What's God Got to Do With It?

Drivers Ed, circa 1980.  My teacher delivers the following hypothetical: Suppose it’s night-time and you’re on a deserted highway.  No cops, no one.  You miss an exit.  The next one is 50 miles away.  You can back up a bit and take the exit.  Chances are good that no one will see you.  But you know it’s illegal.

What do you do?

I don’t remember what the answers were.  But I remember that it got me thinking at the time, and I’ve considered the question as part of a larger conversation.

Are we wired to do what’s right or not?  Do we differentiate between different kinds of rules – some affect other people, some seem rational, some seem arbitrary?  How much do we need the cop patrolling to keep us in line?

Over time, I integrated another question into the conversation.  What, if anything, does God have to do with this?  Is God an invisible police officer that we invented to patrol the streets on our planet and others?

We're a complicated species.  We want to do the right thing - or at least some of us do, some of the time.  Will we do the right thing no matter how much discomfort it brings?  Maybe, maybe not, depending on us, depending on how much discomfort.

When we take the easier path that we know is probably not the right path, we’re often good at rationalizing.  If I stand up for the kid who’s being picked on, it’ll only make it worse for him.  That’s why I should just keep my mouth shut.

We are gallant at times, pathetic at times.  Sometimes we say and do downright bad things. 

The President of Syria isn’t shooting every gun.  He has help and so did Saddam Hussein.   Lots of people do bad things, though they generally offer explanations.  This person had to be eliminated.  He is a threat to civilization.  Experts who study genocide have determined that the perpetrators always feel they’re doing the right thing. 

I want to reflect on how God fits in.  How we use God, how God uses us.  With appropriate deference to Tina Turner, I want to ask:  What’s God got to do with it?  What’s God but a second-hand devotion? 

There are many places we could look to get a sense of how God informs our moral framework, but perhaps none more well-known than the passages we read in the Book of Exodus about God’s revelation to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. 

I want to take a look at it because I think it will help us understand the complexity of how right, wrong and God somehow dance the troika together. 

The Torah doesn’t just provide the rules – what later became known as the Aseret Hadibrot – the ten phrases or, more colloquially, the “Ten Commandments."  There's a build-up which is important and which gives some insight into the role that God plays.  

First, the Torah offers a description of how Moses meets up with his father-in-law, Jethro, who offers him some advice about how to delegate authority and responsibility.

Next, the scene is set for the people to experience God's presence at Sinai.  

The chronological context is the third month following leaving Egypt.  The setting is the wilderness of Sinai. The relational context is that God vanquished the Egyptians and brought the Israelites out “on eagle’s wings.” 

If the Israelites obey the covenant, they will be God’s segula, God’s treasured people. 

The people tell Moses that they will do what God asks and then God appears in a thick cloud so that the people can hear when God speaks. 

The Israelites are told to prepare themselves for three days, after which “God will come down, in the sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai.” (Exodus 19:11)

Then the special effects.  Thunder and lightening and a dense cloud, the whole mountain trembles.  A loud blast of the horn.  The people tremble.

Finally, God comes down to Mount Sinai and starts speaking, beginning with “Anochi adonai elohecha.”  “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 20”1)  And it goes on from there.

The Torah starts with the mundane – the friendly voice of the father-in-law offering advice.  And gradually, it takes us to place that is unusual, frightening and fraught with danger.  The God who saves comes close, but is also dangerous.  The God who saves has expectations and will be watching to see if those expectations are met.

But the God who saves cannot really be seen.  The cloud suggests that God is mysterious and indeterminate.  

What’s God got to do with it?  The narrative in the Torah is so rich and multi-textured that the answer is not simple.

So God saves, but also destroys; comes close, but you can’t touch; can be seen, but not really; helps, but also expects. 

Numerous midrashim expand on the complexity.  What did the Israelites actually hear?   One tradition claims that the Israelites only heard the alef of anochi, the first letter of the first word.  Interesting, especially since the letter alef doesn’t make a sound.  So what does that actually mean? 

Perhaps it means that there is mystery surrounding God’s communication with us, a mystery that our ancestors understood.  That doesn’t make God’s presence less powerful, only less definable. 

Do we need belief in God for us to do the right thing?  Not to steal, not to murder, to sanctify time, to respect our parents.  Would all chaos break loose if not for belief in God?

According to Rav Kook, first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi for the British Mandate of Palestine, traditional belief in God can often muddy the water.  At the beginning of the 20^th century, he argued that heresy can sometimes clarify matters when faith becomes distorted:  “Heresy has the right of temporary existence because it is needed to digest the filth adhered to faith for the lack of intellect and service.” (Orot 126) 

We know that people of all religions routinely engage in offensive behavior in the name of God.  Misogyny, belligerence, racism and homophobia are often disguised as the fulfillment of God’s will.  Sometimes, it seems, we need to shake the God talk long enough to do some hard thinking on our own.

The scene described at Sinai, both in its own context and as it has been subsequently understood, provides a helpful model for us.  In my understanding, it suggests the following:

First, God and law are connected, but not in a simple way.  God is beyond us.  God’s speech is not fully decipherable.  But there is a larger force at work that cares about whether or not we do what’s right. 

 

Second, doing what’s right doesn’t always come naturally.  It can be unnatural not to get worked up over what other people have that we want.  It can be unnatural at times to honor our parents.  Unnatural to follow driving restrictions when we’re in a hurry.  Unnatural to defend vulnerable people if it costs us in considerable financial or social capital.  

Whether our ancestors believed that God came down onto the mountain literally or not, their story – our story – suggests that doing what is right requires careful consideration and a kind of suspension of the natural order.

Finally, the story of God’s revelation at Sinai requires us to take responsibility for ourselves. The framing of the story makes the point.  Before the story, two human beings, Moses and Jethro, try to determine the proper course of action.  Following the story, Moses, the human being, is told to set the laws before the people. 

The Torah suggests that God is more than a second-hand devotion.  More than a police officer.  More than a projection of our own prejudices and predilections. 

For children and parents, young and old, for all of us driving late at night when we think no one is looking, it helps to imagine the thunder, the lighting and the presence of the one who is beyond, yet connected.  Who cares what we do.  Who knows we can act with integrity and courage.  Who has the confidence that we human beings, in each generation, will discover the proper path and then walk that path, no matter how difficult the journey.

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on February 11, 2012