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Diaryland
YHWH's Challenge October 13, 2005 @ 10:44 p.m.
Yom Kippur went about as good as a day of atonement can go. Its never been my favorite Jewish holiday, but at least I don't get annual sickness anymore. I fasted from both food and drink, which was harder than I thought because last week my parents brought home this big tin box full of Danish Butter cookies that I've been enjoying nibbling on all week. That, and I seem to make frequent trips to the refridgerator - I didn't realize how frequent until today. Along with the fasting, I didn't play any games or do any business. When I wasn't at one of the three services today, I worked on the family tree, read spiritual books, and took somewhat of a nap.
Services went pretty well all things considered. The Rabbi here at Beth Emeq in Pleasanton is pretty good, and he gave a very good sermon talking about the passages we read from, dealing with death and the disasters, the priority of compassion, the process of repentence, and how God "takes no pleasure in the death of sinners" but is always looking for ways to steer us on the right path.
There was a young female intern rabbi there who is probably a nice gal, but who was kind of annoying. She had a voice like a frog when she sang, and as she saw fit to sing along with the cantor right in front of the microphone, the result was quite cacophonous. Her sermon also reminded me of a junior high report. I was almost waiting for her to say:
"My sermon, by _______, Mrs. Bickner's class".
And it wasn't just the content - her enunciation sounded like one of my 7th graders at Ner Shalom. Maybe I'm being too harsh here, but if she's gonna become a rabbi, she needs some more training in rhetoric and voice.
One thing I found myself thinking about constantly during the service was Roxanne and how our experiences and views of the Divine are so different. I don't have much right to criticize her, seeing that everyone has mystical and paranormal experiences differently, and I have yet to communicate with spirits the way she does. I've already exhausted her asking about her experiences and trying to gently make sense or even question them - even insulted her once, though she didn't take it too harshly. Its just that, in her experience, the universe is populated by deities with lots of personality and idiosyncracies who do all manner of strange and crazy things. She claims to have talked with so many from so many different pantheons... even YHWH, God of Yisrael. But she says that He is just another god and has as many personalities and idiosyncracies as the rest. I can accept that as a possibility, given that archaelogy seems to show that YHWH was originally a tribal god of Midian who was eventually, through syncretism, nationalism, xenophobia and mystical experiences, made into THE God. But it begs all sorts of questions.
I say that even if that is the case, my focus is towards worship of Truth, the Source and sustainer of everything. But Roxy seems to say that when you get that high up, the Highest doesn't care whether it is worshipped or not - its not even personal. It only cares about us to the extent that we are microscopic elements in its unfolding.
I consider all of this, as I sit through a service that reminds me and reiterates both what I was raised to believe and what I believe because it resonates with me - that there is only one God, even if It appears on the surface to have contradictory aspects. That Unity is the basis for a hope in justice and meaning and the rule of law in our lives. And It is wrong to acknowledge other gods, because God is beyond form and other gods are not really gods.
I guess, as I sit here writing this, I realize that the hostility I wanted to see in her beliefs is not as much there as I thought. She has never said my faith is a lie. She is a good guide in that she constantly pushes me back inside myself for my own answers. As much of a relativist that she is, she believes that deep bonding friendship and true abiding respect are powerful enough to solve most of the world's problems, and come the closest to an absolute truth. Love seems the closest thing I've ever found to an absolute truth, so maybe this isn't so bad.
Its just that, I don't know what to do. I'm so confused and scared that I'll make the wrong move and damn my soul, even if there's no fiery hell to punish me for it. Sometimes being your own judge is almost as bad as having to account to someone else.
She says that making YHWH the only God was man's doing. Yet what am I to make of the prophets who proclaimed His singularity, if they are spoken for authentically? In all of this, how can I discern man's work from God's? How can a person know Truth? Does Truth even care about us? Or is that just another Jewish myth?
I used to think that if I could just have a mystical experience, everything would sort itself out. God, Truth - whatever it was could just tell me in person. Now I'm not so sure. I think mystical and spiritual practice is still the best way to go, but I realize now that even if I am as vigilant as possible and as pious in prayer for veracity as I can be, there is no guarantee that I will not be deceived on some level. Maybe, rather than decieved, just exposed to a message that has inherant limits.
How can I know? Can I know? Or are we all just dancing in the dark?
In services today, we read from prayerbooks that have been repeated for decades. The books are beautiful and profound, but they take it for granted that Judaism is at least right in its major tenets - Yisrael has a god, THE God, our's is the only true one, and all the others are not really gods and shouldn't be worshipped. YHWH created the Universe and dedicated our lives to a purpose. He revealed laws and told us there was a right way to live and a wrong way. Even though he allows the forces of nature and humankind to work misery and trial in our lives, He wants us to constantly strive to improve ourselves despite and through these tribulations.
But what is worship, and what is honor? What is art, and what is idolatry? Is an abstract God necessarily better than an imminent one? An impersonal better than a personal? Was Monotheism merely a justification for xenophobia, and Reform Judaism an effort to rationalize something that was never rational to begin with?
I received two gifts last night from my parents, independently. My father gave me one of his tzitzit - his prayer shawl he received at his bar mitzvah. And in the same night, my mom gave me a statue - maybe an idol - of a laughing Buddha. I was never confirmed even if I was a Bar Mitzvah. Suddenly, its like I am, and I don't even feel I deserve it. Some people treat me as if I am obviously a Jew for life - that I have accepted at least the version taught to me and can predictably live it out and pass it on. Others treat me as if I've left all that Judeo/Christian bs behind, and have no idea that as eclectic and open-minded as I try to be, I still consider the possibility that there may be only one true faith. People think I am an adult. I'm old enough to be one. And yet the certainty I always thought I would need and have by now is nowhere to be found. Perhaps it never existed, and my parents and ancestors have all played this game of seeming wisdom for eons.
People say that we have to choose God, but more and more I see that in our lives, gods choose us. Djehuti and Loki came to Roxanne and took her for themselves - whether for past experience, compatibility, altruism or sheer selfishness I may never know. Though I have never spoken face to face with YHWH, He too has claimed me, and the situation is the same. Pagan gods, Jewish God - it makes no difference. Both lay before us blessings and curses in one way or another.
I was born into YHWH's religions, but I have left their exoteric dogma and laws behind me, half-wondering if maybe I might have to pick them back up and submit myself fully to them someday. Yet, even knowing that I could simply just choose to believe whatever appeals to me, as I did with Novus Spiritus and Sylvia Brown, He instilled me with such an urgency to be responsible that I have never been able to abandon the Challenge of it. In fact, that knawing was what drove me into leaving Novus and all the fluffy faiths that want to paint everything as good and downplay or ignore the existence of evil and suffering and personal responsibility.
Judaism is a Challenge. It is a challenge that says that Truth exists - that it is out there, and that there is some kind of absolute, even if it is so miniscule and hidden in aeons of relativity and subjectivity as to never be fully discernable. It offers you an explanation, and you can discard that explanation or take it to heart, even to different degrees or in different ways. But even if you discard some of it or all of it, you cannot discard the responsibility. Because the responsibility is not based on Judaism - it is based on Life.
Life demands to know what you will replace the answers with. If not the laws of Moses, what laws will you live by? If not the justice of a blessing and cursing God and a society that lives by it, what justice will it be? If you will not accept the literal truth of a collection of scriptures and traditions, will you follow a Higher Truth, and if so how?
Judaism is the challenge. It is the religion and the culture and the experience and the frustration and the screaming in the dark. It begs a question, and it curses those with easy answers. It demands that if we are not to accept the answers it provides, we must honestly and fully search out the answers. We must find a standard for our lives, even if it is not Moses'. And cursed is the one who picks one prematurely.
Many people leave Monotheism because they judge it not to work for them. They cite so many valid points - all the violence, the hypocrisy, the intolerance, the pain. And maybe I am insane or stupid or just too weak willed that I continue to look for authentic meaning in religions that have played such a role of suffering in the history of the world. I know many people can't understand what I see in it.
I've searched it through in so many ways, through so many paths. Experienced all the highs and lows. YHWH and Yisrael and Jesus' experience is now my experience. They are a part of me - they ARE me. I have seen them at their best and their worst. I have loved them and hated them. And I find myself open to every possible Truth about them. I know that the Universe is beyond my comprehension - there are so many possibilities. One true God, many gods, false gods, a false God, no gods, and all the countless other possibilities that lie within and beyond these options.
I don't care anymore what the Truth is. I don't care whether it will make any sense or not. I don't care whether it will bring me joy or misery. I don't even care whether there is hope or not. I just have to know, and the urgency of that knowing boils up inside me every day. I
t is still weak comparitively - weak enough that I am not yet willing to sacrifice everything for it. I still cling to temporary pleasures, worried that they may be all there is to enjoy and that eternal pleasures are a myth. I still reject some things as always wrong. I still cry out against all the suffering in the world - especially in these last few years of seemingly insane and meaningless deaths by the tens of thousands.
But this will grow in me until it is the Only Thing left. It isn't a choice anymore, though I can make it more my own if I choose. Everything propels me towards it.
I drew two cards repeatedly in my tarot contemplations the last few days - Death, and the Wheel of Fortune.
Change is inevitable, and tension is a part of that change. The question is not can we avoid it - it is how we wish to handle it. Most importantly, do we want to engage it deliberately and actively, or refuse life until it breaks down the doors and smashes our towers down to teach us the hard way.
How will I know? Can I know? I'm only hanging on to possibility now. I pray that Jesus was right and a mustard seed is all that is required. It is all I can give.
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
Not So Quick Questions - April 6, 2009
The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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