.

If you find yourself affixed to a single path to truth—

the path of prayer and praise,

or the path of kindness and love,

or the path of wisdom and meditation,

or any other path of a singular mode

—you are on the wrong path.

Truth is not at the end of a path.

Truth transcends all paths.

Choose a path. But when you must, take the opposite path as well.

But if “truth transcends all paths,” then how do you tell truth from its opposite? If choosing truth means choosing opposite paths, when how can I make a choice? If I can’t make a choice, I can then walk no particular path in seeking God.

That leaves me with an impossible decision and no way to make that decision. How can I choose truth if truth is transcendent but I am only human?

If, for me, there is no Easter and there is no Passover, then my choice is to choose no option. That may be the only choice in relation to truth as well. Is it Jacob’s ladder of prayer that sits in front of me, shimmering faintly in the darkness and taunting me in the twilight, or is it the point at which a billion, billion paths converge all demanding I choose the truth and all demanding I choose all truths?

Hypothetical indecision must give way to practical living. I still must wake up each morning, must acknowledge God as the author of my life, such as it is, must get dressed, go to work, labor, go home, be a husband, and father, and grandfather, and walk all the different paths that my life requires, as my tiny march of days on this earth continues to elapse.

All of Judaism will be reading from the seder in a few days, and in a week, Christianity will turn to the end of the Gospels and the resurrection of Jesus. But I will wait and by the dim light of a candle or my soul (I can’t always tell which), I’ll thumb through the pages of Lamentations:

My transgressions were bound into a yoke;
by his hand they were fastened together;
they were set upon my neck;
he caused my strength to fail;
the Lord gave me into the hands
of those whom I cannot withstand.

–Lamentations 1:14

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An Unusual Introduction

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Professor Didier Pollefeyt of The Catholic University of Leuven (the oldest continual Catholic University in the world) stated his view at the Cathedral Notre Dame on October 1996 as follows:

‘The way Jesus will come as the Christ and the Redeemer of the world will depend on the way Christians re-present Him in the present. When Christians are not able to bring His redemption to the world today, especially in relationship with the Jewish people, I’m afraid that at the end of times, they will not meet a triumphalising Messiah, but what I would like to call a `’weeping Messiah’, a Messiah weeping for the injuries and the unredeemedness Christians caused, especially to His own people. Then it could end with the fact that indeed not Christians, with their triumphalistic Messianic perceptions, but the Jews will be able to recognize as the first one’s the Messiah as the Savior of the World.’

At a pre Christmas service in 2001, Father Dr. Reimund Beiringer, also of the Catholic University of Leuven, began his sermon with the following opening remarks: ‘when Jesus comes back he will be circumcised, he will not be able to eat at my home because it is not kosher and will look at this church and ask the Rabbi where can he find a synagogue’. The above remarkable statements confirm that Jesus the Jew continues to accept the symbol of Jewishness – the circumcision – by eating kosher he continues to observe Jewish ritual law and by attending a synagogue he continues his Jewish persona. This embodies the total antithesis of Rejection theology. Father Reimund personally asked me to attend this church service and pointed me out as the person Jesus would ask for a synagogue and at whose home he could eat.

-Rabbi Moshe Reiss
from the Introduction to
Christianity: A Jewish Perspective

I don’t know where I got this link. I tend to collect them in my email account and “save them for later.” Most of the links and resources I save never get read or written about. I just don’t have the time. But for some reason, I went back and revisited this one and read through the Introduction. As far as I can tell, this book is only available online and has ten chapters, including the introduction, conclusions, and bibliography. The landing page for the book is at moshereiss.org.

I have no idea who Rabbi Moshe Reiss is and I can’t find anything reliable about him on the web, at least as the result of a quick Google search. For all I know, his opinions and experiences are “stuffed full of muffins,” to put it politely, but I got this link from somewhere, which means someone probably recommended it.

I must admit to being intrigued by an Orthodox Rabbi to who doesn’t dismiss Christianity out of hand and who is willing to engage it to the degree that he even writes a book about it.

OK, there is also Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and his book Kosher Jesus, which I reviewed reviewed last February, but that almost doesn’t count because Rabbi Boteach is always writing about controversy. He also didn’t really “engage” Christianity so much as he tried to explain it away.

I don’t think I expected an Orthodox Jew to write something like this:

As a graduate student at Oxford University in 1970 I decided to visit the Anglican Church on Christian Eve. I was amazed how the services seemed Jewish-like to me. I discovered a class on the Talmud at Oxford. I naively assumed that the teacher would be a Rabbi; in fact he was an Anglican Minister. Not only was I amazed – having grown up in a Jewish ghetto I assumed only Jews learnt the Talmud – I was also angry. Why was this Gentile cleric reading our books? In 1984, after visiting Auschwitz I entered an Orthodox Church in Bucharest and was once again I was struck by the resemblance to a service in a Jewish Synagogue. At the time my knowledge of Christianity was virtually nil. The following year I found an ex-Jesuit Priest from Yale University who agreed to teach me the Christian Bible.

Maybe the reason the only place I can find out anything about Rabbi Reiss is on his own rather cheesy looking, 1990-ish website, is because of how the larger Orthodox community has perceived statements such as the one I just quoted. What Jew would admit on the Internet that he asked an “ex-Jesuit Priest from Yale University’ to teach him the New Testament?

Frankly, I’m also amazed at the quote from Father Dr. Reimund Beiringer saying, “when Jesus comes back he will be circumcised, he will not be able to eat at my home because it is not kosher and will look at this church and ask the Rabbi where can he find a synagogue.” I think that definitely demands an official response of, “Wow!”

So, despite the fact that I can’t really discover anything about Rabbi Reiss, I am quite intrigued to find out what else he has to say about Christianity. I’m also very interested to see if he’s encountered any other Christians who believe the Messiah will return as a circumcised Jew who keeps kosher. Imagine listening to a conversation between two guys like Rabbi Reiss and Father Beiringer over coffee.

I suppose I should say at this point that the Rabbi does have an email address on his site, so I could just send him a message and ask him about himself. I think I’ll wait though. I’ll let his book speak for him right now. Later I may have more questions I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, if anyone out there has any insights or information about Rabbi Reiss, please let me know. Thanks.

divinity, Uncategorized

Questions You Can Never Ask In Church

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There is a Yiddish saying that is familiar to many: “One doesn’t die from asking a question.” This expression is a pithy way to explain to someone who has questions that having a question — or many — is no big deal.

As one gets older and wiser, he has a broader perspective and realizes that questions are a part of life and that we make choices despite questions all the time.

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The Missing Husband”
Kereisos 11-1

I had coffee after work with a couple of guys yesterday. That’s actually kind of unusual for me since I don’t socialize very often, but this was a somewhat unusual situation. Those of you who have been following my blog for awhile know that one of my “issues” is my lack of fellowship with like-minded believers. You have probably read my discussion about why I don’t go to church. These two fellows are more or less in the same boat as I am. We are all believers, but through one process or another, we find ourselves without a congregation to which we can belong. Maybe we’re too independent or idiosyncratic or something.

So over coffee at Moxie Java, we discussed why we were meeting in the first place. We hadn’t brought our Bibles and we didn’t have a specific plan or agenda for our meeting. The most we had settled on before getting together yesterday was that we wanted to have a meeting and talk. But what about?

We came up with a number of reasons why we were more alike than unalike, and why we don’t seem to fit into a traditional church setting. One of the reasons was that we ask a lot of questions.

You might not think this is a big deal, but I know from my own experience that it’s not a good idea to ask a lot of questions in church, or at least, you shouldn’t ask questions that don’t have canned, pre-programmed, Christian answers. But we were discussing things like the Deity (or lack thereof) of Jesus and whether or not there really is a Trinity, and whether the third Temple would be a real, physical structure built by men (I think so, but someone else didn’t) or something more “spiritual.” These are questions that would probably raise a few eyebrows if you discussed them in adult Sunday school after services. They might even get you quickly escorted to the door by a couple of ushers with a strong “suggestion” never to return.

That’s the difference between how I see Christianity and Judaism. Christianity is about always having the right answers and only asking questions that map to those answers. Judaism is about always asking all kinds of questions and then struggling with the answers, maybe coming up with half a dozen possible responses, and then arguing all of them around back and forth. There’s no sin in wondering exactly what makes Jesus divine and what his relationship is with “God the Father,” but you might not get that feeling if you asked those kind of questions in a church.

But if you don’t ask questions, then you don’t learn. And if you don’t learn, then your relationship with God drops into a deadend rut and never goes anywhere for years and years.

The rebellious child who questions everything sits in a place beyond the one who has nothing to ask.

If the rebellious child questions, it is because it touches him, it says something to him. Perhaps it even bothers him.

But a perfectly capable human being who has no questions about Torah and G-d — he is stuck in his place. Perhaps he is a good religious Jew who does good deeds and never sins. But there is no sense of the spirit, of the meaning of life, of transcendence.

He is stuck in Egypt and knows of nothing higher.

—at the second Seder, 1965

Chronicled by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Inquisitively Challenged”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

I was discussing this matter with a Pastor on his blog the other day, and his response was that the issue wasn’t Christianity vs. Judaism, but west vs. east. He said that the eastern churches tended to very much encourage question asking and wrestling over difficult issues. The western church tends to be more “goal-oriented” and likes conclusions rather than conundrums. That may well be true. I don’t know. I do know that the traditional Yeshiva model of learning is to argue opposing positions and “posing problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes.” (from the lyrics to If I Were a Rich Man)

broken-crossSo there we were, three guys sitting around drinking mediocre coffee and occasionally having our conversation being drowned out by the latte machine, asking questions, posing problems, and generally discussing matters that would “cross a Pastor’s eyes.”

But it felt good.

Part of getting close to God is meditating upon Him and His awesome, mighty works and wonders. Part of getting close to God is prayer. Part of getting close to God is reading the Bible and studying the Torah commentaries of the ancient Jewish sages.

And part of knowing God is getting together with a few other guys in a coffee shop in southwestern Idaho and talking about Him, asking all the questions we can’t ask other people, and hoping we get at a few answers, or better yet, a few more questions, that surprise and challenge us.

Because if we can’t find a way to get closer to Him, we’ll always be too far away.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works. –Psalm 73:25-28 (ESV)

We’ll get together again next Thursday after work and see how it goes. Maybe, I’ll have a good question to ask. I hope no one comes up with just one answer.

"When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness." -Rabbi Tzvi Freeman