Are You There, God? It's me, the Rabbi.

Once there was a man, George Ecco, a self-described “church critic,” who would go from church to church every Sunday, sit in the back inconspicuously, and take notes. Then he would rate the service. How good was the sermon? One star, two, three? How about the choir? One star, two, three? How friendly were the people? How tasty were the refreshments? How many people did he count in the pews? Were different age groups present or was it predominantly one group? He’d jot down these observations and others and then, every Monday, he hosted a program called “Holy Mackerel! Rating the Churches” on the local TV channel, where he’d reveal his results.

When Rabbi Jack Riemer heard about this man, he had two reactions. The first was natural: “What if he came to our synagogue? How would we rate?” And he felt, like we at KKBE might feel, pretty confident. Our music is amazing. The dedicated folks who prepare our Onegs — Yom Kippur aside — outdo themselves. Sermons, I’ll have to defer to y’all to judge, but I can assure you we try our very best. I believe our congregation would be judged as friendly — our ushers, greeters, and ambassadors work hard to make sure there’s a warm welcome for everyone who joins us, and many of you who aren’t “official” ushers, greeters, or ambassadors do the same informally, as well. Our Board members are present and visible. If someone asked what kinds of activities we offer, folks could tell them about our services, our Circles, our school — or, if not, help them find someone who could.

But then Rabbi Riemer had a second, deeper reaction: “What if the stranger who came to us wasn’t just looking for friendship? What if they were looking for more than a social outlet? What if the visitor who came to us was looking for God? Or for holiness? Or for a purpose in life? What if they were trying to find or make meaning? What would happen if they came to our community with these kinds of concerns on their hearts? Would we know what to say if they asked us these questions?”

A congregation is more than a club. Don’t get me wrong: A synagogue is an important place for meeting new people, socializing, making friends. Especially for those who are new to town, connecting with the local Jewish community in a synagogue can be essential, and making just a friend or two there can often be the most affirming part of their transition. We’re proud to be a place where those kinds of connections can and do happen, frequently. But KKBE is also a Kahal Kadosh — a “holy community” — a place where someone should be able to bring their deepest questions and spiritual longings. We’re a Beit Elohim, a “house of God” where folks should be able to wrestle with their their biggest hopes, and their enduring doubts and fears. We should be a place that inspires big questions, a place where we engage them. How well are we doing there?

A number of times this past year, people have spoken to me about God — their beliefs about God, their lack of belief in God, whether or not belief in God matters to them at all. They’ve opened up about spiritual experiences they’ve had, or inspirational moments they expected or hoped would happen, but didn’t. Each conversation has been a gift to me, yet when they happened, they more often than not came with an apology.

Some people have prefaced their remarks with apologies about blasphemy — as though, if there is a God, anything that involves questioning God, wrestling with who or what God might be, could be anything other than an absolute joy for that God (if it is a God capable of feeling emotion).

Some people have very sweetly apologized for taking up my time, noting that I, as a rabbi, must spend so much time contemplating the divine that it can hardly be interesting to engage in theological discussion with someone who hasn’t also spent six years learning in a seminary. On that point, let me assure you that, for better or worse, as I rabbi I spend the vast majority of most days (except for Shabbat) doing exactly what any other professional does: Email. It’s an all too rare and very special treat to be able to discuss big questions and wrestle with personal beliefs.

Still others have apologized for their perception of the simplicity of their thoughts, their inarticulateness — like Moses who felt himself to be impaired of speech and therefore somehow unworthy to use his voice. They assume on the other hand that I, if asked, could articulate both succinctly and profoundly a clear conception of who I personally believe God to be, how I believe God to operate in the world, and what I believe God to expect of us, of me. Let me assure you, I very often feel just as clumsy and inarticulate as anyone; sometimes even more so.

Each of these occurrences has stayed with me this past year; they’ve felt noteworthy: First, that a number of people have wanted to talk about God; and, second, that they have, almost to a person, apologized for it.

The truth is, and perhaps I shouldn’t admit it, but I haven’t been spending much time thinking about God. I haven’t regularly paused to feel God’s presence or bring the idea and awareness of God into my consciousness. Even in the house of God in which I spend more time than most, mundane tasks easily dominate any given day, week, month. And, for that, I am the one who should be apologizing. Chatati l’fanecha — God, I have sinned before You.

But there’s a broader and more important confession I feel I need to make: For not creating more opportunities for us to talk about God in our Beit Elohim; for not providing opportunities for us to struggle with our beliefs, affirm our beliefs, explore and question our beliefs together; for not explicitly inviting the conversations that folks have been apologizing to me for wanting to have… Chatati lif’neichem — I have sinned before all of you.

So let’s do it. As an open invitation to each of us in this new year to have those conversations and wrestle together, let me share a bit about the God in whom I do personally believe, but whom I all too infrequently pause to deeply and truly consider.

I believe God to be an eternal presence, even if it is one of which we are all too often unaware. Like when a strong wind (or oppressive humidity) suddenly makes us aware of the otherwise inconspicuous air all around us, there are moments that make me suddenly feel and become conscious of God’s presence.

Often it has to do with accessing the right words, finding the right resource, responding “correctly” in a difficult moment with someone in need — and feeling guided to that response; feeling like it’s a gift that has been given to, and through, me. 

I felt God when a B’nei Mitzvah student found the courage to do more than they thought they were capable of doing in their service. I felt God in their trust to allow me to guide and push them, and I felt God in my faith and confidence that they would proudly succeed. 

I felt God when a visit in a hospital room shifted from tears to laughter — not a mask for underlying feelings, or merely a brave face. But genuine raucous laughter in the midst of challenge and fear; a divine reassurance that life isn’t something we reenter at the end of a healing journey, but that there can be blessings all along the journey, as well.

I felt God when I led a text study for interfaith clergy this past winter and then took them into our Sanctuary on a “Chamber of Commerce afternoon,” light streaming through the stained glass windows. I showed them our sacred space, our Ark, the Torah scrolls. Their joy at being welcomed in, the novelty and freshness of texts that have become so familiar to me, the “Oh wows!” in reaction to our tradition literally being opened in front of them — I couldn’t stop smiling all afternoon, and I felt God present in those connections.

What does it mean to say I feel God’s presence? For me, it means becoming aware of something bigger than myself, than any of us. It can mean feeling like I’m an agent, a messenger for some wisdom or insight that comes from beyond myself. It can mean feeling a release from the weight of the world — not because I suddenly care any less, but because I feel connected to a reservoir far more expansive than myself that shares my cares and burdens. It can feel like being given a key to access whatever spiritual gift I might need in a given moment — hope, patience, resilience, joy, strength, wonder, confidence, faith — and realizing there are far more spiritual gifts to draw upon than we often realize. It means feeling fully present in the moment, and though the feeling might only last a moment, its impact lasts far longer.

While these moments of feeling God’s presence can and certainly do happen for me in community, spiritual moments most often happen for me in nature. There’s a Chasidic tale about a young child who would often skip school for hours. 

One day, their teacher followed, trailing behind as they traversed deep into the hilly woods, curious to discover what they did with that missing time. At one point the child paused. The teacher saw that there, amid the tranquility of nature, the child began to pray. The next day, the teacher asked what drew the child to the woods, and the child replied, “I find God there.” “Why?” the teacher asked. “Can’t you try to find God at school or in the synagogue? After all, God is the same everywhere.” “That may be true,” the child replied, “but I am not.”

I too am different when I’m looking out over the rolling waves of the ocean. I feel different when I watch the sun set or listen to trees sway in a strong breeze. When I look out over the blue ridges of North Carolina’s mountains, I don’t just feel different, I breathe differently (I know, because my blood pressure confirms it). I firmly believe that God is accessible everywhere, but I wonder sometimes if God gets frustrated that I’m not.

That said, I believe our ritual practices help cultivate a more constant attentiveness to God’s presence no matter where we are. I personally find prayer meaningful — though sometimes more deeply than others. 

As I often am, I’m drawn to a teaching of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who used to tell the story of a small Jewish town, far off the main roads. They had all the necessary municipal institutions — a bathhouse, a cemetery, a hospital, courts of law, all of sorts of craftsmen. But one trade was lacking: The town didn’t have a watchmaker. As time went by, many of the clocks became inaccurate and, since there was no one available to fix them, their owners decided to just let them run down and stop working. There were others, however, who maintained that as long as the clocks ran, even if they were inaccurate, they should not be abandoned. So they wound their clocks day after day. One day, the news spread throughout the town that a watchmaker had arrived! Everyone rushed to him with their clocks. But the only ones he could repair were those that had been kept running. The abandoned clocks had grown too rusty.

And this, said Rabbi Heschel, is why we pray regularly, even if every prayer experience isn’t as prayerful as we would hope or as meaningful as we would like — we pray so that the words may be onour hearts, available to enter if and when the heart opens.

I’m drawn to our traditional prayers — the morning blessings, the T’filah, the various formulations of our prayers for healing and peace. I believe traditional prayers are an invitation to consider how our ancestors experienced God’s presence, and that trying on their approaches can help us articulate how we feel God’s presence, let the subject of God’s presence take up residency in our hearts, minds, and souls. But I also find deep resonance with many of the alternate, modern readings the editors of our prayer books included on the left side of the page. Especially the prayers about prayer, like this one we read on Rosh Hashanah:

You can’t rush a prayer to God,

If it comes from the heart

It will rush out on its own

Speed through receding galaxies or

Silences in the soul,

And God will hear. …

Beyond the way of prayer:

We glimpse unknown magnitudes of God,

No more, or we would be stunned into silence.

Except that Love makes itself small,

We could not pray at all.

Often, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to prayer is language — not just Hebrew or sometimes Aramaic, but specific words and phrases. Even though I’ve used it repeatedly this morning, like many, I sometimes struggle with the word “God.” “God” is the language of the biblical tyrant who punishes and smites and rewards inequitably. That’s not a God I can believe in. “God” is the language of religious dispute — the Commander of identities, categories, and rules that divide the human family into territorial separatists. That’s not a God I can believe in either.

“God” as language — as a name, as a word — has a lot of baggage.

Many times, I prefer the language of “Source” instead — Source of Awe, Source of Connection, Source of Beauty, Source of Strength. Those who have been open to me offering a prayer in a time of difficulty have heard me use this language before. It’s consistent with one of the most traditional formulas of Jewish prayer: “Mi Shebeirach avoteinu v’imoteinu… May the One who blessed our ancestors in their time of need with gifts of spirit, be a source of those gifts we most need in this difficult time, as well.” 

Which brings us to the most challenging, heart-wrenching God questions that anyone can ask — rabbis ask them, too: Why do we have to have these difficult times at all? Why do people suffer, sometimes very good people, sometimes completely innocent people? Why do people get sick? Why do people, sometimes even children, die? Why, God — if there is a God; an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God — why do these things happen?

There are and have been many answers suggested to these questions. Book upon book is filled with theological hypotheses about why people suffer, why bad things happen to good people. Some answers are more satisfying than others; to some people, at some times. For me, and my personal theology, the only true answer I have — unsatisfying though it is — is: “I don’t know.” I don’t know why the world works the way it does, and I can’t pretend to. I don’t know why our bodies work so well, miraculously well even, so very much of the time, and then it can be possible that they all of a sudden don’t. I don’t know why some people can never seem to catch a break, and why some can bear their misfortunes and others cannot. I don’t know why, when an answer to someone’s desperate question, “Why?” might provide them comfort and consolation, that is exactly what I don’t have to give.

But I do believe there is an ultimate design far beyond our comprehension, and that “theology,” as David Brooks once wrote, “is a grounding in ultimate hope, not a formula to explain away each individual event.” I believe in a God who is not the source of our suffering or its explanation, but is our comfort, our confidante, our punching bag — whatever we need to sustain our hope and our courage, to sustain ourselves until the darkness begins to brighten. I believe in a God who shares our sadness, our anger, our frustration, our fear. I certainly believe in a God who can handle our lashing out, even when it’s God we lash out against.

I once heard the following metaphor; it really resonated with me then, and has stayed with me since: Family members were driving back to the Shiva house, a ways away from the cemetery, after an especially difficult funeral. All deaths are sad, but some are tragic. This family was utterly devastated; they didn’t know how they were going to survive their loss. As they got onto the highway, the person driving the car realized the gas tank light was on. He had no idea how long it had been on — perhaps it had even been on while they were driving to the cemetery; everything had been an emotional blur that day. But he did know that this stretch of highway was a particularly long one with no exit for services until they got close to home. So he waited, hoping for the best. Thankfully, quite a bit later, they pulled safely up to a gas pump in a station. And then he realized: This is how they would make it. By all accounts, the car they had been driving had been out of gas. Yet, somewhere, in some special reservoir, like the oil on Hanukkah, there was some little bit of fuel left — just enough to tide them over, just enough to get them through. There is, he realized, in the universe — we can call it God, but we don’t need to — a reservoir of strength, of hope, of love, of patience… of all the spiritual gifts we might need to tap into when our own sources run dry. Just enough to tide us over, just enough to get us through. 

I wish I remember who first shared this story with me or where I first read it, but while I’ve forgotten the source I’ve always remembered the lesson. I’ve seen its truth play out in the lives of so many members of our congregational family, and I’ve felt it in my own life, too. That something keeps us going even when we don’t think we can is the truest statement of theology I know. 

Friends, you don’t have to believe what I believe, or know what you believe, or believe anything whatsoever — what’s important is that you know there is always an open invitation at KKBE to discuss, without apology, our personal beliefs and doubts and confusion together. As we are reminded at the beginning of our Yizkor service: Into the synagogue we bring stories and prayers, unanswered questions, tears that need to be shed. Moments of courage and laughter and pain — the synagogue embraces them all, as it embraces us all. Whether it’s in our sanctuary at a Shabbat service, over sacred text in Torah study, or by appointment if you just want to sit one-on-one together, may our congregation always a be a place where we can call out: “Are you there, God? It’s Me.” 

And then may we sit and listen 

and debate and discuss 

and reflect 

and be still, 

together.

Originally posted here.