A Questioning of Faith

Posted by: on Oct 15, 2014 | One Comment

A couple of weeks ago was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. A time when we members of the tribe ask for forgiveness for our sins – sins against family, sins against friends, sins against God.

I believe in friends, I believe in family, as for God….not so much. I believe that something is out there, I’m just not sure what or who or where it is. The funny thing about it is despite my lack of belief in the ultimate being, I spend the entire day of  Yom Kippur in temple, arriving before 10 when the morning services start and leaving after the final blow of the shofar about 8 hours later.  Yom Kippur should actually end at sunset (or about 6:45 on that particular day) but as a reform Jew, Yom Kippur ends early to build in travel time for break fast.  And yes, I have now sinned for saying that.

Most people leave temple after the morning service and return later that afternoon for Yizkhor, the memorial service where you honor those immediate relatives who have passed. This is only my 2nd year that I have attended Yizkhor as a mourner. I went in years past but mostly to support Linda and her mom.

My day in temple is spent learning, reflecting, listening to the sounds of the day, checking out the fall fashions and laughing at folks trying to hide the fact that they are on their cell phones (including a member our clergy’s wife playing Tetris – OY!).  Most of the time, I don’t even participate in the responsive readings that go on. I have found that my faith and my spirituality does not come from a prayer book.

When I go to temple, a time when my most people reaffirm their belief in God, is the time that I actually find myself questioning God’s existence. Mostly because I don’t really think about religion or God all that much but when you’re in temple, that’s what you think about. I have often stated that “religion is the root of all evil” and, in today’s world, I think that is more true than ever.

Don’t get me wrong. I consider myself 100% Jewish, raised my kids that way, go to temple more than 2 times a year (which is more than I can say for about 90% of our temple members…and I’ve sinned again). For me, I don’t equate my Jewishness with a belief in God. Sounds a bit crazy but I think faith and spirituality are what you make of it, not necessarily an organized belief system in a higher power.

During the Jewish High Holidays which just ended, most Jews are supposed to reaffirm their belief in “Adonai,” the one true God. As for me, I reaffirmed my belief that if there is one true God, he put me here to question everything about him or her, about religion, about everything that is going on the world, and to try and make one other person question it as well. And I believe that if there really was a God, he’d answer my prayers that my blog would have thousands (let’s make that millions) of readers and I’d get rich just from telling folks my opinions.

Aurora, Religion, Guns,

Posted by: on Jul 20, 2012 | 3 Comments

Aurora, Religion, Guns

I just read the comments of Rep. Louis Gohmert, a republican from Texas and he has gotten me really worked up. Using the tragedy in Aurora as a platform, he blames “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” in our country and goes on to question why no one else in the theater had a gun to take the shooter. As I write those words I get even more outraged by them.

I’m not going to respond to his statements about this being an anti-religious statement by the shooter or an attack on our Judeo-Christian beliefs. If there’s any evidence of this so far, I haven’t read a single word.

Who I really want to hear from are my friends and colleagues who are deeply religious. Could you please explain to me what in God’s name is this guy talking about? How does he come off as “good Christian” by making these types of inflammatory remarks within hours of this tragedy? Did God tell him that this was an attack on his Christian beliefs? If he were alive today, would Jesus carry an assault weapon to fend off his enemies? What am I missing?

My own faith is always in state of flux. I am Jewish but my Judaism is more cultural and spiritual than grounded in a deep belief in God. I believe in some sort higher power but have no clue as to what that is or what that means. What I do know is that throughout the course of history, religion has been used to fight wars, used in many attempts to exterminate entire cultures, and does as much bad as it does good as I think is the case here.

So, all you deeply religious folks out there, explain this guy to me because statements like this make me loose a lot of my own faith in our country and the religious/cultural diversity that makes this a great nation.