Our Primary Spiritual Question

    I would like to share with you part of a post by Dr. Authur Green, rector of Hebrew College's Rabbinical School. Rabbi Green is a noted author and teacher on modern Jewish thought and practice.
    We Jews are very invested in the future and in our grandchildren. Even though we are nominally  believers in the afterlife, for most Jews, survival really is about the survival of future generations. We need future generations to be the receivers of this heritage we care so much about. 
   But of course, there's so much more to it than that. The second level is faith in creation. We are believers in Creation, however we interpret it. Without being literal believers in the Genesis story, we understand that life has everything to do with a God who is present in and behind this world. So, preservation of this earth, which we love, is a sacred duty; it is a preservation of the manifestation of divine glory, not just the natural world; it is something that is deeply connected to the purpose of our existence. We are here in a kind of role of trustee or steward. 
  A new creation story has emerged since Darwin. I try to teach people that the most sacred story of all time is the story of evolution itself, ... if we are open to it. We need to rediscover the sacred dimension of the natural world and then, treat it as sacred. I think this is the most important task of religion in this century.
      Thank you, Rabbi Green.
      I have left 'The Church', mainly because nowhere do I see the above reality being addressed. I know of no churches that are challenging people to change their lives so to be leaders in life-styles that are faithful to the earth. Nowhere is that Word becoming Flesh. The spirituality of churches is treating (or not) this primary challenge of our time as a side issue, if at all. This issue alone makes Christianity worthy of our non-attention. How sad it is to see all the strength, time and heritage of the past disappearing into nothing! We still think that thinking (believing) is what Jesus was about!
     Please, if there are exceptions to this, let me and others know of it. Any good news needs to be shared, to Christians and to all others.
     Sincerely,
     Anthony, just One Disciple

7 GOD'S NAME

One of the many unfortunate traditions in Christianity is to ignore the Jewish names of God. Most Gentiles think that somehow G-o-d IS a name The origins of every name meant something. Do you know what your name means? If you don't, I'd suggest that you find out. In many cultures there are temporary names given to children at birth and only after time would they earn the one that would follow them in adulthood. The name would describe them in ways that were both recognizable and meaningful.

In many old cultures, including Judaism, to know someone's name gave you great power over them. To share your name was to share all that you were. To have permission to use the name of someone was tantamount to using a person's credit card today. "In the Name of _______" meant that you were to be listened to as if the person who's name you claimed was actually there. In many cultures, knowing names carried a large responsibility. That is why in the Jewish faith the names of the Holy were very rarely spoken or even written down outside of scripture. The commandment "Do not take the name of God in vain," has nothing to do with swearing. It has everything to do with the misuse of the power given to people who use the name(s) of the Holy or to use God's name(s) is to equate yourself with God! Who indeed would be vain enough to do that?

Almost half of the times God is named in Jewish scripture, the name YAHWEH is used. It first happens when Moses is at the burning bush. This name is entirely unique in antiquity as it is the only name that is without gender. It is also without geography and time or, more accurately, BEYOND geography and time. Where other gods of the time were of a certain time, place or people, the name YAHWEH has no bounds or limits. It means "I will be as I will be," however, whoever, whenever, i.e., unlimited, infinite. For a pronoun, SHE could theoretically be used as well as HE but in those times, any question of gender went automatically to the male imagery. Be that as it may, let us know that for the Jews, ancient or modern, YAHWEH has never been imagined as an old man with a white beard as in most of Christianity.

Perhaps the original sin of all of us is to try to re-create God in our image. It is most fitting that we remember the name of God that reminds us that any time we try to button-hole the Divine we are missing the boat entirely. And when we find God in creation, in the unexpected and unlimited ways,YAHWEH is certainly a wonderful way to address the Holy.

6 "START BUILDING, YOU IDIOT!"

One of the most popular stories in Jewish Scripture is that of Noah and the Ark.

It's got everything: a sinful world, the Word of God, a hero, an almost impossible task, drama, danger and a happy ending. Thirty-five hundred years ago or today, who could not remember a story like this and pass it on? Even now, every twenty years or so, someone talks other fools into funding a search for THE ARK on the basis of new "proof". The exciting prospect makes news for a short while but seems to just fade away when nothing more is found. What a shame. What a waste of time and resources. What a shame to ignore the truths that are there for us by limiting the story to mere history.

The universal truths have been given to us in such clarity through this story that it seems impossible for us to not understand and ignore. In the story, the people of the Earth had grown sinfully willful, ignoring the Word and Way of God who eventually grew sick of them and gave up on humanity. Only a completely new start would save the Earth. God searches for a few faithful and Noah and family get the job, alebet, reluctantly. It's an impossibly huge task: Build the world's largest boat even though you know nothing about boats! Collect a pair of every animal on earth. Provision the boat for a long, long time. Do all this in opposition to the current values and social pressure.

Take a look at our culture today and our values and compare them to that of Noah's society in the story. Think about the changes any need to make to adapt an “Ark” mentality. There's little wonder the churches rarely touch this issue. Although they would suddenly become relevant and noticed, they would surely become unpopular in the eyes of those of wealth and power. The churches would be actually have to lead in real changes in life, to make words and flesh ONE. That would be a wonderful thing to behold and I must keep believing that it can happen.

Books could be written about this tension between FAITHFULNESS and FEAR(?). I'll stop here in the hope that your minds will take off on the subject.

Another truth comes to us at the end. God regrets the divine acts of anger and promises that never again will the people of the Earth get what they deserve by divine hand. Though we might destroy ourselves and even the Earth, God won't. It will never be God's will, no matter that harmful acts of nature are called “Of God” in our insurance policies. The sign of the rainbow will remind us of the fact of God's love to us and the world.

If only we would allow this wondrous sign of nature to drive home the reality of God's Call to change, heal, we might smarten up and to start building.

5 THE "MODERN" CREATION STORY: A MOST UNPOPULAR TRUTH

Jewish Scripture starts, of course, at the beginning. Their writings were on scrolls that were limited physically in size. Each was named by their first words. GENESIS is Hebrew for "In the Beginning". Thus began the first scroll because the first story was, logically the most current of their several creation stories. At the time the scrolls were edited in the present form (the 600'S B.C) the Jews were mainly exiled in Babylon. The physical description of the universe that is depicted was therefore the current (modern) one of that time and place, Babylonian. But the story is their own, Jewish. That this creation story was different in most every way from their older and simpler Adam and Eve story, was of no concern for them, so therefore it shouldn't bother us either, if we value them as they were valued then. The TRUTHS, the WHY the stories told were all that mattered. It was understood that the WHYS were there for us to learn. The HOWS were God's business and were not any concern of people's

There are many truths here for them and us. But there are two connected truths that shout at us over the centuries, especially to us today. THE EARTH IS HOLY! God created, and it was GOOD! God blesses the earth. Humans are the last creatures made. And what is our purpose? To tell and to keep God's creation. To be stewards. To love and keep the Earth GOOD even as the Creating God made creation good.

Those today who claim that Judaism and Christianity are to blame for the rape of the Earth clearly have not read the literature. The most basic of Jewish understanding is that "The Earth is the Lord's and all that is there-of!" No matter where we are on earth, we are standing upon holy ground. It is such an assumption in Jewish understanding that it rarely is spoken of within scripture but is often expressed in song (psalms).

We can easily see why this understanding would be unpopular today, especially in the churches of "the West" where consumption is the measure of success. It is much easier and safer for church goers to argue over how many days or years it took God to make the world. As if it really made any difference! It obviously didn't make any difference to the Jews who share their stories with us.

Be that as it may, the truths are there. Fact: we have been given control of the earth. Fact: we can destroy it so easily. Fact: we are. Fact: we can choose to become stewards of our and God's world and treat it as holy. God loves us. With love comes responsibility.

Again, it is up to us entirely. Are we going to use our heads or believe the lies that surround us? Are we to be a blessing or a curse to the earth? Are we going to enact our divinity and start living as God's Children or to stupidly continue to kill off the earth and ourselves? Only time will tell. The story of truth is still there for us, so very old and so very new.

4 TAKING THE FALL

The story of Adam and Eve (now husband and wife) continues. All is perfect. In this paradise garden they have all they want. God has given just one prohibition: don't eat the apples. There's a truthful snake and God tells a lie. ("You will die if you eat the fruit." They ate and lived, but what parent has never threatened their kids with lies, for their own good, of course?) The kids do wrong and God throws them out of paradise into a world of work, pain, life and death. (This is the short version.)

After only a century of being fairly guilt-free in understanding, Christianity became, unlike its Jewish mother, fixated on SIN. Along with the newly developed doctrines of heaven and hell, the idea of sin soon took over the interpretation of many scriptures. This old creation story was the mother-lode. It was obvious to those non-Jewish Christians that because of the sin of Adam and Eve, all people (direct descendants, of course) were doomed. By 400 AD the power of sin had trumped all, even a loving God. In their minds, where Satan was behind most of life, no love was strong enough to overcome a bite on a forbidden fruit. That mouthful, they soon came to believe, caused all people to go straight to Hell. They were only to be redeemed by the blood of Jesus, but that will come later.

So, for nearly two thousand years, this wonderful and true story has been used mainly to terrorize people, (Gentiles at least). What a waste! We who have followed those sin obsessed people have missed truths, truths about us, now and forever.

Background

For the ancient and current Jews, FAMILY is paramount. The family was the main spiritual, social and economic unit. That was where truths were learned and passed on. And for the families back in about 1200 B.C., the era from when these stories came, times were hard and very uncertain. Yet, they believed in an all-powerful and loving God. Why didn't God make things better for them? Why didn't their God defeat their enemies? Why did the "bad guys" seem to prosper more than the godly? Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Are these questions out of date? Don't tell me you haven't shared them! How many times have you or others asked "WHY?" when a child or loved one dies, or have doubted the existence of God because of the facts of death and suffering? These are timeless questions put to voice in a good story, true to life. IF GOD IS LOVING AND POWERFUL, WHY AREN'T THINGS DIFFERENT? WHY IS THERE THE BAD STUFF?

To those with no god, no larger view of the here and now, the answer today and then is simple: That's the way life is. To those who believe in an unloving but powerful god, god deservingly gets the blame. Neither of these understandings takes much thinking. The answer is a logical reaction to experience.

For those of us who know of a God of Love, our answer must also be a logical response to our reality and this ancient story in Genesis helps us to see that reality. But first we need to use our reasoning to remind us that if we are assuming even the possibility of a God of Love, LOVE itself must be the lens through which we read and experience the story even as LOVE was the assumption on which it was told. Back to the lessons learned in families.

First Reality

The most intense love many of us ever experience is in families. Love is the first genetic and automatic reaction we parents experience toward our infants. PROTECT! We want the best for our child. No hurts, no wants. To give them everything we never had; that they never experience the bad sides of life. We would give our own lives and suffer all hardships if only our children might not!

This reality is the first scene of the "Garden of Eden" play. God's new children are living in perfection, having all provided for and under the eternal loving protection of their perfect parent, like we might provide for our children if we had the power.

Second Reality

What are the results of children living in a paradise, with no responsibility and no needs, where they can stay up as late as they want, watch TV or stay on-line, eat what-ever junk food they crave and then sleep in as late as they want? What does PARADISE give us? Spoiled children!

The children, of course, grow to blame their parents for any and all perceived grievances. They are never satisfied. The "spoiled" of the world, then, now and always, think the world owes them everything they want. The children want even to replace their parents and demand to be treated as equals and to be independent long before they achieve maturity. Even while living with no wants and needs, they really are not happy and are definitely not growing up! Living in PARADISE has done them harm in all ways, keeping them from learning the important lesson of life, HOW TO LOVE.

Don't tell me this is a new truth to anyone! Again, it's part of our lives. It's TRUE. It's how we are, always have been, always will be. The story hasn't given us a NEW truth but has reminded us of what we know through experience. What it HAS done is to connect the knowledge learned in the family to the Holy so that we might use our knowledge from one area in our lives to answer questions in a larger arena.

Third Reality

The remedy to the parental urge to over-protect is EVEN MORE LOVE! Love enough on the part of the parents to endure temporary displeasure and even wrath of the children who are not given what they want. Love enough to realize that real love is the giving away of power, that real love does not control or manipulate. Real love allows and even forces freedom upon the loved, giving them the responsibility and opportunity to make mistakes. God's Wisdom shows us that real love and understanding can NOT be passed down to others; it has to be learned again and again in experience, one person at a time. ONLY IN AN IMPERFECT WORLD CAN WE GROW AND LEARN OF LOVE! It turns out that living in paradise is a curse even though we automatically desire it! Call that desire the ORIGINAL STUPIDITY!

So the Creating God loved and loves us enough to place us in a very imperfect world where we kick and scream like spoiled children, wanting everything to go our way, often cursing God and asking WHY?, claiming that God doesn't really love us at all. When we and others are hurt, these are our knee-jerk reactions, just like a six-year-old. Rarely do we take the time or thought to really look at LOVE for the answer.

As understood in classical Christianity, Adam and Eve were ejected from the perfection of the Garden of Eden because of their sin, after being tempted by the Devil (in the form of the snake). Their "fall" into the "real world" was seen as punishment for this crime, so great a sin that it extended to all humanity and time. In Judaism, in contrast (and they wrote the story, remember) the EXPULSION WAS AND IS SEEN AS A BLESSING by a loving God and Creator who knows that this banishment from paradise to an imperfect and random world is the only way for people to experience love and grow in this divine way.

And so now life is beyond God's control. In the story, Adam and Eve asked for control. They are us. We ask for control. It looks like God gave it to us. Now that we have it we still bitch about it when things get tough. Some kids just never learn; some learn only after a lot of hard knocks. Through it all God hopes beyond hope that we might grow in love ourselves and wants to stay with us in the joys and suffering of this world, after doing all that is possible for us in love.

For as we and all parents eventually learn, in the end, we have no control and power, we can only give our children unconditional love.

What a truth! What a story!

3 THE INHUMAN ADAM

We all know the story of Adam and Eve. On one hand it's been used to show the absurdity of the Bible and on the other has been held up as the litmus test of true belief. Both of these uses are only possible if the text is used as a newspaper account, treating it as mere history, NOT as how it was written. Let us go beyond that limiting use and use our heads to search for truth. Since it was placed near the first of the ancient code it was (and is) held dear to the ancient Jews. Since the story is among the oldest texts we have, it has been valued for a long, long time. It deserves our best attention.

In the story, God makes a being from mud. In Jewish tradition the name ADAM means "mud creature," a sexless creature, neither male nor female singular but self sufficient and alone. God observes this and decides that it would be better for his new entity to experience need and fulfillment and divides the being in two, creating two complimentary beings, now male and female.

With this understand the ageless truths start to become clear for us for we know all too well that few humans thrive or grow in isolation. This ancient story is about US! We are social creatures built to give and receive. We are programmed genetically and spiritually to interact. This need is holy. Sex is holy. Our need to complete ourselves in others is holy. There is no need for embarrassment or self deflation regarding these needs. They are conditions of our reality. To be self-sufficient is a delusion and a goal that is not only a denial of many God-given realities but is spiritually and physically fatal if achieved.

Volumes have been and will be written regarding this truth. The ancient Jews told of it first in a very good story.

2 SCIENCE IS BLESSED

We are all familiar with the Christian groups who advocate Creationism and claim their views alone to be "right with the Lord. Because of the volume of their rhetoric, it is easy for the uninformed to assume that Christianity is fundamentally in opposition to science (or using the brain in any way) for we are aware that the official Church was against Galileo and Darwin in their times. That assumption would be just as valid as assuming that the United States now supported slavery because most of the founding fathers were slave owners.

The fact that Christianity has had many running bouts with the insanity and unfaithfulness of feeling threatened by knowledge just shows how far we have drifted from our Jewish roots and have blatantly chosen to ignore and abuse their writings. Judaism has always known that our minds are part of the HOLY, that WISDOM is an integral part of God's Spirit, calling to us from the streets and fields, urging us to hear, to seek, to explore and find ourselves within the total picture of God's Creation and Being.

Among Jews, there has never been a question that science and knowledge were unholy. How knowledge was applied? Now THAT could and should be questioned! But to not inquire? Silly! Jesus of Nazareth was best known as a teacher and urged others to think for themselves. In his name, that is the least we can do.

The most important area of inquiry in the Jewish understanding was regarding scripture itself. "Study is the highest form of worship" is a saying from the Talmud. Question everything, we are told, for in questioning, along with experience, comes understanding and hence, faithfulness to God and growing in love.

To grow as spiritual beings we must identify our needs to inquire, to share, to debate with and explore with others, regarding all that touches our lives. Let us mourn those who ignore this aspect of their holiness and let us oppose those who try to limit it in others, for nothing is more in opposition to Love and Life. And let us use our wits to find out how this aberration was born, what is feeding it and do our best to love it to death.

It is most important to use our minds in considering everything from this point on. Two thousand years ago Judaism and then Christianity were known to be the faiths of thinking and educated people. Don't you hesitate to throw out and reject beliefs and traditions if they are keeping you from growing. For you, they are evil.

If these points cause you to think and ponder, I have done well. You are being a child of God just by answering the Call to Wisdom. Don't worry about anything else.