The very first words of today’s parasha, Vayikra, and of the
Book of Leviticus are:
וַיִּקְרָא אֶל-מֹשֶׁה וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֵלָיו מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר
“And [He] called to Moshe and God spoke to him from the Tent
of Meeting.” And there follows for much of the Book of Leviticus, rules for the
precise ways in which various sacrifices, rites, and laws, for various members
of society, should be executed. A number of commentators, including Rashi and
Ramban, have noted that the subject of the verb “to call” is implied; the one
who is doing the calling is not explicitly stated. No speaker is specified
until the second verb (“and God spoke”). In English, the literal translation is
something like: “And there called to Moshe and there spoke god to him.”
The 19th century German Jewish commentator Samson
Rafael Hirsch argues that the uncommon syntax of this sentence is there to
specify a transcendant god – to make
clear that “when God spoke with Moses, it was indeed the word of God addressed
to Moses by God Himself… [not something] emanating from within Moses himself.”
The Hassidic commentator Rabbi
Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl
I want to encourage us today to consider the risks
of believing in any god, whether transcendent or immanent.
First, a little background. I am a ritual-loving Jew. I have been a (mostly dues paying)
member of this minyan and of GJC for over 20 years. I met my wife here, my son
is an ECP veteran and now in the religious school here, and bsha tova he will celebrate
his bar mitzvah here. Through much of my adult life we I’ve constructed with
you all, in shul and in our homes, rituals drawn from the stunningly beautiful
fabric of our continually evolving Jewish tradition. I love being part of that
ongoing conversation, that meaning-making process with you. And as part of my
Jewish practice, I have been studying in chevurta with Reb Shai Gluskin for the
past 2 years about ritual and holiness in Torah, Talmud, and liturgy.
The only problem is: I don’t believe in god.
I’m coming out today, stating my beliefs and feelings in the
most public way, because I am aware of the power of coming out, as a way to
build genuine community, empower us, and break down shame, exclusion, and
hiding. We Jews intimately know the pain of hiding, the crush of assimilation;
in many ways even we identified lot operate at times as crypto-Jews. I’m coming
out because I want to declare that my love (of the world and the Jewish people)
is good and authentic. So I am a proud
and out ritual loving Jewish atheist!
Nu, how is it that I enjoy and engage in some ritual,
minhag, and mitzvot? Because it’s clear to me that we humans are deeply
hardwired to operate in part on the level of emotion, archetype, and tribe. We
operate on many levels at once, so I revel in that.
You might ask, “why don’t you go to the folkshul, with the
other heretics?” The answer is that I belong (literally and figuratively) here
at Dorshei and GJC. Having a sense of place here, walking here, in my own
neighborhood, is very precious for me. I am here to be with my tribe, to engage
with my people, to sing with my clan, to resonate with my friends. I love
singing with you; resonating together connects us to our ancestors and to each
other.
I want to be clear. I am not an agnostic, but a machmir atheist. I don’t believe in any god, whether transcendent of
immanent. Though it’s technically impossible to prove a negative, the way I
think about it is: I am as sure that there is no god as one can be of any
negative statement, as confident as that Zeus, and Santa Claus, and ghosts do
not exist -- (except in our imaginations, as archetypes, where they are very
powerful). Saying
Ruach Ha-Olam is better than Melech Ha-Olam, but it still wrankles.
Fortunately (?) my Hebrew is poor enough that I understand
very little of the prayers and psalms I am chanting. I try not to look too hard
at the translations, because they give me the willies for the most part. I am
most comfortable with a niggun, or the yay day day part of any prayer.
I’m searching for a way to be
honest and in integrity while reciting these god-oriented prayers with you all.
And I find myself being curious about how others are praying. I know for most of us, attending shul is a
work in progress; I’m hoping our conversation today will allow any others who
choose to come out a little about how we are doing shul and life.
I find myself getting a little scared raising this taboo
subject. So, I remind myself that this sort of discussion about the interplay
among the god of the bible, the god of prayer and the rabbis, and the god of
modern times – that god-wrestling discussion -- is profoundly Jewish, and very
much within our tradition. So I am
calling on the spirit of Yitzchach Aveenu, Rambam, Spinoza, and Kaplan, as well
as Freud and Sherwin Wine.
And I profoundly appreciate that in most congregations
around the world, I’d have no standing to even discuss this blasphemy. I am deeply moved and grateful for and proud
of your listening. This is great credit to Dorshei.
So back to the risks of god. Vayikra: “He called,” --
believers and activists of various stripes say “I was called to do such and such.” Called by whom? What’s the difference
between saying on the one hand: “I was called (implying by a transcendent or
immanent God)”; versus on the other hand saying “I followed my gut instinct or
what I thought was ethical, and I chose?” For starters, the passive voice
smacks of Nixon cronies saying “mistakes were made” – instead of accepting
personal responsibility for their actions. My view is: use an I (or a we)
statement!
The way I see it, we converse with ourselves, or we converse
with other humans – and not with any actual gods or spirits, whether external
or internal. I am suggesting that believing that we are speaking to a god that
exists independent of us can diminish the quality of our listening and talking
to ourselves and to our peers, and ultimately make us less ethically responsible to ourselves and to one another.
In my view, we can influence some things in life, and other
things we can’t; the power we small beings have is certainly limited. My worry
is that saying that a transcendent “god (or a devil or angel) told me to do
it,” -- offloads the limited power and responsibility we do have. Even the immanentist, god-within version of this – such as
“I felt the spark of god within” or the new age versions of this, such as “I
felt the spirit saying” – are betraying the thinly veiled supernaturalism that
seems to be lurking, for me at least, in any god language.
I find myself worrying that admitting any god makes the
world safe for Pat Robertson, and so many other fundamentalists who fail to
take responsibility for their views and actions by claiming that god is on
their side or within them. I think it’s more powerful and ethical of us to say,
“when I do something, or interpret scripture this or that way, it is I who do
it, influenced deeply by my interconnectedness with the web of life – not by “god
(or a spark of god), or Yetzer Tov or Yetzer Hara.” The risk is that by
empowering a non-existent entity, we disempower ourselves: we give up some of our
responsibility to act justly and morally in the world.
We know that we don’t need god to be ethical. There is
abundant evidence that a moral instinct is a hardwired inborn organ of the
human mind. Like language, the organ must be nurtured to mature and blossoms
based on the surrounding culture; but the fundamental structure – like the
language instinct – is there at birth.
As contemporary scholars Baruch Levine and Everett Fox
suggest, a lot of Leviticus, even much of torah
as a whole, is about forming the people Israel -- partly by designating us
as distinct from our ancient Near Eastern neighbors. We contrast ourselves with
other groups by the god we worship; and
via how that god commands us to do holiness, sacrifice, kashrut, purity, and
justice. Throughout Leviticus, the Israelites are forbidden to follow the
impure ways of other nations or to worship any other deity (e.g., Molech, Baal,
or “ghosts and familiar spirits”).
In my view, a lot of this is about our proclaiming that “our
god is better than their god!” We practice this
way, and not that way like our
neighbors. John Haidt, a moral psychologist in the tradition of Piaget and
Kohlberg, demonstrates how our ethical, religious, and even our political
beliefs, rituals, and practices bind us
-- but also blind us. They bind us
together in groups; they are the engine of group identity and community; but
our moral stances and our group identities also blind us to the humanity of other groups.
Ultimately, the risk, I think, is that we can make an idol of even our god. In some ways, we Jews take
proper credit for monotheism, for paring down the number of gods from many to
one. Our ancient ancestors brilliantly saw the risks of idol worship. And Maimonedes
wrote of paring down the concept of god, from the god of biblical sacrifice to
the god of prayer. Likewise, many of us moderns, including reconstructionsists,
have again pared down the concept of god, excluding elements here and there of
the god of the bible, the white bearded man in the sky, the petitionary god,
the vengeful or merciful god. Perhaps the natural evolution of the radical
Jewish view of montheism is to continue paring down god until we get to zero.
If we are genuinely seeking god, trying to connect with the ground of all
being, the source, we have to embrace that there may not be one. Perhaps all
gods, including ours, are idols.
So, with the kavanah that I’m
searching for a way to be honest and in integrity while reciting these prayers
with you all, let me kick off the conversation with 3 questions. And beezrat hashem (god willing), we’ll be
able to listen deeply to one another:
1) Is
there a way in which we are complicit with supernaturalism simply by reciting
these prayers?
2) Are
we at risk of making an idol of god?
3) Do
we need god to bind us together as a group and keep us moral?
You can click here for a longer and more in depth version of this dvar.
To respond personally to Richard: sternpsychology at gmail.com
