[Previous sermon: "Yom Kippur AM 5766"] [Next sermon: "Vayera - November 18, 2005"]

October 21, 2005

Being a committed Reform Jew is not easy.

Sure, the Orthodox can refer to us as Jewish Lite and in other even less flattering terms. But in liberating ourselves from the dogma of Orthodoxy, we also take on responsibilities of viewing our heritage, our lives and our God with an open mind, with every bit of information we can muster and paying the consequences of where it may take us. It’s a continual study of our Religion, and re-examination of who we are, how we measure ourselves as moral human beings and how we view God.

As Reform Jews we must be able to defend our beliefs logically and with conviction, to Orthodox, to Christians and to Atheists as well.

Over the past year or so, I’ve become friends with a client of mine whose parents are Baptist Ministers. Christian faith is a part of my friend’s everyday life. It soon became evident that even though he was subtle about it, his holy mission was to convert this Jew into a born again Jew for Jesus. He didn’t know what he was getting himself in for.

He started reading New Testament text to me and I agreed that the writer could have been inspired by God, but was also influenced by the politics, social environment and religious agenda of the times. But then, I went after the bedrock of his beliefs, literal creation as told in the Torah and his Bible – now, my objective wasn’t to change his beliefs, but simply clear his mind to look at the world a little more openly…more liberally. I explained that if you reject the wide body of science that points to evolution, you also must reject all the other sciences interlaced with evolution – geology, archeology, anthropology, physics, astronomy, biology, genetics…to accept creationism as a science you must reject all other science. They are simply incompatible with one another.

Not letting science get in his way, my friend said, “Yes, but they discovered Noah’s Ark in the mountains of Turkey.”

Noah’s Ark. O.K. I said, let’s take a look in the Torah and Bible. What does it say about Noah? Now please excuse me if I don’t get all of these names pronounced correctly, because in no way am I a biblical scholar. But the Bible is incredibly detailed in listing Noah’s descendents. Just taking one lineage it says: One of Noah’s sons was Shelah. Shelah begot Eber, who begot Peleg, who begot Reu, who begot Serug, who begot Nahor, who begot Terah, who begot Abram who became Abraham who begot Isaac who begot Jacob who begot Joseph. That’s 12 generations between Noah and the civilization of Egypt.

So accordingly, in a mere 12 generations, one of Noah’s descendants became black and populated all of Africa by the millions. One became fair and populated Scandinavia and the Russian steppe. One descendant turned dark skinned and propagated by the millions in India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia. Still another became Chinese and populated the Far East by the millions. Still other descendants found their way to the Americas and became North and South American Indians. And somehow others became Aborigines settling in Australia. If all this is true, it demonstrates rapid evolution and propagation on a scale, not only contradictory to the Bible, but all known science, and common sense as well.
To this, my friend looked rather perplexed and simply said, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

I was, however, greatly surprised at one topic we both agreed upon…that human beings, at this stage in our intellectual development, do not have the capacity to understand what God is. A fundamentalist and a Reform Jew in the same place.

Now, I don’t know how my friend got there, but I do know that the attempt to understand the essence of what God is has generated thousands of texts over the ages that often raise as many questions as they attempt to answer.

Is God everywhere? On Jupiter? On a far away solar system? Or Galaxy? Does God answer your prayers? Does God obey the laws of physics, because to instantaneously interact across star systems, God would need to move far faster than the speed of light. Does God control everything….or anything? Was God here at the very beginning? Will God be here after the very end?

Some scientists believe there is a portion of our brains specifically designed to interact with God. This may be born out by the fact that archeologists have discovered religious ceremonies even among the earliest, most primitive civilizations. They knew there was something, they just didn’t know what. In some ways we’re still in the same predicament.

But as we continue to evolve there is hope, at least in my mind, that the comprehension of God is just around the corner. Some leading astrophysicists contend that along with the three dimensions we view in everyday life, the universe consists of many other dimensions that hold much of its matter and energy. Perhaps God is simply on another dimensional plain - part of the fabric of everything. And interacting with our reality in ways we simply do not understand.

I’m sure many of you in this Sanctuary have your own beliefs on the essence of God. Others may have never even thought about thinking about it. But think about this… In today’s world of religious zealotry, can you defend your beliefs? Can your children?

And if members of your family can’t, how susceptible are they to the religious fire that burns in the hearts of others?

The message simply comes down to this. Work and study to understand your faith and impart that thirst for understanding Reform Judaism to your children.

For in today’s world, if you don’t have a firm hold on your faith, in time, someone will take it way from you.


Jon Hyman - Guest Speaker