By: Steven Friedman – Guest Bloggger
I heard the anxiety in my mother’s voice when I announced some thirty years ago that I no longer believed in God.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” she said.
I was 19 and a sophomore at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University. I’d grown up unquestioningly believing in God like my mother, her family, most of whom were quite religious, my father, his family, and my Hebrew school friends.
“Who?” I said, not surprised my Jewish mother was freaking out about her son’s sudden rejection of a God that comforted her daily.
“Someone at the Seminary,” she pleaded.
So I made an appointment with Neil Gilman, who’d been my freshman Jewish philosophy professor and was the dean of the rabbinical school. He later went on the write a book that received a national Jewish book award, Sacred Fragments.
I explained to his secretary that I no longer believed in God and wanted to discuss theology with Dr. Gilman. I was nervous several days later as she escorted me into Gilman’s book-lined office. I was a gangly teenager who hadn’t yet taken most of my academic time seriously and he was a dean, a professor, a rabbi, a noted scholar.
“So what brings you here today?” Gilman asked.
“I’ve already explained it to your assistant.”
“I know, but I want to hear it from you,” he said.
“Well,” I stammered, “I’m not sure I believe in God anymore.”
He stood up, extended his hand, and said, “Welcome to the club.”
His comments calmed me and we then began a series of sessions for the next few months in which we discussed God, faith, and philosophy. Gilman’s main point that has stayed with me for more than 30 years was that belief and faith are on a spectrum. As he said then, “Sometimes we believe more and sometimes we doubt more.”
I haven’t wavered much from declaration of agnosticism, but faith has been on my mind lately because my wife has stage IV metastatic breast cancer and her oncologist said she might only have a few months left to live.
My wife has been on the healing list of two local synagogues since she was first diagnosed in 2006. My mother, who lives in Connecticut, enlisted the support of her rabbi and all the congregations in the Greater Hartford area to pray for Verna. We have countless friends and family beseeching the Heavens on a daily basis, and a woman I’ve never met in Indiana added us in the prayers of her church.
All these prayers reaching upward may or may not have the desired effect and slow my wife’s cancer and prolong her life, but they can’t hurt. My problem is I don’t have any faith or belief in the power of prayer or a Deity to hear those pleas, so I don’t ever take any time to offer anything on my own.
The Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King, said that people connect to God not through intellect, reason, or a leap of faith, but rather a leap of action, based on experience and sacred deeds.
But faith remains a powerful force for so many. Shortly after a hurricane ravaged Florida a few years ago, a relative said, “We were unharmed. God heard our prayers.” I couldn’t help thinking: did God ignore those of the people who were harmed? My wife and I lost a close friend several years to breast cancer. Did she die in part because she didn’t pray hard enough? And after a pain crisis a few weeks ago, my wife’s health has rebounded somewhat, leading another relative to take credit.
“It was because I had faith and prayed,” she told me.
Is that how God works? The Old Testament God certainly worked through history. We have the parting of the sea, fire and brimstone on Mt. Sinai, Noah and the flood, and the Garden of Eden. But that version of God was most likely developed over a period of many years by various communities and editors with a particular vision and perception of a Deity.
On the other hand, I find it profoundly powerful that hundreds of people are marshaling prayers to heal my wife. I can clearly imagine a rush of prayerful energy finding its way across rivers, valleys, ocean, and out into the universe. That is very comforting to us.
But I can’t yet participate in those prayers in any meaningful way. I am still muddling through to form my own spiritual connection to the world. I am a seeker who is open to wonder.
Welcome to the club.
Holy cow… After a 35 year lifetime of pretty solid Christianity, this is right where I have found myself. Especially wondering how one can explain away god’s decisions as to whom he will heal or save from catastrophe… Thanks for this article.
I don’t believe that God is a God of anything bad. However, He is a God that gave His only begotten Son so that we may have everlasting life. We are born into a world of sin in the carnal flesh of man. Since the beginning of time, we as man have continually disappointed God by going against his commandments. We have to be accountable for our sins and the wages of sin are death. God gave us free will/choice. Therefore, we will have to go through difficult times in life in order to learn from our experiences. Our experiences should teach us lessons in forgiveness, love, redemption, humbleness and anything that will cause us to seek Him and His guidance. If man were perfect and all was well, we would have no need for God. We are ALL here for a purpose and the purspose is actually quite simple, yet so difficult for the majority of man to achieve. Our purpose is to LOVE others as Christ Himself loves us, as we were created in His likeness/Image. Treat others as you would have them treat you is the basic rule of life. We are here but a brief moment in time. To deny Christ is to deny yourself! We are quick to dispel the things which we cannot see, but just as the air you breathe is real, so is the God that created you….. Funny how we don’t question those things that seem to have a scientific explanation, but we will quickly deny our Christ because we cannot see him. FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out
there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t, and die to find out there is….
I have worked as an EMT for close to 17 years now. I left the Protestant church after my father died, I was nine at the time. In my 17 years of seeing people at their worst moments I can only say this: There must be a God, how else to explain all that I have seen? From fatal accidents, shootings, stabbings, suicide, domestic violence…..every now and then good comes from it. I have seen people with life ending injuries survive and lead a normal life. I can do a lot to save lives, but somethings I can’t fix, and yet they still survive. I am good at what I do, but I now believe that I have had help from above. Prayer may not save everyones life, but it helps the ones left behind. The price of life is death. Jesus paid the wages of sin so that we may have a chance to rise above ourselves and achieve greater good. The most we could ever hope for is to lead as good a life as we can, and try to leave the best of us behind with our families and friends.
I am truly touched by your transparency yet saddened that you aren’t in a close walk with God and by sounds of it are in a space that rebukes him. No one no matter how great their faith has all the answers. In each one of us lives doubt. Somedays more than others. But I have to say that there is much comfort, rest, love, blessings, reassurance and an abundant life he invites us to have. Afterall, he knows your every thought. He created every cell in you. He loves you in that agape love that we will never even fathom…even in your doubtfulness. He is constant. Steve, I pray that you will share your transparency with God (yes he already knows) but tell him about it, if you’re angry, tell him, you don’t believe him, tell him, ask him to show up. What do you have to loose? You just might find that wonderful councelor, companion, guardian, security, stability, strength, and fullfillment. Now would that be so bad? It is my prayer that you experience God in an undeniable way and that he adds many blessings to your life.
I can testify to the power of G-d in my Life. I was a 41 year old mother with a 4 year old child. A very aggressive cancer and I felt and still feel His Devine. Presence. I am a 2 time Cancer survivor, and I know He can heal.
My first wishers were too see my child raised in my home. He granted that wish..2. the second was to see him graduate from college he granted that wish..So If I died today, He let me see the things that I wanted to see.
I lost my brother over a year and a half ago, I prayed that G-d not let him die on Christmas, as I didn’t think I could handle it and he answered my prayers.l
Its not G-d wishes that anyone die of cancer or any other disease, I lost my mother when I was 10 years old, my dad when I was 2. I’m not asking for a pity party here. But I know that G-d had a plan for me.
And I know He has a plan for Verna, and I pray that you will see his Love Steven as you’re on of his Children.
Joyce Pappas