Rabbi Jaech's Blog

In the last blog, I wrote about accepting an invitation to speak at an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service because I assumed that the topic would be about gratitude.  When I discovered that the theme of the service was to be “The Reason to Believe,” I wasn’t sure what I would be able to say.  Here is what I said at the service:

The topic for today’s service is “The Reason to Believe.”   This topic is challenging for me, for reasons I hope will become clear. 

Forty-five years ago, my mother, in the last stages of a terminal illness, called my three oldest brothers, age 15, 18 and 20, to her bedside. My mother told my brothers that she had accepted that she would die.  She told them that over the years of her illness, her Christian faith had given her courage to face what she had to endure.  Now that it was apparent that this was not to be, her hope was that her oldest sons would not let their grief undermine their faith, their reason to believe.

I was too young to have been a part of that conversation.  But as I think about it from an adult perspective, I am struck by two things.  

First, I am moved by the depth of my mother’s faith. Her “reason to believe” gave her strength to face her illness, and the hope she needed to go on living each day, without fear.   After her diagnosis, she gave birth to two more children before she died.  I see that as a reflection of her hope for the future. 

Second, I am struck by the fact that despite my mother’s heartfelt desire, my five brothers and I all left the church into which we were born. Our mother’s faith could not be simply transferred to us.  We needed to find our own reasons to believe. 

I think that we humans are born with an instinct to seek meaning and purpose in our lives. We want to know:  Who are we?  How do we understand our world and others in it?  How do we endure in times of hardship and despair? 
Our faith traditions are meant to provide the answers to that which we seek, or alternatively, to provide a framework for seeking those answers. 

Some remain happily within the religious traditions into which they are born, but I am not among them. 

I was raised in a religious tradition that required me to affirm specific beliefs about God, about the nature of humanity, and about the path to redemption.  

I rejected those beliefs as a young teen and lived for many years without a sense of connection to any faith tradition. 
That changed when I discovered that I felt at home among the Jewish people and progressive Judaism. 

I felt liberated from the requirement to “believe” a certain way.  In our Jewish faith, one is not required to believe in a traditional conception of God.  There are many ways to discern the Divine Presence in our lives, to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves, something that gives meaning to our lives.  I experience those moments in many ways, from the stillness of a mountaintop to a grandmother’s gazing at her granddaughter with the light of pure love in her eyes.

Although I feel liberated from the requirement to believe in a certain way about God, I do feel a strong obligation to live my life according to actions that define me as a Jew:  actions of justice, righteousness and loving-kindness.   In the Jewish tradition, we call this obligation tikkun olam, repair of the world. 

As we approach Thanksgiving, our communal day of expressing gratitude, I am grateful to have discovered my reason to believe, and I wish the same for you.