The Word Jews Dare Not Utter

Jews rarely talk about G-d and I wish we did more of it. At services this Shabbat, I marvelled at the liturgy once again, how infused it was with G-dspeak - it is not just a paean to G-d but a meditation on G-d's nature and G-d's deeds. It brings up all those questions that we could wrestle with about our real place in the universe, vis-à-vis, G-d, and His place with us.

In 3 hours' worth of liturgy it's all G-d. Our every concern, every emotion, is validated and sanctified in addressing Him. Practically every line addresses G-d. G-d G-d G-d. It is G-d as Redeemer, Slayer, Judge, Lover, Counsellor, Father, King, Lord, Creator of Fantastical Histories and Characters, Creator of the Glories of the Cosmos, and on and on . Consider the paragraph before the K'riat Sh'ma in the morning service: I still get a thrill when G-d, My Hero, is described as "being unique, doing mighty deeds, creating new life, championing justice, sowing rightousness, reaping victory, bringing healing" (Siddur Sim Shalom). I imagine G-d as Champion, swashbuckling His way through history. Of course, someone else might imagine G-d as Baseball Commissioner.

I would like to believe that G-d will once again do all the things He did in the Bible, in a spectacular way. More likely, it will be in small, quiet ways. Someone once said, we read the liturgy not as a profession of belief but so that we might someday believe, a statement most hopeful. And though that might be the intent of liturgy, frankly, it sounds like cold comfort over time. Oh yeah, G-d is real and I do believe. And all liturgical prayer gives me something I need desperately at time- all kinds of hope.

So I am mystified that though the liturgy encompasses the gamut of Jewish belief about G-d, that is, Jewish faith , we so rarely talk about it amongst ourselves. I know that deeds matter far more than faith, but it seems to me that Jewish faith and the experience of G-d are treated rather like a mongrel, with a right to life but not to love. I sometimes get the distinct feeling that either people do not believe or believe little or have never thought much about what they believe. What do Jews individually believe, anyway? Yes, we can perform deeds even if we are faithless, but it seems rather barren and not in the spirit of covenant. There's more to a covenant than doing and obeying. It's not just a contract.

In prayer we are praising the Biblical, historical, transcendent, immanent and immediate, G-d, and having done our 'duty', we walk out the door into what kind of life? A faithless one? That tidal wash of words, of thoughts and feelings, remind me of the Root and Source of all things, of why I do the things I do, of why I am here. But they also inherently assume a relationship with G-d. G-d is not simply out there. We can draw near to G-d and bring G-d to us when we struggle to limn our beliefs; like blind people, we reach out to feel and trace their shape and form and why it matters . G-d cannot simply be a transcendent Being, out there, untouchable, unreachable, for any Jew, because we share that covenant with G-d, which means that both covenanters are active in a relationship and accountable to each other. It's not just about the covenant, either- it's about G-d, too. It is not just about rules- we have a stake and a share in His dreams.

I know that Christianity seems to have cornered the market on G-d discussions and faith, since, as I understand it, you only need faith to be redeemed. Perhaps avoiding such discussion keeps Jews from sounding (G-d forbid) like Christians! I largely meet Jews who know halacha and not G-d, who know about Torah and observance, but when I mention G-d they smile and shift uncomfortably, don't have much to say. I don't know how one keeps going without connecting with G-d. I don't know what sustains others. Oh, don't tell me that our relationship with G-d is personal and private either because that suspiciously sounds like a Christian god; I am talking about G-d as we Jews relate to Him, knowing what we know about Torah and mitzvot and prayer and life.

I have a friend who is not certain that we have immortal souls. I have another who is not certain there is life after death. I know someone who davens fairly regularly at minyan, and she said that she did not pray to relate to G-d but she felt better after davenning. Huh? And this woman lost her son (may his memory be a blessing) to brain cancer in his 30's. All of these women are fabulous Jewesses, real mensches, walk the talk. In the face of uncertain belief, they remain stalwart in their practice. I get it but I don't get it. Yet, I found them even more admirable because of that fact. It's like atheists who make the world a better place, depending totally on themselves to do it, without promise of future anything.

What we believe defines our relationship to everything- to G-d, to the world, to the future, to each other. It also defines the person. To try to understand the cosmic significance of things is not to dabble in esoterica- it completes one. Yes, to know there is a soul and afterlife does not bring reassurance to our present lives or necessarily transform them. Nor is it required for Jewish practice. But how much more diminished or perhaps impoverished does our practice become over time, if G-d, and questions about G-d, do not engage us? It is wrestling with the questions that enriches our experience, and gives us the possibility of that relationship. Expressing praise or supplication, if you don't believe in something, or long for something, if it doesn't come from the heart, seems an empty exercise.

If we are uncomfortable or fear talking about G-d, and only practice matters, then, why do we bother to pray? Why is the liturgy so rich in expression? Is it just a cover for the impossible?

I've been thinking recently about Reconstructionism and the idea that Judaism is an historic and ongoing creation of the Jewish people in their search for meaning and sacred living, rather than founded upon Divine Revelation. This would make the "G-d'" of the Jews, also a creation of imagination and inspiration. Perhaps Reconstructionsim is the end result of an inability to experience G-d as very real. Some Jews have created a 'religious civilisation' with a god, but not the G-d. It follows that in a world dominated by reason it is the only reasonable conclusion, for one real G-d seems an impossibility, almost an absurdity.

What if, then, it is possible, over millennia, for a religious nation/community based on Revelation to evolve into a kind of religious civilisation, because G-d has left the building? We read about G-d's gradual withdrawal from the sanctuary until only the Shechina lingers, like a wraith, following us forlornly yet loyally from oasis to oasis in our nomadic wanderings. How sad that is. What if even the Shechina (feminine aspect of G-d, indwelling Presence) is largely no longer welcome, a stranger in her own home, because nobody really believes in her? And without belief of some sort, one cannot ultimately know her.

I recently happened, in my net reading, upon the story of a young woman called Lauren Winner, who has become quite famous/infamous by converting to Orthodox Judaism and then a scant few years later, to Christianity. My first thought was that she is a dilettante and will move on once again when a religion doesn't satisfy her. Sounds more like my own fears actually, than anything to do with her- I hear my parents' voices. One of the reasons she turned to Christianity was because she felt that her Judaism did not focus on a relationship with G-d:

I hesitate to say those things because the Jews with whom I have had the privilege to pray, study, sing, and eat are among the most loving and insightful people I know, and they have taught me almost everything important that I know about God. Not the Jesus part, no, but there is a lot about God you can learn before you learn about his son. I learned about God as creator, forgiver, lover, father, mother, quiet in-dwelling presence, and judge. There was one thing I did not learn: how to have an intimate relationship with Him.

My reading however, of this and other statements is that it was not Judaism that failed her, but Jews. She was treated differently by her community, snubbed often as a convert. Her boyfriend said he would have to look for someone born Jewish to marry. Gossip was spread about her, that she only converted in order to wed. When asking about more personal prayer, she was exhorted to follow the liturgy strictly. She became disaffected, as many born Jews are. Now she is a Christian. She needed Jesus for that feeling of intimacy. She needed Jesus also because she lacked intimacy with the community.

It has long been my view that Jesus, whoever he was, was needed as an embodied image of G-d for those who could not relate to G-d himself. Even though the stories in the Torah shout out how intimate the relationships with G-d were. And I don't for one second believe that we are so far from Sinai that we have grown in ignorance and have to struggle harder with each successive generation. Even the Torah proves it, because one of its subtexts delineates a spiritual evolution, and the increasing intimacy between G-d and humans, a true Biblical "knowing". Even as material darkness is strangling us, the strength of Torah light shines brighter, burns more deeply as seekers struggle to find and know G-d. That it has not come to fruition is a failure on the part of those of us who should know better. I don't blame Lauren Winner. I blame those who should have advised her and shown her ways to know G-d.

Why do we not talk about G-d? Why do we frown upon intimacy with Him? It is our legacy. It is where it all began.

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Ugh, I feel as if I have been rambling. I wish I were raising tomatoes as I used to. I enjoy reading J-blogs by tomato raisers. I wonder what kind of tomatoes are grown in Israel. At one time, I used to pore over the spring catalogues and agonise over choosing my seeds. I would have 7 varieties every year- 5 stalwarts and 2 new, usually exotic, varieties. About 20-22 bushes in all. One lb. heirloom tomatoes at one time. Small black tomatoes from Russia. Brandywines- Amish, I believe. Well, I can't speak of that any longer, but I do eat tomatoes. I had one yesterday and I will have one today. Fresh, and local. From the soil, not a hothouse.