The Talmud tells of a heretic sage, Elisha ben Abuyah, who was violently renounced by his colleagues.
Elisha had come to deny God and reject religion.
One day he saw a father send his son up into a tree to perform a mitzvah: before one gathers eggs from a nest, one should shoo away the mother bird. The performance of this deed, according to the Bible, brings long life. The child performed the mitzvah, then fell from the tree and died. Elisha cried out, “There is no justice and there is no judge.”
We, in our time, far more than Elisha, have reason to question and doubt the existence of God and the efficacy of prayer. We have seen the eclipse of the light of goodness and mercy in a world convulsed in violence, suffering and desolation. We have seen loved ones stricken with crippling and life-threatening illnesses, young people die in the vernal hour of life and so many capriciously and arbitrarily wounded by life.
And we ask, “Where is God?”; “Where was God in Auschwitz and Hiroshima?”; “Where is the eternal when the natural catastrophes spell death and destruction for thousands?”; “Where is the loving God in our world in which millions die of malnutrition and starvation and other millions are nameless faces in computerized cultures?”
Is it any wonder that many Jews no longer believe in a personal God who is aware of their existence, responds to prayer and is a force in history. This much is certain: if there was a widespread belief in a personal God, our synagogues would be overflowing with fervent worshippers.
Yet many doubting Jews want to remain within the fold. They consider themselves as part of the Jewish People. Many are involved in Jewish culture, support Israel and a variety of worthy causes.
Judaism was never a monolithic religion. There were true and false prophets, honest priests and cultist, loyal Jews and backsliders. Long before the era of emancipation opened the gates of the ghettos and introduced the many forms of modern Jewish life, there were many profound differences in the community.
A few years ago, Abigail Pogrebin conducted interviews with 62 prominent American Jews, as recorded in her book Stars of David. She asked them how they felt about being Jewish.
They responded favourably about their Jewish heritage: their admiration for the achievements of the State of Israel and their pride in Jewish history. What was shockingly disturbing, however, was their lack of religious faith and lack of involvement in the Jewish community.
Interviewee Harvard law professor Allan Dershowitz proposed his “candle theory of Judaism”: the closer you get to the flame of Judaism, “the less likely you are to be a productive, successful creative person. The most successful are those who have moved away from the flame.” He adds, however, that the further you remove yourself from the flame, the less likely you are to have Jewish children or grandchildren.”
More than anything else our attitude toward disaffected Jews should be ahavat Yisrael, our affection for Jews as fellow members of an ancient and unique people. I know some questing honest skeptics. We need them. They should be warmly welcomed into our increasingly inclusive Jewish community.
