God is where you let Him in

Background: on July 12, while alone in my back yard, my life was probably saved when I passed out and about 15 minutes later, our pool cleaner arriving on time for his weekly call saw me and called 911 who notified EMA, which took me to the hospital.

Here are some excerpts of my reflections written during the following months and presented as my Rosh Hashanah evening sermon in my congregation:

During my recovery experience rarely, if ever, did I ask the usual theoretical and philosophical questions that so often appear in times of trouble, known as “theodicy.” The only whys I heard were medical whys. Surprisingly, in retrospect, the Biblical Book of Job was rarely in my thoughts. Other more important matters prevailed.

I eventually came to the understanding that in terms of cause and affect, this had been a basically neutral event. What was the meaning of the pool man turning up in time on his appointed day? Or that I happened to be in the backyard where he could see me just a few minutes after I had passed out. Was it part of God’s plan? Or happenstance? Or somewhere in between? A miracle? Or totally unrelated to such thoughts? I eventually ended up theologically nowhere. Again, more important matters were involved.

One of my favorite rabbinic quotations: “Where is God?” The student asked the teacher? Responded the teacher: “God is where you let him in.” (another non-technical response that kept coming into my thinking) It is simple and true. At other times you may challenge the intellectual factuality of this observation. But for me, not on this Rosh Hashanah.

Another of my favorite texts: (Gates of Prayer p.373) “Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles. God, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing… moments when your presence, like lightning illumines the darkness in which we walk…and we, clay touched by Gods, reach out for holiness and exclaim: how filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it.”

These words jumped out at me, only reminding me of the time they were spoken by Jacob after awakening from his dream, which began to change his life, they also brought to mind Moses at the burning bush, a perfect example of people who had walked sightless through miracles.

Recall the story: Moses saw what no one else could see. What geologists generally agree was probably some regular desert phenomenon, possible the oleander plant that often smolders in the hot desert sun. It was there, but no one except Moses saw it. So he turned round to see it, and the rest is history. So I had eventually come to recognize that I had walked sightless through miracles; that I had been in a place of God and had not known it.

All of this led me toward reaffirmation of one of the few formal theological aspects of my journey, one that I intuitively had felt my entire life. It is about the nature of religion. I realized that everything about religion…. the words, the ideas, the questions, the whos, the hows, the whats, the wheres, the whens, the whys…. all of it starts not with God but with us. And after July 12, I began to see that God is where you let him in. I, who had walked sightless among miracles, was given insight and the ability to see deeper. And it all started with an alert pool man who happened to get there on time.

My final insights came during an intimate conversation I had with one of my closest rabbinic friends a few days after returning home from the hospital. At the conclusion of our conversation, I said to him: “Irv, from this time on I will remember that whatever happens, I will realize more than ever that everything I have in life is a gift.” He replied: Frank you are correct, but it is important that you also remember that everything you had in life the day before it happened was also a gift.”

Rabbinically Speaking is published as a public service by the Jewish Press in cooperation with the Tampa Rabbinical Association which assigns the column on a rotating basis.