Skip to main content

God Is Not a Man Who Lives in the Sky

Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner is a book I would recommend. Rabbi Kushner’s writings have helped many people through very difficult times in their lives, especially his famous book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In that book, he chronicled the experience of being with his sick and dying child, Aaron, who had one of the world’s rarest diseases, progeria (the “rapid-aging” syndrome).

I discovered how inadequate the traditional perspective was that I had grown up with and had been taught, that God has His reasons, which we cannot comprehend or judge. It neither made sense of the suffering nor offered us much in the way of comfort. If I was to continue to serve as a rabbi and to honor my son’s memory, I would have to find a better explanation. (p. 6)

The second chapter of Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life is called God Is Not a Man Who Lives in the Sky and he shares some things he believes and doesn’t believe about God. Before you read the quotes from Rabbi Kushner’s book, it is important to remember what Hebrew scholar William Chomsky wrote about words.

Language is not merely a means of expression and communication; it is an instrument of experiencing, thinking and feeling, as well as a means of self-expression and personal growth. Our ideas and experiences are not independent of language; they are all integral parts of the same pattern, the warp and woof of the same texture. Words and idioms are as indispensable to our thoughts and experiences as are colors and tints to a painting. Language and experience are inextricably interwoven, and the awareness of one awakens the other. (Hebrew: The Eternal Language by William Chomsky © 1957 by the Jewish Publications Society of America, Philadelphia, PA; p. 3)

Rabbi Kushner was ordained in June 1960. Over the past 55 years, he has faced many joyous and extremely painful life experiences members of his congregations and others, as well as sharing his personal experiences with the public. Those experiences are woven into the following words.

● The truth is, life is unfair, and we would do well to come to terms with that fact. (p. 29)

● I don’t believe in a God who treats human beings like puppets, pulling our strings to make us do things, or a God who spends His mornings deciding who shall live and who shall die, let alone who will win a high school football game. (p. 31)

● I don’t believe in a God who is so emotionally needy that He can be bribed by flattery or blind obedience. (p. 32)

● The God I believe in is not so insecure that He holds it against people who doubt His existence, nor is He so eager to punish that He condemns people to Hell for errors of heart, mind, or faith. (p. 32)

● The God I believe in is under no obligation to be the kind of God we would like Him to be, or even the kind of God we need Him to be. Begging Him, bargaining with Him, even living by His mandates will not cause the rain to fall and give us an abundant harvest, nor will it cure our disease or help us win the lottery. God’s role is not to make our lives easier, to make the hard things go away, or to do them for us. God’s role is to give us the vision to know what we need to do, to bless us with the qualities of soul that we will need in order to do them ourselves, no matter how hard they may be, and to accompany us on that journey. (p. 33)

As I said above, I highly recommend Rabbi Kushner’s book and appreciate his service to mankind.

Shalom,

Jim Myers

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why did they lay their coats at Saul's feet?

The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew   sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the   sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to what he
Post a Comment
Read more

Are Saul and Paul the Same Person?

There has always been some confusion over whether Saul and Paul is the same person. The confusion begins in the Book of Acts. ● “Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul . . . he brought him to Antioch . . . for a whole year they taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called ‘ Christians ’ in Antioch .” ( Acts 11:25-26 ) ● “ Then Agrippa said to Paul , `You almost persuade me to become a Christian .’” ( Acts 26:28) ● “ Then Saul , who also  is called   Paul . . . ” ( Acts 13:9a ) Based on the three verses above, we would assume they are references to the same person – but is he the Paul we read about in the Epistles? The name “ Saul ” doesn’t appear in the Epistles. In order to answer that question we must examine the stories of the “ conversion experiences ” of Saul in Acts and Paul in Galatians . Pay close attention to the time periods and places mentioned in both accounts. Saul’s experience is found in Acts 9 and it took
Post a Comment
Read more

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise’s Sermon at Synagogue on Jewish Jesus Causes a Storm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Samuel_Wise#/media/File:Stephen_Samuel_Wise.jpg Rabbi Stephen S. Wise gave this sermon in late December 1925 and it set off a storm of protests in Jewish communities.  Before you read the article, it is important for you to be aware of some of the accomplishments of Rabbi Wise. ● a founder of the New York Federation of Zionist Societies in 1897 ● first vice-president of the   Oregon State Conference of Charities and Correction in 1902 ● appointed Commissioner of Child Labor for the State of Oregon in 1903 ● co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ● founding of American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) in 1918 ● founded the   Jewish Institute of Religion, an educational center in New York City  in 1922 ● founding president of the World Jewish Congress in 1936 (created to fight Nazism) ● co-chair of the American Zionist Emergency Council in WWII ● held press conference
Post a Comment
Read more