image from JenT
Tonight Rosh Hashanah - ראש השנה, literally "head of the year," the Jewish New Year - begins at sunset. Today ushers in the 10 Days of Awe, the period when Jews examine the past year and pray for a good year to come, leading to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
David Wolpe is an author, public speaker and rabbi in Los Angeles, California. Named the #1 pulpit Rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine, what he says in this piece really resonates with me:
"Faith is all about relationships: It's 85% of the day-to-day of life. Proving the Bible is not my point," he says. "To have questions is not the opposite of faith. Questions assume faith. They assume there is a God to ask 'Why?' "
Wolpe points out that the Bible is packed with great questions from the very first, when Adam and Eve are cowering in shame and God asks, "Where are you?"
Faith, he says, is how you answer, "Where am I?"
You triangulate, he says. You find your place "in relation to other people, to your soul and to the world. You can't find yourself alone because faith is not in solitude. It requires others. It requires you to think that your soul matters. And it is worthless if it doesn't help you make God's world better."
In Wolpe's book, of course, that does not require Jesus, although he cites Christians as well as Jews who have found in faith the ability to "grow in soul, to achieve goodness, to work for causes larger than existence alone."
His vision of prayer is "you, leaping up. It is the constant possibility you can experience God's presence. To feel God powerfully, always open and available to those who open themselves to him."
And what was Wolpe's own prayer, through the brain surgery, through cancer treatment?
"God, stay close," he says.
As usual, Speaking of Faith has spectacular episode on the Days of Awe.
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