10. Man thinks, God laughs
An old Yiddish proverb says, "Men tracht un Got lacht." Freely translated, it means "the best way to make God laugh is to tell Him your plans." Like many Yiddish proverbs, it has its funny side, but there's an edge to it. It recognizes that the universe is still in many ways impenetrable. We can chart the structure of the genome; we can chart the courses of the stars; but we can't come close to mapping out the future. We make our plans; we strategize and build and set up structures of meaning, and then life comes along and blows a hole in them.
One of the things I like about this proverb is its essential humility about the way the world works. Distilled in its words is the wisdom of a people used to the vicissitudes of life; they know that its twists and turns are unpredictable and you should never be surprised when things turn out differently than you thought they would. There's also an essential humility about God. Nobody can read God's mind, the proverb suggests. Nobody really has a handle on what God's plan is. Best not to get too carried away with your own sense of importance. You're not as smart as you think you are, and eventually the universe will prove that to you.
9. Prayer, Doctors and Rabbi Salanter
Doctors recently conducted an unusual experiment:
In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether G-d exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
The doctors seem to have made two mistakes:
1. They confused prayer with magic. Prayer is a request--and 'no' is also an answer.
2. They are not familiar with Rabbi Yisroel Salanter--
The story is told about Rabbi Salanter that he was at an inn he frequented. He noticed that unlike previously, the innkeeper was serving treif. He asked the innkeeper why.
The innkeeper responded that a guest had come in and say he could prove that G-d did not exist--the guest took a piece of treif meat and said that if he eats it and G-d strikes him down dead, that proves that He exists; if however the guest could eat the treif with impunity, that would prove that G-d did not exist.
The guest ate the treif, and nothing happened--and the innkeeper said he had concluded that G-d did not exist and there was no reason not to serve treif.
As he was speaking, innkeeper's daughter ran into the room telling him that she had just received a certificat in recognition of her achievements as a pianist. Rabbi Salanter called the girl over, saying that a certificate was nice, but he would like for her to prove to him how good she was.
The girl refused, saying that the certificate was proof of her expertise and she did not have to prove anything to anybody. She had already established her abilities and it was unfair to require her to demonstrate her expertise for just anyone who asks.
Rabbi Salanter replied to the innkeeper that his daughter was right--and G-d could well answer him the same way. After He redeemed us from slavery, split the sea for us, performed countless miracles for us day in and day out, is it necessary for G-d to prove Himself for every ignoramus like that guest who wanted to eat treif?
So too, G-d does not need to prove Himself, or anything, to the doctors for their study. As Jews, we know that--unlike doctors-- G-d still makes housecalls.
8. Getting There
One day, a visitor arrived at the home of Rabbi DovBer, the Maggid of Mezeritch. The visitor was an old friend of Rabbi DovBer's, who had studied with him in their youth. With great interest he observed the behavior of his former study-partner, who had since become a follower of the founder of Chassidism, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, and had assumed the leadership of the Chassidic community upon the latter's passing.
The visitor was particularly struck by the amount of time that the Chassidic master devoted to his prayers. He himself was no stranger to reflective prayer: when he and Rabbi DovBer had studied together, they had pored over the mystical teachings of the Kabbalists and would pray with the prescribed meditations, or kavanot, outlined in the writings of Kabbalah. But never in his experience had prayer warranted such long hours.
"I don't understand," he said to Rabbi DovBer, "I, too, pray with all the kavanot of the mystics. But still, my prayers do not take nearly as much time as yours do."
Rabbi DovBer's visitor was a dedicated scholar. His wife ran the family business so that he could devote all his time to Torah study. Only once a year was he forced to break from his studies for a few weeks: his wife would give him a list of the merchandise she needed and he would travel to the fair in Leipzig to wheel and deal.
"Listen," said Rabbi DovBer to his visitor, "I have an idea for you. Why must you waste precious weeks of study every year? This year, sit at home. Envision the journey to Leipzig in your mind's eye: picture every station along the way, every crossroads, every wayside inn. Then, imagine that you are at the fair, making your rounds at the booths. Call to mind the merchants that you deal with, reinvent the usual haggling and bargaining that follows. Now, load your imaginary purchases upon your imaginary cart and make the return journey. The entire operation should not take more than a couple of hours and then you can return to your beloved books!"
"That is all fine and well," replied Rabbi DovBer's friend, "but there remains one slight problem: I need the merchandise."
"The same is true with prayer and its kavanot," said Rabbi DovBer. "To envision a particular attribute of G-d in its prescribed section of the prayers, or to refer to a certain nuance of emotion in your heart at a particular passage, is all fine and well. But you see, I need the merchandise...."
7. When it's good to be a heretic
"Everything in God's creation has a purpose," a Hasidic rebbe once told his followers.
"In that case," asked a disciple, "what is the purpose of apikorsus [heresy], of denying that God exists ?"
"Apikorsus is indeed purposeful," the rebbe replied. "For when you are confronted by another who is in need, you should imagine that there is no God to help, but that you alone can meet the man's needs."
6. Partner in Creation
A famous passage in the Midrash Tanchuma relates a debate between Rabi Akiba and Tinneus Rufus, the Roman governor.
Rufus decided to summon Akiba - a rabbi known for his wisdom - less to learn from him than to outwit him and prove the superiority of his own values.
"Akiba," challenged the Roman, "whose deeds are finer? God's or those of flesh-and-blood humans?"
Tinneius Rufus assumed the rabbi would say that God's deeds are finer. But, sensing the gambit, Rabbi Akiba replied, "The deeds of humans are finer."
"Behold the heavens and the earth!" Tinneius Rufus countered. "Can man create the likes of them?"
"Don't speak to me of things over which we have no control," Akiba responded. "Speak rather in terms of a human scale."
"Well then, why are you circumcised?" Tinneius Rufus asked the rabbi.
"I knew this was really what you wanted to know," said Akiba. "Hence my previous response: that human deeds are finer than God's."
Rabbi Akiba brought Tinneius Rufus wheat stalks and cakes, flax and fine linen. "The wheat and the flax are God's handiwork," he said, "and the cakes and the linen are man's. Are not the cakes and the linen, the finished product, finer than the plain stalks, the raw material? Even you, Tinneius Rufus, cannot miss the clear analogy: We are born incomplete and perfect ourselves through following God's law."
"But if God had intended man to be circumcised," Tinneius Rufus argued, "why wasn't Adam created circumcised? Why doesn't every newborn male emerge from the womb that way?"
"You see," Akiba explained, "everything created during the six days of creation needs perfecting [tikkun]: Mustard needs sweetening, wheat needs grinding, and even man needs perfecting. This 'perfection' or purification is achieved not according to our whims but by following divinely ordained commandments."
5. Simple Prayer
This is a classical Chassidic story. One Yom Kippur, the Baal Shem Tov (founder of Chasidism) was praying together with his students in a small Polish village. Through his spiritual vision, the Baal Shem Tov had detected that harsh heavenly judgments had been decreed against the Jewish people, and he and his students were trying with all the sincerity they could muster to cry out to G-d and implore Him to rescind these decrees and grant the Jews a year of blessing.
This deep feeling took hold of all the inhabitants of the village and everyone opened his heart in deepfelt prayer.
Among the inhabitants of the village was a simple shepherd boy. He did not know how to read; indeed, he could barely read the letters of the alef-beit, the Hebrew alphabet. As the intensity of feeling in the synagogue began to mount, he decided that he also wanted to pray. But he did not know how. He could not read the words of the prayer book or mimic the prayers of the other congregants. He opened the prayer book to the first page and began to recite the letters: alef, beit, gimmel... reading the entire alphabet. He then called out to G-d: "This is all I can do. G-d, You know how the prayers should be pronounced. Please, arrange the letters in the proper way."
This simple, genuine prayer resounded powerfully within the Heavenly court. G-d rescinded all the harsh decrees and granted the Jews blessing and good fortune.
4. How to tie your shoes
Some people thinks this must be the craziest thing in the whole Code of Jewish law. According to the Shulchan Aruch, you are supposed to put your right shoe on before the left shoe, and then you have to tie the left shoelace before the right shoelace. And when taking them off it's the opposite: untie the right then the left, take off the left then the right. And a lefty does it all the other way around.
This custom is based on the belief that we have to balance our internal forces as part of our constant struggle to spiritual perfection. The shape of the human body reflects the contours of the human soul. Our body has two sides, right and left, because the soul has two distinct powers. On the one hand there is the power to give, be outward and expressive; on the other hand is the power to hold back, be inward and restrained. These are the two sides of the soul, the side of kindness and the side of discipline, that correspond to the two sides of the body, the right side and the left.
Both powers are essential. The secret to a healthy life and successful relationships is knowing how to balance these two forces -- when to be assertive and when to submit; when to be strict and when to be lenient; when to let yourself go and when to just say no.
The following story is of Rabbi Leib ben Sarah who learned this from his master, Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezeritch.
Rabbi Leib explained to his disciples that he did not undertake the long and hazardous journey to Mezeritch merely to hear his master's sermon on the Torah. "Instead, I went to watch him tie his shoes", said Rabbi Leib.
"Tie his shoes?" the puzzled student repeated. "Rabbi, I do not understand."
"The wisdom of the Maggid," Rabbi Leib explained, "lay not only in his insights and interpretations of the Torah but in the many ways by which he expressed that understanding through every little thing he did. His every gesture, his every word, his every bearing articulated his love for God and man. And so it must be for us all. The Torah encompasses all. To the man of God, therefore, knowing how to tie your shoes is a great accomplishment."
3. My children have defeated Me
Several astonishing rabbinic accounts describe for us how God surrendered Himself in certain halakhic matters to the authority of the Sages of Israel. The most well known story – and also the most amazing – relates to the oven of Aknai. Rabbi Eliezer and the Sages disagreed about a certain type of oven, whether or not it can contract ritual impurity:
It was taught in a Baraita: On that day, Rabbi Eliezer used all the arguments in the world, but they did not accept them from him.
He said to them: "If the Halakha is in accordance with me, let this carob tree prove it." The carob tree was uprooted from its place one hundred cubits, and some say four hundred cubits. They said to him: "One does not bring proof from a carob tree."
He then said to them: "If the Halakha is in accordance with me, let the channel of water prove it." The channel of water turned backward. They said to him: "One does not bring proof from a channel of water."
He then said to them: "If the Halakha is in accordance with me, let the walls of the House of Study prove it." The walls of the House of Study leaned to fall. Rabbi Yehoshua rebuked [the walls], saying: "If the Sages argue with one another about the Halakha, what affair is it of yours?" They did not fall, out of respect for Rabbi Yehoshua; but they did not straighten, out of respect for Rabbi Eliezer.
[Rabbi Eliezer] then said to them: "If the Halakha is in accordance with me, let it be proved from Heaven." A heavenly voice went forth and said: "Why are you disputing with Rabbi Eliezer, for the Halakha is in accordance with him everywhere?" Rabbi Yehoshua rose to his feet and said: "It is not in Heaven." What does "it is not in Heaven" mean? Rabbi Yirmiya said: That the Torah was already given on Mount Sinai, and we do not pay attention to a heavenly voice, for You already wrote in the Torah at Mount Sinai: "After the majority to incline." (Bava Metzia 59b)
What does mainstream Judaism think of the myth of the Oven of Aknai? The Soncino edition of the Talmud, the traditional English language source, describes the response of the sages to God's voice in the story as a "remarkable assertion of the independence of human reasoning". The recent Schottenstein edition of the Talmud suggests that God's intervention at Aknai was simply God's test of the determination of the sages to hold their position even against God himself. In other words, the rejection of God's attempt to intervene at Aknai is celebrated in modern Judaism as a kind of declaration of Man's Independence.
That independence is the humanist message of the Aknai story. For at Aknai, Man–human reason and power–become the measure of all things. The sages have come to their decision by argument, although their arguments are not supported by nature or by God. Trees, streams, walls and the voice of Heaven oppose their position. Nevertheless, the sages insist that they are right and by virtue of their numbers, they prevail.
R. Nathan met [the prophet] Elijah and asked him, "What did the Holy One do at that moment?" Elijah: "He laughed [with joy], saying, 'My children have defeated Me, My children have defeated Me.'"
2. God's prayer
Remarkably, the tradition addresses the notion that it is not only we who pray. We can read in the Talmud (Berachot 7a): "R. Yochanan said in the name of R. Yose, 'How do we know that the Holy One, Blessed be He, says prayers? Because it is written (Isaiah 56:7), 'I will bring them to My holy mountain and I will gladden them in My house of prayer.' It does not say the house of 'their prayer,' but beit tefillati, lit. 'the house of My prayer'; therefore we see that the Holy One, Blessed be He, says prayers.' "
The Gemara asks, "What does He pray?' R. Zutra b. Tobi said in the name of Rab, 'May it be My will that My mercy suppress My anger and that My mercy prevail over My other attributes, so that I deal with My children according to the attribute of mercy and, on their behalf, go 'lifnim mishurat ha'din - stopping short of the limit of strict justice, namely, mercifully, beyond the letter of the law' [in forgiving them their transgressions].' "
1. Trial of God
The Jewish people has suffered numerous persecution throughout history, yet their faith remains unshakeable. The following story is the ultimate proof.
At the young age of fifteen, Elie Wiesel lived in a horrible place called Auschwitz. In his memoirs about this “hell on earth,” Wiesel tells a fascinating story about a Talmud teacher who befriended the young Elie, took him to his barracks, and told him that he would witness one of the greatest trials in all of world history: The Trial of God. Three rabbis, all prisoners in Auschwitz and witnesses to the daily death machine of the Nazis, decided that it was time to place God on trial.
They formed a rabbinic court (Bet Din), and conducted the trial completely in accordance with Halakha (Jewish Law). They gathered evidence against God, building a strong case against the “Holy One Blessed Be He.” The trial lasted several days, with the judges giving all those who wished a chance to speak their minds. Witnesses were heard, painful personal testimonies were given, and in the end, young Elie remarked in amazement how none of the witnesses even remotely defended God.
It was time to issue a ruling, and the rabbinic court pronounced a unanimous verdict: “The Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth – guilty of crimes against creation, against humanity and against His own Chosen People of Israel.” Soon after this painful judgment was pronounced, followed by a reaction from the people that Wiesel describes as an “infinity of silence,” the rabbi presiding over the rabbinic court looked up to the sky, saw that the sun had set, and that the darkness of night was upon the world. This rabbi, who had just indicted God and pronounced Him guilty of crimes, looked towards the silenced crowd and said “Come, my friends, it is time to pray the evening prayer.”
Compiled from various sources
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