Metaphor. Handle with Care.

I love metaphor and believe that metaphoric thinking is key to spiritual understanding. But metaphor can be misleading when the feeling the metaphor evokes trumps the wisdom it is meant to impart. Martin Buber’s metaphor “the eclipse of God” is a case in point.

Krista Tippett in her lovely and sometimes maddeningly frustrating book “Speaking of Faith,” uses Buber’s metaphor to introduce the idea that God has turned His Face away from humankind. This is metaphoric thinking at its worst. First of all, it isn’t at all what Buber meant. Secondly, it is theologically false.

An eclipse is not linked to the actions of that which is eclipsed. The sun does not turn away during a solar eclipse; the moon simply gets between us and the sun, and blocks our view. The sun is still shining; we just can’t see it. Buber didn’t mean that God has turned away from us, but that our ideas of god have blocked us from the living Presence of God. Even the word “God” is a block: “It is incumbent upon the human being to get rid also of the name Elohim [god], for it by necessity creates a relation based on an assumption of nearness” (Buber, Eclipse of God, 24).

God is not a being you can locate in or out of space/time. If God is in space/time, then God is no different from us. If God transcends space/time, God is irrelevant to us. For centuries theologians have tried to overcome the irrelevancy of a supernatural god by figuring out how a god who transcends space/time can interact with creatures bound by space/time. The whole enterprise, however, is silly, since the problem only exists in the minds of the people trying to solve it.

It is like a person who comes to you with a brown paper shopping bag and says, “I have a full size elephant in this bag. Can you tell me how I got it in there?” Now you can spend hours imagining all kinds of weird ways to get an elephant into a bag, or you can say, “You can’t have an elephant in that bag,” and walk on. When it comes to matters theological, I prefer to walk on.

It is we who say God is in or out of space/time. If the idea doesn’t make sense, stop saying it. Rather than trying to bridge a gap that we ourselves create, stop creating the gap in the first place.

God is not in space/time; space/time is in God. The reason we may feel eclipsed from God is that we have placed blinders over our eyes at noon, and then convinced ourselves that day has been eclipsed by night.

Of course if you really understand the reality of God in, with, and as all things, even the blinders are God, and you just take them off or leave them on as the mood moves you without imagining that either state effects your real relationship with God at all.

So please handle metaphors with care, making sure they speak truth rather than just evoke feelings.

Somebody Else

On my daily walk this morning an elderly man driving a slightly rusted white Corolla slowed down and pulled up beside me. I kept walking but turned my head smiling in his direction. He smiled back, waved a kind of apology, and said, “I thought you were somebody else.”

“I am somebody else,” I said, but my reply was drowned out by the car’s engine as the man picked speed and left.

“I am somebody else.” It’s true. I am somebody else than who he thought I was. I am somebody other than who he is. And, the more I thought about it, I am somebody other than who I think I am as well. I am somebody else.

The person I was when I went to bed last night isn’t the person I was when I awoke in the morning. The things that preoccupied yesterday’s me had largely fallen away by the time I awoke. And the distractions and dramas in which I awoke had faded by the time I went out to walk, and certainly by the time I returned home, once again as somebody else.

The only thing that ties “yesterday me” to “this morning me” and “right now me” is this story I am spinning about these many me’s. They are all characters in a narrative, and the only thing they have in common is the narrative. But still there must be a “real me,” after all who is telling this story? Isn’t “storytelling me” the real me?

When I go to investigate this I discover that “storytelling me” is simply another character in what is now a slightly more expansive tale that includes this story and the me who is telling it. And when I try to identify this new larger me I find only that it is subsumed into an even larger me, who is subsumed…. You get the point.

If I stop looking I can maintain the illusion that the last me to look is the real me. But this fiction can only be maintained by not looking. Yet as soon as I admit that I am not looking I am in fact looking at not looking and hence discovering yet another me. There is no end to “me” or to the stories told about “me.” And as for a storyteller behind the whole affair, I can’t find one.

So the old man in the Corolla was right: I am somebody else. In fact there seems to be nobody else but somebody else. Which of course leads to another story.

The New D List

After her controversial “Suck It, Jesus” acceptance speech at the Emmy Awards, Kathy Griffin is number one on a new “D” list, the list of the damned.

In her speech, Griffin said "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus." I don’t think this is offensive. In fact, having seen her show, I would be saddened to learn that Jesus had anything to do with it. It sucks.

She went on to say that if Jesus had his way someone else would have won award. I can see how this remark is troubling to Christians. After all they believe that Jesus does get his way. So either Jesus secretly likes her show and wanted her to win, or he isn’t as powerful as some Christians would have us believe. Heresy either way.

Ms. Griffin then ended her remarks by holding her Emmy aloft shouting, “Suck it, Jesus! This award is my god now!” This is the statement that really seems offensive to many Christians. I will withhold judgment until I get through to Ms. Griffin or her staff, and find out what the “it” is Jesus is supposed to suck.

Some offended Christians are not waiting for clarification, and have taken out a full–page ad in USA TODAY called “Enough is Enough.” The ad asks people to “Stand up for Christ!” and sign a petition against bigotry.

Certainly a petition drive is better than calls for the death of Ms. Griffin, something that I imagine would have happened if she had dissed Mohammed rather than Jesus. But there is something about this particular petition that troubles me. Indeed, it makes me question whether the people behind the petition are really Christians, and what their true agenda is.
The petition says in part, “It is time for people of faith around the country to stand firm against religious slander, bias, and bigotry of all types including Christianity.”

Read this carefully and I think you will discover that the phrase “bigotry of all types including Christianity” means that Christianity is a type of bigotry! Now this is more offensive that anything Ms. Griffin has said. It sounds like something godless liberals would say, not something a God fearing Christian would promote. I have a call into Ann Coulter to ask about this, and until I hear back from her and Ms. Griffin, I am asking people to stand by Jesus, and not defame Christianity by signing this petition.

Enough is enough!

Is Atonement Possible?

Tonight is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and I am looking into the meaning of atonement. I am not concerned with the idea of atonement, its history, or its various definitions and uses. I want to know if, in fact, you and I can achieve atonement, and, if we can, how can we do so.

What is atonement? My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as the reconciliation of God and man through the death of Jesus Christ. Not much help there. In Hebrew the word atonement is kippur and carries connotations of ransom, koppair. We are held captive by our sins, and need to be freed from these.

In ancient times our ransom was paid in blood. Two he–goats were brought the High Priest on Yom Kippur. One was sacrificed to God as ransom for our sins, the other, called Azazel after the cliff over which it was to fall to its death was symbolically laden with the sins of the people and chased out into the wilderness (Leviticus 16: 6–22). With the fall of the Temple in 70 CE the rabbis put an end to vicarious atonement, and shifted emphasis from blood to contrition. Followers of Jesus stuck to the older Temple model and saw Jesus’ death as the final sacrifice. Vicarious atonement through death lingers in Judaism in the tradition of kapparot where hens (for women) and roosters (for men) are symbolically laden with your sins and then killed. The meat is given to the poor, who, I guess, are too hungry to think about the consequences of eating your sins.

Yet neither the death of Jesus, Azazel, or Big Bird, however, speaks to me. If someone has to die for my sins, it should be me.
I do find meaning, however, in the English word itself: atonement, at–one–ment— which I understand as unity with God the source and substance of all reality. Can we achieve at–one–ment? No. You cannot get what you already have: you are always and already one with God. Knowing this is humbling. Being humbled is liberating. Being liberated shifts your focus from achieving atonement to acting from it: doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly in, with, and as God.

So here is your homework (or shulwork) for Yom Kippur. Whenever you find yourself thinking about atonement, stop. Whenever you find yourself wrestling with matters of the spirit, indulging the desire to do theology and thus push What Is into the category of What May Be In The Future, stop. Stop worrying about your relationship with God, and start having godly relationships with the world.

Jew Tree

I have been thinking a lot about the Jena Six lately. These are the six African American teens accused of beating up a white teen in Jena, La (pronounced JEEN-uh). Tensions reached the boiling point over a year ago when black students at Jena High (pronounced JEEN-uh Hi) asked to sit under a tree “claimed” by white kids. The day after the request three nooses were swung over the tree’s branches. Threatening blacks with lynching didn’t do much to build interracial harmony.

When talking with my own students about this incident I discovered there was a “black tree” on campus. Complete with a bench, this was the unofficial African American hangout. The irony of having a bench for “Blacks Only” was lost on my African American students. They simply wanted a place to feel at home.

I have no problem with this. People tend to congregate with other people they call “us,” and often feel awkward among those they call “them.” Certainly Jews (pronounced JOOS) should understand this. We are masters of “us” and “them” mentality, as well some of its greatest victims.

In my hometown, for example, the country club was Judenrine (German for “Free of Jews”), so the Jews built their own club. My little sister and her girl friends did the same thing when my friends and I built a Boys-Only Fort in the woods behind our house. So I wish African Americans and their tree all the best.

What does trouble me, however, is this: Where is the Jew tree? It turns out that there is no Jewish Tree on campus. This may not surprise you. Ever since the Garden of Eden the only tree that matters to Jews is Torah, which isn’t really a tree at all, but is called one by rabbis deliberately misreading Proverbs 3:18, “She is a Tree of Life to those who hold her close.” The Proverb is referring to Wisdom, God’s Daughter, but the rabbis imagine the reference is to Torah. True, Jews do love to plant trees on our New Year of the Tree (Tu b’Shevat) and there are whole forests of trees with little plaques bearing my name on them, but we prefer the metaphorical tree of Torah to the real thing probably because you can house it in an air-conditioned room rather than have to deal with actual weather.

Nature not withstanding, I took it upon myself to secure a Jewish Tree on campus. Our tree will be close to the library, and its Starbucks. After all what is the point of congregating under a tree if you can’t schmooze about books and share a little nosh?

The initial response to my proposal was positive, though I ran into trouble when I asked for a second tree across from the first. When asked why Jews needed two trees (if you know the joke, forgive me), I explained that given the fractious nature of Jewish culture we Jews needed one tree under which some of us would gather and another under which some of us would never gather. (If you don’t know the joke, ask a Jewish friend about the Jew stranded on a desert island. If you don’t have a Jewish friend, find a Jew Tree and make one.) My proposal is pending.

Hell Yes!

Sometimes religion is just plain scary. Case in point: Robert Peterson’s article “The Darkside of Eternity: Hell as Eternal Conscious Punishment” in the current issue of Christian Research Journal. Peterson argues “the wicked will suffer the pains of hell forever.” The wicked, I assume, are those who don’t agree with Robert Peterson, and what Peterson imagines for us (I am not a believer, thank God) is that the Prince of Peace and the Lord of Love will keep us fully conscious as fire sears our every moment.

I had hoped that the author would feel bad about this, but he shows no more remorse than the god he worships. Instead he blithely cites chapter and verse to prove his point: Jesus condemning the unsaved to eternal damnation in Matthew 25:41, and making the case for eternal suffering in Mark 9:47-48. There are other citations, but the point is clear: “the sufferings of hell consist in everlasting conscious punishment.”

The god of unconditional love that some Christians proclaim is, at least according to this theory, a lie, and those who propagate this compassionate theology will pay dearly for all eternity. God’s love is conditional: you have to believe the party line (good luck in figuring out which is the right party, however), in order to receive it, and if you don’t this god condemns you to eternal conscious torture. Obviously Rev. Peterson’s god has never read the Geneva Convention. Or, if he has, he has no more respect for it then Alberto Gonzales. But at least Rev. Peterson is honest: his god is a sadist.

This is one reason I love being a Jew. While our god is more than willing to commit genocide in this world, he doesn’t carry his hatred over into the world to come. Better still, this is why I love being a descendant of Abraham who had the guts to challenge god over Sodom saying, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth, himself do justly?” Abraham offers a check to God’s power: justice and compassion. And it works. If Abraham had argued God down to one righteous person rather than ten the city would have been saved. He simply misjudged the depravity of the people. While he certainly had his faults (ask Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac), he was far superior to both Rev. Peterson and Rev Peterson’s god.

I believe we create gods in our own image. Rev. Peterson and the millions of Christians who believe as he does must be very angry, fearful people who are either too cowardly to challenge their god, or who delight in knowing that those who disagree with them are going to burn for that slight. Their god doesn’t scare me, but they do.

Changing American Jew, part 2

I came across a wonderful story by Edgar Allan Poe that speaks to yesterday’s post regarding emerging trends among American Jews. The story is called “A Descent into the Maelstrom.”

Three brothers who regularly fish the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Norway are caught in a hurricane. One brother ties himself to the mainmast to keep from being blown overboard, but the mast breaks and carries him into the sea where he drowns. As their ship is sucked into the vortex, the second brother notices that lighter objects caught in the vortex are pushed out to safety. He explains this to the third brother, ties himself to a barrel, and abandons ship. The third brother chooses not to follow, convinced that the ship will survive the whirlpool. As the barrel carrying the second brother is flung out of harms way, the ship is crushed and the third brother dies. When the surviving brother is rescued he explains how he survived but his rescuers don’t believe him.

We American Jews are these brothers, Judaism is our ship, and the maelstrom is reality. Staying on board dooms us. Only by grabbing a barrel and trusting the chaos can we hope to survive. Most of us prefer to stay on board, either lashed to the mast of tradition or clinging to one rail or another. Not all of us will disappear, but those who remain will be the Jewish equivalent of the Amish: quaint and irrelevant. Only those who grab a barrel and brave the storm will make it.

What is the barrel? Torah broadly defined as the Jewish literature from the Bible to Chabon. With our stories intact, we can do what we have always done: create new understandings from old texts that continue to speak our timeless truth: justice and compassion as the way to and the way of holiness.

Story is at the heart of identity. Tradition is the way we live the story, but when tradition comes to replace the story the sap is gone from the tree and the tree dies. But try to tell this to people and they think you are mad. They are attached to the form and cannot imagine surviving without it. Yet that is the genius of the Jew.

There is no one form that has defined us. We adapt. We create. But whatever we create is linked back to Torah, to our story. In the Bible alone we find a host of Judaisms: Abrahamic, Priestly, Prophetic, and a Judaism of Wisdom that is almost atheistic in its iconoclasm. Which one of these is THE true Judaism? None and all. And then there is rabbinic Judaism, and kabbalistic Judaism, and Yiddish secular Judaism, and the plethora of modern Judaisms. If any one of these had to encompass all Jews for all time, there would be no Jews or Judaism at all.

We don’t need another survey telling us there is a maelstrom brewing; just stick your head out the window and you will see that is so. What we need is a barrel, some rope, and the guts to jump ship.

Changing American Jew, Part 1

A new study of American Jews points to the emergence of what authors Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman call a “privatized Judaism” rooted in “a more open notion of community, a more fluid conception of Jewish identity, and a more critical approach to peoplehood and belonging.” Not surprisingly, privatized Jews tend to be young (35 and under), intermarried, and less attached to Israel then their elders.

Jews love this kind of study. It feeds our paranoia that we are about to die out. We have been feeding this fear at least since the second century BCE when a study showed that young, cosmopolitan Jews were attracted to Greek philosophy and culture.

We aren’t dying; we are changing. Of course we may die out, but if we do it will be because we have become irrelevant, at which point our disappearance is deserved and not to be mourned. Irrelevance, not change, is the real challenge to Jewish life and survival.

Ask most Jews why they should be Jewish and they have no idea. Those that do most often speak of loyalty to parents, tribe, and culture; maybe even God and Torah. But rarely will someone say, “I am a Jew because the world needs Jews and the prophetic Jewish message of universal justice and compassion.” Yet it is this that really matters.

The Jewish mission is to promote Ethical Monotheism, the idea that One God gives rise to one world, one humanity, and one moral code: justice and compassion for all. At the heart of who we are is the prophetic call to do justly and love mercy. Where is the survey measuring that? As long as we measure Jewishness by love of Israel or synagogue attendance we will never address the core problem. Jews will love Israel when Israel becomes a light unto the nations, a beacon of justice and compassion. Jews will come together in community when the community does something worthy of their time and energy.

If Jewish youth are redefining community, identity, peoplehood, and belonging let’s fund a study that shows us what these new definitions are and where they may be going. Then let’s work with these new realities to create a compelling Judaism that can infuse the life of the emerging Jew with the prophetic call for justice and compassion and a Judaism that embodies it.

Merry-Go-Round Mind

First I have to apologize to anyone who thinks I am a basher of Christianity, or anyone who feels that I focus on the dumbest elements of that faith. I don’t mean to do either. But I do tend to find myself talking to people who, when I report what they say to me, sound dumb. This is one of those conversations.

I stepped in my local bookstore to use the free Wi-Fi, and there is a Bible study group meeting at an adjoining table. Someone raised a question about the Koran, and asked why the Koran says that God did not impregnate Mary and father Jesus.

The Bible study leader said the Koran was wrong, and that it propagated this lie because it was the book of the devil, Allah.

I waited a moment to see if anyone in the group would challenge this, and when they did not I leaned over and spoke up.

“The Koran claims to be the direct Word of God— Allah being not a devil but the Arabic word for God. When Arabic speaking Christians pray in Arabic they pray to Allah. They are not Satanists, so why assume that Muslims are? And there is no way to prove that the Koran is not the Word of God.”

“You are so mistaken,” the teacher said, making room for me at his table. “The Bible says, for example, that Isaac was almost sacrificed by Abraham. The Koran says it was Ishmael. But we know that Ishmael had been banished, so he could not have been with Abraham on the mountain.”

“But the Koran does not say Ishmael was banished.”

“Proving that it is wrong. And there is the matter of God having Son. We know that Jesus is God’s Son through Mary. The Koran denies this. It is wrong.”

“But how do you know it is wrong.”

“Because the Bible tells me different.”

“But how do you know the Bible is true?”

“Because it is the Bible.”

“Oh.”

“See?”

What I saw is that this fellow’s reasoning goes in circles, and there is no way off the merry–go–round of his faith. I didn’t take the place at his table. I wonder if I should have.

Moments

In his classic work, Shobogenzo, Dogen Zenji, the 13th century founder of the Soto Zen school in Japan, claims there are 6,400,099,180 moments in a day. Now you could check out his math, assuming you could figure out what he meant by a “moment,” or you could simply be impressed that he has a number at all. I choose the later. I just find the number—6,400,099,180—compelling, and somehow comforting; it leaves plenty of time for mistakes.

A mistake is what it says it is: a missed opportunity to take advantage of a moment. Something is held out to me and I just don’t notice. It could be that what is offered is not something I would choose to grasp anyway, but I won’t know if I don’t pay attention. Unlike many games, the game of life requires you to be present in order to win.

I usually find myself reacting to moment 6,373,199,102 when moment 6,373,199,103 is being offered. I don’t realize I am living in the past until the past I am living in has long passed. There are some spiritual masters who tell me this is an error on my part, and that it keeps me from achieving enlightenment. But I don’t think so.

It seems to me that the “me” itself can only be a reaction to the past. “Me” and “I” are products of the past. The “I” I take myself to be at this moment (moment #4,273,100,736 but who’s counting?) is simply a reflection of the “I” I was in the last moment. And by the time I realize this I am already in the next moment dragging the past along with me.

There is no “I” or “me” in the present moment. That is why I don’t trust people who claim to live in the present. First of all everyone and everything lives in the present, there is no alternative. But the “I” that knows it is living at all is never in the present, but always in the past. Living is always in the present; the liver is always in the past (so are lungs, kidneys, and hearts).

What Dogen is saying (to me anyway) is that I have 6,400,099,180 chances to realize this every day. Of course “realizing” too is of the past, so what he is really saying is that I will experience 6,400,099,180 failures of realization every day. That’s a lot of failures. And in a culture that values success over failure it is very humbling. I like “humbling.”

I like the freedom that comes with being humbled, with knowing that failure is the norm. Of course failure, no less than success, is in the past, so maybe failure and success are both meaningless. Maybe realization and nonrealization are both insane goals. Maybe there are just moments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… 6,400,099,180.

Does this bother you? It thrills me. Just moments—no point, no goal, no purpose, just moments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… 6,400,099,180.

No Shul for Me this Rosh haShanah

I’m not going to Rosh haShanah services this week. Synagogue holds no fascination for me. Neither does the liturgy nor the babble of rabbis and pundits. Despite the fact— or perhaps because of it— that Rosh haShanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) are the times when most Jews, even nonobservant Jews go to shul, I am staying home.

This will be the first time in over fifty years that I have not attended synagogue on the High Holy Days. I did not pursue a High Holy Day pulpit this year, and one did not pursue me. I knew that if I were to lead services other than those I myself would compose, I would be forced to pretend to beliefs I do not hold, or forced to mangle words in order to make them seem to say what I want them to say, rather than what they do say.

And what they do say is that there is a God “out there” somewhere who watches and judges and decides my fate. I haven’t believed this since I was a kid. There is no “out there” and judging and deciding require a human–like consciousness that God, as I understand God, just doesn’t have.

I have been told I should go to shul not for God but for community. But there is no real meeting with people at High Holy Days. It is too crowded, too formal. To sit in pews and read words that only antagonize me is not a catalyst for community. I would rather sit in silence and then speak intimately with others from the heart.

So I shall go on retreat for Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur. I shall leave town and walk in the woods and make a sacred pilgrimage to the center of my being by walking a local labyrinth. And I will pray. I will pray as I always do: speaking directly to God without a fixed text; simply pouring my heart out to Her and having Her reflect my suffering and my joy back to me that I might better learn how to shoulder the burdens of my life and lessen the burden I place on other lives.

Yet I will pray one traditional piece of liturgy: “Who shall live? Who shall die?” This is the one liturgical insight that matters to me: who shall live and die and suffer and rejoice… We don’t know (though in a sense the answer is “me”). The prayer solves nothing, reveals nothing. It says that we cannot know today what will befall us tomorrow, but that we can live each day with repentance, prayer, and generosity. This is a New Year challenge that never grows old or stale or meaningless for me.

Another Rosh haShanah tradition I value is asking for forgiveness, so let me close with this: If I have hurt any of you this year, knowingly or unknowingly, advertantly or inadvertently, I ask your forgiveness. And if I have not caused you pain, just give me time.

L’Shana Tova

The Browning of a Terrorist

By the time you read this, Osama Bin Laden has released his new video. I saw an advance photo of him from the video, and I must say, “Osama, you look marvelous!”

Osama has colored his beard, and it has taken years off his face. He looks like a young terrorist again. His message is clear: “Cave living is good for you. It makes you younger. If you think worrying about the Americans is getting me, aging me— well think again.”

The more I thought about the new beard color, however, the more curious I became as to how he did this. Do you think he just walked into a Pakistani salon and said, “Salaam aleikem, Habibi, can you do something with this gray? It’s making me feel so, you know, 9/11. It’s been six years with the same look. Let’s get crazy! The gray has got to go.” I doubt it.

For one thing, the paparazzi would have been all over him. Photos of Osama sitting in the beauty parlor chair reading the latest issue Beneath the Burka (for the essays, of course) would have appeared worldwide in hours. So going to a salon is out of the question.

Maybe he just walked into his cave, mixed some hair dye he had ordered on–line, and reemerged a younger man. Yet this doesn’t make sense either. After all what would his fellow terrorists think?

“Have seen the O-man? He has gone so metrosexual!”

“You know, I was thinking the same thing. It’s like he’s thinking about dating again. Just between you and me I heard he really bombs in bed. Get it? Bombs in bed? I’d send that joke to The New Yorker if we didn’t hate that city so much.”

No, a shocking change from gray to brown would be too much for his people to bear. I think he would have had to do this gradually so as not to disturb his followers. My guess is that he planned this for months, and that the reason we haven’t seen him for so long is that he was slowly washing away the gray.

To be certain, however, I contacted a source in Pakistan, and asked about available hair color products. For safety’s sake he asked me to call him “Abdul” (his real name is Hassan). “Abdul” told me that you can’t buy most American hair products in the mountainous regions of Pakistan where Bin Laden is living.

Vidal Sasson is not available because the Sassons are Jews. Clairol is prohibited be cause it has the letter “i,” “o,” and “l” in its name, which spells “oil” and links Clairol to the Saudi Royal Family which Bin Laden hates. According to “Abdul” Grecian Formula is Osama’s brand of choice. “You must remember that we Arabs were the ones who kept Greek philosophy alive. We love Aristotle, so anything Greek is cool with us.”

And with me. I just know the new color will make Osama stand out more clearly against the pale backdrop of the Pakistani hills. I just pray someone is looking.

The "G" Word

The Anti–Defamation League has broken with most Jewish organizations and has called the Turkish slaughter of Armenians what is was: a genocide. The Turks continue to deny their history, and have used their leverage with the United States and Israel to keep these nations quiet as well.

I understand why Jews and many Israelis are reluctant to use the “g” word. Turkey is very important to Israel on a number of fronts, and poking a stick in the eye of the Turks is bad for business and Israeli security.

I understand that Israel is not a nation of saints or a saintly nation. Zionism was about realpolitik, building a homeland for Jews not a homeland for Jewish ideals. Many of us in the Diaspora conflate the two, and demand that Israel be a holy nation, but this is not possible. Nations, like corporations, have only one obligation: to see to the best interests of their stakeholders. If allowing the denial of the Armenian holocaust to continue is the price of Turkish cooperation, then so be it.

But understanding a problem doesn’t help my nausea over the fact that we Jews, of all people, are willing to help a country turn a blind eye to its genocidal past.

I am naïve, I suppose, but I want Jews in both Israel and the Diaspora to stand for something other than tribal solidarity and survival. The world doesn’t need Jews in name only. The gifts of the Jews to humanity have little to do with our genetic code and DNA, and everything to do with our prophets and wisdom sages. From Abraham to Jesus we stood against the status quo. And yes, when we were the status quo we exploited our own as a nation like every other. But we continually rose above our baser instincts and realpolitik and called ourselves and the world to a universal justice, compassion, and humility that trumped and transcended tribal concerns.

I just can’t get over how Jews, with our oh so sanctimonious “Never Again,” can pretend that other people don’t suffer genocidal madness of homicidal regimes. We all know the Armenian Holocaust happened, but we are too timid to say so.

Rabbi Hillel said two thousand years ago: In a place where there are no heroes, be a hero. Bravo to the heroism of the ADL for their willingness to use the “G” word and allow the Armenians and their suffering its rightful place in history. How sad for the rest of our institutions, and the State that claims to speak for all Jews, that our fear is greater than our shame.

This is the season of asking others for forgiveness. It would be a powerful first step toward regaining our honor if our Jewish organizations and State asked the Armenian people to forgive our cowardice. By admitting we are cowards we might find the prophetic passion to be heroes once again.

Mustard Seeds

Next week is Rosh haShanah. I brought this to the attention of my students at Middle Tennessee State University to tell them why we will have no class next Thursday. But then I tried to give them some insight into what Rosh haShanah is.

Of course we looked at the relevant Torah portions (this was in Bible class after all), but that told them little. And we explored the idea of forgiveness and devoting the month of Elul that leads up to Rosh haShanah to forgiveness, but that too didn’t get at the heart of the matter.

Then I told them about Reb Nachman and his pun on Rosh haShanah as seeing “rosh” as head and “shanah” as “shinui,” change. Rosh haShanah is a day to change your head.

Still blank stares. “Metanoia,” I said. This is what Jesus asks of you, “metanoia,” literally to change your mind, to change your head, to change you level of consciousness. This is what Jesus is asking you to do, and the Jews have a special season for doing it. Of course Jesus, being a Jew, knew this and tried to come up with metaphors that would speak to his understanding of what a changed head might be like.

He called living with a changed head the Kingdom of Heaven. You no longer thought with an earth–bound, selfish, egoic mind. You now though with a cosmic mind, seeing God in, with, and as all things. One metaphor for the Kingdom of Changed Heads is the mustard seed. This is a troubling metaphor.

My students told me that saying the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed is saying that it starts small and grows big. We need to plant the seed of change and God will nurture change within us. OK, except…

OK, except that the mustard seed was a weed that would choke off your garden, kill off other produce. It was a cancer. No one planted mustard seed except in highly controlled situations. It was dangerous. It killed the old, the counted on, the safe. And that is why it is a good metaphor.

Changing your head, thinking with a new mind, a new consciousness that goes beyond the egoic mind of last year, is not fun or comfortable. It means chocking off the old; killing off what you thought was in your best interest and seeing something new.

Rosh haShanah should be a mustard seed planted at the head of the year. It should bring about a changed head, a new heart and new spirit (Ezekiel 18:31). It should take over your life and kill off all that is old and not longer life-giving. Otherwise the only “new” in New Year is the number “8” in 5768.

L’shana Tovah, this year’s changes be for the good.

Why Did Jesus Have To Die?

[This is a conversation I had recently with a delightful Christian minister.}

“What I don’t understand, Pastor, is why. Why does God need to kill Jesus in order to save humanity?”

I was speaking to a very kind and thoughtful minister of a local church. The topic was Jesus and my lack of faith in him. “If you explain to me why God needs to send His Son to earth to be murdered, then perhaps I can better understand how Jesus is my savior.”

“It is clearly stated in the Gospel of John: God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son…”

“But why?” I interrupted. “When Abraham was to show his love of God by sacrificing Isaac, God stopped him. Why is God willing to do what he demanded Abraham not do?”

“That only shows God’s love is greater than Abraham’s. God just could not stand the idea that people would suffer in hell for their failure to live up to His Law. So He sent Jesus to suffer punishment for us. Jesus died for your sins.”

“And I am grateful for that, but none of this explains why the Almighty God could not find a less bloody way to carry out his aims. In the Prophets God wants compassion and justice rather than blood and barbeque. Yet with Jesus, at least as you understand Jesus, God has gone back to the older sacrificial model. Why?”

“I don’t think there is an answer to this,” the pastor said. “To know the answer is to know the mind of God, and we humans cannot do that. You simply have to believe.”

“And that is where I fail,” I said. “I can’t believe. I can’t believe in a god who sets laws we can’t fulfill. I can’t believe in a god who is only satisfied by blood. I can’t believe in a god so angry that only murder will mollify him. Nor do I believe Jesus believed this either.”

“Well now you are speculating. Jesus knew why he was sent to earth. He came to die as a way of ransoming humanity from sin and the consequences of sin.”

“Again, this is why I can’t be a Christian. The Jesus I meet in the Gospels, official and Gnostic, is a prophet, a spiritual genius who confronts the powers of domination and exploitation both religious and political, and is willing to die to make his point that we must not collaborate with evil, that we can defeat evil by noncollaboration, and that we must cease to do evil and do good. It isn’t Jesus’ death that saves us, but his life. Jesus offers us a paradigm for living that is intrinsically holy and redemptive.”

“The fact that you are willing to explore Jesus is a start and I pray that in time you will come to see Him as I do.”

“Thanks, Pastor. I will pray the same for you.” Amen.

Our Father Who Art in Eggplant

What are the odds of finding the seeds of an eggplant spelling out the word “God”?

If you are Felicia Teske of Pennsylvania they are damn good. While slicing an eggplant for her family’s dinner, Felicia discovered just that. Not to be deterred, she actually fed the holy plant to her family, saving only a single slice to auction off on eBay.

Clearly Ms. Teske is not Jewish. I would have taken the plant to my local deli, asked them to slice it into as thin a pile of God–inscribed eggplant as they could, and sell them one at a time on eBay.

The more I thought about this, and I admit to thinking about it way too much, the more I wondered why, given all the foods I eat, the Creator never gifts me with such a revelation. Then again, He might be writing messages to me all the time and I never look. I rarely prepare my own meals, and I eat them in such a hurry that even if God wrote “Rami, You are the Messiah” by the time I would notice any letters all I would have left would be “iah” at best. “Iah,” by the way, fetches nothing on eBay; I checked.

So I have decided to change my ways. No, I’m not going to cook for myself or slow down when I eat; I’m going to go to the supermarket and start slicing eggplant to see what’s inside.

I spent a couple of hours doing this at my local Kroger store this afternoon and discovered three exclamation points, fourteen ellipses (…), a Big Dipper, and half a dozen or so “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” But no “God.”

I sought council from a rabbi friend. “What good would the word ‘God’ do you anyway?” he said. “You need Hebrew words like Adonai or HaShem. God assumes you remember a bit of Hebrew and talks to you in His native tongue.”

Of course! I was looking for English when I should have been looking for Hebrew or Aramaic. In fact the seeds of a couple of eggplants looked a bit like Uggaritic’s arrow shaped script; maybe I intercepted messages meant for Canaanites.

Actually this troubles me. Not mail to Canaanites, I think we killed all of them years ago, but intercepting divine messages meant for other people. I imagine that God is very busy and has limited time for writing with vegetable seeds, so it isn’t as if He sends out divine bulk mail. If I cut open an eggplant with a message of hope meant, say, for a women dying of cancer, I would feel horrible. In fact I did come across some seeds that seemed to spell out, “Margaret it’s Me, God. I’m here,” but I thought nothing of it.

So I am not going back to the supermarket to read other people’s veggie mail anymore. God, if Your are reading this blog and You want to send me a message, You are going to have to carve it in a rice cake. Hey I just bought a bag, let me go look….

Low Point for High Point

Cecil Sinclair, a 46-year-old veteran of the first Gulf War, died recently of cancer. His family arranged a memorial service for him at High Point Church in Texas. Twenty-four hours before the service, however, High Point cancelled. High Point’s minister, Rev. Gary Simons discovered that Cecil was gay. (No, a guy named “Cecil” gay? Unbelievable!)

The decision to renege on Mr. Sinclair’s memorial service was, as Rev. Simons said, “not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based in principle.”

What principle might that be, Reverend? Love thy neighbor? Do unto others? Or God hates fags?

I have no problem with religious bigotry, after all what would western religion be without its pet hates? But let’s keep our bile directed at the living.

If Christians want to believe that all those outside the Body of Christ are doomed to an eternity in hell, that’s OK with me. If Jews want to believe that only they are Chosen, fine. If Muslims want to believe that nonMuslims are infidels, be my guest. But once a person dies, have some compassion.

Is a dead homosexual still a homosexual? If you believe, as I imagine Rev. Simons does, that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice (it has to be a matter of choice if one is to condemn it as a sin), and Cecil can no longer make choices seeing as how he is dead, in what way is he still a homosexual?

And then there is the matter of Jesus. No, Jesus wasn’t gay, but if Jesus died for our sins, and homosexuality is a sin, then didn’t Jesus pay the price for that? Did Luke hear Jesus clearly when Jesus said, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do?” Or did he miss the part where Jesus said, “But not the gay ones”?

So, again, couldn’t High Point have had a little mercy on this guy and his family. After all, as Rev. Simons says (I couldn’t help myself, and yes making bad jokes is a lifestyle choice and hence unforgivable), “It’s not that we didn’t love the family.”

Wow, there’s a love I could do without. Look, if you want to hate gays, go ahead. Just hate live gays; live gays that are bigger than you; live gays that are bigger and stronger and meaner than you, and that happen to be right in front of you when you spew that hate so that they too can act on divine principle. Like “an eye for an eye.”

I love gay men (true I love lesbian women more, but still…). It is sanctimonious clergy I can’t stand.

It's My Penis and I'll Cry If I Want To

[WARNING: The following blog entry contains many old English words some of which may be offensive to you. If you are the type of reader who will write me and chew me out for being offensive please do not read this blog entry. Or, if you do read it, do not write and complain. You have been WARNED.]

James Bolt is the custodial parent of twelve¬–year–old Ploni Bolt (his real name is a secret to all but those who know him; Ploni is an ancient rabbinic version of John Doe). He is also a recent convert to Judaism who, ala Abraham and Ishmael, wants to chop off the foreskin of Ploni’s penis in deference to his foreskin hating god. Ploni’s mom, the ever-so-Gentile Lia objects and is fighting to save her son’s foreskin. [You can buy bracelets embossed with “LiveWhole” at her website, www.cruelestcutofall.com] Lia has nothing against circumcised penises per se, but she argues that her boy Ploni would like to hold on to his intact penis a little longer (yes, yes, pun intended, he is twelve after all), but he is afraid to tell this to his dad.

This is an old story. In the midrash to the Abraham and Ishmael snip–fest in Genesis we find the following exchange:

Abraham: My son, giveth unto me thine penis that I might hacketh off thy foreskin with a flint rock that we might risketh terrible infection in service to our God.

Ishmael: Sure dad, and giveth me thine friggin’ head because methinks thou art mad!

Abraham: Nay, my son, for God spoketh unto me saying, “Abraham, Abraham, removeth thy foreskin and the foreskins of thy son and thy man–servants for I disliketh these skins which I madeth a few chapters back.

Ishmael: And thou art listening to this madness? What if God toldeth thee to taketh me up a mountain and sacrificeth me on an alter, would thou doeth this as well?

Abraham: Hmmm, now that thou doest mentioneth it… No, of course not. I will protecteth thee from all manner of harm except the potential wrath of my wife who mayeth at some future time seeketh the death of thee and thy mother…

The dialogue goes on, and as you know Ishmael is snipped which is supposed to make him one of the Chosen, but when he is banished into the desert (where he will certainly die) his status is de facto revoked. He then fathers his own people many of whom delight in killing their still Chosen cousins. Karma’s a bitch.

Anyway, back to Ploni. Does dad have the right to do what he wants with his son’s penis? Marc Stern general counsel for the dad-supporting American Jewish Congress says yes, “We have to win this case, and win it big.” He is talking about the case.

I say, leave the poor kid alone. If he chooses to become a Jew then he will deal with the issue of circumcision on his own. My own sense (based on nothing but the desire to write the next line) is that Dad is using Ploni’s penis to screweth his Mom one more time.

God's Warriors

I was watching God’s Warriors on CNN, Christiana Amanpur’s six–hour special on religious fanaticism. I missed the Jewish segment and caught only those dealing with Islam and Christianity so this isn’t a detailed critique, only a quick observation.

During the Muslim show the emphasis was on killers and people who justified killing in the name of Allah. We did meet some Muslims who rejected violence or were the victims of Muslim violence, but the focus of the show was on terrorists and their supporters and apologists. There was nothing new in this, nor should anyone be offended by it. This was, after all, a special on God’s Warriors.

What troubled me was that we never saw anyone remotely violent in the Christian segment. True, we were reminded that there were Christians who killed doctors who performed abortions, and bombed clinics where abortions were performed, but we never met anyone who supported this behavior or excused it. On the contrary, all I saw were clean cut, middle class white folk whose only weapon was the ballot box.

Where were the Christian terrorists like the Army of God, the Christian Identity Movement, Tim McVeigh, the KKK, Rev. Fred Phelps, or the Christian Reconstructionist movement that would create a true American theocracy?

Sure, I don’t want the Christian Right to run the Supreme Court (too late), the schools, or the government, but there is a huge difference between violence and votes. And I understand that Hitler was elected to power in Germany, and that Hamas was elected to power in Palestine, and that something similar can happen here, but this is not illegal or immoral. Getting out the vote for your cause is not terrorism. And if the Christian Right wins at the ballot box then the rest of us simply get what we deserve for not fighting harder for our cause.

What troubles me is that by placing law abiding Christians with strong conservative values, views, and politics side by side with fanatics who sanction murder in God’s name “God’s Warriors” blurs the line between the ballot and the bomb.

While not one to cry “War on Christianity” every time someone stands up for free speech and the separation of church and state, I do think thoughtful Christians and others should be outraged that CNN seems to have lumped Jerry Falwell in with Osama bin Laden.

20/20 Torah

I am a sucker for what’s cool. Lucky for me I get to define “cool” for myself, and “cool” at the moment is pecha-kucha, the Japanese word for “chatter.”

As used by Tokyo-based architects Mark Dytham and Astrid Kelin, pecha-kucha refers to a hot new trend in presentations where each presenter is limited to 20 slides displayed for 20 second each. That makes for a six minute forty second talk. Businesses are using the model as are artists of all kinds who have turned to pecha-kucha competitions to showcase their work.

How does this apply to religion? I have always thought that if you can’t say what you mean in ten minutes or less, or ten pages or less, you were bullshitting. Given that I talk for hours on end and write books much longer than ten pages I admit to using a lot of bs. The truth isn’t that complicated. We make it seem complicated so we can excuse our own bs.

So here is my thought for the moment: why not host a pecha-kucha Torah-festival were commentators are invited to come and explore Torah in the 20/20 format. Images, sound, would have to work with your words, enhancing what you say and deepening it. No point in wasting your 20 seconds by reading a slide. The slide would have to build on what you say ala Stephen Colbert’s The Word.

This would be fun, funny, and insightful.

I imagine holding this in LA. Why? I have no idea, it just seems a lot sexier than Middle Tennessee, and there are so many creative types there. It would be a one day event, probably on a Sunday. People could vote for their favorite pecha-kucha presentation in several different categories, and we could present the winners with statues of Oscar holding a Torah scroll.

And why stop with Torah? The pecha-kucha Gospels would be next. And then the Gita, Lao Tzu, and Kor…. Well, I’ll the Danes worry about that one.

If you have any suggestions as to how to host a pecha-kucha Torah festival next Simchat Torah (a little over a year from now) let me know.

Welcome to Lake Woebegone

Welcome to Lake Woebegone. A recent Business Week poll of middle and senior managers found that 90% of people surveyed felt they were in the top 10% when it comes to performers. Everybody is above average.

What does this mean? First of all it means that most of the people polled are deluded. If my math is right, only 10% of the people can be in the top 10% bracket, which means that the other 80% fall elsewhere. Second of all it means that we have no idea where we really fall when compared to others. Is that good or bad?

I’m not really sure. On the one hand, if you think you are in the top 10% bracket when in fact you really suck at what you do, you will never get better. On the other hand, if it seems to you that 90% of the people with whom you work are even worse than you your whole industry is about to crash.

It is good that people feel good about themselves. And its bad that they think so highly of themselves that there is little room for improvement.

Anyway, I tried to imagine what I would say if asked by a pollster how I felt I performed vis a vis others in my field. First I would have to figure out what my field is. I often see myself as an entertainer or, better, a Stand-Up Philosopher. Compared to other entertainers I admire— Alan Watts being chief among them, I am mediocre at best.

Maybe I am a spiritual leader, I get called that lots of times. Then I get to compare myself to Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. I don’t compare all that well.

I could list myself under “writer,” but then there is Ms. Rawlings, and my stats just crumble.

So I would have to say I am in the middle somewhere. Let’s say in the top 40% of people who do what I do.

I don’t mind being in the middle. It reminds me that I have a lot of learning to do, and lots of room to grow. I am not certain I would ever want to be at the top of my game. I would hope someone who raise the bar as I got close to reaching it. I like seeing people who are smarter, more nimble, better read than I am. I learn from them.

So it is troubling all these business people are topping out. It doesn’t bode well for the country. We can’t grow if we think we are already at the top.

And if we really feel this way about ourselves woe be not gone. On the contrary, woe be comin’— big time.

I'll Be Baaack (Part Two)

Yesterday I wrote about the reincarnation of the 14th Dalai Lama. I was thinking more about this and mentioned it to a Christian friend of mine who said, “That’s silly.”

“Silly?” I said. “No more silly than Jesus coming back for the Second Coming.”

“That’s biblical fact,” he said, “not heathen speculation.”

“What about the coming of the Mahdi, the final Imam in Islam? Or what about the return of the Lubavitcher Rebbi, Peace be upon him? And what about the coming of the Messiah Ben David, who, Jesus not withstanding, we Jews are still waiting for?”

“Only Jesus is coming back,” he said. “It’s in the Bible.”

OK. Maybe so, but can we really be sure? Here is what I think is going to happen. God is going to line up his boys like racehorses at the starting gate. There will be Jesus, the Rebbe, the Messiah ben David, the Mahdi, maybe some others. Then God will set off a not so big bang, and the would–be saviors will race to earth as fast as they can.

Wait a minute, you might say. This isn’t fair. Jesus may still suffer from the beating the Romans gave him, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe is an old man suffering from a stroke. They won’t have a chance. But, I would say, God has repaired Jesus and the Rebbe and both are in top physical condition, so not to worry. OK, you say. Back to the race.

Given that the world is round and not flat, it will be impossible for any of these saviors to be seen by the whole world at the same time. If Jesus drops in over Jerusalem, Christians in New York won’t see him. But if Jesus opts for a New York landing he will have to race farther since Heaven is in a straight line over Jerusalem. So all of them are going to race for the Jerusalem landing. The problem with that is this: whoever arrives first will be denounced by followers of the other saviors. If the Rebbe lands first the chances of the Christian and Muslim communities admitting he won is nil. So they will have to race to a more neutral winning circle. But where?

Here is my suggestion. They should race to my house. I really don’t care who is the real messiah. If it’s Jesus, I’ll become a Christian. If it’s the Rebbe I’ll become Lubavitch. If it’s the Mahdi I’ll become a Muslim. If it is Ben David, I’ll become an Orthodox Jew.

I don’t care who wins, I just want to be on the winning team. So God, line ‘em up and let ‘em go! I’m ready. Just don’t make it a photo finish, I’m not that good with a camera.

I'll Be Baaack (Part One)

There are few things the Chinese government fears more than people who return from the dead. Especially when the returnees are Tibetan Lamas.

In order to curb the power of the 14th Dalai Lama, the Chinese have banned His Holiness and other living Buddhas from reincarnating without official government permission. This is especially odd given that the Communist government in China is atheist and doesn’t believe in reincarnation in the first place. This would be like the Chief Rabbis of Israel banning Jesus from returning for the Second Coming without their permission: “Look, we don’t believe in him, but just to be safe, let’s ban him… after all what could it hurt.”

Of course the real issue has nothing to do with whether or not reincarnation is true, only whether or not people in China think it is true. It seems that enough do believe to worry the government. So let’s say this makes sense. How does it work?

Pretend you are a living Buddha who dies. So, really you should pretend that you are a dead Buddha. Now you have taken Bodhisattva vows and promised not to enter Nirvana until you have brought all sentient beings there ahead of you, so you have to come back to earth to continue your task, but you need a pass from the Communist Hall Monitor. So where do you find this guy?

Imagine that the Chinese government has set up an Office of Reincarnation Affairs on a lotus plant just three lotuses (lotai?) to the left of the Forbidden City Wal-Mart, but to get there you have to reincarnate which you can’t do without a pass. So you are stuck in limbo, which the Catholics have recently banned, so you are really screwed.

But wait. You are a Buddha and you know that samsara (this world) is nirvana (the other world) are one, so you really don’t have to come back because you never really left because in reality there is no place to go and no time to go there.

So here you are, where you were, dead, but sort of alive, just without a pass saying it is OK for you to be alive. If you walk into the Office of Reincarnation Affairs and say you are back they will kill you because you don’t have a pass, but then you are already dead so that won’t change things and you will still be standing in line in need of a pass. This should totally freak out the apparatchik behind the counter and he will die right there and then of a heart attack. Since he has no idea that samsara is nirvana he won’t be back, so you can take his papers and reincarnate as this guy. Now quit your, no his, job, and get back to saving sentient beings.

A bit complicated, but it seems to work. Who wants to bet that the Dalai Lama comes back before FEMA fixes New Orleans?

My Religion is Humor

Last night I dreamt that the Dalai Lama came to hear me talk at a synagogue. It was a surprise visit and I was not prepared. Despite extreme nervousness, I welcomed His Holiness, and addressed the congregation:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that his religion is kindness. In this he is my teacher, but not my mentor. While I admire his faith and am infinitely challenged by the sacred arts of lovingkindness, kindness itself is not my religion.

My religion is humor. It has been since I was a child. Humor was and is the way I get through my day. It was and is the means by which I make sense out of life. It was and is what I bring to the table. Whenever I teach there are always people smarter than I, more involved than I, more holy than I. Rarely are there people more funny than I. It is for this reason that the Dalai Lama’s friend, Sister Jose Hobday, has blessed me with the title, Holy Rascal.

The art of the Holy Rascal is to pull the rug out from under certainty by showing how funny and absurd our surety really is. When we laugh at our beliefs, we laugh at ourselves on a very deep level. We cut the mooring ropes and set ourselves adrift on the sea of uncertainty.

For some this is frightening, for me it is liberating. If I have no idea where I am going I can’t get lost. If I have no final destination, wherever I am is just fine—no matter how awful it may be.

When I speak about religion and spirituality, I find it funny, and share the humor of it with my listeners. I don’t tell jokes; I see them. I don’t try to be funny; I just don’t hold back the silliness that passes not only for formal religion, but new age spirituality as well. For the life of me, I just cannot take God and religion seriously. I don’t think God does either.

As a Jew humor–as–religion is part of my culture. It is not insignificant that the namesake of my people, Israel, was first called Isaac, “laughter.”

What my religion lacks, yours (I am leaning across the podium and clearly addressing the Dalai Lama personally) provides. My humor often lacks compassion. When faced with the choice between kindness and the joke, I will all too often go for the joke. I have much maturing to do. And in this I look to you, sir, for guidance.

But for now: A rabbi, an imam, and a Buddhist priest walk into a bar…..

And then I woke up! Not spiritually of course, just physically.

First Koan, Last Koan (3 of 3)

[My Zen Master, Joshu Sasaki Roshi, turned 100 years old this past April. I sat with him when he would travel from his center on Mt. Baldy, outside of Los Angeles to Smith College where I was studying Buddhism under Professor Taitetsu Unnu. I am sharing this with you in honor of Roshi’s birthday. He doesn’t remember me, but I will never forget him. This is the third and final installment.]

That's it! No more sanzen for me. How embarrassing; the old guy tossed me around like I was a sack of flour. My butt hurt; my ego was bruised; and I was through with Roshis and Zen forever.

Except I couldn't leave. No one left sesshin. So what? All I had to do was put in my time on the cushions, take a couple of slow laps around the zendo and wait the whole thing out. So what that I can't get enlightened. It isn't as if it will go on my permanent record.
I returned to zazen with simple annoyance. I sat there and nursed my shame until I could turn it into anger at Roshi. And why stop there? It wasn't his fault Zen was stupid. Bodhidharma brought it to China from India, and from there it made its way to Japan and from Japan to Massachusetts. Why not blame Bodhidharma? I mean here is a guy who cut off his eyelids to keep from falling asleep during zazen. Is this a role model?

After awhile I stopped fuming. I was bored. I just sat there. Hours passed. I knew I was getting drowsy but wanted to avoid drawing the attention of the guy with the keisaku. There is a name for the guy, but I can't remember it. I could look it up, but telling you this story has rekindled my annoyance at the whole thing and I don't feel like getting up and looking for the right book. Look it up yourself if you want to know.

A keisaku is a long thin wooden slat used to slap the fatty part of your back around your shoulders. The slap wakes you up. It hurts like hell. Three quick strikes to each side of the body. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Then you turn a bit and expose the other side: Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Then you bow in gratitude. The stinging relaxes the knotted muscles and facilitates wakefulness. It works, but I would rather avoid it.

During the next round of kinhen, walking meditation, Roshi rings the bell signaling sanzen. Just in case I forgot, my mind starts yelling at me: We are not going in there! No way in hell are we going to submit ourselves to the embarrassment of trying to answer that stupid koan. Where is God when the stick hits— HITS— the floor. Who knows? Who cares? Certainly not I.

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

Roshi was right in front of me, sitting on his cushions, tapping his stick on the floor. I have no idea how I got there. Without any sense of volition or self consciousness, I must have walked out of the meditation hall, bowed correctly to take my place in the sanzen line, moved up chair by chair, and performed the intricate bowing the now plopped me face to face with Sasaki Roshi. One mistake in the ritual and I would have been sent back to the meditation hall. No mistakes, save one: what was I doing back in sanzen.

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

I don't know exactly what happened next. I can only reconstruct my actions based on where I found myself afterward. It seems that at the instant Roshi's mahogany stick touched the well polished wood floor of the sanzen room I straightened out my elbows, made a club of my hands, and flung myself on the floor next to roshi, screaming at the top of my lungs: God is here!

I suspect this because when I regained self-consciousness I was lying next to Roshi, my body stretched as long as it would stretch, my hands clasped, my throat raw, and my ears still ringing with the scream "God is here".

I scrambled to my knees, retook my place across for Roshi and waited for be banished from his presence forever. The old man was laughing hysterically. I'd like to believe he was laughing with me, except I wasn't laughing. I was embarrassed, red faced, and on the verge of tears. Roshi thought that was funny as well.

"Goodah ahnsa," Roshi laughed. "Goodah ahnsa! Seventy five percent. Now, more zazen." Roshi rang the bell, I bowed myself out, walked back to the zendo and took my place on my cushion.

Seventy five percent! That’s it? A “C”? I haven’t gotten a “C” since Freshman German. I wonder what it would take to get a “B” out of this guy?

I never found out. Despite additional sesshin with both Roshi and others, when it comes to enlightenment, I am average. It is the best I have ever done.

• • •

As fierce and formal as he can be during sesshien, Sasaki Roshi can be just as relaxed and jovial after it is over. I watch enthralled as one after another of my fellow zen students hugged Roshi and thanked him for the sesshein. I wanted to do the same. After all, I had not gotten enlightened, but I didn't flunk out either.
I waited for an opening, and slipped in close to hug Roshi and say good–bye. I should have known better. Once I got within reach, Sasaki Roshi shot out a hand, pinched my butt hard and said square into my face: "Roshi or Rabbi— choose now!"

I hate that. Not the pinching, though that hurt, but the choosing. Roshi had commented on the size of bottom earlier in the sesshein. He was using my rear end as model as to how to sit, or rather how not to sit, on the meditation cushions. One time he lovingly (I guess) made a comment on the fact that my bottom covered so much of the cushion that it was hard for him to use me as a visual aid. Now he was telling me that, as wide as my tuchus is, it is not wide enough to sit in both the zendo and the shul. I would have to decide where to park my butt if I was to get anywhere with my religious training.

He was right. I had been waffling back and forth for months. Not rabbi/roshi, I had no illusion about become a Zen Master, but davvenen or zazen, Jewish prayer or Buddhist meditation. The way of mitzvot/holy deeds or the way of metta acts of compassion. I was drawn to both. Yet there was something powerful in each that kept me from committing wholeheartedly to either.

Three things drew me to Zen: its simplicity, its practicality, and its nondual understanding of reality. Sit and see that Buddha was right. At the time I had not come across the equivalent Jewish teaching "Taste and See that God is good" (Psalm www). To me Judaism was very complicated and legalistic. You lived as if you knew what was going on, you were never expected to figure it out for yourself. At least that is how Judaism had been presented to me as a child.

Nondualism was a tremendous draw. The idea is that all the opposites are actually polarities. Rather than viewing the world as black or white, sacred or profane, Zen (and Buddhism in general) said it was black and white, sacred and profane, and that you could not have one without the other. Further, you could discover that since each needed the other, neither was real in and of itself. And, if you got that down, you could step beyond the whole system and live in harmony with everything as a manifestation of sunya, the emptiness that is the essence of reality.

This made so much sense to me. Not that I understood all its ramifications on a philosophical level, but that on a very deep gut level I knew this nondual understanding was true and that the dualistic world view of conventional Judaism was wrong.

Conventional Judaism teaches that God and nature are separate. God fashioned nature the way a potter makes a pot. The world is an artifact of God. While the pot cannot help but reflect some of the genius of its maker, it is in no way to be identified with its maker.

This made no sense to me at all. I knew I wasn't an artifact. I sensed an overwhelming unity with God. Not a simple connection, but a deep oneness. My rabbi thought I was delusional. To me the delusion was that we could be anything but at one with God.

Of course Buddhism doesn't use the word God, and rarely gets caught up in these kinds of theological wrangling, but I was not yet a Buddhist, and could not let go my God–centered feelings or vocabulary.

Three things drew me to Judaism as well. First, my family. Judaism is nothing if not family. My family, on both sides, has Jewish roots going back to Abraham and Sarah. The thought of severing that tie was hard to think.

Second, I loved the language of Judaism: both the God-talk and the holy days. While my understanding was limited, I could not escape the intuition that there was something very powerful and transformative being taught and practiced here. How could I let it go if I did not even know what I was holding?

Third, I respected the humanism of Jewish teaching. Here was a religion for householders, parents, and families. Judaism had thousands of year’s experience trying to help people be holy even as they earned a living and made mortgage payments. The mitzvot between people: learning to practice generosity, healing speech, and kindness— these things tugged mightily at me.

I had thought I could integrate the two. That was my hope and my goal. And here was Sasaki Roshi, my ass in his hand, telling me to choose.

I looked Roshi in the eye and smiled. "I am going to be a rabbi," I said, with a conviction that comes from somewhere other than my conscious mind. "Thank you, Roshi, for showing me that."

Roshi smiled, pinched my tuchus even harder and hissed: "Good. Be Zen rabbi!"

First Koan, Last Koan (2 of 3)

[My Zen Master, Joshu Sasaki Roshi, turned 100 years old this past April. I sat with him when he would travel from his center on Mt. Baldy, outside of Los Angeles to Smith College where I was studying Buddhism under Professor Taitetsu Unnu. I am sharing this with you in honor of Roshi’s birthday. He doesn’t remember me, but I will never forget him. This is the second of three installments.]

The practice routine during a Zen retreat is pretty straightforward. Up at 4:00 AM; chanting for thirty minutes; sitting meditation for thirty minutes; walking meditation for fifteen minutes; sitting meditation for thirty minutes; breakfast, clean–up, showers and personal hygiene; then hours of sitting and walking meditation. Twice each day, once during the morning and again in the afternoon, there is the opportunity for sanzen, personal dialogue with Roshi.

Sanzen always comes during kinhen, walking meditation. That way you can gracefully exit the sitting room and make your way to the roshi's sanzen room. In this particular retreat a line of chairs were assembled outside the sanzen room. Moving up the row, chair by chair, was a highly ritualized process. As the person sitting in the forward most chair left to enter Roshi's room, the rest of us would stand, bow, and advance one chair.

Upon entering the san–zen room there was more elaborate bowing. You bowed from the waist, then get down on your knees, and then fall on your face, lifting your hands, palms up, off the floor three times. Then you stand, move forward a bit, and repeat the process. It took three complete bowing cycles to reach Roshi. Done right you ended up sitting on your knees directly in front of him. Your knees only inches from his own.

We practiced before hand so that if we chose to see Roshi in san–zen we would not insult him or centuries of tradition by bowing incorrectly. This was not the Zen I had read about in Alan Watts. His Zen was far looser, spontaneous, and iconoclastic. I expected to go in their, flash a big smile, give Roshi a hug, and share with him some of my deeper thoughts on the meaning of life. But tradition was tradition, and I didn't mind. In fact it seemed to make the whole procedure more powerful for me.

Most likely this is because I didn't grow up with it. As a Jew I know from tradition. Once my sister's boy friend joined the family for dinner. My mother made brisket. The boy friend, thinking we had forgotten to supply the obvious beverage, got up from the table and brought a carton of milk out from the refrigerator. Sensing immediately that he was about to violate the law about strict separation of meat and milk, we all started shouting at him, waving our hands furiously, as if to warn him of an on–coming car about to crush him against the wall.

But that was Jewish tradition. Narishkeit. Silliness. After all what does it matter if you have a glass of milk with a piece of brisket? Did Moses know from brisket? Jewish law is tedious, tiresome, and basically beside the point. That is why we have Reform Judaism to knock some sense into the tradition.

But Zen was another matter. Screw up the bowing and get tossed out on your ear? No problem. After all it was tradition. And there is no such thing as Reform Zen.
So I didn't mind the tradition or the routine of Zen. The only thing I did mind was having to see Roshi one on one.

The man was intimidating. Short, round, and fierce. I have a photograph of him; it looks like the 8 x 10 black and white photo country western stars send to their fans. In the photograph Roshi has his hands tucked into his belt and he is laughing. At least I think he is laughing. He could be about to spit fire.

Time after time I would make my way into sanzen hoping to impress Roshi with my Zen knowledge. I mean he was talking with a kid who was working on a 4.O GPA, at least when it came to courses on religion. How hard could this koan business be?
"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

It really is quite simple: God is here. God is everywhere. Didn't Roshi get that?
Now Zen folks don't talk a lot about God. Roshi was doing this for my sake. He knew I was Jewish. He knew I was considering going into the rabbinate. So, being a master of upaya, skillfully teaching Truth from the illusions at hand, Roshi spoke to me of God. Or, better, asked me where the Hell He was when the farschtunkenah stick hit the goddamned floor.

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

I tried Haiku, that ought to impress him: Stick in hand. Stick on floor. Sunlight slips through slatted blinds.

"More zazen."

I tried Nargarjuna's fourfold negation of reality: There is a stick. There is no stick. There is neither stick nor no stick. There is, I couldn't remember what came next.

"More zazen."

I must have visited the guy a dozen times and couldn't figure out what the hell he was looking for. At last, I gave up.

While sanzen is mandatory in many sesshin, Roshi made concessions to us and made it voluntary. I did not have to see him if I did not want to see him. And I certainly did not want to see him. But then it hit me! I was telling him where God was. I had to show him. OK. One more time.

Kinhen, walking meditation. Hands clasped to our chests, eyes aimed downward, gaze resting lightly a step ahead. One foot raised, another placed. The next foot raised, the other placed. Fully conscious of each movement of my body, I moved at a snails pace around the room. No point, no destination, the journey is all. Boring.

Then the bell announcing sanzen. All right! Now I'm ready.

I bowed myself out of the room and took a seat in line to see Roshi. I rehearsed what I would do. Do, not say. There was nothing to say. Zen is the transmission from mind to mind beyond words and scriptures. I had read that someplace. It was my Jewish head so trapped in words that was causing me all these problems. This time, though, I'd nail it— no words.

Here was my plan. Thus far I had focused my answers on the universality of God when the stick hit the floor. But this time I would show Roshi that the stick itself was irrelevant. God was, is and will be whether the stick hits the floor or not. How would I demonstrate this deep insight? By grabbing that little stick and ripping the sucker out of the old man's hand, that's how. My stick. My God. My answer. My God, I'm brilliant!
Roshi rings in the next person. I am in the on deck circle. I calculate the precise distance between Roshi and the door. I figure out just how far I need to step and pace my bowing so that I end up in comfortable reach of the stick with enough leverage to wrench it out of his hands. Roshi is small, plump, and old. I've got height and youth on my side. And the element of surprise. I mean no one would ever have tried this before. Roshi rings me in.
Bow, stand, step. Bow, stand, step. One more time: bow, stand, step. Bow, kneel, and wait for that unsuspecting little stick.

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

Hits, hits the floor. I am a stickler for grammar, but it doesn't matter— here comes the stick. I lunge for the wood, wrap my fingers around it, and yank. Roshi's grip is to be broken, I'm to sit back triumphant with stick in hand calling out to the amazed and humbled Zen Man: No stick, no sound, just God! As I dance my way between the goal posts to pick up my Super Bowl Enlightenment Ring. At least that is what was supposed to happen.

Short, round Zen masters are often stronger than they look. I did managed to grab the stick, but Roshi did not let go. Instead he grasped my wrist and flipped me over his shoulder. I let him keep the stick; I was too busy tumbling onto the floor behind him.
"More zazen," he said as I bowed and left.

First Koan, Last Koan (1 of 3)

[My Zen Master, Joshu Sasaki Roshi, turned 100 years old this past April. I sat with him when he would travel from his center on Mt. Baldy, outside of Los Angeles to Smith College where I was studying Buddhism under Professor Taitetsu Unnu. I am sharing this with you in honor of Roshi’s birthday. He doesn’t remember me, but I will never forget him.]

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"
"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

The question was repeated over and over. The questioner was Sasaki Roshi, my Zen Master. I was sitting across from him, our knees almost touching, his eyes staring intensely into my own.

Unfortunately, I wasn't listening.

This was the second day of a sesshin, a Zen meditation retreat, and my first opportunity to experience sanzen, a one on one meeting with the roshi. The purpose of sanzen is to work on a koan, a Zen puzzle designed to break down your discriminating mind and open you to the profound simplicity of ordinary reality. After an elaborate ritual of bowing, standing, walking, and bowing again, the student makes his way to the master, ending up sitting on his knees directly across from the roshi. In this intimate setting the roshi challenges the student to answer the koan the roshi had assigned the student. I knew all this as I prepared to meet with roshi. What I didn't know was that roshi spoke English.
All my previous encounters with Sasaki Roshi had been through a translator. Roshi lectured in Japanese and the translator relayed his words in English. I assumed that was because Roshi spoke no English. So, as I sat across from him in sanzen I had no expectation of actually speaking with the man.

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

Roshi simply sat in front of me, his right hand tapping a gnarled piece of mahogany on the hard wood floor exposed between us. His lips moved, sounds emerged, but I heard no question.

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

My mind wandered. I had signed up for this retreat because I was a Zen–o–phile. I loved everything zen. I had begun to read about Zen a few years before, and could not get enough of it. I had read every book by Suzuki, Blyth, and Watts that I could find. I purchased a set of brown zen meditation cushions and sat zazen everyday. All I cared about was enlightenment. While my friends were experimenting with drugs, I was inhaling the dharma. While my dad kept encouraging me to date the Cohen girl down the street, all I wanted to do was spend my evenings with the koan.

This sesshin was going to be great. A real Zen Master, authentic Japanese chanting of Zen texts, long periods of sitting, little sleep, simple vegan meals. Man, this was the fast track to enlightenment. The Buddha pulled it off in eight days sitting under a tree; no way I couldn't do this in a zendo (zen center) with hot and cold running water.

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

What was this guy mumbling about? He must know I don't speak Japanese. With the exception of the translator, Tai Unno, my Buddhist Studies professor from Smith College who arranged this retreat, none of us speak Japanese. So why bother talking at me?
My knees were getting a bit stiff supporting my weight on the hard wood floor. Nice floor. Well-polished, real smooth. The light shining in from the window to my right played in lovely patterns around my knees. This was cool. Sitting across from a Zen Roshi. Right out of one of my books for class. "What is the sound of one hand clapping? What was your original face before you were born? Does a dog have Buddha nature?

Where is God when stick hits floor?"

Oh my God! Roshi spoke English! In fact he had been speaking English the whole time. His Japanese accent was so thick that I didn't recognize it. I must look like a fool. How many times had he been asking me this question? He's giving me a koan for God’s sake, and I’m ignoring him. Ignoring the Zen Master!

"Where is God when stick hit floor?"

"Uh. God is here?"

For a second I thought Roshi was going to nod, say the Japanese equivalent of "good boy" and give me a gold zen sticker for pulling my rear end of out the fire. Instead, he slapped my forehead lightly with his palm as if to say: "Mesheguna! Have you learned nothing from all I've taught you? From you I get no nachas." Or that is what he would have said if he had been my rabbi, who found me equally as dense and inattentive.
The second passed. Roshi scowled, picked up a brass bell— the kind I imagine schoolteachers rang to start and end class decades ago— and rang me out of his room. "More zazen!"

Do No Harm

Are doctors and other health care providers bound by law to provide all services to all clients, or can they allow their consciences to dictate what services they offer and to whom?

When my mother was carrying me in her womb, she and my father had to choose a hospital in which she would give birth. The issue was not simply cost and quality of care. They were also concerned about the religious aspects of the care they would be offered, specifically around saving my mother’s life in the case that giving birth to me would threaten her life.

Not knowing me well, my mom and dad chose to save my mother’s life over my own in accordance with Jewish law. I assume today, based on decades of parental self-sacrifice, if they had to make the same choice, they would choose my life over her life, but that is beside the point. The point then and now is this: can doctors withhold care based not on medical principles and practices but on religious ones?

For example, according to recent articles in the news some doctors are refusing to prescribe Viagra to gay men, refusing to artificially inseminate lesbians, and refusing to provide assistance to single adults seeking to adopt. The issue for the doctor is that doing these things violates the doctor’s sense of right and wrong.

The doctors feel they are within their rights to follow their conscience. Their patients feel that they are being discriminated against. Both are correct. A doctor who has no problem prescribing Viagra to a man who intends to lawfully and one would hope lovingly insert his longer–lasting erection in his wife’s vagina, may refuse to proscribe the same drug to a man who intends to implant his penis in a difference orifice of another man because the doctor opposes sex between men. Should the doctor be forced to enhance gay sex, or risk being sued if she or he doesn’t? I don’t think so.

Doctors and other healthcare providers should be able to perform their jobs as they see fit within the ethical and legal guidelines of their profession. But these guidelines need not force the healthcare provider to violate conscience.

The solution is simple: First, allow patients to go anywhere they want for any procedure they want. Laws and insurance policies that limit access to doctors may be forcing patients to live by religious standards not their own. People must be free to find like–minded medical professionals. Second, healthcare providers should be obligated to provide all patients with a brochure that clearly states what they won’t do. Doctors who protest such disclosure are tacitly admitting that their discrimination is wrong. If you believe in what you say you believe in, then spell it out and let people choose in advance whether to come to you as a doctor or not.

A Fatwah to Remember

So often the critics of Islam demand that Muslim clerics speak out against the atrocities done in the name of their religion. The assumption is that Muslim clerics do not speak out, and that their silence means either that they agree with the violence, or that they are afraid to counter that violence because to do so would mean their own demise. Either rationale supports the picture that Islam is anything but a religion of peace.

The fact is Muslim clerics do speak out against violence, but their words rarely make it into the mainstream media. So whenever we hear a cleric counter the madness that passes for Islam in some parts of the world, it is vital that we share it as widely as possible.

With this in mind I want to simply note, support, and give thanks to the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the senior Shiite Muslim cleric in Lebanon, for coming out against honor killing, the practice of murdering a female family member for supposed sexual misconduct. The Grand Ayatollah issued a fatwah against honor killing saying, “I view an honor crime as a repulsive act condemned and prohibited by religion.”

It is important that you remember this fatwah. It is important that when you hear people attacking Islam as a religion of violence that you bring up this fatwah. Yes Islam (along with Judaism and Christianity) has within it seeds of terrible evil and violence, but these need not be planted, watered, and nurtured. We can allow these seeds to dry up and die out from neglect, but only if we support the voices of justice and peace that are all too easily drowned out by the screams of ignorance and fear.

Onvertcay the Ewsjay

I love Pope Benedict XVI. He isn’t afraid to say what he thinks, and what he thinks is so refreshing: Islam is evil, Catholicism is the best religion, Protestants are doomed. Of course if he were head of the Holy Roman Empire with an army in the thousands instead of leading the tiny state of the Vatican with an army in pantaloons, he would scare me shitless. But he isn’t, so he doesn’t, and I get to blog on.

On July 7th His Holiness issued an “Apostolic Letter in the Form of Motu Proprio.” I have no idea what that means, but what it says is that Catholics can now choose to celebrate Mass in Latin using Pope John XXIII’s Tridentine Mass published in 1962. No, this doesn’t allow Catholics to substitute chewing gum for the Body of Christ (yes, I thought this too, but I looked it up), but it does have them pray the following on Good Friday:

For the conversion of Jews. Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, you do not refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness.

Wow. This is great stuff. The Jew’s heart is veiled, the Jew’s eyes are blind. Yet God’s mercy is so vast that He might be persuaded to have compassion even—EVEN!—on the Jews. O, thank You, Jesus!

Is this offensive? Some Jews are outraged by it. Others see it as a chance to separate good Catholics from bad Catholics, those choosing to pray in Latin being the bad Catholics.

Not withstanding the fact that for centuries Jews often found themselves under murderous attack by Catholics exiting church on Good Friday, I am not going to call this Mass anti-Semitic. Rather I will simply offer a prayer that Jews might insert into their liturgy on Good Friday Night which just happens to be the Jewish Sabbath:

For the conversion of Catholics. Let us pray also for the Catholics that the Lord OUR God, Chooser of the Jews and only the Jews, may take the veil of ignorance from their hearts that they also may acknowledge OUR Lord, Chooser of the Jews. Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, do not refuse your mercy even to the Catholics whom You didn’t choose and who think You had a baby with one of our girls so that You could kill him and use his blood to soothe Your wrath. Hear the prayers which we, Your Chosen People, offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of Your truth, which is Torah, and be delivered from their darkness, and know that Your Mercy is greater than Your Anger and that no one need die to be saved from going to Hell in which even the worst stay for but eleven months anyway so what is the big deal? Help this people, Lord, and don’t forget us, Lord, the people You chose to choose.

Debating With God

Jack White, of Whites Stripes, is quoted in the August issue of Paste magazine saying, “I’m not looking for so–in–so’s opinion, not even my own. I just want to know what the truth is. I mean that’s what I’m looking for. In my opinion there is no way God looks at things from 14 different angles. I see God as knowing only one truth, and that’s it. Everyone can sit around and have their manly and earthly opinions about things, but I doubt there’s much debate going on in heaven.”

Putting aside the most obvious: Jack’s opinion that having opinions is a waste of time is a bit self-defeating, let’s state the next most obvious: Jack White is so not Jewish.

Jewish heaven is a never–ending debate about truth. What makes it different from Jewish life on earth is that in heaven you get to debate with God. The Jewish ideal, as I mentioned a few blogs ago, is, Elu v’elu d’vrei Elohim Chayyim: all opinions seriously offered in service to truth, no matter how contradictory, are the words of the living God. We Jews cannot imagine a God so small as to have only one truth.

I am not saying that with God everything goes, but that with God everything goes–with. Not that good and evil don’t matter, but that good and evil need one another; each goes–with the other just as front goes–with back, up goes–with down, in goes–with out, convex goes–with concave, right goes–with wrong, and Homer goes–with Marge. (Yes, I just saw the Simpsons movie with my son, Aaron. Excellent.)

God is beyond our knowing. The word itself may simply be a placeholder for that reality we can intimate but never really articulate. But the mind of God, mochin d’gadlut, spacious mind, is not other than your mind, used properly. When you can hold conflicting truths in your mind at the same time; when you can live with and within paradox without reducing it all to one truth; when you can be at home with not–knowing and see all opinions as nothing but opinion, then you are operating from spacious mind and getting a tiny glimpse of God’s mind.

Judaism is good at getting into the mind of God. This is what I most love about Judaism: not the rules, rites, and religion, but the mindset that is at home with paradox. No, not just at home with it, in love with it. The classical model of Jewish learning (Jews don’t say “study” which implies a fixed body of knowledge to be internalized, but “learning” implying an unending process of discovery) is called hevruta or partnered–learning. You sit with a text and a partner and debate multiple meanings of what you are reading. The task of the partner is to never let the other come to final conclusion. There is always more learning to discover. So you debate. And when you run out of things to debate and think you have found THE answer, the rabbi comes over, pulls the rug out from under you both, and sets you on another voyage of discovery.

So while I like Jack White’s music, I am not moved by his theology. God is bored with answers. God loves questions.

Last God Standing

Michael Gerson in a recent issue of the Washington Post argued that without God we humans are incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and without fear of God’s wrath we would have no motivation to choose the former over the latter. I agree:

Without God I would have no idea that it is wrong to eat shrimp, have a woman testify in court, see a woman’s face, let homosexuals marry, mix linen and wool in my clothes, or have a glass of milk along with a hamburger. Similarly, without God I would no idea it was right to slaughter followers of other faiths, kill witches, heretics, and wayward sons, and set ravenous she¬–bears loose to tear apart forty–two boys who taunt prophets in the vicinity of ravenous she¬–bears (look it up: 2Kings 2:24).

God is a source of morality. The problem is that there are so many gods and so many books purporting to be the Word of God that it is impossible for us to determine which god is God and which book is God’s Book. If you try to find common ground among gods and books you end up with the Golden Rule: “Do not do unto others that which you would not want others to do unto you” to quote Rabbi Hillel, or “Do unto others what you would want others to do unto you” to quote Jesus who was obviously not paying close attention when he learned the earlier teaching of Hillel in Hebrew school.

While this is good advice, it didn’t come from God, unless of course Jesus is God and then it did come from God, but since a version of the Golden Rule exists in all cultures and seems to be indigenous to all peoples, it is hard to argue that without God human’s are incapable of ethical thinking or action.

If you still insist there is no morality without God, you then have the burden of deciding which god is God. Krishna allows things that YHVH condemns. Allah condemns things that Jesus’ Dad allows. Jesus’ “But I say unto you” statements overrule what YHVH said unto us. When slaveholders sited the Bible to justify owning other human beings they were drawing on God’s morality. When abolitionists decried such horror they made the same moral claim. The point is God is not so much the source of morality but the excuse. We call moral what we want to do, and then imagine a god who will back us up.

The only solution is to discover which god is God. In the previous blog (War on Krishna) I suggested we let the Senate vote on this, but that was silly; the only way to really know which god is God is to let them all battle it out in a global winner–take–all interfaith jihad. We see every day how very bloody this can be, so let me suggest a variation. Let each religion field its best warrior, and let them have at one another in a televised no–holds–barred battle to the death smack down I would call Last God Standing.

Give this some thought. I would be interested in hearing your picks as the best fighter in each faith. Oh, no fair converting someone to fight on your team.

The War on Krishna

It is always wise to start your legislative day with prayer, even if it is to a false god.

Recently the US Senate invited a Hindu clergyman, Rajan Zed, to offer the opening prayer on the Senate floor. As Rev. Zed began his invocation of “the Deity Supreme,” he was interrupted by followers of the Supreme Deity, Jesus Christ.

Three members of the Christian group Operation Save America/Operation Rescue, were taken away in handcuffs after shouting “This is an abomination!” and “No lord but Jesus Christ!” in an attempt to silence Zed and protect America from idolatry.

According to the July 27th issue of The Week, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue denounced Zed for “placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the one true god, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.”

They may have a point. If living in a religiously free country means that all gods are created equal, how are we to know which gods are worthy of prayer, and which are not? The Senate seems to be saying, “We don’t care which god you worship as long as you worship some god,” reminiscent of the national campaign in the fifties encouraging people to worship in “the church or synagogue of your choice.” No one seemed to care which church you attended, or if you preferred synagogue to church, they just felt more comfortable knowing that you spent some part of each week in some kind of Judeo–Christian house of prayer.

The problem is that if all gods are equal, no god is God. The Bible certainly rejects any idea of a level playing field for gods. Even if you argue that in the early books of the Bible God exists among other lesser gods, you have to admit that God is superior to them, and wherever possible smashes them to bits and slaughters those who worship them. And it is certainly true in the Bible that whenever someone tries to bring another god into the Temple of God things get pretty violent; so why bring these lesser gods into the Senate of the United States?

If the Senators really don’t care which god they pray to, then their prayers are hypocritical and should be ended. But I think they are sincere, so my suggestion is this: the Senate should suspend their official prayer until they first decide which god is God at which time they can resume their prayers and limit them to that god. A simple up or down vote should suffice.