Expert: Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner - 3/4/2011

Question
QUESTION: Hello and thank you for taking my question. I am in alcoholics anonymous and many of the people rely on false gods to get them sober and yet the one true God still honors their request and still gets and keeps them sober even though they are worshiping gods other than Him...why is this?

ANSWER: Dear Pete,

Thank you for writing.

Yours is not an easy question, and it requires a bit of my understanding your own faith affiliation - Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc. I also need to understand with what particular denomination you personally identify, if any.

And, if you don't have any particular religious faith or theology, please let me know how you
understand the interaction of God and the world, between God and each individual person. How do you understand "free will" and "determinism?"

With that I may be able to help guide yo to responsible thinkers and ideas.

Best wishes and keep on the path. Sobriety is not for the weak-willed, as only those who have walked with you on this journey understand.

Rabbi Dov


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I am christian but would like to hear the answer from an old testament point of view so I thought I would ask a Jewish person. I dont want Jesus' point of view but rather the view of the old testament GOD.

Answer
Dear Pete,

Thanks for answering part of my questions. Please bear with me as the explanation and background is as important as just a simple answer.

2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Since sacrifices in the Temple were the primary focus of Jewish worship, the Jewish People had to re-think their religious views and practices.

From a standpoint of theology, we concluded that the people had sinned - with a varieties of opinions as the the nature of the sin(s).

From the standpoint of leadership, Rabbis as teachers became the primary source of religious authority, no longer the priests headed by the High Priest.

From the standpoint of worship, we changed to a three-fold pattern of parallel importance: (1) Study of the tradition, including the canonization of Hebrew Scriptures [we don't use "Old Testament" or "New Testament" as the latter is not considered by us to be either "the"/"a" Bible]; (2) Worship using verbal prayers having been written to accompany Temple sacrifices and then composed and formalized by the Rabbis in Palestine and Babylonia and elsewhere in the Diaspora; (3) fulfilling the commandments of God as best we understand them, written explicitly in the Bible, especially the Five Books of Moses, or derived by the Rabbis from Biblical text, including above all the doing of "righteous deeds of loving-kindness."

Our perception(s) of God changed, and in some ways radically, from even before the Temple was destroyed, but its destruction accelerated the reconsideration of our relationship to God  as individuals,as homes, as communities, as a People in Palestine, Babylonia and other Jewish centers of population.

Today, individuals - Jews and non-Jews - are privileged in a free society to make choices about how they understand God. For the Jew, God is unique, unitary (only one form/existence and not a trinity), supreme above all creation and unknowable except as we can hope to understand from religious texts and teachers.

However,in Judaism today there are at least 4 major philosophical/theological perceptions of God and how God functions: Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Reconstructionist. There are sub-divisions within each denomination or "movement"/affiliation, and there are additional smaller groups with their own understandings, including Humanist, Aleph, Renewal, nationalist and even secular Jews.

For myself, a belief in God as I understand God to be, that belief can sustain me to be courageous in dealing with previous bad choices and supportive of my decisions to make good choices. God doesn't reward me per se, but God is a belief that supports "good" decisions, and when and if I slip, will support me in recovery.

Does another conception of God help others? Quite possibly. If they are more successful in the 12 step recovery process, why would I take a chance of undercutting their progress toward sobriety just to prove that my belief system is "right" and their system is "wrong" or "false?"

That is also probably why Judaism doesn't seek out converts to our faith - whichever sub-division of Judaism in which we are currently affiliated!

How does the Jewish God relate to this open system as I describe it. I believe that God provided us with the information and data, the mind that is capable of growing, a will that is capable of changing - no matter which religion claims to have the "truth" about God! And, if and when we make healthy decisions,  then God will be pleased.

Lastly, Jews do not in my opinion believe in God, worship God or follow God's "rules" for a reward, in either this world or whatever awaits us after mortal death. We do it because it helps us become better citizens and participants in building a better world for all - doing our own part to recover from a lifestyle that detracted from individual health and fulfillment as well as greater human social health.

Best wishes

Rabbi Dov