Where is God?

The Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gregarin, is alleged to have quipped upon reaching outer space, ‘I looked and looked but didn’t see G-d’[1].  Well, he looked in the wrong place and wasted loads of fuel in the process.   But, if G-d is not floating in the majesty of outer space, where could He be?  

                One nuance in an easily overlooked verse tells us where to find G-d.  As always, this is for those interested enough to look for Him.[2]  It says in verse 17:22, ‘And G-d finished speaking to Abraham and G-d went up from upon Abraham’.  Sounds heavy, but these two words give away the secret.  The verse should have said that G-d went up from Abraham.  They were having a conversation, and when they were done they went their separate ways.[3] But the way the verse literally reads, G-d was on top of Abraham. Our medieval teacher Rashi brings mystical wisdom to the rescue,’…we learn from here that the righteous people are the chariot of G-d’. 

                There is no need to go to outer space in search of G-d.  There is a simpler way to find G-d.  He resides with those people that emulate him, and the only challenge now is to find those people who are, unfortunately, few and far between.  When we act in a way that befits a sublime being, people recognize that there is G-dliness behind everything. And, more than that, G-d’s presence goes out of hiding and is given a place to dwell in the world. When people complain that how can we believe in a G-d we can’t see or interact with, the answer is that we can.  However, we don’t have enough divine representatives around today to facilitate the interaction. 

                This is supported by real life stories. More than any philosophical proof, the people who leave the fold are those who were negatively influenced by a person who purported to represent G-d, but did just the opposite.  On the other hand, those who have joined the fold are there in large part by the people they have met along the way. They see people sleeping four hours a night, fueled by an inner passion and joy that bespeaks of the divine.  Obviously, the Torah itself has an inescapable depth that even a skeptic has to admit.  But when it is lived properly, even the skeptic has to rest his case because that is when they meet the divine itself.  

               

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[1] Others claim it was a fabricated quote by anti-religious Russian propaganda

[2] And I don’t recommend looking only at times of desperate need because people don’t appreciate being used; people want a real relationship based on mutual respect and love, so too G-d, though if you just can’t help it, He is forgiving enough to overlook this oversight at times of crisis

[3] Again, G-d is obviously transcendental and infinite and never goes anywhere. But in His relationship with us, He constricts himself so that we can relate to him. So all of this is from our limited perspective but does not reflect reality. 

The opening Scene

            There is rare disorder called congenital analgesia.  Really, it should be every person’s dream to contract the disease.  It is a disorder that takes away the sensation of physical pain. Many people are scarred by physical trauma that happens to them and it can take years to heal from such wounds.  But, it turns out that pain is an indispensable part of a human being.  Sufferers of this disease live shorter lives because pain is used in the body as a tool to signal danger.  Therefore, without signals, the people with the disease, especially as children, get in to many dangerous situations that can cost their limbs and life.  So while they may not suffer physical pain, there is no lack of tragedy to their condition, and if asked, they would probably tell you they prefer some pain.

            What we just discussed is that pain is a crucial part to normal function.  Rather than a foe, pain can be our most trusted friend.  But it is much deeper than that.  There is a type of pain that defines humanity more than any other-shame.  Right after woman was individualized and separated from man, the Torah’s first description of the internal state of man is that ‘they were both naked, but they were not ashamed’.[1]  Of all the descriptions we could have ascribed to man in the opening scene, it chooses a negative description; he was not something.  Not only that, is shame the most important thing to tell us about man?  Tell me he was really happy to finally have a wife, or tell me about the love he felt at that moment. Why is shame, or lack thereof, the fundamental snapshot that tells us about what man is all about?

            Shame is a strange pain because it is spiritual.  We are wired to have a gauge of spiritual progress. When we meet our spiritual standard, we feel great.  If we don’t, we feel a strange pain called shame.  Shame is the proof that by man the physical world finally met the spiritual one.  They were now going to be interwoven and their destinies tied.  Not surprisingly, the face is the canvas for this pain.  Our face reveals our inside (in fact, the word face in Hebrew, פנים, means inside) more than any other part of our body and that is why it carries the physical manifestation of the pain.  

            The Talmud states that a person who embarrasses, ‘or whitens the face’ of another it is like he killed him. It sounds like hyperbole in order to scare children into following a nice moral lesson.   But it really isn’t.  Death is the process of destroying a body to a point where it can no longer house a soul, and therefore, they disconnect.  Shame is destroying the dignity of a soul and so it temporary leaves the body- it is the same disconnection.   

            Perhaps, the biggest ailment to the world is that this pain is nearly extinguished.  This pain is too difficult to deal with for most, and so it is better left numbed. The problem is that shame is our fuel to grow.  Through the pain of knowing what we could be, we strive.  That is why it is the most important attribute to man.  The first thing to know about man is that he was the first creation that could connect the spiritual and physical world and that his goal in life is to reach his spiritual potential on pain of shame.

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[1] Based on Rabbi Lopiansky Bereishes

[2] Genesis 2:25

A fragile existence

               

               Things that are brittle are easy to break.  They are inflexible; therefore, if the environment exerts enough pressure to move it out of its narrow range of motion, it breaks.    Similarly, in a person, being set in one’s ways is a dangerous proposition in a variegated environment.  If the environment is no longer suited to that way of being, then a person ‘breaks’.   To become strong requires the ability to adjust and that is one of the central messages of the Sukkah.

                For seven days the Talmud says, ‘get out from your fixed dwelling and dwell in an impermanent one’.  If you do so, you will gain tremendous strength.  It is strength through flexibility.  Among the many ideas behind the Sukkah, the idea of impermanence can apply to a person’s character.  Get unstuck from a fixed way of acting and learn to be impermanent, or in other words, learn to use more than one way- expand your repertoire.

                Mystically, the Sukkah is related to our forefather Yaakov.  He is the only forefather to have dwelled in the Sukkah.  Why is Yaakov the forefather that is intimately linked to a Sukkah? Because he represents truth, and truth is an amalgamation of both right and left, spiritual and physical, love and justice.  He is able to shift according to the correct way to be given the environment.  And when someone is able to accomplish that, he can never break because he is always in resonance with what is happening around him.  

               It is an ironic world.  From the outside, the Torah seems to be a rigid cage of iron clad rules. From the inside, the whole goal is the opposite- to be internally pliable, to free our self from a set way of looking at the world.  As an important aside, the process of Talmudic learning is the ultimate training ground for this goal.  It deals with intellectual flexibility, and learning to see other perspectives.  As we get to Sukkos, we kick our self out of the house and learn to be internally diverse.  Things can always change and we need to be ready to change with it.