A Response to Jay P. Lefkowitz's Article Regarding The Kaddish: "Saying a Prayer I Don't Believe In."

I found the op-ed column by Jay P. Lefkowitz, entitled “Saying A Prayer I don’t Believe In,” which appeared in the New York Times on March 1, 2018, to be quite moving.  Mr. Lefkowitz recently lost his father and, according to Jewish custom, is in the process of reciting the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning, three time a day during the traditional year-long period of mourning after the death of a loved one. It is indeed a beautiful custom.The Kaddish is not to be recited thrice daily while one is alone, however; tradition requires a minyan, a quorum of ten men, to be present. It is a vivid example of the power of community, the psychological benefits of which are unquestioned.  Mourning in this way is a perfect illustration of the title of Abraham Heschel’s famous book, “Man (that is, a human being) Is Not Alone”—or, at least, shouldn’t live in isolation.

The problem Mr. Lefkowitz has is that he doesn’t believe in the words of the prayer. Heschel, who was both orthodox in practice and belief, had no problem reciting the Kaddish, which contains such lines as “Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will.”  Mr. Lefkowitz, like many moderns who are either trained in or familiar with science, finds these words problematic.  So do I. 

I find it also problematic, however, when Judaism, or, for that matter, any religion, is reduced to something the primary purpose of which is to preserve a glorious tradition, to foster morality, and to sustain community.  What is missing, is well, God, that is a sense of something wholly transcendent and holy. The focus of pre-modern Jews was on the God of Israel.  A comforting sense of identity and community inevitably followed faith in God, yet the former without the latter was unthinkable.

We moderns who want to keep faith are in a predicament; religion without a transcendent center inevitably degenerates. Yet we refuse—rightly so—to subjugate rationality in our quest for salvation.

This article is a humble attempt to offer Mr. Lefkowitz and all those who find religious beliefs outdated a new/not-so-new, perhaps radical, perhaps not-so-radical, interpretation that can restore vibrancy to faith, a faith, mind you, that transcends reason without flouting it.

The Rational Goalie, A Modern Parable

We are playing Existential Soccer—a very important game, comparable to those of the Incas, which were a matter of life and death. The Rational Goalie refuses to let any irrational ball enter the sacred space behind him. Will he succeed? A player who represents traditional Judaism tries to score with a ball that asserts that God literally gave the Jews the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. “Didn’t happen,” says the Rational Goalie and tackles the ball. Another player sends hurtling towards the goal a ball which represents the “fact” that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. “Not so,” says the Rational Goalie; with a swift kick, he sends the ball off to the side.  A third player, traditional Islam, maneuvers a ball which represents the belief that Mohammad literally received the Koran from God via the Angel Gabriel. “Also not true.” As the ball rapidly arcs towards him, The Rational Goalie butts it with his head and fires it back into the field.  A fourth player, somewhat frailer-looking than the rest, taps a ball, representing the knowledge that God dwells within, toward the goal. As the ball gently rolls toward the goalie, he admits defeat and steps aside. The final score is One to zero.

To illustrate that the gist of this modern parable is not without precedent,  I would like to cite another one, a tale by the famous grandson of Bal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. What follows  is a retelling of The Treasure by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov:

Once there was a Jew who lived in Vienna who was obsessed by a recurrent dream. The dream informed him that if he traveled to Prague and dug under a certain bridge, he would find an immense treasure. Travel wasn’t easy in the eighteenth century, and the Jew was not wealthy. After more of these vivid dreams, however, he could resist no longer and set off for Prague on foot. After a hard journey, he arrived at the bridge in Prague; it was located near a heavily-guarded palace. “What do you want,” asked the guard rudely. The poor Jew decided it was best to tell the truth. After he revealed why he had made the journey, the guard, laughing, mocked him: “You Jews and your dreams! Well, I have had a recurrent dream, too. In mine I’m told that I would encounter a Jew looking for treasure under this bridge. Then I'm informed that the treasure is located in the Jew’s home!  All he needs to do is dig behind the oven of his house and he will find it. What nonsense!" The Jew was amazed since the guard related specifics as to where he lived and even named him by name. The Jew returned to Vienna, dug behind the oven, and found the priceless treasure.

What is under the oven? The true meaning of this parable, and the message of the first one as well, is no commonplace piety. What is under the oven is, to use traditional religious language, the soul, or to use scientific language, consciousness. The very center of experience, it is as awesome, in the true meaning of that word, as it is inexplicable.

I remember reading with amusement a religious person’s response to the question of the temporal origin of the soul. He wasn’t sure how many tens of thousands of years ago it had occurred, but God certainly injected a soul which was responsible for the transition from ape to human.  

What he was referring to is human consciousness, which gives us the (illusory?) conviction that we are separate from our environment; that we are persons, that is, more than mere matter. This was a major evolutionary advance, which not only enabled humans to survive better, but to create astounding phenomena such as language, art, etc—and, alas! war and horrible acts of cruelty as well.

The experience of consciousness in primitive man must have been overwhelming. Just as a newborn cannot separate herself from the environment, primitive man was not able to demarcate what is within consciousness from what is without. This is why you find in the Rigveda, an ancient Hindu text written around 1500 B.C.E, gods who are personifications of natural elements, e.g. Vayu, the Lord of the Winds.  Similarly, Homer refers to “the rosy-fingered dawn” and also to Aeolus, the Greek version of the Vedic Vayu. 

In a similar process, the three Abrahamic religions personify what is “out there” with a Father God or King-like figure. Just as for Aeolus, there is and has never been any evidence for the existence of a creator god. If this deity is imagined to be all-loving and all-powerful as well, serious problems arise, the most important of which is the theistically unanswerable question, why is there so much suffering? We are no longer satisfied with the hackneyed religious response: it’s a mystery.

The true universal mystery, however, is consciousness.  How can consciousness be aware of the material body in which it dwells—I’m speaking metaphorically, we lack a condign vocabulary for consciousness—and also be aware of such things as fellow human beings, cats, computers, and black holes? Consciousness is the mystery, and, I believe, will always remain so. Examining in detail areas of the brain without which consciousness as we know it is impossible cannot explain the inexplicable, the subjective experience of consciousness.

One must disabuse oneself of the notion that consciousness can ever be explained fully by science. This is where scientists, such as the atheist Richard Dawkins, who believes science is primary, get it wrong. Consciousness plus science equals science, just as consciousness plus religion equals religion. Consciousness is what is truly primary; stones don’t do math nor does water thirst for salvation.

Some modern physicists have extended the primacy of consciousness well beyond anything imagined in the past—the ancient Hindus, who asserted that  consciousness creates everything, being a very notable exception.  There are some convincing theories, moreover, that support this assertion, or something very similar to it.  The famous physicist, John Wheeler, theorized that we live in a participatory universe, that is that consciousness has a central role in “creating” the universe as we know it. With  his “it from bits” theory, he asserts that everything arises from “apparatus-elicited responses to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, it from bits. Everything, thus, at bottom has an immaterial source and explanation.” The source in question is, of course, consciousness; neither stone nor water ask questions.

For Wheeler and for physicists like him, the only things that exist in addition to consciousness are possibilities, i.e. quantum foam; it is consciousness which turns quantum possibility into our reality. It even gets wilder. Stephen Hawking, who passed away recently at the age of 76, speculated that our consciousness precipitated quantum possibilities before the Big Bang into our reality—that is, consciousness has also created the past! Always in the same order, that is, human beings never antedate dinosaurs, since this part of consciousness is objective, and has nothing to do with human volition.

I mentioned previously that the conviction that one is separate from one’s environment was a major evolutionary advance. This is the subjective aspect of consciousness which matters to us most of all.  If we examine ourselves, through meditation and experience, we find at the very center of our being something which one may call God. (One may, as Buddhists and some Hindus teach, remain silent.) What does this God reveal to us? The importance of love. The importance of wisdom. Everything is connected (wisdom)—and the best way to realize this interconnection is through acts of love. “Love your neighbor as yourself” says it all.  Through acts of love we become our neighbor, as it were; as wisdom and love become one.

The faith indicated by this article has nothing to do with atheism. Nor is it merely poetry; it is, however, really poetry. Words fail; insight doesn't. If consciousness is the foundation of everything, what is outside is ultimately inside as well. This means that the "God outside" is also the "God inside." (He can only be approached, however, from the inside. There is no Face beyond the sun). A scientific analysis of the cosmos will find only forces that are completely indifferent to human beings. One who seeks an external God is looking in the wrong direction. A fish is surrounded by water, buoyed by water, born from water, and is, for the most part, made up of water as well. What a folly it is for a fish to imagine he's dying of thirst while swimming in that which quenches thirst! Similarly, we are swimming in the greatest mystery of all! Consciousness surrounds us, is us; the God that we seek is here.

In summary, Mr. Lefkowitz, this is my message to you: continue to recite the Kaddish, but interpret the sacred name as referring to something inside you and inside us all. Mourn your father’s death; what is “out there” is indifferent, but if we become indifferent, we cease to remain human. The unspeakable pain of death of a loved one indicates how much we loved that person and how much that person loved us. We find consolation—eventually--with the passage of time and from being a part of a larger community.  This is the only way to heal, and, as you are well aware, it is a very good way indeed.  Seek and celebrate the God within you and within others; obey the "still, small voice" with acts of wisdom and love. You will be disappointed, however, if you seek a praiseworthy Name beyond consciousness, since that God doesn’t exist.