And now...

And now for the actual assignment, now that I've found it from it's small piece of paper which fell out of my notebook:

The image of God as described in Genesis 1 is much different than the one I described in my first post. God is a benevolent creator, not a harsh and terrifying ruler. In some ways, and I hope this isn't blasphemous, God seems to be a tiny bit selfish. ::hopes world doesn't fall down:: Everyone knows that man was created in God's image [a possible argument for the masculinity of God, but that's for another time], but why would God start to create the world if not for himself? Maybe he was just bored. But still, he would be creating for himself.

Part II was our personal struggle with God. This one might seem pretty stupid. As I said last post, I'm an apologetic person. I want everyone to be happy, and when they're not, I get upset, even though I'm not an extremely happy person either. Another part to this prologue is that I'm very into the whole everything-needs-to-be-fair thing. Maybe it's because I'm a Libra, maybe it's because I have a younger brother, maybe it's because I'm me. Take your pick.

My great aunt Martha died in about 2001. [In fact I had a very awkward conversation with my cousin to find that out.] I didn't really know her that well, only that she was an amazing person and we used to have Passover at her house every year, before we had it at mine. When we were waiting for the funeral to start [late, because we're Jews], I remember my older cousins having to quiet me down - I didn't quite understand why everyone was crying and I was trying to cheer them up. It didn't hit me until the next year at the tombstone dedication that my great-aunt had actually died.

On that dedication day, everyone pretended to be happy (we were supposedt o be "over it") but Icouldn't help but think about God. [Let me interject here that normally I wouldn't be, but Martha's husband was an uberJew, so we'd heard him rant about why God let her die, etc.] Surprisingly, I wasn't upset with god for "letting" Martha die - in fact, I considered, and still do consider, immortality a punishment. Instead, I found myself thinking about the fairness of this whole situation. My great-aunt had died. The rest of us will, eventually, die. But God won't. I don't want God to die, I guess, I just had a problem with his immortality for a few days after that. Why does God make us go through these flaming hoops when he gets to sit on the bleachers and watch?

In some ways I guess I never answered my question, put a bandaid on my wounded faith, and let it heal, but I still think sometimes, that all of this is not very fair.

Number 1

I remember the first time I wrote "God" on a piece of paper. I was passing a note in 7th grade math class and forgot to put a dash between the G and the d. I felt horrible for the entire day, like I'd desecrated something.

I'm starting off with this for one reason only: I'm probably the only one in our class who was brought up as a Reform Jew. I did all the holiday stuff and I went to Temple on Friday nights, not Saturday mornings, and even then only 2x a month. I kept kosher, but not when my family went out to dinner. For that, I've always felt a strange and probably unnecessary need to "apologize" to God. Ironically enough, the rules I decided to follow to "apologize" aren't even closely adhered to by my Rabbi or my hebrew school teachers.

Most people who know me are aware that I apologize a lot. Too much, probably. To me, God is the one recipient of my apologies who doesn't reject them or accept them. However, because in my little 1st grade Hebrew School we learned about how God incurs his wrath on x, y, and z, I am always a little afraid that what I am doing is going to anger God. So, I follow certain rules that seem to smooth things over between me and the Guy Up There.

I think it's unfortunate that for me and many others, Judaism is all about rules. I've always considered God and Judaism synonomous, and therefore all the rules that God gave to Jews the very personification of God himself (herself? Another interesting question, but for now, I'm using he for the sake of convenience.). My image of God is not dissimilar to a textbook - facts and rules to learn and obey.

Leviticus (part iii of our assignment) obviously speaks of rules. Jeremiah (part i) speaks of the rule of God through a man on earth. In both of these sources, God is a rulemaker, with his subjects far below him. This image of fear is one that I know well.

Chapter 8 of Proverbs is the only one that does not invoke fear. Instead, I am forced, as an overanalytical person, to wonder if God is working through Wisdom, as he was through Jeremiah, to warn us.

"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear." -Henry David Thoreau

p.s. I have no idea if I did this right or not. But read and enjoy.