The Torah reminds us to embrace our own experiences.
We should not rely on someone else's experience of the divine.
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I'm happy when I read one blogger's frequent, exuberant, and still-surprised exclamations that the gods are real. However I'm uncomfortable about adopting the idea myself as I feel some cynicism about religion.
My goal a year ago was to attempt to see reality as clearly as humanly possible. A human being can't help being a bundle of beliefs, but I wanted to try to remove as many of the blinders as I could.
Any belief system can blind us to what's real; religion is just the most obvious offender. Religion can be dangerous because it may lead us to ignore our own consciences as we conform to its doctrines; it may even keep us from “following our bliss.” Religious leaders (at their best) may focus on preserving religion as if the religion itself the ultimate value, or (at their worst) use religion to enhance their own authority and power.
I wanted to be rational and clear headed but found that I am inherently spiritual. (Perhaps if I had been taught biology or some other science in grade school, I would be more rational.)
So last year, I decided that seeking an unmediated experience of the natural world was the way to remain free of religion while allowing myself to be what I am: spiritual. I joked that my practice was a cross between Richard Dawkins and Starhawk.
Of course, thinking that the natural world is the ultimate reality is a belief.
Although that attempt has shown me much beauty and has been beneficial, I find it's easy to loosen my grip on that focus. So far, I haven't slipped back as far as organized religion, but I've been thinking about gods a lot lately.
When I responded to a challenge to write about a god, Hestia was the second to come to mind. (How could I possibly speak about HaShem?) As I wrote, I began to consider the possibility that she might be more than a psychological archetype.
Rhyd wrote about my post, "She states that she doesn't feel she can experience a god at the level of certain others. But she does."
I considered this for a while and realized, "Yes, I have experienced Hestia. Deeply." But I'm not sure what "she" is. I don't want to think of her as a god, but have I experienced her as a god?
I compared my attitude toward her to my attitude toward other some other… things/ideas/beings and was surprised by what I learned.
Nature
My friend, Mary Belmore, coined the phrase “Force and Source of Life.” No name, no image, no god, and no doctrines. The ultimate.
Nature has touched me. As a child, I loved the time from late afternoon until sunset, when the changing light of the lowering sun seemed to transform the world into another realm, a magical one. As a teenager, impressed into a month-long camping trip, I lost myself in the outdoors, completely forgetting myself as I gazed at trees, clouds, and rivers, and as I breathed the icy air.
I want to return to those experiences of nature that I had when I was younger. I idealize them as Wordsworth did his.
Kali
Many years ago, seeing for the first time an image of the Hindu goddess, Kali, gave me a powerful sense of love and safety. Then my conscious mind registered the image itself; it was a particularly horrific depiction of the goddess of the cremation grounds, gnawing on the entrails of the child she was standing upon. Despite that, my initial feelings of intimacy remained even after studying the image many times.
When I described this experience to one of my pagan roommates, he warned me to stay away from dangerous gods like Kali. So I did.
Trelane?
One evening after dark, walking down a quiet street, I paused by a tree and reached out to touch it. I looked up and "saw" an enormous being open a door in the starry sky and peek down curiously to see what was below. After a brief look, he closed the door.
Ganesh
Ganesh reached out to me at an unexpected time. There was a large statue in a bookstore I had often visited. I had seen it a hundred times, but this time, I felt a presence and experienced something like ecstasy. It was dizzying. I resisted the feeling because I had, only days earlier, made promises that included this statement:
I choose to become a Jew of my own free will. I accept Judaism to the exclusion of all other religions, faiths, and practices and now pledge my loyalty to Judaism and the Jewish people under all circumstances.
The next two times I saw the statue I felt that ecstasy again. So I hurried away and did not return to that store for years.
Today, when I see images of Ganesh, I take pleasure in his kind and gentle face. He is not resentful that I rejected his overtures, and sometimes I feel his benevolent presence, but he hasn't called to me again.
HaShem / HaMakom
This is a complicated relationship and hard to describe.
When I was studying with the rabbi who supported me in my conversion, I told him that I was deeply drawn to Judaism and to talmud Torah, and to the community, but that I was worried because I had not experienced god. (I
had experienced god, but did not recognize the experience because it didn't correspond to what others said it should be.)
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Torah and those who preserve it
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In response, my rabbi lifted his hand slightly. I don't remember his words, but it seemed to me he was saying, "Stop. We shouldn’t talk about this."
That puzzled me for years, but I think I understand now. A person's experience of the divine is private and no one should mediate it for her.
He was a wonderful rabbi and one of the things I loved about him was that he never imposed himself on his congregation. He was—and I'm sure he still is—a leader who facilitated Jewish experience, not one who laid down any rules about what the experience should be.
Years later, I felt called in a different direction, it seemed important to me to choose a path that was Jewish. A friend from that synagogue warned me, "My grandmother always said that if you're going to be religious, Reform is the only way." (I should have listened!)
After that, texts and other people mediated my relationship with HaMakom, with HaShem. And gradually, insidiously, their beliefs about god became mine, often while my intuition was ringing warning bells. Eventually, all I'd gained because of Judaism was lost and my beloved foundation destroyed.
I once saw a documentary about gay, Jewish men. They were desperately seeking the understanding of ultra-Orthodox rabbis and they were, predictably, getting hurt. I knew they were thinking that those men were "the real rabbis," but in fact, those men were narrow-minded, stupid, ignorant, and heartless. I thought, "Find a nice Reform rabbi and get on with your lives." Why did I later fall into a similar trap?
Wanting to belong is the greatest sin. But it's also the only thing worth seeking.
I have experienced god in community and immersion in Torah study, mostly at my first shul.
Someday I will be able to recite the words, "I am the Eternal your god" and understand that HaShem transcends the small images people have.
I know I will return and be welcomed.
I just learned that as I wrote it. (My eyes are tearing up.)
When I am ready, god will extend god's hand and welcome me back. God will welcome me back.
Unverifiable Personal Gnosis
I should have followed the promptings of my soul. Torah reminds us to pay attention to our own experiences.
It wasn’t only Moses who heard god’s voice. Tradition tells that even those of us who were not yet born, and those who would convert millennia later, experienced theophany at Sinai. But we drew back from this experience, asking Moses to "go near and hear."
And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them… The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day… and ye said: 'Behold, the LORD our God hath shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have seen this day that God doth speak with man, and he liveth… if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? Go thou near, and hear all that the LORD our God may say; and thou shalt speak unto us all that the LORD our God may speak unto thee; and we will hear it and do it.' (Devarim 5:1-23)
We should not rely on someone else’s interpretation of his or her experience. We should embrace our own experience.
Eve relied on Adam’s interpretation of god’s instructions, and Adam failed to embrace his relationship with god when he failed to be honest and tell god what he had done. We’re not going to get it right when we listen to someone else as Eve did, or when we fail to treat our god as as a real person who wants a relationship with us, as Adam did.
We must let god speak directly to us—even if we misunderstand, we will misunderstand in our own way. When god instructed Moses to talk to the people, Moses heard something else; he ran down the mountain and spoke only to the men. Something was lost in “translation.”
And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments, and be ready against the third day; for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai… And Moses said unto the people: 'Be ready against the third day; come not near a woman.' (Sh’mot 19:10-15)
(According to later, ritual purity laws, men were a source of ritual impurity far more often than women were, so if anyone needed to be cautioned, it was the women.)
We did not die when we heard god’s voice at Sinai, but despite that experience we were afraid to encounter god again. The god of Torah did not expect us to believe without evidence; we are only expected to believe what we have experienced and we should respond by inviting and embracing the experience—even if it means changing our minds or throwing out the rules of conventional reality or modifying our understanding of a promise.
Pay attention, because your intuition can guide you to do what is correct for you at this particular moment. Rational thought is a poor guide and so are rules.
You must “act for the soul regardless of what this world demands.” (Mallika Sarabhai on
The Mahabharata)
Conclusion
Rhyd embraces his knowledge that "the gods are real." I am learning to embrace my experiences and not to “theologize” them. I'm grateful that Hestia has taught me that "the only way to worship is to listen to your own soul." (
Question XIX)
So it is not odd that writing about Hestia, a pagan god, would bring me back to HaShem.
When I sat down at the computer to write this post, I meant to write one thing, but I learned entirely different things as I wrote it. Apparently, I do experience gods and I do believe they are, in some way, real.
When I wrote that I didn't experience Hestia as directly as other people, Rhyd told me I did. I realized then that's how it was with HaShem. I didn't believe my own experiences were good enough, so I sought a greater sense of god and a stronger connection through prayer.
My own experiences were good enough and they were my own. I did not need to seek further.
