|
|
|
|
|
Keep Current - Sermons
|
 |
|
Rabbi Jonathan Miller
Temple Emanu-El
Birmingham, Alabama
The Birmingham News
September 16, 2007
With Yom Kippur coming this weekend, Jews
around the world become focused on the all important spiritual side of
human existence. In the Torah (Exodus 33), Moses cries out to God,
“Let me behold your presence!” But God responds, “You cannot see My
face. Human beings cannot see Me and live.” The God of the universe,
at once close to us remains shrouded in mystery. We are meant to be
seekers.
In every monotheistic faith, Judaism, Christianity and
Islam, and in all of their offshoots, the search for the living God is
the primary focus of our religious traditions. As human beings with
our millennia of spiritual discovery and knowledge, the living God of
the universe remains a mystery, even as we attempt to better experience
the Divine. Despite all of our material success, spiritually we seem
to be no closer today than we were when God and Moses spoke more than
three thousand years ago.
Until now--or so it would appear.
For
the past 34 weeks, the book and DVD phenomenon, The Secret has been a
New York Times Bestseller. Spiritual seekers are abuzz with this New
Age doctrine, and its promoters (authors and academics, and heretofore
unknown theologians, metaphysicians, chiropractors, business people,
and feng shui experts) have brought themselves wealth and acclaim. The
Secret’s tenets are remarkably simple and easy to grasp. The universe
operates according to the Law of Attraction. Universal sources of
energy respond to the desires of human beings. If we want something
urgently enough, and if we focus our beings on our desires, the
universe will respond by giving us what we ask for. All we need to do
is ask, believe, and receive. Ask the universe, believe that we will
be successful in obtaining what we desire, and prepare ourselves to
receive the blessings that are sure to follow.
Do we want a new
car or a new home? Ask, believe and receive, and we will attract the
automobile or the home of our dreams. Do we want good health, or
financial success, or romance? The universe will conform itself to
our positive energy. All we have to do is ask, believe that we will
achieve, and prepare to lead the life of our dreams. The Law of
Attraction means that the universe will respond to our desires.
There
is power in positive thinking. Nobody ever achieved material success
without believing that it was within their means to do so. Nobody ever
achieved a successful romance without putting out positive energy. And
we know that in the aftermath of illness, people who believe that they
will one day be healthy again do have a better chance of recovery.
Positive energy and a constructive attitude do matter and do help guide
a person’s happiness.
But the Law of Attraction is ultimately a
cruel hoax for people who deeply desire the gifts that life can offer
them, including the benefits of material success, good health and
positive relationships. Religious faith in God, whether it comes from
Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, places the individual in a different
kind of relationship with the Power of the Universe. We are not meant
to mold the universal power to our desires. Instead, we are meant to
mold the desires of human beings for wealth, health and love to act in
accordance with God’s will. Human beings cannot by positive thinking
alone, force a cancer to disappear, or purchase the dream house, or get
it right with Mr. or Ms. Right. The goal of our lives is to live as
God wants us to live, and not for us to capture the divine power in our
own hands. Adolph Hitler, Charles Manson, and Osama bin Laden are
also human beings, and they too were able to attract many people who
refused to conform themselves to the will of God.
As a rabbi for
25 years, I have witnessed people’s suffering. Life can be
capricious. Only the cruelest of people would point to a hungry child,
or the New York firefighters climbing the stairwells in the last
moments the World Trade Center stood, or the communities rounded up and
placed in boxcars and shipped to Auschwitz, and accuse them of
attracting these calamities upon themselves. The world is capricious,
and bad things can and do happen to good people. We don’t always get
the things we want; no matter how badly we want them. The spiritual
message is this: ultimately, life is not what we want and desire.
Ultimately, life is about what God plans for us.
Back
|
|
|
|
|
|
|