“We are children who must wrestle with the divine,” says Benjamin Isaac Rapoport, a young man from New York City who is about to graduate from college. He is speaking of people who share his Jewish tradition of faith in the God of Jacob, the Jacob who was a contestant in what Ben calls “the most famous wrestling match in history.”
That match finds vivid description in the 32nd chapter of Genesis. Jacob wrestled all through the night until daybreak with a mysterious man who “did not prevail against Jacob.” But the man did manage to put Jacob’s hip out of its socket, making him walk with a limp thereafter.
Jacob would not let go until the man gave him a blessing. In doing so, his adversary changed Jacob’s name to Israel, a word meaning “the one who strives with God.”
Benjamin Rapoport takes the intellectual life seriously and, in an effort to establish a rational foundation for his faith in God, he read the great French philosopher Descartes. The latter’s proof for the existence of God felt empty to this young scholar: the philosopher’s perfect being was not what Ben meant when he thought of God.
Then, turning to the British philosopher David Hume, Ben discovered causality as the key concept for the seeker of God. “No one believes that we live in a causeless universe,” Ben explains. “Everyone goes to bed believing that the rules of the universe will be the same the next morning.”
This college senior believes that “the orderliness of the universe is close to God Himself. God is the source of all the rules and thus of all the answers.”
So asking the questions becomes the way of engaging God. It may make dealing with God a struggle but, when you discover answers you know that you have received something precious. “To know an answer,” Ben announces, “is to acquire a piece of God.”
He compares human beings to blind spiders spinning webs in a forest. When you walk in the woods early in the morning, you see the forest sparkle and webs shine with light. “If we run into a new leaf or branch,” he explains, “we can extend the web of what we know. But the web itself is almost invisible and is certainly insignificant compared with the rest of the forest.”
Ben goes on to talk about what it means to be young. Youth is the time when “what is known sparkles.” It is the season of life for finding out “what no one else has seen.” And, finally, this idealistic seeker adds: “Being young also means that ordinary is not part of your vocabulary.”
Returning to an earlier theme, Ben proclaims that “part of the divine struggle is to resist ordinariness.”
For this young man so committed to the struggle, faith means “that my questions have answers.” And it makes intellectual inquiry a holy activity. The word “shalem” means “whole” or “complete” or “a healed person.” Jacob, by daring to struggle with the divine became whole, healed, strengthened.
This is some of what Benjamin Rapoport said in explaining his faith to a group of adults gathered before a Sunday church service. In response, members of the audience asked questions and offered comments.
Karen Armstrong, whose books about religion have found attracted many readers, commented about the power of the Jewish faith. “One of the things that attracted me,” she said, “were the endless questions.” To her, the lack of final answers remains part of Judaism’s genius.
Diana Eck, a scholar of world religions, observed that “the messiness of faith comes in interpersonal issues.” She sees the world as fractured, needing repair. “Something is broken, it’s our job to fix it,” she said.
If I had any quarrel with this brilliant presentation, it came as Ben talked about youth. Would that in reality the “ordinary” forms no part of young people’s thinking! I am acquainted with too many of them ever to imagine this is true.
I also insist that people who have advanced to mature years and old age can also carry on the search for reality. They, too, can break out of the ordinary, ask questions, and discover answers. In fact, I like to think of searching for God as an activity shared by young and old that can bring us closer together.
Richard Griffin