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Rabbi Janet Marder From Fear to Faith Last month Shelly and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. I’m married to a man who is handsome and smart and funny and very loving. He gives to me in every way that he possibly can. As you may recall, one of the things he gives to me is material for my annual Kol Nidre sermon. Every year he presents me with a big folder full of obituaries clipped from the New York Times, recounting the lives of the memorable and the infamous, the eccentric and the obscure, whose lives ended in the past twelve months. Since last Rosh Hashana the following have passed away from our world: Julia Child, the French Chef, dead at 91; and Estee Lauder, a woman who changed the face of America. Gone from the world of sports are the great southpaw pitcher Warren Spahn; Althea Gibson, first black tennis player to win at Wimbleton; jockey Willie Shoemaker; Rose Gacioch, star player for the Rockford Peaches in the All-American Girls Baseball League of the 1940’s and 50’s; and football greats Crazylegs Hirsch and Roosevelt Brown, who once said, “Nobody plays this game for the money; you have to enjoy it; you have to have the game in your heart. They can’t pay us enough for what we go through on the field.” In his prime, Brown earned $20,000 a year. We lost Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor, and Sam Dash, Chief Counsel for the Senate during the Watergate hearings; David Dellinger, radical pacifist who was arrested with the Chicago 7 at the 1968 Democratic convention; Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek; and a B movie actor who went on to become one of America’s most popular presidents, Ronald Reagan. Music great Ray Charles died, after saying, earlier this year, that he was going to keep performing “until the good Lord calls my number.” So did Fred Ebb, who wrote the lyrics for “Cabaret” and “Chicago”; and Academy Award winning composers Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith, who wrote the themes for scores of movies and TV shows, incuding “The Twilight Zone” and “Perry Mason.” From the world of academia: former UC president Clark Kerr; historian Daniel Boorstin; Stanford economist Aaron Director, who died at 102; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who virtually created the modern field of death and dying; and Nobel prize winning pioneer in DNA studies Francis Crick. Some great entertainers passed from the scene: director Elia Kazan and actors Alan Bates, Marlon Brando, Hope Lange, Art Carney, Fay Wray, Peter Ustinov, Donald O’Connor and Tony Randall, fussbudget Felix of “The Odd Couple.” Bob Keeshan, beloved Captain Kangaroo to generations of children, game show host Art James, and former CBS president Lawrence Tisch. We lost writers John Gregory Dunne, George Plimpton, Spalding Gray and Gerard Piel, longtime publisher of Scientific American; Polish Nobel prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz; artist William Steig; photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson; and Alistair Cooke, “honey-voiced host” of Masterpiece Theater, dead at 95. Along with these were some who occupied a more specialized niche: Samuel Rubin, who brought popcorn to the movie theaters, and helped grow the nation’s popcorn harvest from 5 million pounds in 1934 to 100 million in 1940; and ad executive Robert Ross, who created Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy, a tiny critter who also died last year, according to some, of a yeast infection and complications from repeated pokes in the belly, and was laid to rest in a lightly greased coffin. Lost to the Jewish world this year were Cyla Wiesenthal, wife of Nazi-hunter Simon for 67 years; beloved Israeli composer Naomi Shemer, who wrote “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav – Jerusalem of Gold”; and Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, spiritual leader in the ghetto of Kovno, Lithuania and one of the few rabbis to survive the Holocaust. Terrorists killed 142 people in Israel this year – Jews, Christians and Moslems. The youngest, Shaked Avraham, was seven months old; the oldest, Anna Rubenstein, was 85. All of them – the great and the not-so-great – are now part of history. I thought of the lives that ended this year --- each its own complicated story – and I thought of the words we will read tonight, just before our service ends with the recital of Kaddish:
At every funeral at which I officiate, I read those words, by the late Rabbi Alvin Fine of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. They capture for me an essential Jewish idea: that life is not just about growing older; it’s about how we grow as a person and develop our character and spirit. One line, though, always stands out for me. We can understand the progression from youth to maturity, the journey from foolishness to discretion to wisdom. We can see how a person might move beyond resentment and learn to forgive, overcome loneliness and learn to love unselfishly, learn compassion for others from suffering pain oneself, stop taking good fortune for granted and feel gratitude for the blessings in one’s life. But what about the movement from fear to faith? Often we think of faith as something we leave behind as we grow in knowledge and wisdom. One writer, explaining his own atheism, wrote, “For people who have been lucky enough to have a good education, belief in God, I say, should be rejected.” {Kai Nelson, Naturalism and Religion, Prometheus Books, 2001]. In other words, grownups should outgrow religious faith just as we outgrow fairy tales. As Clarence Darrow put it, “I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.” Far from being the sign of a strong, mature personality, we tend to see faith as the refuge of the unsophisticated and weak – “a crutch,” as science fiction Robert Heinlein wrote, “for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.” And rather than being the outcome of personal growth, faith often seems to us to reflect a narrowing of the mind and heart, common to those who cling to simplistic or even dangerous ideas. MIT Professor Steven Pinker put this most forcefully. “Religions,” he said, “have given us stonings, witch-burnings, crusades, inquisitions, jihads, fatwas, suicide bombers, abortion-clinic gunmen, and mothers who drown their sons so they can be happily reunited in heaven." Recent surveys indicate that 97% of Americans consider themselves religious or spiritual and 79% believe in God. But if you break down the numbers a little, some fascinating differences emerge. Ten percent of Protestants and 21 percent of Roman Catholics do not believe in God. For Jews, the figure is a remarkable 52 percent. “I am resigned to the fact that I am a God-forsaken nonbelieving Jew,” wrote Sigmund Freud, speaking for a great many of us. [Center for Research on Religion and Spiritual Society/Gallup Spiritual Index, June 2003; Harris Poll, Nov. 2003]. Belief comes hard to many contemporary Jews. We have good reasons to be disenchanted with religion, and profoundly distrustful of religion. For we Jews know the dangers of religious zealotry and fanaticism, and we have first-hand knowledge that the world is not a sunny place, guided by some benevolent master plan. We know that those who once believed in such a master plan were mowed down by the Nazis; nine out of ten rabbis alive in the world were murdered in the Holocaust, along with millions of their faithful and pious followers. So it’s understandable that many Jews have given up faith in God. What’s more, I would say that some kinds of faith deserve to be given up, deserve to be grown out of --or, better yet, we should not inflict such faith on children in the first place. But there’s also the kind of faith that Alvin Fine is talking about – the faith which we can grow into, the faith that comes with wisdom, with maturity, as a sign of inner strength. The kind of faith that can help us face our fears. A story about faith from the 18th century, the early days of the Hasidim. Once there was a learned man, a man who prided himself on his education, and who boasted of being modern and “enlightened.” He made a practice of going from one rabbi to another to debate with them about their faith and refute all their claims and arguments, which he considered hopelessly old-fashioned. Finally he came to Levi Yitzhak, the rabbi of Berditchev, hoping to prove him wrong, as well. When he entered the rabbi’s room, he saw him pacing back and forth, a book in his hand, immersed in ecstatic thought. The rabbi took no notice of his visitor. But after a while the rabbi stopped, looked into the man’s eyes and said, “Perhaps it is true after all!” The man was shaken; he could not speak. Then Rabbi Levi Yitzhak spoke gently to his guest: “My son, the great Torah scholars with whom you argued wasted their words on you. After you left them, you only laughed at what they had said. They could not place God on the table before you, they could not show you God’s reality, and neither can I. But think, my son. Just think! Perhaps it is true. Perhaps it is true after all.” The enlightened man made the utmost effort to reply, but the word “perhaps” beat on his ears again and again, and he departed in silence. Why would a person go from rabbi to rabbi, from one person of faith to another, in order to challenge and prove them wrong? If he was really certain that religion was utter foolishness, why not just ignore it? I think the man in our story keeps coming to argue because he himself wants to be convinced. Maybe we want to be convinced, as well. Maybe something in us yearns for a faith that can make sense to people like us – modern, sensible, enlightened. How does Rabbi Levi Yitzhak respond to his visitor? He doesn’t reject him or attack him for his doubts. He doesn’t debate with him either, but states flat out that he can’t offer definitive proof that God is real. He offers him, instead, just one word: “perhaps.” It doesn’t sound like much, at first. You’d think that a great religious leader should be able to come up with more than “perhaps.” But Rabbi Levi understands that “perhaps” is irrefutable. It simply opens the door to the possibility that God is, and that there may be something to religion, after all. [See “Perhaps” – sermon by Rabbi Jan Urbach, Rh 5762] Immature faith is rooted in certainty, a conviction that it alone possesses the truth. It cannot tolerate ambiguity or doubt; it is threatened by opposing views. Far stronger is a Jewish faith that is rooted in “perhaps.” Mature faith understands that all thoughtful people have doubts and must live with uncertainty. It is gentle, modest and humble in its assertions. It does not make grandiose pronouncements or give absolute assurances. Mature faith respects the world’s complexity; it acknowledges that there are many paths to truth; it does not seek to denigrate or dominate others through dogma. A second story, about fear and faith: A midrash says that when the Israelites, fleeing from slavery, came to the shores of the Red Sea, the frightened people began wrangling with one another, each one saying “I will not be the first to go down into the sea.” While they were arguing, a man called Nachshon sprang forward and was the first to enter the waters. Meanwhile, Moses stood in prayer before God. God said to him, “My beloved children are in danger at the sea, and you stand here praying?” Moses said, “But Master of the universe, what can I do?” And God answered: “Speak to the children of Israel and lead them forward.” [Exodus Rabba 21:8]. Immature faith looks to God as the parent in the sky who will get us out of trouble and solve our problems. But the midrash teaches something different: that human beings must face reality and act to solve their own problems, and that faith, and prayer, give us the strength to go forward. A third story, recorded in the Talmud, about the loss of an immature faith. A sage called Elisha ben Abuyah saw a young boy fall off a ladder and die while engaged in performing a mitzvah from the Torah. Upon witnessing this tragic event Elisha denied the existence of God and declared: “there is no justice and there is no Judge” [Talmud Kiddushin 39b]. Elisha’s faith was rooted in the belief that God rules the world like a fair and attentive judge, doling out rewards and punishments exactly as deserved. Some passages in the Bible and prayerbook describe a God like this; they are human efforts to make sense of a chaotic world. This kind of faith is still prevalent in our own day, for something inside us longs for the universe to be just. But this kind of faith is destined to collapse in the face of reality. Shirley Ranz, the child of Holocaust survivors, defines herself as a Jewish nonbeliever, saying, “How can I be religious? My parents went through the worst hell on earth. How could I believe that a good, powerful God would allow this to happen, allow the murder of one and a half million children?” Of course, it doesn’t require a Holocaust for us to question God’s justice. Even the undeserved suffering of a single person seems to challenge this kind of faith. But Elisha ben Abuyah’s kind of faith was long ago repudiated by Jewish tradition. It’s repudiated by the Gemara, the very commentary on that story, which speculates that the ladder was probably rickety, and says that one shouldn't rely on miracles when stepping on a rickety ladder. It’s repudiated by the book of Job, in which a good person suffers through no fault of his own. And it’s repudiated most powerfully in a remarkable passage in the Talmud [Avodah Zarah 54b]: “Suppose a man steals a measure of wheat and plants it in his own field. Din hu shelo titzmach – it would be right that the wheat not grow.” After all, it is stolen. But the passage ends by saying that the wheat will sprout anyway, because “nature pursues its normal course -- olam k’minhago noheg.” Nature, that is, is morally neutral – earthquakes, hurricanes and viruses do not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked; bombs fall on the innocent because of the law of gravity, brakes tragically fail and cars crash not because God is plotting the action but because that is the way the world works. Maimonides warned, in the Middle Ages, that it is naïve to imagine God as a wise and just parent who rewards and punishes us as we deserve. God does not micromanage the universe, he said, so heartbreaking things will happen. People lose their money, lose their homes, lose their health, lose their lives – and none of that is a manifestation of God’s disfavor. Rather, we live in a universe regulated by the laws of nature in which human beings operate with freedom of choice – and in such a universe the suffering of good people is inevitable. If mature Jewish faith can’t offer us certainty, can’t offer us the comfort of being looked after by a God who will solve our problems for us, can’t offer us the guarantee that good behavior will protect us from misfortune, then what’s the point? What’s the value of a faith that leaves us with an ambiguous, dangerous, unpredictable and demanding world? The value is that it’s a faith designed for the real world, the world we know through experience, the world that disappoints us and hurts us and challenges us every day. Mark Twain once said that faith is “believing in something when you know it ain’t so.” But we know better. We know what it really means to be faithful, to keep faith, to act in good faith, to break faith. We know that faith is the capacity to act with constancy and devotion; it is persistence and perseverance; it is the ability to withstand the challenges of the present because of one’s devotion to a greater good. Faith is when a son goes to visit his elderly parents after work, and helps with the shopping and the bills and the medications, and listens to their stories and their complaints and tries to preserve their dignity, because these are the people who gave him life. Faith is when parents hang in there and refuse to give up on their teenage son or daughter, no matter how painful it is. Faith is when people stand by a friend who has cancer and travel with her all along the way, even when they’re afraid. Faith is when a wife takes care of her husband through many long years of illness because she remembers the handsome, smart and loving man who gave everything to her when he had the ability to give. “We had a good marriage,” said one such wife to me recently. “We took care of each other; we loved each other. And that doesn’t change when you get old and sick.” Love is an emotion, but faith is what keeps you going. Faith is hard. Faith is demanding. Faith comes from inner strength. This quality of faithfulness, of human constancy and steadfast devotion, applies to religion as well as human relationships. It’s hard to be a person of faith today; it’s hard to live by your faith. A faithful Jew is one who holds fast to cherished beliefs, even when it’s easier not to. What is the faith that sustains me in the real world? What is it I affirm when I say the word “God”? I believe that the universe is constructed with beauty, order and coherence. I believe that it's astonishing that we are alive, and that the universe exists at all. I believe that all living things are profoundly connected, that human beings are one family, endowed with infinite worth and entitled to lives of dignity. I believe that we are not alone, and I believe that we are loved with an endless love. I believe that there are ultimate standards of right and wrong that transcend individual opinions. I agree with Bertrand Russell's words: "I find myself incapable of believing that the only thing wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it." I believe that despite the fact that the world is unfair – indeed, because the world is unfair and unkind -- we are called to do justice and to love kindness; and that is the purpose for which we were created. I believe that the world breaks our hearts, and that therefore we must help one another. I believe that our deeds matter, and that we stand accountable for the lives we live. I believe that, despite the abuses of religion, it can summon forth the best in human beings and inspire us to reach for the highest goals; it gives us a community of those who share our deepest commitments. And I believe that none of the above is a fairy tale. It is as real and important and powerful as anything I know. Ultimate purpose; ultimate obligations; ultimate standards of good and evil; infinite love. All of those are implied, for me, in the statement that God exists. That is the substance of my faith. Just think – perhaps it is true after all! What if, in the end, all this God-talk still leaves you cold? I would offer, as food for thought, the words of Martin Buber: "God does not want to be believed in, to be debated and defended by us, but simply to be realized through us." Life is not about intellectual exercises or the philosophy we profess. It's about what we do with the years that we're given. There are many good people who do God's work without ever affirming that God is real -- and my guess is that that's just fine with God. Birth is a beginning, and death a destination, but life is a journey…from fear to faith. What kind of faith can help us to face our fears? Let me answer, and conclude, with some words by Jerome Groopman, professor at Harvard Medical School, a physician and a deeply committed Jew who says the Mishebeirach for healing for his patients. He writes about Barbara, a 67 year old woman, a retired history teacher, who three years ago was diagnosed with breast cancer. After a lumpectomy and six months of chemotherapy, the cancer was found to be growing in her liver and bones. “It’s important to understand,” Dr. Groopman says to Barbara, “that….even if we achieve remission, there is no cure for breast cancer once it has metastasized. Treatment is palliative.” “I know,” Barbara says. Her expression remains calm. Over the following months of treatment, Dr. Groopman marvels at the poise and calm that Barbara continues to display. “She showed no fear or anxiety,” he writes. And he asks: “…Could someone really transcend the fear of death….?” Months later, when Barbara’s remission has come to an end and the tumor is resistant to every treatment he has tried, Dr. Groopman comes to tell her he has no other drugs to offer. He writes: “Barbara greeted me warmly, as she always did. I moved a chair close to the bedside and grasped her hand. After we chatted for a short time, I began to break the bad news. ‘Barbara, we’ve known each other for well over a year, and we’ve been honest with each other every step of the way.’ Briefly, her lips trembled, and then she regained her composure. Her eyes told me she knew what I was about to say. ‘I know of no medicine that I can give you at this point to help you.’ “We sat in heavy silence. Barbara shook her head. ‘No, Jerry,’ she said. ‘You do have something to give. You have the medicine of friendship’.” The last time Dr. Groopman visits Barbara he notices that her eyes are sunken and her skin is pale. “It would not be long, I thought. I knew how much I would miss her. ‘Are you afraid?’ I asked. … ‘You know, not really,’ Barbara said. ‘Not as much as I thought I might be.’ I moved my chair closer to to hers. ‘Why do you think that is?’ ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ she said. ‘I have strange comforting thoughts….When fear starts to creep up on me, I conjure the idea that millions and millions of people have passed away before me, and millions more will pass away after I do. Then I think: my parents each died. I guess if they all did it, so can I.….As Ecclesiastes says, everything has its season – a time to be born and a time to die. ‘And… I believe in a hereafter, that we can return to God. What form that takes no one can really say.’ Barbara grinned. ‘It’s not like I’m expecting to get on the Up escalator and be delivered to paradise. Or find angels there playing harps. I was never one for airy music.’ ….Barbara’s tone turned grave. ‘Of course, I also have doubts. Everyone who believes has doubts if they’re honest with themselves. I suppose it could all be an illusion. But deep inside, it doesn’t feel that way at all.’
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