If God Does Not Exist
If God does not exist, nothing matters.
If God does exist...
nothing else matters.
How come there's the Universe? Was all existence created, deliberately, or did it just pop into being accidentally?
God never clearly manifests Himself to mortal eyes but, still, betting against God is a dumb-money bet. Even though the case for God (or gods) can't be proved conclusively one way or the other.
Except for one thing.
The Jews. The Jews are like Deity putting His thumb on the scale.
As He created the Jews He willed into being the Bible and Torah of Israel.
"You are My witnesses,” says HaShem, “and My servant whom I have chosen, so that men and women may know Me and believe in Me, and understand that I am He (Isaiah 43:10). The Jews are "the people I formed for Myself, that they might tell of My praise (43:21).
Not that God needs praise. But this is His Plan: all mankind coming to know Him - the God of Love - and follow Him, the Righteous God of Israel; the God Who sustains the Universe. Because it's necessary for the good of humanity and the good of the Earth and, presumably, immense spans of Outer Space.
"The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork" (Psalms 19:1).
So He promises Abraham "I will make your descendants numerous, and your descendants will inherit the gate of their enemies; through your children will be blessed all the nations of the world" (Genesis 22:17-18). And there's His thumb on the scale. Along with all these ancient signs of His reality; these prophecies - so profoundly unlike all other human 'scripture' - and righteous commandments, laws and statutes (so profoundly unlike every prior code, tablets, steles or other compilations of law).
It's a shame that Bible-reading hasn't caught on better in our time: its contents are so incredibly different from every early Gentile codex - no torture, for instance, nor trial by combat! The prophecies remain fresh today, and even the ancient laws, statutes, commandments and moral Teachings still bear the stamp of Divinity, two- and three-thousand years later.
"Justice, justice, ye shall pursue!" (Deuteronomy 16:0). "Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." (Isaiah 1:17). "Let justice rise up as the waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." (Amos 5:24). "What does HaShem [the Lord, God] require of you: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8).
It's powerful stuff - but the prophecies are still more powerful. And consider some of the evidence, after three thousand years, of how they've been realized in history.
Take - for instance - Abraham, the first Gentile convert to Judaism. God's rewards to him include specific promises concerning progeny, a certain land or territory, and the seemingly preposterous guarantees that his heirs "shall inherit the gate of its enemy" (Genesis 22:17), and, even more, "bring blessing to all the nations of the Earth" (22:18).
Has He fulfilled those promises? Are those things historical constants? In-built features of God's Creation?
That we can even ask those questions speaks volumes.
Some of the prophecies are jaw-dropping. I remember seeing one of the stranger prophecies fulfilled, as a kid, watching the Arab-Israeli Six Day War of 1967 on TV: "You shall chase your enemies and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight" (Leviticus 26:8
Some prophecies contain commandments: You, Israel, shall make no covenant with any co-claimants of the Land of Israel (Exodus 23: 32), nor try to divide it up. If you, Jews, fail to rid the land of such, "they shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides and they shall vex you in the land (Numbers 33:55). Likewise: If you fail to follow My Torah in the land that I give you, I will punish you with a non-nation; I shall provoke you with a vile nation (Deuteronomy 32:21). In fact, this "vile nation" shall combine with other enemies and try to erase even the very name of Israel (Psalms 82:5).
How did the ancient prophets know all that?
Beyond that, if you look at the role of the Jews, the Bible and Torah in the world, in history, what an immeasurable but tremendous boon it’s been... It becomes obvious. It’s so ironic… how our fellow Jews will sometimes rail against the modern “secular” world, when there’s such a lot of Sinai in how we all think and do things and in all the things we have today. The Hebrew Revolution is integral in human history.
Apocalypse
Apocalypse is a Greek word meaning, roughly, unveiling. The general idea is, a final, ultimate revealing.
Here is another fantastic contrast between Israel's philosophy and religion and the Gentile religions'.
We already know that, as far as beginnings go, paganism's Creation stories are all remarkably awful. Horrible gods in dysfunctional families spitting, fornicating and vomiting up Creation… As for imagining the future, the apocalyptic final-revelation end-times visions of the Gentile religions are also horrible.
Fire, cataclysmic wars, brimstone, hunger, fierce suffering; in their conceptions, the future offers remarkably little hope for light or life, but for a precious "saved" few, and only the dimmest prospects for planet Earth.
Islam and Christianity, Israel's two biggest ‘daughter religions', seem to take their visions from the darkest, most hair-raising Hebrew future-vision stories, about the Gog and Magog war, and struggles with Leviathan, and other dark forces, while promising grotesque, paralyzing calamities devastating Earth. In their visions, generally, the few chosen "saved-survivors" end up fleeing Earth and living in a largely spiritual heaven.
German idolatry has the Ragnarok, the complete collapse of everything, preceded by years of terror-stricken anarchy and freezing winter. On top of that comes more fire, ice, earthquakes, and mankind-eliminating plagues. But, then, all the man-made religions' apocalyptic end-times visions are like that.
In all of them, the "good people" - exclusively dutiful followers and acolytes of each respective faith - get rescued and raised up. But most of the human race, including all non-believers, gets crushed, and Earth gruesomely afflicted.
In Judaism - Torah, Israel's religion, the Hebrew Revolution, the Teachings and Movements proceeding from Sinai - once you get past the scary passages, the future it promises is glorious.
Admittedly, some Bible passages seem dark if you don't know basic Torah: if you don't know, particularly, that NO prophesied promised evil is inevitable; that God's forgiveness is all-powerful; that what seem to be rigid, strict or harsh decrees invariably have clear loopholes; that God has organized Creation so that there's at least 500 times more good than bad in it (Exodus 34:7); that reformation, repentance and good deeds (what Judaism calls teshuvah, returning to God) wipes away evil decrees and brings Divine blessings.
You might also be presuming that Judaism, like the Gentile religions, is hooey. But it isn't. Absolutely undeniably - certainly, in the following respect - Judaism's unique:
In the Jewish 'apocalypse' - the ultimate, next-stage-of-history Revealing, the "Conclusion of the Current Story" - the future belongs to members (Jews) and non-Jews alike. Our age is just part of the early adolescence of our planet and our species.
Additionally, Planet Earth comes out well in the Jewish 'apocalypse'. Earth will abide - the world won't end - until it becomes infinitely better. People, who have messed it up, will clean it up, with God's help. And whatever happens, when all is said and done, "the righteous of all nations" shall enjoy a glorious future. "Earth shall be full of the knowledge of HaShem as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:9).
God-knowledge
The Torah is a unified plan for all humanity. A big part of the Plan is knowledge of God.
If the Bible has any credibility, if Israel still lives, we can say a few things about God.
He is a real, actual, vital - that is to say, "living" - individual, a conscious "personality," even though He's not anything one could call a person; a completely unique thinking Being, the Living God, the "Ancient of Days." He, the "Old One," the Eternal, existed before anything - "exalted in solitude before Creation" (Siddur) - and shall forever continue to exist, even if everything else has vanished.
He somehow extends across the entirety of Creation, fully involved with all Creation - including every particle, force and atom - and at the same time is also utterly indivisible and One; "with a unity," said Maimonides, " beyond all other unities." (Some people think He exists as a kind of field, giving reality to and sustaining everything.)
We speak of Him as "He" even though He certainly exists beyond any limitation of sex or gender. In our human languages, though, it's ridiculous to speak of Him as female when He's completely self-sufficient - an "acting-upon" rather than a receiving, or "passive," Force in Creation. He has told us, through His prophets (by means we can only guess at, but somehow God knows how to commune with His prophets), that we exist as we do, as free-willed individually unique and semi-holy beings, because He made us "in His image."
But then, it's clear, and He even emphasizes (Deuteronomy 4:12,15), that He has no image!
As for His qualities, His "delight" in kindness, justice, truth and mercy, for instance, we know a few things, but a man speaking of Deity, even with the benefit of all the prophets have taught, is like a lesser animal trying to size-up a man.
Since He is so far beyond human conception, people have a pathological tendency of reducing Him, in their minds, down to what they can conceive. Or, some people mentally dispense with His unique person-hood and reduce Him below the level of being, to regard Him not as a real, living Individual but as more of a myth, as a vague historical force or set of metaphors or moral principles, or, basically, a figment of imagination. Some people speak of Him as a god within - like indigestion.
That's their problem. God's reality is not lessened by their doubting. The Universe is not pointless. The God of Abraham, the God of history, and Israel, is imminent AND transcendent, throughout Creation. He’s no figment. If Israel is real, if the world is real, so is He
God's Fury
The Deity is often said to be a wrathful Being. In fact, Christianity's big idea is that He, the Old One, delegated His "son" - not "Israel, My first-born" (Exodus 4:22), but a solo Jewish fellow, whom we'll call (following Homer Simpson in "The Simpsons," who said he couldn't be a Christian missionary because “I don’t even know Jebus”) Jebus - to help save humanity from the anger of "the God of the Old Testament."
(Christianity also offers Jebus' mother, Mary, to refer problems to if her son refuses mercy, and beyond Mary, if even she can't bear the sinner, there's her mother, Anne, Jewish grandmother, who's even nicer. (And, if even she damns the sinner, one might petition a saint.)
If that's the way God arranged everything, this would be a really weird universe, and He'd be a helluva weird god.
There's a lot about God's anger in Scripture - speaking of qualities pertaining to the infinite Living Deity in metaphorical terms, in "the language of men," as Scripture does. "God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalms 7:12). He is "long-suffering" (Exodus 34:6) and "slow to anger" (Nachum 1:3), yes; but punishing "anger," "wrath" and "fury," metaphorically, are mentioned in Scripture, as part of His moral order.
Let us suggest that the Living God - "the LORD [HaShem] Who exercises loving-kindness, just judgment and righteousness in the Earth, and delights in them" (Jeremiah 9:23) - is not actually all that bad. He's the One who teaches, for instance, "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread" (Proverbs 25:21).
At least at this current stage of history, while suffering, punishment and death are still essential features of life on Earth, those things come from God (Deuteronomy 32:39, I Samuel 2:6), but they don't come from God's fury. He doesn't rage. In fact, He can hardly be said to be affected in any substantial way at all by anything men say or do: He doesn't really change (Malachi 3:4).
Nothing happens because God is irrationally emotional. He declares Himself to be "a jealous God" (Exodus 20:5) - yet that's not neurosis but the jealousy of a mother against the evil influences threatening her children. As He the LORD instructs His prophet, in a very clear and explicit lesson to be shared through Scripture with all the world, He Himself testifies: "Fury is not in Me" (Isaiah 27:4).
Ukraine
Russia's war against Ukraine is a war of tyranny against a young, struggling democracy. The people - the great majority of the people of Ukraine - decided on a republican, democratic form of government, and elected the current president by a landslide.
We watched him, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, address a joint session of Congress, the House and Senate together, on December 21st. It was very moving: the young (44-years old) leader of Ukraine, a Jewish man, dressed in military olive-green like a soldier, taking a brief leave from a raging hot-war and the Russians' cruel attacks on Ukraine's civilians, addressing the Congress and people of the radical revolutionary experiment - of freely elected government, for and by and of the people - that's America.
Speaking, in English, on the third night of Chanukah, he invoked America's revolutionary heritage and related our freedom struggle powerfully to Ukraine. He spoke of Christmas and the blessings of the Christmas season, and related that to freedom and America and Ukraine. He had me, in fact, before he ever even opened his mouth; his words were beautiful but I already knew that I wanted freedom for Ukraine, and punishment for the incredibly evil deeds of Russia against Ukraine, and for our country to do whatever she can, in the name of democracy, and plain decency, to protect Ukraine's people land and soil and self-government.
Still, I thought: a Jewish man speaking of "the spirit of Christmas" but not of the far more pertinent spirit of Chanukah, the freedom festival, the Maccabees, and his own people's titanic 20-year war against imperialist pagan tyranny? Even while Ukrainian Jews were keeping a giant Chanukah menorah lit in Kiev's Maidan, the main square of Zelenskyy's capital?
Of course a speech is just a speech, even by a heroic democratically elected foreign war-leader to a joint session of Congress. But then, thinking about how Ukraine votes, even under Zelenskyy, in the UN...
In the United Nations, Ukraine still votes like the Soviet bloc country that it used to be, with the most awful, retrograde countries on Earth, in almost every vote it takes concerning Israel. No matter how stupid the cause, Ukraine votes against the Jewish state - condemning Israel as a genocidal colonialist, a lawless imperialist; a cruel, exterminationist enemy of peace- and freedom-loving Arabs and Muslims who have, according to Ukraine's votes, been grievously misused by Jews.
How nuts! Over centuries, Ukrainian Jew-haters would bait Jews, cursing: "Go back to where you belong! Not here! Go back to Palestine!" Today, they curse Jews still, insisting, in vote after vote in the UN, that Jews are horrid scoundrels who don't belong even there!
Countries that curse Israel are bound to struggle.
Messiah and the Future
People always tend to get the kind of government they deserve. People's Noachide obligations - the obligations of the Seven Universal Moral Laws, the Sheva Mitzvos B'nei Noach - require people to sustain a decent government: that is, to participate in it, when necessary; to defend it, when required; and to make sure it works as well and as justly as possible. These are very basic, absolutely fundamental human obligations, and defaulting from them invites punishment.
No Messiah will change that.
We can expect people to receive the blessings of Messiah when we, the human race, come closer to deserving the blessings of Messiah.
Amalak
We saw in a religious pamphlet about the upcoming festival of Purim - a lá the Bible's Book of Esther - a comment about Amalek, the cosmic anti-Israel. Haman, the Hitler of the Purim story, was Amalek. So were Hitler and the Nazis, in fact, among many, many others. In every generation, Amalek tries to annihilate or at least do down Israel. "HaShem [the Lord] will have war with Amalek in every generation." (Exodus 17:16).
This pamphlet, "Mordechai, Esther and Me," published by the Chabad Lubavitcher movement, teaches, "The Torah instructs us to erase all memory of Amalek. Within ourselves, Amalek represents a cold rationality which inhibits awe or excitement. Destroying our inner Amalek allow us to achieve a meaningful relationship with G-d [sic] and His Torah and Mitzvot [Commandments]."
With all credit to Chabad, which provides Jewish warmth and hospitality to visitors and seekers around the world, the writers and publishers of this thing could use some 'cold rationality' themselves.
Fighting Amalek, remembering and considering Amalek's evil, and NOT forgetting Amalek's rottenness, are explicit Torah commandments for Israel (Exodus 17:8-13, Deuteronomy 25:19). A Jew sins when he or she forgets Amalek, but there is no inner Amalek in Jews, and 'cold rationality' is how we - or some of us, anyway - come closer to God and knowledge of His ways.
It helps to consider how Amalek, then a recognized people with family connections to the Jewish people, attacked Israel under Moses.
The Egyptians' neighbors, including Amalek, had all heard of the Ten Plagues, and then the Splitting of the Reed Sea and God's drowning of Pharaoh's army had just happened. But Israel, speeding through the desert shortly afterward, heedless of its own "weaklings," the sick, and elderly, and the very young, and pregnant women, left them straggling.
Amalek, lurking and watching nearby, must have said something like, "They're not so holy. We wouldn't behave so discreditably. No god could favor them over us."
Amalek's a very misunderstood concept. But Amalek comes after Israel to do as much harm as possible in every single generation. Amalek's a singularly vicious enemy, too, not just in its jealousy, not just in its holier-than-thou thinking, but in its viciousness. Deliberately targeting another nation's weakest, its women, children, babies and old-people, is not normal. Armies fight armies, usually; not civilians. But Amalek, regarding Israel as so granularly antithetical to its own concepts of what is good and right and ours, believes that even the Jews' children should be exterminated.
Really, after the Nazis, who were Amalek's epitome - who managed to murder just about one-third of Israel, just in the last century - we should be much sharper about Amalek than we are.
By Michael Dallen
Our Father, the merciful Father, Who acts mercifully, have mercy upon us, instill in our hearts to understand and elucidate, to lister, learn, teach, safeguard, perform and fulfill all the words of Your Torah’s teachings with love.”
- Siddur/Prayerbook, morning prayer, before the Shema
