by Rabbi Gail Fisher
People often state that they don’t believe in God. In response, one could ask, “Describe for me the God that you don’t believe in.” They’ll tell you about the man with the long white beard sitting on a throne with the Book of Life open on his lap. Or it could be the God who favors one group over another, who chooses sides in times of war. Maybe it’s the judgmental God who demands blind obedience with no room for questioning or for doubt. Or there could be the God who says, “Oh, okay, he prayed for that, so I’ll change the result that I planned.” None of these is the type of God that most modern, educated adults could accept.
Please be aware that Judaism doesn’t require belief in God, period, let alone any particular God. Many people of my acquaintance believe in nature or Gaia, or the connection of one soul to another, or in the laws of physics. Judaism is less about who or what God IS and more about how we can serve God.
The attributes of God that we hear about in our secular world – omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent – are not indigenous to Judaism. They were later Hellenistic introductions (before the emergence of Christianity, which is why that religion incorporates those concept). If you read the Torah, you definitely don’t find a God who has any of those attributes. So if the Jewish God as originally conceived was neither all-good nor all-powerful, for example, you wouldn’t have the existence of evil as a paradox. God, according to thinkers like Harold Kushner, doesn’t hand out evil. Accidents and disease are random occurrences. God’s role is to support us as we go through such things.
The philosophers have tried to prove the existence of God by various means:
- The First Cause: the universe is here, so something must have set it in motion;
- If we can conceive of perfection at all, then God must be that perfect being;
- Such a complex universe must have had an intelligent designed – a watchmaker;
- People would otherwise be inherently selfish, so there must be a moral lawgiver;
- People have had spiritual experiences, which obviously point to God.
All relationships involve connecting and disconnecting, periods of growing closer and periods of withdrawing. We may believe in God and then not believe in God many times during our lifetime. It’s all natural and shouldn’t concern us. It’s the freedom to change that’s the important thing, so we don’t get stuck in the disconnection side of any relationship. Including with God.
Here’s the secret: It doesn’t matter if you believe in God! What matters is being present in your life, mindful of the daily miracles of living and grateful for them. Jewish law teaches us that the aspiration is to say 100 blessings each day. The real purpose is not to praise God, who shouldn’t be the type of being to require that, but to keep us aware at all times of the wonders that surround us.