Thinking about God: Jewish Views, by Rabbi Kari H Tuling: a review

 

This is an invaluable book, and what you get out of it will depend on two things: who are you, and what are you seeking?

If you're a reader (Jewish or not) who's unfamiliar with this tradition, you may become bemused by the sheer variety of Jewish views about God, and how different they are, and how all of them are valid parts of the Jewish tradition. It may change your sense of what thinking about God can be like. Along the way, you will also quietly learn a lot about Jewish texts and traditional ways to read them and about ways that our understanding of God can shape our daily lives. In fact, Rabbi Tuling insists, "Theology defines what is possible in our lives." Read it, and see if you agree!

If you're a Jewish reader who's well-versed in bible and midrash, like me, you will recognize some of the passages with which Rabbi Tuling begins each chapter and nod along with her line-by-line explication. Some of the medieval thinkers were unfamiliar to me, and some of the modern ones too. But as a person who usually approaches God as a partner in the project of tikkun olam, the repair and gradual perfection of creation, and not as a "God of the philosophers," I found it useful to read over the contrasting views and see how much I agreed with some, and less with others. It made me put into words some of what I believe about God rather than just relate to God as someone who's always already been there.

And if you're a person who's inclined toward theology but not familiar with Jewish approaches, you may be taken up short by how much Jewish views of God can contrast with the assumptions soaked into Christianity (to say nothing of Islam, Buddhism, or other traditions!) You may also learn the connection between daring exegesis and theology in Judaism--much more common than a purely deductive approach--and you will have to decide whether you agree with the author when she says, "Any theology that can confidently explain why children get cancer is a monstrosity."

All of us readers, I think, will get suggestions on what to read next!

"What" is this thing that nourishes us?

 

In this week's Torah portion, Beshalach, there's a key word that repeats over and over: Mah, meaning "What?" Sometimes it means, synonymously, "What for?" (One of the Hebrew words for "Why," which is lamah, literally translates syllable by syllable as "for what?") 

    What for did we let those Israelites go? (Pharaoh and the courtiers ask themselves)

    What for did you bring us out of Egypt if we are going to die in the Sea, or in the wilderness, of hunger. or of thirst? (the Israelites ask Moses)

    What for are you quarreling with me, and testing God? (Moses asks them in return)

And perhaps most puzzling of all: food falls from the sky, and the people ask Mahn hu? "What is it?" (It's from mahn that we get the name for the food from that day until now: manna.)

What is it with all this "what"?

The Torah, the Haggadah, and the Simple Child

Every year in synagogue, we read the story of the Exodus once from the Torah. But every year at home, we read it at least once--in my family, more than once--in the Passover Haggadah. And in the Haggadah, "What" is the hallmark of the Simple Child.

Mah zot? "What is all this," the Simple Child asks? Unlike either the wise or the wicked child, who want to understand the Why, and unlike the child who doesn't even know how to ask a question, the Simple Child is stuck on What.

This week, I learned from reading Aviva Zornberg that certain rabbis thought the Simple Child in the Four Questions was more objectionable than the one who doesn't know how to ask. Those rabbis, she says, interpreted the Simple Child's question, "Mah zot?" (What is this?) as a request for a simple answer that would end the conversation. Those rabbis--and she, and I--think that what God wants is a search for more complex, nuanced answers that continue the conversation. 

 

But I think those rabbis had the Simple Child wrong, and this week's parshah shows where they went astray.

 

Look again at those questions from Parshat Beshalach. 

These are not conversation-enders. They are questions that engage in conversation and carry it further: precisely the kind of conversation we think and Zornberg thinks God wants us to engage in! (and far preferable to holding our feelings in silence)

So, if the "Mah questions" in this week's portions are not a search for what Humpty Dumpty in Alice calls a nice knock-down answer, a once and for all, why on earth should we think the Simple Child is asking for that kind of finality? 

It seems to me that the "Mah" in both this week's portion and in the Haggadah could be an open-ended question, inviting the kind of dialogue that it is not a challenge but more like a caress. It seems to me that it's the kind of word that has a different flavor each time you take it in, like manna.

God bless the simple child who's got his own...question.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm reading through Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's amazing commentary on the biblical Book of Exodus, The Particulars of Rapture. Each chapter expounds one of the portions we read in the synagogue weekly. It's slow going because it is so rich with insights. To keep on track, I will post at least one insight weekly between now and mid-March, when (God willing) I finish the book.