Moving Day

This is a little sooner than I thought it would happen but I've been pondering creating my "next-phase-of-life" blog, I read a quote this morning from Rabbi Freeman titled Morning Meditation and then suddenly, I was on WordPress.com creating my new blog.

Welcome to Morning Meditations.

I hate "hello world" first blog posts, so I replaced the generic WordPress "verbage" with a blog thanking God for His abundant faithfulness to me and to all of us.

Although I'm not formally leaving my congregation and the life it represents until June 18th, my transition is happening in stages. Moving from the blog you're on now to my new blog is one of those stages.

At first, my content on the new blog will probably be fairly close to what you're used to reading here, but eventually, as my transition progresses, those changes will be reflected in what I write. I've already changed the wording of the "about me" page at the new blog to illustrate my evolving perspective:

I’m just a guy humbly walking a path of faith and trying to understand my relationship with God. I’m a Christian husband married to a Jewish wife. Part of this blog has to do with the joys and challenges of being intermarried. A lot of this blog has to do with how a Christian can look through a Jewish lens and get a better perspective on life, love, and the God who made us all.

How things will look after a month or a few months or a year, I can't say. All I can say is that I'm slowly closing the door on one part of my life and at the same time, opening the door on another. That doesn't mean I'm closing the door on the people. I want you to come along. I want you to participate. If we are friends (and I really want my friends to continue to talk with me and share my experiences) or if you just consider me kind of interesting, please, follow me along the path and see what happens next.

I decided to leave the current blog up rather than deleting it. I won't post any new content here. This is the very last post for "Searching". However, there are quite a few blog posts that receive a lot of hits, so apparently folks out there are interested in some of the things I've written. As long as those stories are useful, then they should remain available.

Leaving this blog active does bother me a little, since I've changed since last July and some of the ideas and angst I expressed in my early writings no longer quite tell the tale about who I am. On the other hand, they are mileposts along the road, marking my progress from who I was to who I am becoming in faith, grace, and trust.

For those of you who are following this blog via blogger and for anyone who just peeks in occasionally or happens to surf in, if you're interested in what I'm going to be doing or how my journey is progressing, please bookmark Morning Meditations or put the URL in your favorite RSS reader.

Feel free to comment here on my last blog post if you like or better yet, comment on my Meditations blog, since that's where I'll be "living" from now on.

Thank you. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read what I've written. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time, the energy, the thoughtfulness, and the passion to comment about something I've chronicled. As a writer, what I put in a blog doesn't mean much unless someone reads it, though I do get some benefit from the writing. Of course, feedback is like gold, even if it's to say "I think what you said is totally wrong". I'm not here just to spew out thoughts and feelings, I'm here to communicate, interact, and learn.

Thanks most of all to God who is faithful and who has been with me, even when I've felt alone, traveling in the dark. May He continue to travel with me on my journey to draw closer to Him and may He be with you all.

When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness.

Are you looking for me? Find me at Morning Meditations.

The Mysteries of Truth and Faith

There is no Truth without Faith. There is no Truth unless first there be a Faith on which it may be based.

-Milton Steinberg
As a Driven Leaf

The Torah was given to us in the barren, ownerless desert to emphasize that no man may claim any superior right to the word of G-d. It is equally the heritage of every Jew, man, woman, and child, equally accessible to the accomplished scholar and the most simple of Jews.

-Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory
As related by Rabbi Yanki Tauber at Chabad.org

Ben Hei Hei would say: According to the pain is the gain.

-Pirkei Avot 5:21

What is truth and where do you find it? I suppose the answer to that depends on the individual. In Yossi Halevi's book At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land, we learn that holiness can be found in many unexpected places. It was certainly surprising to Halevi, the son of Holocaust survivors and an Israeli (he made Aliyah from New York in 1982) journalist to find holiness equally displayed among Muslim sages and Christian monks. Each of us, in our own way, searches for the Divine, some by gazing into the cosmos and others by searching the core of our souls.

I am seeking the part of God that dwells in me. Each person is created in the image of God and encapsulates a mystic spark from beyond the limits of Creation. It's as if that spark is continually trying to return to its Source. Jewish mystics believe that when we die, the animal or earthly part of our souls dies with us but the spark of the Divine flies upward and rejoins God.

Milton Steinberg says that we can find no truth unless it is based on faith. This crashes head-on into the typical secular understanding of "truth" based on facts and the belief that faith is irrelevant (or at least unspoken), but there can be no relationship with God without faith. Only God holds the truth of our existence in His hands.

When Rabbi Schneerson says that the Torah was given to us in the barren, ownerless desert to emphasize that no man may claim any superior right to the word of G-d, he is specifically speaking of the Jewish nation and that the Torah belongs equally to the Prince and the pauper; to the Priest and the woodcutter, yet it is also said:

Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. -Isaiah 2:3

Listen to me, my people;
hear me, my nation:
Instruction will go out from me;
my justice will become a light to the nations. -Isaiah 51:4

If we can believe the words of God as related through the prophet Isaiah, then we can add another meaning to Rabbi Schneerson's comments and say that the giving of the Torah in the desert may apply also to all of humanity. I'm not contradicting my position on how the Torah applies in a different manner to the Jew and the non-Jew, but I am saying that God is One and His Word is One. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and He is the God of Adam and Noah, too. He is the God of the Jewish Messiah, of the Apostle Paul, and of all the Jews and non-Jews to whom the Apostle taught the way of salvation and the path of Jesus.

How the Torah is applied to the Jewish people may seem obvious, depending on your viewpoint and tradition, but how the nations are supposed to understand the Torah as it "goes forth from Zion" isn't always clear. Certainly not all of you reading this blog will agree on how or perhaps even if the Law or any part of it is accessible to the non-Jewish nations:

Any dispute that is for the sake of Heaven is destined to endure; one that is not for the sake of Heaven is not destined to endure. Which is a dispute that is for the sake of Heaven? The dispute(s) between Hillel and Shammai. Which is a dispute that is not for the sake of Heaven? The dispute of Korach and all his company. -Pirkei Avot 5:17

While discussions between Jews and non-Jews over matters of Torah may not be accurately compared to the debates between Hillel and Shammai, I will be so bold as to say that our exchanges are still "for the sake of Heaven". While many Jews will agree that Hashem is the God of both Jews and Gentiles, they will apply the Noahide Laws as the obligation the nations are bound to in relation to God. Yet as I confirmed recently, from the teachings of the Jewish Messiah, we can allow the non-Jewish disciples to access more. How much more is a point of conjecture, but part of my personal journey is to pursue these questions and to attempt to live out the answers.

To paraphrase Ben Hei Hei, "it won't be easy".

Yet I don't believe my interest in the wisdom of the sages or the teachings of the man some have called "the Maggid of Nazeret" is the result of a random collision of interests. God is purposeful and His Creation is designed; nothing is truly irrelevant.

You ask me, “Why did G-d allow it to happen?”

You recognize that everything in this world has purpose and meaning. Examine any aspect of His vast Creation, from the cosmos to the workings of the atom, and you will see there must be a plan.

And so you ask, where does this fit into the plan?
How could it?

I can only answer, painfully, G-d alone knows.

But what I cannot know, I need not know.

I need not know in order to fulfill
that which my Creator has created me to do.

And that is, to change the world
so this could never happen again.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Chabad.org

Tragic events, such as the horrible effects of the recent storms in the midwest, the ongoing nuclear reactor crisis in Japan, and the struggle to serve the needy in Haiti are all a part of God's plan that completely eludes us. We live in a broken world where people are scared and hurt and dying.

My modest seeking of God's "face", so to speak, from the writings of such men as Maimonides and Steinberg and Schneerson is just as much a part of God's plan, perhaps just as mysterious, and completely purposeful. I live a human life in a broken world, but I'm seeking the means by which I can repair my small corner of it.

Soon, I will launch a new blog (I'll provide a link) and begin a new journey. I invite you all to join me.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought." -Matsuo Basho, Japanese poet

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Radiating God

Though the prophets, the greatest of whom was Moses, achieved a superior understanding of God, this understanding does not concern God as He is in Himself but His consequences or effects. In the Middle Ages, philosophers like Maimonides claimed that God's consequences or effects emanate from Him. It is as if God were like an eternal and inexhaustible source of light whose energy is so vast that it nourishes and illuminates everything around us. But even the best scientific theories cannot explain how that light is generated. All we know is that the light makes it possible everything we see and do. On the other hand, the light is so brilliant that no person can look at it directly.

Kenneth Seeskin
from Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” -Exodus 33:18-20

I don't believe in philosophy. I believe in ideas that change people.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Real Ideas"
Chabad.org

Rambam (Moses ben Maimon or Maimonides) was a superb philosopher and theologian and his writings are considered classic among Jewish scholars and lay people to this very day. I recently reviewed Seeskin's book Maimonidies: A Guide for Today's Perplexed (and am posting the link here so you can be a little background about the topic of today's blog) and through Seeskin's book, gained a greater insight into how this amazing Jewish scholar perceived God.

Rambam, a consummate rationalist, did not believe people could experience God in any manner or fashion but rather, thought we could only experience the results or effects of God. This is like saying that a person cannot look at a solar eclipse with the unaided eye but instead, must use a device to see an approximation of the effects. I also previously used the analogy of experiencing a fire by the effects or results, such as ash and smoke, rather than knowing the fire as it truly is.

We see in the above-quote from Exodus 33, that Moses "knew" or "experienced" God as the Divine Presence or the Shekhinah, God's manifestation in our universe, in a manner as close as possible to experiencing God's effects without actually experiencing God (seeing His "face"). But what did God "emanate" or "radiate" that Moses could "see"?

What did Jesus radiate?

I know that making a comparison between Seeskin's description of Rambam's understanding of experiencing the "effects" of God and the life of Jesus may seem like quite a conceptual leap, but stay with me here because I think the connection exists:

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” -Luke 8:43-48

Look at one small bit of this narrative recorded in verse 46:

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

We generally think that when Jesus performed a healing or a miracle, there had to be some sort of intent on his part. That is, he had to want to perform a miracle and had to have an intention as to what form the miracle would take. However we see in the case of the "woman with the issue of blood", that Jesus had no intention of healing whatsoever and in fact, didn't even know about the woman until the moment when she touched the hem (tzitzit?) of his garment and "power went out of him" to heal the woman.

Maimonides believes that we can only observe and benefit from the effects of God as they radiate from Him. Here we see an example of a person benefiting from the effects of what "radiates" from Jesus. Neither effect necessarily requires a specific intent of the "radiator" and this brings up an incredibly interesting question.

Do we benefit from the good effects of God upon our lives because God intents good toward us or do we reap these benefits simply because God is good and what He radiates (unintentionally) is good?

If we answer "yes" to the latter, we have to answer an additional question such as we see illustrated in the following:

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. -Genesis 50:20

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. -Jeremiah 29:11-12

Here we see that not only does God specifically intend to do good but that good will result from our prayers to God for aid and assistance. The Master said the same thing:

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” -Luke 11:11-13

Maimonides still doesn't have to be wrong here. God can intend to "radiate" what he radiates and direct His actions along intended lines. But how does this explain what we read in Luke 8:43-48? Of course, if you discount that Jesus and God have to be identical in the "mechanics" of how they "work", then you don't have to explain it, but when I was reading Seeskin's description of how Maimonides viewed God, the comparison between God and Jesus seemed a natural one.

There may be one other factor though. Let's go back to Luke 8 for a moment and specifically verse 48:

Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Jesus said something like this on more than one occasion. He didn't say I have healed you. He said your faith has healed you, even under circumstances where Jesus was aware of the person's request to be healed and he intended to heal them (in Matthew 12:13, he heals the withered hand of a man who hadn't asked to be healed, but presumably the man wanted his hand healed and, in the larger context of the event, the man knew Jesus was discussing healing on the Shabbat with the Pharisees).

God can do good for us even if we don't ask Him (and even if we are not aware of Him), but we know that He will respond to us (though not always as we imagine) when we ask. Yet perhaps an effect of God is that He radiates His goodness throughout Creation so that we experience His benefits, just as the rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45). There's no reason why God can't specifically intend to do good to a person and then that good happens and that God's very existence causes beneficial effects within His creation that we experience. There's also no reason why Jesus, during his time on earth, couldn't have intended to do good to others, but that his very nature, being a Divine representation of God's on earth, couldn't also have affected his environment, even to the point of healing a woman who touched his garment and who had faith that she would be healed.

At the beginning of this blog post, I quoted Rabbi Freeman when he said, I don't believe in philosophy. I believe in ideas that change people. This seems to draw a distinction between thinking and philosophy as represented by Maimonides, and a specific intent or set of ideas that result in a demonstrable change in human beings, but there may be no difference. We tend to get a picture of Maimonides as a cold, unfeeling thinker who spent his life in an ivory tower pondering arcane thoughts about God and the Torah, but he was also a physician who healed people and who advocated for justice, kindness, and mercy. In the case of the Rambam, his thoughts, feelings, and actions were all connected to living out the life God designed him to live. There was intention of both God and Maimonides and there were observable effects of the existence of both.

I do believe, like Maimonides, that we cannot experience or observe the totality of God as He exists objectively in what mystics describe as the Ayn Sof (although some people may have mystically encountered more of God's nature than we can within the limits of Creation), but I do believe that God has an intention for us and that He demonstrates that intention on an ongoing basis in ways we can experience. I also believe that people can benefit from God's existence and intentions, both the righteous and unrighteous, but the righteous in their awareness of God through faith and trust, can struggle to draw nearer to God and to do His will and reap additional blessings. This doesn't mean that we have more money, or trouble-free lives, or are smarter and wiser than other people, but it does mean we can be deliberately aware of God and what He is doing in the world and as a result, we can be a part of what He is doing. We can have faith and learn to trust God as we "see" what He does and more over, we can be a reflection of what He "emanates" in what we say and do and in some small way, we can show the rest of the world our how we experience a real and living God.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

The Bridge Between Heaven and Earth

In Pesachim, Rashi points out that the opinion of R’ Meir and R’ Yehuda is that the people of Yericho did not pause during Shema, meaning that they did not allow a break between the end of the sentence of Shema (the word "va-ed") and the beginning of the paragraph of V'a-hav-ta. The halacha is that one must pause at this point, in order to allow a break between the first sentence, which is one’s acceptance of the yoke of heaven, and the next paragraph, which is one’s acceptance of the yoke of mitzvos.

from Daf Yomi Digest
Distinctive Insight: "Improper reading of the Shema"
Menachos 71

Some would like to be like the sun, aloof from this world. Whatever material matters they accomplish during their stay occur as if by chance, with no real involvement of their own.

Others become entirely wrapped up in all the fetters and chains of life. They suffer its scars and bruises, delight in its offerings, thirst for its rewards and tremble at its pain.

True tzaddikim emulate their Creator. To them, every detail of life has meaning and purpose - every step is a decision, every move is deliberate. And yet, they remain above it all.

What is their secret?

They remember they are not the body, but the soul.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Better Than the Sun"
for Chabad.org

I know the two quotes from above might not seem connected, but bear with me, their association will become apparent.

I was talking with my wife this morning before I left for work. Like me, she appreciates the writings of Rabbi Freeman at Chabad.org and we both gain illumination from his insights as we receive them in our email inboxes each day.

We were talking about the differences between Christian and Jewish viewpoints concerning the purpose of human beings and why we are here. Often, I encounter Christians who are very future-oriented and who can't wait to "go home to Jesus". By contrast, Judaism produces almost nothing in terms of commentary regarding the World to Come and I've never heard an observant Jew say that they can't wait for the arrival of the World to Come.

What's the difference? Weren't we born for a reason? Is our life on earth a meaningless prelude to a heavenly joy? If what we do here doesn't matter, why didn't God just "cut to the chase" and create our existence in Heaven immediately?

I know I'm being unfair. There are a great many Christians who dedicate their lives to the service and well-being of others, yet this doesn't always seem to be the emphasis of the church or the "average" Christian. It seems like, as Rabbi Freeman writes, some folks "would like to be like the sun, aloof from this world. Whatever material matters they accomplish during their stay occur as if by chance, with no real involvement of their own". Christians say they want to become more like Jesus which is very much in line with Freeman's statement that true "tzaddikim emulate their Creator". Yet if "every detail of life has meaning and purpose - every step is a decision, every move is deliberate", then the "fruit" of every Christian in the here-and-now should be sweet.

Is it always?

In my previous quote from the Daf, the commentary describes a pause between the formal Shema and V'ahavta which signifies the transition between accepting the "yoke of heaven" and accepting the "yoke of mitzvos" or the commandments. The Master put it like this:

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” -Mark 12:29-30

As human beings, we act as a "bridge" between heaven and earth. We perceive the will of God for through our faith and trust in the Creator and then we act out that will in the world with our minds and our hearts and our hands. Our service to God is not just in the contemplation or Him and not just in the doing good to others, it is in the marriage of one to the other. In the "Stories off the Daf" commentary for Menachos 71, The Shem MiShmuel, zt"l offers this analysis:

“To explain, we must first understand that every human being is a microcosm, as we find in the Midrash. Our heads parallel the upper world while our bodies mirror the lower world. One’s intellect alludes to the sun, while his heart is like the moon which receives its light from the sun. Like the sun, one’s intellect should be used to illuminate proper conduct. His heart should only desire that which his intellect knows is fitting.

“It is impossible to be a whole person without these two faculties working in concert. If the intellect knows what is good but the heart is drawn in the opposite direction, it would be better for him not to have intellect at all. In Mishlei we find that such a person is compared to a pig with a golden nose ring - a valuable adornment graces an unworthy object. The same is true when the heart follows the directives of the mind when that mind is crooked. This is why in ancient times people clung to idolatry. Their hearts followed their intellects, but their minds confused light for darkness and darkness for light. This is worse than those whose intellect is straight but their hearts do not follow its directives.”

The Shem MiShmuel then explained the connection with the practice of the people of Yericho. “The first verse of Shema straightens the intellect, since the very word Shema means to listen carefully and understand. V’ahavta clearly refers to the heart, as the verse continues, ‘…upon your heart.’ The people of Yericho didn’t pause at the juncture in order to deepen their awareness that the heart must follow after the well-guided mind. The sages, on the other hand, would pause to remind themselves that without toil it is easy to disconnect the heart from the intellect.

He concluded, “Although the way of Chazal was more correct, the sages did not protest against the practice of the people of Yericho because, in essence, their meaning was the same.”

The key to this teaching, at least as far as I see it, is captured with these two phrases:

Our heads parallel the upper world while our bodies mirror the lower world. One’s intellect alludes to the sun, while his heart is like the moon which receives its light from the sun. Like the sun, one’s intellect should be used to illuminate proper conduct. His heart should only desire that which his intellect knows is fitting.

The first verse of Shema straightens the intellect, since the very word Shema means to listen carefully and understand. V’ahavta clearly refers to the heart, as the verse continues, ‘…upon your heart.’

This is what warms me when I hear the Shema and perhaps why reciting the Shema is required of every Jew twice daily. It reminds us of who we are in the here-and-now and how we are to set our purpose in life. We're not here just to sit around and wait for the bus to Heaven. We are to emulate our Master as worthy disciples and to do the will of our Father in Heaven with every living moment of our existence. This is why we were born and why God "chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless" (Ephesians 1:4).

I recently quoted from the Prophet Micah, but it seems a fitting way to end today's blog post:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. -Micah 6:8

Good Shabbos.

Rabbi Yaakov would also say: A single moment of repentance and good deeds in this world is greater than all of the World to Come. And a single moment of bliss in the World to Come is greater than all of the present world. -Pirkei Avot 4:17

Descent

I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. -Psalm 42:9-11

There is only one thing that can put you further ahead than success, and that is surviving failure.

When you are successful, you are whole and complete. That is wonderful, but you cannot break out beyond your own universe.

When you fail, you are broken. You look at the pieces of yourself lying on the ground and say, “This is worthless.”

Now you can escape. The shell is broken, the shell of a created being. Now you can grow to join the Infinite.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Getting Ahead with Failure"
Chabad.org

I admit to struggling with seeing the glass as half-full as opposed to half-empty. In part, the search for God is the search for significance and meaning in life. Who am I? What am I doing here? Does my life mean anything beyond the immediate needs I fill? Is there nothing more than this?

The Psalmist says to put your hope in God when your soul is downcast, but it's not always that easy. There's sometimes a difference between faith in God and trust in God. I realize that's a horrible thing to say. After all, who doesn't trust God? Who is afraid that God won't take care of us in all of the troubles in the world?

Both the Master and Paul commented on this:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? -Matthew 6:25-26

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:6-7

So, you never worry, right?

Right. Sure.

And yet, when our lives are the biggest mess is the time when we call upon God the most. When everything we do turns to mud and all of our circumstances and problems threaten to overwhelm us, is when we manage to crawl up to our hand and knees and call upon the Name of the Lord with fear and trembling.

After one of his greatest failures, David poured out his heart, "Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice" (Psalm 51:9). But sometimes, after we have an encounter with God, we still feel crushed. Relying upon God doesn't always mean God will make you "feel better", as if you are a small child who fell down, scraped your knee, and went running to Mommy so she can make it all better.

Sometimes God makes it all better but sometimes he does not.

In the Jewish mystic tradition, it is said that God created the universe in a dark void from which He had withdrawn, and then sent in ten vessels containing a "primordial light" (Let there be light -Genesis 1:3), but the vessels could not contain such a Holy light and they shattered. Divine sparks scattered across the entire cosmos like sand thrown across a glass table, falling all over our world.

It is said that our mission as human beings is to gather the sparks and repair the broken vessels, restoring the brokenness of the universe. This is a mystic meaning to the Jewish concept of tikkun olam or "repairing the world". Yet in repairing the world, we also repair our broken selves:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. -2 Corinthians 4:6-12

In our pain, despair, and brokenness, Rabbi Freeman says there is a unique opportunity to become more than who we are. Our vulnerability is also our openness to greater intimacy with God. In shattering our souls, we also shatter the wall between our world and the presence of the Divine.

When dining on ashes, we can dine with the Creator. If God goes down into exile with Israel (Genesis 46:3-4), then He goes down with us into our darkest abyss as well. The taste of the meal is bitter, but in that bitterness, we do not dine on the bread of our affliction alone.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Getting in the Wheelbarrow

There are two words often lumped together and commonly perceived as synonymous, when in reality they are not.

The two are Faith and Trust. In Hebrew, emunah and bitachon.

One way of explaining the difference between these words is that the former is the belief that G-d exists. The latter is the knowledge thereof, or, more accurately, the result of that knowledge, in mind, heart, and deed.

Rabbeinu Bechaya (in his book Kad Hakemach) puts it this way: "Anyone who trusts has faith, but not anyone with faith trusts."

-Mendel Kalmenson
"The Real Answer to the Question, Who Moved My Cheese?"
Chabad.org

This could be a useful answer to a lot of people's difficulties in their relationship with God. It could be a useful answer to your relationship difficulties with God. It could be a useful answer to my relationship difficulties with God. We tend to think of having faith in God and trusting God as the same thing, but they're not. Because they're not, we're expecting certain things to happen in our lives that aren't going to happen. It's like being married. If we believe in our spouse but don't trust him or her, what kind of a marriage is that? Is it even a relationship at all?


Here's another example from the same source:

This point can be further illustrated by a parable:

Long before the entertainment industry boomed, tightrope walking was a common form of amusement and recreation.

Once, a world-famous master of the sport visited a particular region. Word spread quickly, and many people turned up for the show. All was quiet as the master nimbly climbed the tree from which he would begin his dangerous trek.

But just before beginning his routine he called out: "Who here believes I can make it across safely?"

The crowd roared their affirmation. Again he asked the question and was greeted by the same response.

He then pulled out a wheelbarrow from between the branches and asked, less boisterously, "Which of you is willing to get inside the wheelbarrow as I cross?"

You could hear a pin drop.

Faith is the roaring response of the crowd; trust is climbing into the wheelbarrow.

It's easy to have faith in God but not to trust Him. It's easy to say "God exists and I believe in Him" as long as we don't have to become personally involved in performing the weightier matters of Torah. We can have an incredible faith that the tightrope walker will make it to the other end of the rope as long as we don't have to climb into his wheelbarrow.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. -James 2:14-24

When James (Ya'akov) says "that a person is considered righteous by what they do", he's talking about trust or bitachon. Our problem, is that we "think" about God, and we "feel" all warm and fuzzy about Jesus, but we don't "do" anything about changing our lives to conform to our thinking and feeling. Here's another example:

Maimonides is one in a long line of Jewish commentators who have proposed rationalistic interpretations of Scripture. Thus, words denoting place, sight, hearing, or position (of God) are interpreted as mental properties or dispositions. In our own vocabulary, it could be said that Maimonides has attempted to demythologize biblical narrative.

from Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed
by Kenneth Seeskin

Maimonides tends to see Biblical interpretation as either literal or allegorical and his strength as a theologian, philosopher, and sage is in his rational approach to the Tanakh (Jewish Bible). However there is a significant gap in his vision. We can also interpret the Bible and God through a mystic and experiential lens. The mystic seeks to encounter God in an extra-natural realm; meeting Him outside the boundaries of our physical universe, but we can also experience God in our day-to-day life by experiencing ourselves. We can "do" God and not just "think" or "feel" God. We can be the answer to prayer. We can have and live out faith and trust.

We can get in the wheelbarrow.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Seeing God

Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. -Deuteronomy 6:4

Many people, without realizing, end up with two gods:

One god is an impersonal one, an all-encompassing, transcendent force.

But then, at times of trouble, they cry out to another, personal god, with whom they have an intimate relationship.

Our faith is all about knowing that these two are one. The same G-d who is beyond all things, He is the same one who hears your cries and counts your tears. The same G-d who is the force behind all existence and transcends even that, He is the same G-d who cares about what is cooking in your kitchen and how you treat your fellow human being.

G-d cannot be defined, even as transcendent. He is beyond all things and within them at once.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Two Are One"
Chabad.org

Observant Jews say the Shema twice a day in obedience and devotion to God. In saying the Shema, a Jew declares that God is One and there is no other God but the God of Israel. This can be a bit of a challenge for some Christians who relate to God the Father as God, but also relate to Jesus, the Son of God as God, and to the Holy Spirit of God as God. Jews tend to see Christianity's conceptualization of the Trinity as polytheism; worshiping three "gods".

Yet, as Rabbi Freeman points out, even strict ethical monotheists can fall into the trap of worshiping two gods. Rabbi Freeman is talking about people who tend to conceptualize the One God in two different ways, depending on their needs, but Jewish mysticism also relates to more than one aspect of God.

As in Freeman's analysis, we tend to conceive of two "gods"; the God who manifests Himself to us in our universe, which we think of as the Shekhinah, and the invisible, eternal, immortal, infinite, all-powerful, Creator God who is far, far beyond all human understanding, which we call Ayn Sof. In doing this, is mystic Judaism creating polytheism?

I seriously doubt it. The problem isn't God, it's us. God isn't something we can subdivide or compartmentalize as we would any other thing in our experience. God is One. We just don't have the means by which to comprehend, let alone experience the "oneness" of God. Rabbi Freeman makes this point thus:

Faith is not the result of experience.

On the contrary, faith is an act that comes from within and creates experience.

Things happen because you trust they will.

The world, the universe, all of Creation simply exists. It doesn't have categories or types or organizations as such...not until we apply an order upon things. We do this to try and understand our world and our experience. God even approves of this activity when we perform it:

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof. And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field... -Genesis 2:19-20

Part of humanity taking dominion over the world God created for us was to impose our organization upon everything in that Creation.

But God is not part of Creation. God is unique and He presents a unique challenge and puzzle for human beings. What do we think of God? How do we relate to Him? How do we use our human senses, and our human brain, and our human feelings, to understand and connect to God?

In Christianity, the answer is simple (or so it seems): love Jesus Christ as lord and savior. He lived, died, and lived as a human being, so the Jewish Messiah makes God a much more relatable "object" than God the Father.

Oops. Now we're back at "God is Two": God the unknowable, unreachable, Father, and God the Son, who we have imagined to be ultimately reachable, relatable, connectible, and all too human.

Really?

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. -Revelation 1:12-17

Not exactly the warm and fuzzy teddy bear many churches have turned the King of Kings into in modern times. Sure, the rest of verse lets Jesus tell John to not be afraid, but as we see, John had every reason to be afraid.

So can we relate to God as God? Do human beings have the "equipment" to even perceive God as He is and to honor and worship God as One. Jewish mysticism and just about every other mystic tradition is devoted to connecting to God in His realms as He is, but there's also a more straightforward and simple approach, again, as presented by Rabbi Freeman:

Belief is not enough - you need Trust.

A believer can be a thief and a murderer.

Trust in G-d changes the way you live.

James says it this way:

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder. -James 2:19

Normally, you get to know someone through a series of experiences and eventually learn to trust them. We can't do that with God because we can't experience Him as we experience a human being. Both James and Rabbi Freeman tell us that faith and trust are the doorway by which we must reach God. We don't need to understand Him, although we may want to. We don't need to conceive of Him in all his eternal and majestic glory, although we may desire it. We need to have faith and to trust Him. This isn't blind trust. We can see. Our eyes are wide open. It's just that, like John in his Revelation, like Ezekiel in his vision, and like those others who have been privileged to have a mystic encounter in a world beyond our own, we don't always comprehend what and who we see. However, He is God and He is One and we can trust in Him, though He is as far beyond us as the heavens are beyond the earth.

Trust is how we can see God.

In the early part of the twentieth century, another Jewish philosopher, Hermann Cohen, suggested that the essential feature of monotheism is not that there is only one God but that the one God is unique. By unique he means that God is unlike and therefore not comparable to anything else in the universe; in short, God is and will always remain in a category by Himself. As Isaiah says in 40:25, "To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal?"

from Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed
by Kenneth Seeskin

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Mystic Wonder

People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” -Luke 18:15-17

This can probably be misunderstood. For some folks out there, this can be considered something of a justification that you don't really have to "study" the Bible, since it's simple enough for a child to understand. After all, Jesus said that anyone who is not "childlike" cannot enter the kingdom of God. This verse can even be used as a non-so-subtle criticism against the Jewish tradition to study Torah and to honor such study.

Of course, there's more than one way to look at the Master's teaching:

If you want to understand something to its depths, first approach it with the mind of a five-year-old. Ask the innocent and obvious questions and make things clear and simple. Through that clarity, you will perceive the depths.
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Start Simple"
Chabad.org

That's certainly one way to interpret this teaching of the Jewish Messiah and it fits with the theme of studying the Word and approaching it as a small child would. You start at the surface or in the shallow end of the pool, like a child first learning how to swim. Eventually, depending on the amount of time and effort you put into your swimming though, you could end up in the Olympics or as an oceanographer exploring the ocean's depths.

However, there's yet another perspective to consider:

Amazement never ceases for the enlightened mind. At every moment it views with amazement the wonder of an entire world renewed out of the void, and asks, "Why is there anything at all and not just nothing?"
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Wonder"
Chabad.org

This is how I tend to understand the words of Jesus (Yeshua). He wasn't necessarily saying that only the young and unsophisticated mind can approach the wisdom of God, but rather, that we should continually strive to see the world around us with fresh eyes, as if experiencing all of Creation for the first time.

The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. -Derek K. Miller (1969-2011)

Derek Miller died after a long struggle with cancer, just a few days ago at the age of 41.He leaves behind a wife and two young daughters. He didn't have faith in God and expected, when he died, that would be the end of all things for him. Blackness. Emptiness. Non-existence. No meeting with God.

Yet, in the face of suffering and anguish, he was able to write those incredible words and to see his environment with the eyes of wonder; the eyes of a child. These are the eyes and the heart that Jesus speaks of when he asked that the children be brought to him. If Derek Miller can see the world this way and yet seemingly not know God, how much more should we experience God's Creation as a child, seeing it every day through the lens of faith?

You cannot separate the mystical from the practical. Each thing has both a body and a soul, and they act as one. Neither can contradict the other, and in each the other can be found.
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Mystical and Practical"
Chabad.org

Very young children unreservedly believe in the mystical, the magical, the impossible, in just the same way as they believe in the existence of their parents, their favorite breakfast, and the bed in which they sleep. They accept God and His mercy in exactly the same manner as they accept their father's and mother's love.

That kind of experience gets lost somewhere along the way, but it doesn't have to stay lost. The mystery of the universe is the fabric by which God weaves our very existence. What we experience with our senses and what we experience as a matter of faith are the same thing. There is no difference, nor should there be a difference.

We can enter a mystical perception of the Creation of God at any time. All we have to do is open our eyes and our hearts the same way a two-year old opens his arms for a hug.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

The Moon is Torn

"I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late, I'm already torn"
-Natalie Imbruglia
"Torn"

"If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with him in all his glory
what would you ask if you had just one question?"
-written by Eric Bazilian
"What If God Was One Of Us?"

Go out on a clear night and see the moon reflected in the water of a lake. Then see the very same moon reflected in a pond, in a teacup, in a single drop of water. So the same essential Torah is reflected within each person who studies it, from a small child to a great sage.
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
"Multiple Reflections"
Chabad.org

If you believe in God or at least if you believe there is something more to the universe than what you can detect with your five senses, sooner or later you're going to encounter an existential question. Who am I? Is this all there is? Is there nothing more? What does it all mean?

Conversely, there are so many people inhabiting the various faith groups, theologies, and philosophies on the earth who are perfectly satisfied and content regarding who they are and what it all means. Certainly, there are many in the church who have no doubt that Jesus loves them, they are saved by grace, and they are free from sin and the law. There are many Jews in the synagogues who are absolutely secure they are sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah and that in the merit of the Patriarchs, they have a place in the world to come. It seems like one of the primary functions of any faith community is to provide its members with a safe and secure environment in which they are protected from existential questions and the horrors that they bring.

I found this person's comment in response to Judah Himango's blog post Is it a sin for Christians to break the Torah indicative of this function (and all the errors in the following quote belong to the original commenter:

I like your blog and all, and have learned a few good things however from time to time it just digresses into pure nastiness. I go to a very stable Baptist church where the fruits of the spirit are evident we have a deep love for Israel, the Jewish people and each other. What do you have to offer that would better my life as a disciple of Christ? Seriously all I see is fighting and division Paul warns harshly to expel those who cause division..

Also why are some people on this forum so vile? I noticed in the disagreement between Gene and Dan Dan calling Gene a Shmuck? (a word I found out means penis in Yiddish) is this what your idea of serving Christ looks like? Out of the mouth the heart speaks.

I think for now I will just stick with my church it's stable, dynamic and we are all trying to serve Christ the best we know how. I feel much safer there.

I'm kind of envious and it kind of bothers me. Everyone wants to feel "safe" from whatever threatens or bothers them, both in the environment and within the confines of their own spirits. I want that. You probably want that, too. Yet, when you're safe and protected, what are you experiencing and what are you learning? If we always feel safe and reassured that nothing is wrong, the world is an OK place, and everyone loves us, does that really mean anything? Does that bring us closer to God? Do we find out anything about why we are who we are if we stay in the comfort zone?

When I was reading today's missive by Rabbi Freeman online, I saw the following comment in response:

I am not a Jew, yet I have and still do enjoy reading the Daily Dose. I find a lot of the daily messages have a similar aspect in other religions. This one, I felt, this one was very Zen in its statement-as soon as I read it.

The "Messianic" movement is full of non-Jews like this person; people who have no real reason to be attracted to the Torah or the wisdom of the Jewish sages, but who nevertheless are irresistibly drawn in to something that transcends the ethnic and covenantal boundaries that isolate our various groups from one another; boundaries that in part exist so that we can feel safe.

I wrote yesterday that the purpose of the nation of Israel is to protect Jews in a hostile world and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, God mandated the Jewish state as the inheritance of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so it is not only enlightened self interest that prompts the Jews to build a nation of their own, but it is a mitzvah for them to do so. However, there is another mitzvah from God to consider:

Many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The Torah will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. -Micah 4:2

It's clear from this that the Torah, or at least some part of it, was not meant to be entirely and eternally contained just within the boundaries of Israel and Judaism. Some of this wisdom of God was meant for mankind. When we hear it; some of we who are not Jewish respond as if the Word of God is the missing piece to the puzzle of our lives.

I'm standing on the path looking toward the horizon about six weeks into the future, when I will end one part of my life and begin another. I have no idea what will happen. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or not. I think I am, otherwise I wouldn't do it, but how can I be sure?

I'm looking at the reflection of the moon in a cup of cold coffee. I'm awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn. I'm looking for something real. I'm a little late. I'm already torn.

If you were faced with God in all His Glory, what would you ask if you had just one question?

The Miracle at the Shabbos Table

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. -John 14:11-14

There will come a time, very soon, when we will be shown miracles so great, they will make the ten plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea appear as ordinary as nature itself.

So great, no mind can begin to fathom them; so powerful, they will transform the very fabric of our world, elevating it in a way that the wonders of the exodus never did.

For then, our eyes will be opened and granted the power to see the greatest of miracles: Those miracles that occur to us now, beneath our very noses, every day.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Greater Miracles
Chabad.org

I don't know why, but I continue to be amazed at how the teachings of Jesus (Yeshua) parallel the Talmudic masters and even the modern Jewish sages. They are all painting the same picture and revealing the same vision. We are all looking for miracles and we are all looking to God to provide those miracles. Even with evidence of the hand of God all around us, we can still fail to see what He is doing in the world and in our lives.

I suppose this shouldn't surprise us. Face it. The world is a mess. You have problems. I have problems. The world has problems. Where is God? Just look at His holy nation; the one He established Himself. We have members of the Fogel family murdered in their sleep in their Itamar home by Palestinian terrorists. Hamas fired a rocket from Gaza at a school bus critically injuring a teenage boy who later died. Several young Jewish men were murdered by Palestinian police while worshiping at Joseph's tomb in Nablus. Where does it all end? Where are the miracles of God? Why isn't He saving His people?

Any Jew alive on the face of this planet today is a walking miracle. Our mere existence today is wondrous, plucked from the fire at the last moment again and again, with no natural explanation that will suffice. Each of us alive today is a child of martyrs and miracles.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Walking Miracle
Chabad.org

The fact that there are Jews on earth today at all is a miracle. For thousands of years, the world has been trying to exterminate the Children of Israel, and it always seems like the Jewish people are on the verge of extinction. Yet we still have Jews among us. As much as the world hates Jews and hates Israel, the world needs the presence of the light of the world.

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” -Isaiah 49:6

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the tzitzit of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’” -Zechariah 8:23

In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.

Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The Torah will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. -Micah 4:1-2

And lest you think that Israel has irredeemably failed God and that the Christians have taken over, here is Paul's commentary on the matter:

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.” -Romans 11:25-27

It's not just that Israel is part of God's plan. In many ways, Israel is the plan. The salvation of the rest of the world depends on the Jewish people. We Gentiles will turn to them in the last days and through the Jewish Messiah, we are all redeemed.

However, even the most far reaching cosmic plan can have very humble elements. God created the miracle of the nation of Israel and through his mercy, sustains each and every Jew. Yet we see that every individual has a part in that mission, even down to a single parent and how he or she raises their children.

Rav Shmuel Aharon Lider, shlit”a, learns a beautiful lesson from this. “We see from this that Shabbos is the time for us to sanctify and educate our children at the table. The best way to be mechanech and sanctify our children is through the zemiros that we sing and the divrei Torah that we say at the Shabbos table.”

Rav Shach, zt”l, had a neighbor - a simple baal habayis who was not too learned - whose sons grew to all be exceptional masmidim and great talmidei chachamim. Rav Shach himself lived and breathed Torah all the time, yet his neighbor’s children appeared to surpass his own in certain ways as far as Torah study was concerned.

Rav Shach himself commented on what seemed to him at the root of the distinction. “My neighbor spent a long time at the Shabbos table interacting with his children and singing zemiros. I, on the other hand, was always very engrossed in working through a difficult Rambam or some other intricate Torah argument. One should never underestimate the power of filling the children with a spirit of holiness through the simple singing of zemiros and speaking divrei Torah at their own level at the Shabbos table!"

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories off the Daf
The Power of the Shabbos Table
Menachos 50

Here we see a miracle. One does not have to be an exceptional Jewish Torah scholar or exalted sage or saint in order to raise children who are close to God. We can also extend the metaphor, so to speak, beyond Israel. We can apply what else we've learned in this short lesson and say that by the Gentiles attaching themselves (ourselves) to Israel through the Jewish Messiah, we can also share in the miracle of not only continuing in the world, but of being able to belong to God.

The Torah has gone forth from Zion and, as the Master sometimes said, "to those who have ears, let them hear".

Shabbat Shalom.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Choices

We are not Jews by choice. We are not circumcised by choice—they do it to us before we can be asked. Neither did anyone ask us if we would like to be obligated in all these mitzvahs—not since Mount Sinai. Even the one who joins us does so because something propels him from inside.

If we were Jews because our minds and hearts told us so, then our Judaism would take us only as far as our minds and hearts can know. But we are not. And so, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Not by choice
Chabad.org

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. -Ephesians 1:3-6

Do we have a choice? I mean, about who we are...do we have a choice?

Logic would say "yes", at least up to a point. We don't have a choice about who our parents are, our hair or eye color, how tall we'll be, and a lot of other things. But we were given free will and the power of decision. We can choose where to live, what kind of work to do, who to marry, what to read, how to spend our free time. We can choose.

But if you're a Jew, you don't get to choose. As Rabbi Freeman states, except for those people who choose to convert to Judaism, you do not choose to be a Jew (more on this later). You are "born that way", to quote a popular song by Lady Gaga. Of course, a Jew can choose to comply to his or her obligations to the commandments and what sort of lifestyle to live. There are Jews who experience being Jews by virtue of their genetics, but who otherwise live a completely "goy" lifestyle. There are Jews who relate to being Jews in terms of a social identity, but who do not acknowledge the religious and spiritual reality of being a Jew. There are Jews who embrace all there is about being Jewish including the Torah and the Talmud, and who embrace God.

Even if you're a Jew who chooses to reject your Judaism, just like in Nazi Germany on Kristallnacht in 1938, when they come for you, it won't matter if you say you're a Jew or not. You are a Jew and they will take you away.

But what about Christians? No one is born a Christian. Even if you are born into a Christian family, it's not a foregone conclusion that you will become a Christian or, if as a child you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, there's no guarantee your faith will endure into adulthood. Many kids raised in Christian homes lose their faith upon entering college and never regain it. You can choose to be a Christian and later you can quit. When they come for the Christians, you can deny your faith convincingly and with credibility, unlike the Jew.

There's a story about a teenage girl named Cassie Bernall who was murdered during the Columbine High School massacre on April 21, 1999. According to popular media reports, including news sources in Evangelical Christianity, Bernall was asked at gunpoint by one of the assailants if she was a Christian. She said "yes" and was immediately shot as a result. The church considers her a "martyr" for her faith and she has been much touted (or perhaps exploited) by organized Christianity as an example of a young person of faith who would even die for Jesus.

The facts of this event are somewhat in dispute and there are those who say the martyrdom of Cassie Bernall never happened, at least not in the way we've heard it reported. But fact or myth, the story of Cassie Bernall does highlight that Christians have a choice about acknowledging or denying Christ.

Don't we?

But if that's true that we have a choice, what did Paul mean when he said that "he (God) chose us in him before the creation of the world" and "he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ"? Paul is clearly addressing non-Jews who came to faith in the Jewish Messiah and who were adopted "to sonship" through the Messiah. Did we have a choice?

Free will says "yes", but Paul throws that choice into doubt.

Converting to Judaism for a non-Jew is a choice, isn't it? That choice is one of the reasons Judaism is hesitant to offer conversion as an option since converted Jews can more easily deny their "Judaism" when the going gets tough, just like Christians. Rabbi Freeman says, "Even the one who joins us does so because something propels him from inside...And so, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars." This is applied even to Jewish converts...people who have been destined by God to be Jewish before the creation of the world, even though they weren't born that way.

I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. -Leviticus 26:42

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. -Acts 12:13

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. -2 Peter 3:9

In Judaism, the merit of the Patriarchs is applied to every Jew and it is in that merit that Jews are considered by God. Of course John the Baptizer did say that God could raise up sons of Abraham from stones (Matthew 3:9), indicating that the merit of the Fathers has limits. But God has remembered and God will continue to remember His covenant with the Jewish people and, as Paul states (in Romans 11:25-32), all of Israel will be saved.

But Peter says that God does not want anyone to perish. If Jews, not by their own choice, are members of the covenant, and Christians were chosen by God from before the creation of the world, where does choice figure in? I don't really know the answer, but there is this:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. -Genesis 1:27

Choice or not, all human beings everywhere are special just because we were created in God's image. That doesn't mean arms and legs and such, but the part of us that, through no will of our own, seeks out something greater than ourselves. For some that means seeking science, for others some form of spirituality, and for those who try to block out that "image", it means immersing themselves in the things of the world including sex, drugs, alcohol, and whatever other pleasures they can find.

For those of us who try to answer "the call" and seek out that thing within us that wants to reconnect to its origin, we are taken places we don't want to go, we ask questions we don't want to ask, and we hear answers we don't want to hear. Yet we cannot stop seeking that missing part of ourselves, we cannot stop asking troublesome questions, and we cannot stop listening for disturbing answers.

The deepest longing, therefore, of the genuine Chasid is to become a "living Torah." The keeping of the Law is to him only a means to an end: union with God. For this reason he tries to keep the Law scrupulously, for "God's thoughts are embodied in it."
Paul Phillip Levertoff
Love and the Messianic Age

I suppose I'm cheating when I say that we do and don't have a choice. We don't have a choice about being created by God and we don't have a choice about who God created us to be, Jew or Gentile. We don't have a choice in that God seems to have created us with a built-in "homing signal" and, at some point our lives, He activates it and compels us to seek out that which we don't understand.

We do have a choice how we respond to that signal. Jews, though they can never stop being Jews, have a choice about how to respond to God. The rest of humanity, regardless of their religion including claiming no religion, have a choice about how to respond to God. Responding to God is challenging, even frightening. God calls us into worlds we don't always understand and probably wouldn't choose to enter, even if we did understand. We just know that, having answered God, we have only our faith to help us do what God has called us to do:

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” "Hineni" (Here I am), he replied. -Genesis 22:1

Dory: Come on, trust me on this one.
Marlin: Trust you?
Dory: Yes, trust. It's what friends do.
-from Finding Nemo (2003)

Trust. It's what Abraham did when God asked him to sacrifice his son, his only son, the son he loved, Isaac. Trust. It's what we have when God asks us to respond to Him. We don't have a choice in being the person God created us to be. We do have a choice in what we do with that person.

To quote a favorite expression of the Zohar: "The impulse from below (itharuta dil-tata) calls forth that from above." The earthly reality mysteriously reacts upon the heavenly, for everything, including human activity, has its "upper roots" in the realm of the Sefiroth.
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
by Gershom Scholem
quoting Zohar I, 164a and Zohar II, 34a

And so, our journey is on eagle’s wings and our destiny beyond the stars.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.