Faith and Theology

When the Seer of Lublin, a great Hasidic master, was a child, he would wander in the forest. His father asked him why, and he said, “I go there to find God.” “That’s beautiful,” his father answered, “but haven’t I taught you that God is the same everywhere?” “God is,” said the boy, “but I’m not.”

God will not dispense health like a cosmic vendor or be enlisted as a party to our quarrels. The only real promise is presence. What God wants from me is me; from you, you.

People of steady faith cannot always understand why the rest of us do not simply open our hearts.

The Kotzker Rebbe famously asked his disciples where God dwells. Schooled in the rudiments of theology, they answered, “Everywhere.” Doesn’t the prophet teach us that “all the world is filled with His glory” (Isaiah 6:3)? But the Kotzker was having none of it. “No,” he told them, “God dwells wherever we let God in.”

Our deepest connection to this world is not reason but relation. People who, in tragedy, lose their faith do so not because they learn something new about God but because their relationship with God changes from experiencing God’s world in a new and painful way. Though reason must be allowed its say and sway, we come to God as we come to any deep r... See more