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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:Would He who forms the eye not see?
Rabbi Arthur Segal: Jewish Spiritual Renewal: Shabbat 7/12/08 Hebrew College,Newton Centre, MA,USA
Shalom Talmidim and Chaverim:
In past classes we have spoken about the need of doing a daily chesbon ha nefesh, an accounting of our soul, of our actions, so that we can learn where we are deficient, and grow spiritually.
The Talmud has an interesting statement: ''Those who rule over themselves can make an accounting, calculating the gains and losses in life: the gain of a mitzvah as opposed to its cost, and the cost of a sin as opposed to its gain'' (Talmud Bavli Tractate Bava Batra 78b).
How do we rule over ourselves? We have freedom of choice to follow our will, God's will, or do our best to align our will with God's will. We have all been in the situation where we have told ourselves not to eat that second piece of chocolate cake. How many of us have listened to the voice in the other ear telling us that another piece won't hurt us and after all we are at a simcha, celebration, so why not? In most cases our will power can be strong enough to resist temptation.
But when life throws us strong temptations, or strong problems, our finite selves are just sometimes too weak to handle things. This is when our relationship with God is important to take us away from temptation, and follow our yetser ha tov, and not our yetser ha ra.
Psalm 94:9 asks: Would He who implants the ear not hear? Would He who forms the eye not see? This is of course meant as an answer to someone denying that God could help him in life.
Before one can be convinced that they want to renew their Jewish Spirituality, once must be convinced that living without it is not a life worth living.
Many of us, who proudly proclaimed ourselves to be atheists or agnostics have never truly analyzed what our lives are like missing a Higher Power in it. We have found many reasons to deny God and to live without Him. We have shown how so many of the wars fought have been in His name. "Deus vult" (God wills it) said Pope Urban II and the cruel Crusades began. We have seen how different religions all say they have ''the'' way to God or ''the'' way into 'Heaven.' We have seen how almost all religions talk of peace and love of one's neighbor, but find that few humans practice it So we have had it with the God-stuff.
But the above is the folly of humans, and not of God, It is religion's faults and has nothing to do with spirituality,
Living a life without God means that we are living a life with our will directing us. Our will is derived from our wants and our desires. It is a life of selfishness and self-seeking. We may rationalize and say that we are doing some societal good when we yearn to be president of the Sisterhood of a Temple, but if our will is directing us, we will invariably come into contact with another's will, and conflict will result.
Judaism calls our will of selfishness and self-seeking our yetser ha ra (evil inclination). By living a life directed by it and not a life with God, we will be in a constant state of having to mark and protect our territory life a dog. We see the world as a giant pie. If someone has a piece of pie, that is a piece that we do not have. Others become competition with us. If we have a piece of pie, we must guard that piece and not share it with anyone.
Selfishness is much more than not truly sharing what we have. It is living a life defined by self. It is a life defined as ''all about me.'' We are self absorbed. And if anyone intrudes into our self's will, we get angry.
Self-seeking is a bit different. It means on one level that we are always doing things with the end result always being how we can benefit. But it also means that even when we do something that appears to be good, like serving on a board, or heading a committee, we are doing so in order to receive something back. You can tell these folks, generally speaking, by looking at a shul bulletin. The same names are always there. The shul's motto may be that they are ''inclusive'' but few will be allowed to break into the clique that runs the shul.
There is no altruism in the life of a Godless person.
Hence living a life with our will puts us in conflict with people, and makes us a foolish servant, instead of a leader, to those who understand the truth. We live a life of delusion. Those who we think are our friends, are as self-seeking as we are, being nice to us, in order to get something from us.
When we live a life without God, we are dependent on our finite selves and on finite other humans. When we depend on other finite humans, invariably they will let us down. The most pious person will fit this bill. One could have Gandhi promise to take them to a doctor's appointment and he could not show up because he had to start a fast on that day.
When we depend on our finite selves, we are always going to fall short. We can say, "I can love my fellows, without believing in God," but sooner or later we will meet someone who annoys us so much, that we just can't get past our yetser ha ra to love this person. We can say we can be honest without God, but sooner or later, given the choice of a gray area in the tax code, we will chose to give ourselves the money and not the government.
Our finite selves may have strong will power and strong self knowledge but sooner or later we will come up against something in life, some major fear, or situation, that our finite selves just cannot handle.
When we depend only our finite selves, our dependence had boundaries. When we add other finite humans into the mix, we will always find them failing, and usually end up with resentments. Those folks without God, usually do not keep friends for long. They are judgmental because their will has been road blocked, and hold grudges and even hate. They see others, as not people for whom they can do something of love and service expecting nothing back, but as folks who they can use. Other humans, those they call friends, are like bank accounts, waiting to have a withdrawal. As mentioned above, any deposits made into the friendship, are for self-seeking reasons.
A life without God is a life with low self esteem. We are constantly approval seeking and searching for love. Our ego is bruised so we need to cover up that defect with accolades, awards, kudos, our names in the paper, and praise from others. Most of the time we buy these with donations, or vie to be the head of charitable organization to get these. Hence our volunteer work is not volunteer work at all, it is paid. We tell folks we are doing mitzvoth but we are really a self-seeking employee with low self esteem whose wages are ''ataboys.''
Our ego, trying to mend our low self esteem, can be so influenced by our yetser ha ra that it will even allow us to puff our curriculum vitae and resumes with lies and exaggerations. We have read news reports of some in academia coasting for 30 years as PhD's, when they have not had a BA. And we all know rabbis, who know their training is inferior to others who have gone to better schools, or have gotten better grades, who will teach that God doesn't exist, put down our sages or gossip about other Rabbis to make themselves look better. All this does in the eyes of one who is spiritually awakened is point out a spiritually ill jealous Godless person.
A Godless life will find us gossiping and putting other people down to make ourselves appear better than we know we are. It will find us coveting as we do not think what we have is enough, yet at the same we know that much of what we have, we do not deserve.
A life of Ego and without God will have us continually trying to please everyone, and being fearful of anyone who can possibly look at us and say ''the king is naked.''
A life without God will eventually have us form grudges and resentments of which we cannot rid ourselves. We go to bed at night with videos in our head of real or imagined conversations of those with whom we are in conflict. Some of us have grudges that are decades old. Many of us, learn via Jewish Spiritual Renewal that we have a list of resentments that have over 300 names on them. A resentment doesn't hurt the person for who we are holding the grudge . A resentment is an acid eating away at the container.
Living without God has us living at odds with the flow of the universe. Life is ever changing and we hold unto the delusion that we have control. We foolishly think we can control our lives, the lives of those around us, and the environment around us. This is folly. In reality we control nothing except our actions and our reactions to things that happen to us, including emotionally. When we are at odds with God's universe, we live a life full of fears. We worry. We are anxious. We are angry. We see either things being taken from us that we have, or things that we want not being granted to us. We are depressed.
Many of us turn to substances to get us through the day. Some may be by prescription, but most times it is tobacco, alcohol, narcotics, food, gambling, or sex without emotional commitment.
Your assignment this week (there is no d'var Torah as the d'var last week did a double portion and covered this Shabbat's) is to decide for yourself, if you are living a life without God and any of the above rings true,
If so this class will help immensely and will help your congregants in the same situation. The answers and methods have been tried and proven for millennia but I have distilled them using modern language, as well as an easy to follow path and method.
Shalom,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA, USA
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