The danger when my comfort zones and fears become my god.
The University Protests
Our universities have been a source of longing for countless American Jewish families. Jewish immigrant parents labored tirelessly to send their children to higher education institutions, where they would become integrated into the larger society and build successful futures.
The chaos we are observing in the universities since October 7th, 2023, with protesters, including many Jews, calling for the death of their own people, the destruction of their homeland, and the country that has given them so much freedom, is horrific beyond words.
Still, like every crisis, it contains a historic opportunity for rebirth.
The present moral confusion of so many students and their academic leaders will teach a whole generation how twisted the human mind can become when divorced from truth; how when we strip G-d from all reality and are left to figure things out with our brilliance alone, Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden can become tzaddikim.
“The genesis of all wisdom is the awe of G-d,” we read in the Psalms (Ch. 111). Without respect for G-d, without the recognition that there is something called Reality, that there is a truth in the universe, academics can align themselves with murderers, rapists, and genocidal terrorists.
Just as Allah, without logic and reason, can produce Islamist monsters, so too logic without G-d, without respect for absolute truth, without the humble recognition that there is even something called Truth, can produce liberal monsters, calling for the death and rape of 6 million Jews.
The protesters at the universities have turned their views and perspectives into a god, and are stuck in a new form of idol worship, not open to challenging themselves in any real way. This dogma creates the death of ideas and all emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth.
This is our historic opportunity. We can, at last, say goodbye to the idol that so many Jews created over 150 years, entitled “higher secular education.” It is a sham, and a sinister breeding ground for Nazi supporters. We can educate a new generation of Jews with the timeless, eternal values of Torah and Mitzvos, which teach us sanity, decency, honesty, and the sanctity of life. This will allow all of our children to distinguish between good and evil, death and life, between Israel and Hamas, Churchill and Hitler, and truly celebrate the sanctity of life.
Metal Gods?
“Do not make yourselves gods out of cast metal [1],” the Torah instructs us in the portion of Kedoshim.
How could any intelligent person believe a piece of metal is a god? We could perhaps appreciate how ancient pagan societies attributed divine qualities to powerful, transcendent forces of nature, like the Zodiac signs, the sun, the moon, the galaxies, the wind, fire, water, etc. But why would a thoughtful human believe god could be fashioned out of cast metal?
Even if we can explain how such an idea could have been entertained seriously in the ancient, pagan world, how does this commandment in Torah—a timeless blueprint for human life—apply to our lives today?
I once encountered a beautiful interpretation of these words [2]. This biblical verse—”Do not make yourselves gods out of cast metal”—tells us not to construct a god of a lifestyle and a weltanschauung that has become like “cast metal,” one that is cast and solidified in a fixed mold.
A natural human tendency is to worship what we have become comfortable with. We worship our habits, neural pathways, attitudes, paradigms, and inclinations because we have accustomed ourselves to them, and they are now part of our lives. We worship the icons, culture, perspective, and emotions we have been raised with; we surrender to what has become the norm in our communities, schools, and homes. People love that which does not surprise them; we want to enjoy a god that suits our philosophical and emotional paradigms and comfort zones. We tend to embrace a fixed and molten god.
This is true for both religious and secular people, for believers and self-proclaimed atheists or agnostics. “Don’t rock my neural pathways” is the call of our psyche. “I already have an established god; do not threaten it… I have my patterns of thought which I am used to. Do not challenge it. If you do, I will have no choice but to cancel you for eternity.”
Sometimes, a religious person invests his or her entire life into constructing a particular image of G-d, of truth, of ultimate reality. To let go of that is painful. To even entertain the idea that my entire religion may be man-made in so many ways is profoundly challenging.
If you speak to so many people today who call themselves secular, scientific, free from dogma and indoctrination, you can notice how they too often create secular gods, which one may never challenge or question. It is appalling how, in the name of openness and tolerance, people can become so vengeful and supportive of pure evil.
Raw Truth
Comes the Torah and declares: Do not turn your pre-established mold into your G-d. Do not turn your habits, fears, inclinations, or addictions into a deity. Allow yourself to search for the truth. The real truth—naked, raw, and authentic, even if painful. Life is about challenge, not conformity. Allow your soul to be enchanted by mystery.
Never say, “This is the way I am; this is how I do things; I cannot change.” Never think, “This is the worldview I am comfortable with; any other way must be wrong.” Rather, muster the courage to challenge every instinct, temptation, and convention; question every dogma, including dogmas that speak in the name of open-mindedness and are embraced simply because you fall back on that which you have been taught again and again. Let your life not become enslaved to a particular pattern just because it has been that way for many years or decades.
G-d, the real G-d, is not defined by any conventions; let your soul, too, not be confined by any external conventions. Experience the freedom of your Creator.
Often, we fall prey to a certain image of what our lives are supposed to look like, what our marriages or children are supposed to look like, what our mission is supposed to look like. But this is another way of fashioning our god with the tools of our understanding. There comes a point I need to open myself up to the possibility that perhaps my purpose in life is completely different than what I imagined; I need to stop asking what I want from G-d and start asking what G-d wants from me.
It is a serious paradigm shift. But it sets you free.
Judaism never articulated who G-d is and what G-d looks like. It taught us what G-d does NOT look like: G-d ought never to be defined by any image we attribute to Him, hewn by the instruments of our conscious or subconscious needs, fears, and aspirations. In Jewish philosophy, never mind in Kabbalah and Chassidic thought, we never speak of what G-d is; only of what He is not: G-d is not an extension of my being or imagination[3].
The common Yiddish term for G-d used by some of the greatest Jewish mystics, thinkers, and holy men and women is “Oybershter,” which means “higher.” Not Creator, not Master, not All-Powerful, but “Higher.” What this term represents is this idea: I do not know what He is; all I know is that whatever my definition of truth and reality, whatever my definition for G-d — He is “higher” than that. All I know is that I do not know[4].
To be open to the G-d of the Torah means to be open to never-ending mystery, infinite grandeur, limitless sublimity, and possibility; it is the profound readiness at every moment of life to open ourselves to transcendence. And what was transcendent yesterday can become a form of exile today. Transcendence itself must also be transcendent, for it too can become a trap.
And that which remains of your ambitions and desires after you have faced all your fears and challenged your defenses is where your will meets G-d’s will[5]. At that point of complete humility and sincerity, you become truly one with yourself, one with the inner core of reality.
In the words of the Zohar[6], “No thought, no idea, can grasp Him; yet He can be grasped with the pure desire of the heart.”
And then, when you begin to learn Torah and fulfill its Mitzvos, it will be experienced in an entirely different way, as gifts and channels transmitting Divine infinity into our bodies and our world. And if you find your Judaism causing you to become judgmental, stressful, and defined by conformity — you will know that it is time for you to throw away your gods of solid metal.
