Why Have Faith, Prayer and God Become American Jewish Taboos?

I am often struck when reading through our commentators how unabashedly they speak in terms of faith, God and prayer. And how awkward it makes so many people feel today.
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Before I moved to Seattle I used to work in Las Vegas. I wasn't a dealer at the Bellagio or doing weddings dressed as Elvis. I was working at one of the Conservative synagogues in the suburbs. It wasn't on the strip but it was just as colorful.

A member of the congregation, a physician, drove me to the airport at the end of my first weekend. I asked if the study of medicine brought him closer to a belief in God or further away. The Las Vegas airport is right next to the strip and I couldn't help but notice the discord between my theological question and the mega casinos glittering next to us. Without hesitating he said, "Closer. And I remember the moment," he said. "It was when I first saw the trochlea, in gross anatomy." The trochlea, he explained is a critical part of sight. It is a small round bone scarcely bigger than the head of pin that acts as a pulley. One of the tendons in the eye threads through this bone, does a 180-degree turn and attaches to the back of the eye socket. The resulting torque gives the eye the ability to track diagonally. "It was perfect engineering," he said. "And I just felt it could not be random. The design was too precise." It absolutely deepened his faith in a higher being, he said.

As a follow up question I asked whether the conversation of science and intelligent design ever comes up with his colleagues. His response was equally without hesitation. "Absolutely not." He suggested, somewhat sadly, that something in the study of medicine puts the conversation off limits -- an unwritten rule, a tacit agreement.

I have asked this question to many physicians, mostly Jewish, and the conversation virtually always follows a similar trajectory. Yes, the study of medicine has deepened their faith, brought them closer to a belief in a Something and no they would never speak to their colleagues about it. I find echoes of the Jewish experience in these conversations.

Faith, prayer and our concepts of a Grand Designer are subjects we Jews rarely discuss. Perhaps because it is too personal, but more likely because we don't have the context for it. As a way of shuffling off the question we claim these are not Jewish words. Not part of the Jewish dialogue. The rabbis of our tradition would not understand our discomfort. For them, God, faith and prayer were very Jewish words.

I am often struck when reading through our commentators how unabashedly they speak in terms of faith, God and prayer. And how uncomfortable it would be considered if we spoke in such terms. How awkward it makes so many people feel -- until they start talking. I suspect this lack of dialogue about an adult theology is among the things driving so many of Jews away from Judaism. I see it every day. There is a very deep and very human hunger for a spiritual or religious experience in Judaism.

A few years back, I lost a friend and teacher to cancer. An extraordinary woman whose faith was something that emanated a light from her withering body. During our last conversation I asked her where she found such a profound faith. "Faith is found by actively seeking it and surrounding yourself with people who have it."

I have taken her answer very seriously. Faith, prayer and God are deeply Jewish. They surround and are infused within our tradition. The rabbis of the Talmud, who laid the foundation of our tradition, presupposed God. The Jewish tradition requires no leap of faith. It is more of a step of faith. And I am not suggesting that we should abandon reason, but equally we should not sacrifice faith at its alter. They both have their place and at times that means allowing the two to be held in resonant tension, contradiction and utter discord. We need to create adult theologies.

Occasionally, I teach a class called "Unlearning God." As an exercise I ask students to take a small journal and jot down all the places over the course of the week where they experience the possibility that there is something greater, a higher power acting in the world. I used to say write down all the places where they see the fingerprints of God. But I learned they often became too caught up in the God language, so I changed it to the possibility of "something greater."

The answers they bring back are always as beautiful as they are profound -- tears on skin, time slowing down as a leaf falls to the ground, evening sun on hardwood floors, steam rising from coffee; reflections, laughter, compassion.

Commenting on the phrase, im shemohah, tishmah, if you listen you will hear, the Me'or Einayim says, "If you hear what is old, you will hear what is new." The struggle is to make the old conversations new, to make the old experiences new. And to not let words like God, prayer, religion or Torah cause such a shock to the system. Let them not be appropriated. Let them breathe, live and become new again. For me prayer, God, religion and Torah are not things I pick up when I walk into a sanctuary and deposit in the bag with my tallit or tefillin when I leave. I strive to make the entirety of my life prayer -- a constant striving to see the Transcendent in the world and in the people around me. Our tradition has never said that prayer needs to be limited to the pages in a book.

What was new about shirat hayam, the song at the sea, was that it forever carries the power of renewal. That is why we say it during the shachrit, morning service, every day. Commenting on this, the Sefat Emet says, "Israel's faith at the sea was the saving act that would last for all generations. God was and God will be. The song and the attachment to God have been implanted in the Jewish soul forever." But we have to be willing step into uncertainty. We have to be willing as Nachshon did at the Red Sea to keep wading deeper and deeper until we risk drowning. And then maybe the sea will split.

"Something that is not hidden does not require faith," says the Mei Hashiloach, "only something concealed requires faith." The hidden and the revealed are woven together in the quest for the Transcendent. Yotzer Or U'vera hoshech, we say with the Shema. God forms light and creates darkness -- in the present tense, not the past. The One of all Being is still creating. Ze Eli, This is my God, declares Moses at the sea. This is my God to which Sforno says, "the everlasting First Cause, from Whom flows all existence that is impermanent and transitory." The Jewish God is everywhere and in everything. At once as imminent as a breath and as far away as the edge of the universe: The One who heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. The One who counts the stars and gives each one a name. Ze Eli. This is my God.

How different would our lives be if we tried to live out what we declare with Nishmat kol chai -- The breath of all that lives praises you our God. How would we pray differently if song filled our mouths as water fills the sea? Would joy flood our souls? Have we ever tried to live a life of praise as limitless as the sky? Perhaps we could never fully state our gratitude, but do we even try to live in a state of gratitude. And what would it look like if we did? This is the challenge we are commanded to say each morning when we open our eyes and our mouths for the first time -- modeh ani lefanecha. I am grateful before you for putting my soul back in my body. Great is Your faith God. Great is God's faith in us.

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