Voice of New Americans: Does God exist?

At first the people were perplexed. Was this the big announcement that they had left their homes and closed their shops to hear? Had the Rabbi convened them; only to tell them something that every schoolchild already knew? But then, as they thought about it, they began to say to themselves: "Indeed, what could be more important than to know that there is a God in the world."

If there is a God, then there are things we shall refrain from doing. If there is a God, we won't be afraid to spend our limited amount of love and compassion because we know that God will be there to replenish us when we run out. If we believe there is a God in the world, we will treat each other better because we will recognize the image of God in our neighbor, whatever his race, religion, ability, or earning capacity.

So let this be the first, perhaps the most important announcement that comes from this bimah tonight: There is a God in the world.

And certainly there are difficulties with and doubts about God. So just for instance my own discomfort. Here I am a rabbi, tacha. Do I believe in God? Sometimes. Most times. But like so many others, I am not free of doubts, perplexities. And I refuse to not take my experience seriously. For there are times, - most times - when I am convinced it means something essential, vital to declare God is, meaning abides. Life makes sense. It is, we are, more than a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

But there are moments when I'm just not sure. When too much mystery or pain or tragedy summons a why for which neither hypothesis about nor answer from God seem persuasive or meaningful. And as the prayer book tells us, "the intelligent heart does not deny reality." So I have doubts, perplexities. Yet of this much I am sure. I cannot be an atheist. It simply takes more faith than I have to be sure that there is nothing to which the word God refers.

A story. A skeptic comes to a rabbi, "Rabbi, I don't believe in God. I am," he declares proudly, "an atheist." The rabbi inquires, "Have you read Marx, Russell, Feurbach, Camus, Satre?" "No. None of those." "You're not an atheist. You're an ignoramus."

The renowned zoologist Julian Huxley calculated the odds of a horse developing from a one celled protozoa by chance alone. One to three with a trillion zeros. Just to write that number would take no less than 1,500 pages. And that's just for a horse, long before human beings appear with mind and, if you will concur, soul.

As Sidney Greenberg indicates, the suggestion that an orderly universe just happened is as probable as a claim that no mind created the Encyclopedia Britannica. It just resulted from an explosion at a printing factory; the letters arranged themselves.

"It was not a clergyman but [Charles] Darwin who said: 'If we consider the whole universe, the mind refuses to look upon it as the outcome of chance.'" Truly there is no mystery in our world that does not point to a mystery beyond itself.

Friends, Levi Yitzchak is right. There is a God in the world.

Do we believe in the God of Micah who makes demands of us in our places of business, in our homes, in our dealings with each other. "What does the Lord require of you, to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with thy God?" Do we believe in a God who is not remote, but who as the Psalmist says: "Is near to all who call upon [God] to all who call upon [You] in truth?" Do we believe in God even when we have prospered so that we may say, "For it is from Your hand that we have all?"

Such concerns matter for as the great psychologist William James tells us, "A difference that makes no difference is no difference."

Some of you, I'm sure, saw the issue of Reform Judaism magazine which discussed some 210,000 Jews who over the last number of years have converted to other religions. Over and over again, a significant number cited a need for spirituality, a sense of sacred grounding and purpose. Often, too often, they failed to hear that spoken of, or see that modeled in our very middle class Jewish world - including our synagogues, even at times, I regret, this one. We are, alas, so often busy earning a living, getting the kids to school, pursuing the good life, keeping track of C.D.'s and investment portfolios and clients and restaurants, vacation spots or bar mitzvah appointments. We forget about the meaning of our lives, the meaning in our lives.

And for that we need God, not just simply or primarily to stop some people from leaving Judaism. More vitally, to live all of the life that life has given to us.

But for that to occur we need a connection, and here Judaism makes an outrageous claim. For we find God not only in the starry sky or at the ineffable moments but also, especially, in the person next to you. In that one and that one and that one.

The wonderful storyteller, the late Harry Golden recalls, "When I was young, I asked my father, 'If you don't believe in God, why do you go to the synagogue so regularly?'" His father answered, "Jews go to synagogue for all sorts of reasons. My friend Garfinkle, who is pious, goes to talk with God. I go to talk with Garfinkle."

I like the story save Judaism insists that when you're really talking to, meeting with, caring about Garfinkle you are getting as close as possible to God.

"For God so loved the world" that God put a little bit of the godly in each of us. Human beings are touched with divine fire. We are created betzelem elohim, in the divine image.

Friends, Levi Yitzchak insisted that there is a God in the world, and I pray with all my heart, soul and might that this year because of what we do people will know. People will know!

Amen.

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