Curious Minds

Last week, I asked the third and fourth graders in our Religious School to imagine that they could ask God a single question and that God would answer it.  What might they ask?  Here are a few of the questions they shared:

Who created you? Are you a boy or a girl?  What happens after we die?  Are there aliens somewhere on another planet?   Will anything really sad happen to me?  Can I have 50 more questions?

It didn’t take long at all for our children to come up with these questions, which suggests that they had already been thinking about them.

We’re a contemplative species, as our tradition has long recognized.  Every morning we recite the words, “A person has many thoughts.”  In the words of Ecclesiastes (3:11), God puts eternity in our minds, “but without man ever guessing, from first to last, all the things that God brings to pass.” 

Some people say we shouldn’t ask elusive questions, but I disagree.  If nothing else, asking such a question stimulates further questions, as testified by the excited buzz generated by our children in response to the thought experiment I posed. 

Such thinking also affirms our humanity and our divinity.  Not having certainty myself about how God is constituted, I tend to think that our capacity for contemplation is one of God’s gifts, albeit a frustrating one.  Our ability to ponder what’s ultimately unknowable allows us to rise above the mundane and, perhaps, to gain some new insights that we can use when we “return to earth.”

I’m pleased that one child raised the question of God’s gender, for example.  That alone could lead to potentially useful conversation, as could questions about other worlds, in space and time.

A synagogue should be a place where these questions and others are raised and explored.  We should bring the fullness of our hearts and minds to this sacred house no matter how old we are.  In classes and services, at carpool and at Kiddush, we should gradually gain the comfort with each other that allows for such conversation. 

And the conversation shouldn’t be theoretical.  It’s even more effective when it emerges from our own experience.  I’m reasonably certain that the questions our children asked stemmed from their own spiritual soundtracks, their curiosities and even fears.  Likewise, our exploration of what lies above is rooted in what’s happening to us in the here and now.

This year, we are dedicating our Shavuot Tikkun Evening of Learning to inner spiritual journeys.  For one of the sessions, Cantor Frieder, Rabbi Adelson and I will be sharing our thinking about these issues and answering questions from the congregation.  The full program is described on the flyer inside this Voice.  I hope you will join us for an evening of honest exploration and learning.

It may well be that the issues we will discuss on Shavuot are not so different from those raised by our children.  That possibility reminds me of a comment attributed to Abraham Joshua Heschel.  Apparently, before beginning a theology session with a group of rabbis, he said, “I’m sure all of you are confused about the larger questions.   I hope that by the end of my session, you will be confused on a higher level.”

Originally printed in the Temple Israel Voice, May 2012