Temple of Judgment and Strength, 12 Days of the Omer 5783
Today is twelve days, which is one week and five days of the Omer in the year 5783. הוד שבגבורה, Hod ShebeGevurah, Temple of Judgment and Strength; splendor within power. Today, the 27th day of Nisan, is also Yom HaZikaron LaShoah v'LaGevurah, the Day to Remember The Shoah and The Heroism, the Catastrophe when one-third of Jews were murdered during World War II.
Other Days, Obscuring the Divine was Easier
Perhaps you don’t believe in God,
or aren’t sure you believe in God.
My meditations (hopefully) can be helpful to anyone.
I try to describe what I believe in,
rather than demanding people BELIEVE in something that ultimately cannot be defined.
Today, between the horror of humanity and the Strength of the Ground of Being,
I must declare without hesitation, this all comes from The Divine.
Not Perfect Theology, Only Perfect Knowing
Traditionally, Jews don’t worry much about theology.
We make space for a multitude of understanding and disbelief.
At least we do among people born Jewish.
To convert, most rabbinical courts will require acknowledgement of God.
Humanistic Judaism would be the exception.
God Does Not Act in History
I do not believe in God’s ability to act directly in history.
I simply cannot.
There is no way I can believe in a God who cares about whether Sodom and Gemorrah were kind to strangers,
And willfully ignored the suffering of His “chosen people” for millennia afterward.
I cannot believe that World Wars happened without God interfering.
I cannot believe in the slaughter of the Jewish and Roma people by Hitler as part of God’s plan.
I am incredulous that people truly believe in the propserity gospel or the law of attraction.
The Catastrophe, The Shoah
I will not happily use the word “holocaust” to describe The Catastrophe.
A holocaust is a burnt offering to God that is entirely consumed by fire, leaving only ashes.
Jews were not slaughtered as an offering to God.
They were murdered by their neighbors.
Genocide has nothing to do with God and everything to do with human beings.
We did not go like “sheep to the slaughter.”
As with every other time our European neighbors slaughtered us,
(more Jews living in Europe died during the Crusades than anyone living in the Middle East),
we resisted however we could.
Some of our greatest leaders refused to be rescued without their colleagues.
Entire communities vanished.
So much Torah, so much Jewish wisdom, was extinguished.
It hurts to think about the almost complete loss of secular Yiddish culture.
The merging of modernity and Judaism that could have seen even more possibilities,
beyond the denominations of America,
and the secular / religious divide of Israel.
I mourn for the individual humans.
My immediate family came to the United States in the early 1900s.
Yet, there are still Minster’s in the database of names.
I’m sure there are Rubenstein’s, Itzurre’s, and Dickson’s.
God is my Rock and my Salvation
So, how then can I say with certainty that God is my Rock and my Salvation?
Because God is the Strength within me.
God guides my judgment.
God holds me up when life feels overwhelming.
In my youth, God protected me.
In my early adulthood, I hid from God.
When cancer hit, I went searching.
I found God waiting for me.
A healthier, wiser, more complete understanding of the Ground of Being.
Each time I sought God,
I found the salvation I needed.
God does not act in history.
God acts in me.
Image by David Mark from Pixabay.