“Yes, Sarah, There is A God”

"Yes, Sarah, There is A God"

From The Heart

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

At the second night of shiva for our dear Bonnie Marrow, several of her daughter Angel's classmates from Confirmation class came to be with Angel and the family. Others came the next night. It was most meritorious of them to be present in such a heart-rending circumstance. They each fulfilled a great mitzvah.

After tefilot was over, one of them said to me: "I am having a problem with God." I was caught in that moment, in that place, after what had occurred to talk about God. What could I say to this young woman who grew up in our shul, was Bat Mitzvah and Confirmed on our bemah, and now in college was absorbing sophisticated learning? And to do it on one foot!

I cannot recall all that I said in that precious moment, but to whatever I did say, I want to add the following. Borrowing a literary phrase from a totally different origin:

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" who is responsible for all existence and that it contains, good and bad. I marvel daily, never taking for granted, this planet, the life of every plant, animal and human. In our totality, we are too magnificent to be the result of chance. While I would like to "see" God, to prove God, to have Him/Her pop out and say "Here I am" [that would be neat], our very existence proves God.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" because there is an 'unseeable' force that is greater than the entire cosmos. I am intrigued by science, but science can only answer the question "how" and I ask "why?" Science says "Because…" but I seek that which lies behind the 'how.' The answer is God. Why does my heart beat with pain in the face of tragedy and why does heart throb when I see my grandchildren, when I see toddlers running around in shul? Because God made me that way. God is responsible that there is life itself. All the discoveries of science, attest to God.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" who presence is attested to by every sunrise, sunset and constellation of stars in the sky. The beauty isn't God. God lies behind; God is responsible for the beauty. The radiance of the universe attests to God.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" because in the moment of pain, we all stepped into the breach, because we felt someone else's pain. I said to you: we proved God. For our faith posits critical values/characteristics/traits of our God that we are supposed to emulate: love, mercy, compassion, honesty, integrity. When you and your classmates came to the Marrow home, a place of tears and grief, motivated by the core values that we posit as divine, you proved God existed.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God" who allows us to do wrong, sin the most grievous of sins, murdering another human being. There are times when I wish that God was like the Superman show I watched when I was very young. I had to come to grips with the truth that Superman was fiction. That was very difficult. On this planet human beings are able to do good, to do the best, and to do bad, do the worst. In the opening chapters of Genesis, in the Garden story, God endows us with autonomy and responsibility. That is how and why we are human.

"And, Yes, Sarah, there is a God" to whom I cling to, to whom I turn to with copious tears, when life is unfair, unjust, and tragic. I turn to God for strength, for courage, for a power more than I think that I can have on my own. I turn to God who I believe is eternal, with the faith, the hope, the belief, that life doesn't end with death. That He/She gathers up the incorporeal soul, the life-animating force, and brings it close to the source of all existence, to a glow that radiates in a way that will never be detected by any antenna, any radar, any telescope, yet is as real as the ache in my heart. I can't prove it, but I believe it. There is a God, who enables us to triumph over despair and raise our heads up again.

"Yes, Sarah, there is a God." Your question is veritably the proof.