THE PLACE OF GOD IN OUR LIFE IS TO
ALWAYS REMIND US OF THE MORAL
QUESTION. GOD DEMANDS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
The first thing I want to do in this chapter is tell you why I think it’s necessary to talk to kids about God, and why it is essential to a child’s upbringing.
First, kids need to know that there’s a moral context to the universe—that there’s a plan and a design—that life is not capricious or accidental. There’s a governor, a regulator, a supervisor—a God who really watches and scrutinizes our actions—an eye that sees, and an ear that hears, as the Talmud puts it.
And they need to know this because the greatest destroyer of childhood, and of a child’s security, is purposelessness. The feeling that their existence is not meaningful; that nothing matters. Work, people, possessions, relationships, life itself—none of it matters. The culture teaches them as much, and it begins in the home.
Divorce is just one example. The child whose parents divorce—and, remember, that’s about half of the children in America today—thinks that life is a series of accidents. The parents may have had love once, but now it’s gone, so it couldn’t have meant that much to begin with. Nothing lasts. It’s all expendable, and so am I.
Materialism is another example: Children see people pouring their lives into ephemeral pursuits. They acquire things that make them feel good (for a minute or two), then move on to the next thing, and the next one after that, and they remain trapped on that consumer treadmill for the rest of their lives.
Man’s inhumanity to man is a third example, and the most brutalizing. This is beyond a child’s understanding. The universe is fickle. Bad things happen. I wonder if they’ll happen to me?
Finally, there’s death, which is truly incomprehensible to a child. One day you’re alive, the next you’re gone. What’s the point? Nothing matters. Everything ends.
When we teach kids about God, however, we are telling them that life is neither purposeless nor meaningless, and that each one of us is part of a divine plan.
Most Americans believe in God, and they believe in their own fashion. Nearly 80 percent of Americans, for example, don’t believe in evolution. Some 50 percent dismiss it out of hand, and the other 30 percent say they believe in evolution by virtue of intelligent design. That means that half of them dismiss it as an unsound scientific theory—Man came from apes! I don’t think so, pal!—and another 30 percent accept it, but only because they believe an intelligent designer (God) used evolution as an agency to bring about creation.
On hearing something like this, many people will jump to the conclusion that Americans are simply not very bright, and that they are easily influenced by myth. That is, in fact, the way many liberals in this country see it, and indeed the way most Europeans see it: They think the majority of Americans are uneducated, superstitious, country bumpkins who believe in fairy tales. But that is neither a fair nor an accurate assessment. Indeed, it is both arrogant and prejudiced.
In his gripping book, A History of the American People, British author Paul Johnson argues that this country grew to become a huge superpower primarily because its people had a religious belief about their destiny. Americans were purposeful from the very beginning, he said. It’s as if they always knew that they would become a great nation. From their earliest days, they spoke of their manifest destiny, referenced the Creator in the Declaration of Independence, and had such faith in God that they put His name on their money and included Him in the Pledge of Allegiance.
That is part of the American mind-set—that things don’t happen by accident, that there is a master plan—and this is a result not of superstition, and not because Americans lack education, but because they have an almost visceral reaction to the idea of purposelessness. And that sense of direction, coupled with a zealous belief in the American Way of Life, is the reason America is so quick to take its vision of faith, democracy, and government to all corners of the globe, by force if necessary. Because they are True Believers, the American Way is the American religion.
In his book, Johnson points out that some of the most successful American products have been marketed with almost religious zeal. Coca-Cola, for example: Coca-Cola. It’s the Real Thing. It’s almost as if it were being sold as a Higher Truth. Or look at Nike: Just Do It. Don’t think about it; don’t overanalyze it. Do it because it makes sense and because you know it’s going to work out. That’s faith. If you do it, it will happen. If you build it, they will come.
Europeans consider themselves to be more sophisticated than Americans, more educated, more intellectual, and more introspective. But if Johnson’s theory is to be believed, they are less successful because they lack faith.
Like it or not, religious zeal is the heart of America, and it works. The vast majority of Americans believe that life has purpose, and that sense of purpose and direction is what keeps them going.
What keeps children going? The same thing. They need to know that life is not capricious, not accidental, but purposeful and meaningful.
A parent who allows his child to sit in front of the television for five hours a day is sending the wrong message. Life is meaningless, he is saying. Go ahead and burn five hours in front of the tube. In the end, you die. It’s all stupid.
But a parent who teaches his child about God is on the right track. God is the supreme designer of creation; God has a plan for your life; God gave you unique gifts; God has never created a single person in error.
That parent is telling his child: You matter.
My conversations with my kids about God usually take place just before the youngest ones go to bed, when all the children are in their pajamas, and we sit down to read the Bible together. I’ll read some great Biblical story, and I’ll try to make them really understand God. I’ll say to them, for example, “Look at King David. The Bible says he was a volatile, hot-tempered redhead, but God saw promise in this man. The whole story of David is about God trying to steer him to funnel all of his gifts into doing something life-affirming. God doesn’t shy away from King David’s volatility. God isn’t looking for him to be some goody-two-shoes. God loves David’s energy, but He also sees that uncurbed it will lead him down the wrong path. And God is always rebuking David. ‘You took someone else’s wife!’ ‘You counted the people as an act of vanity to show how big your dominion was.’ And so on. God keeps trying to inspire David to be better.
“Do you see what God was doing? Do you understand what this means?
“The place of God in our life is always to remind us of the moral question. God demands righteousness.”
I often say to my children, “Who are the real heroes in our society? I’ll tell you: They are the men and women who do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Even when, and especially when, no one is looking. You don’t do it for the reward. You do right because it’s right, not for any ulterior purpose.
“I know sometimes you think life is unfair. You do something bad, you get called on it. Then you do something good and nobody notices. But God notices. God knows what you did, good and bad, and you need to remember this always.
“He is watching. He will know if you do something bad. He will probably not do anything about it. But He will know, and you will know.”
A child needs to be made aware of this. It gives his life meaning. It lends significance to every single action. It all matters, from the biggest to the smallest. To do the right thing because it is right—that is the essence of the God conversation. That there is always someone watching. That God takes pride in your good actions, and, conversely, is wounded by the bad ones.
I tell my kids, “When you attach yourselves to God, and to Judaism, you are part of an eternal nation—and that makes you unstoppable. Light will always triumph over darkness. You light a tiny candle in a big room and all the darkness is dispelled. One tiny little flame—that’s what your life is.”
Alas, life, and the explanations for it, are not always without challenges. A little over a year ago, my children’s Jewish day school in New Jersey experienced an unspeakable tragedy: A fire claimed the lives of four children in a single household. Two of my kids shared classes with the victims, and they were devastated and stunned, and I understood that only real, deep conversations about the blessings and imperfections of life could fill the void that had developed in their hearts. I did not patronize my kids with stories about what those deaths meant. Rather, I told them the truth—the truth as I saw it, and as I see it to this day.
This led to one of the most important conversations I’ve ever had with my children, and it’s a conversation that we’ve never stopped having. A tragedy of that magnitude—four young children, dead, in a fire—makes you question everything. How does one deal with something like that? How does one explain it? And the fact is, the average God conversation doesn’t really address it. The parent tells the child that God loves him and will always take care of him and that nothing bad is going to happen. But a bad thing just happened! What they’re telling the child doesn’t always accord with his experiences. Look what happened to those poor kids! How can God be so cruel and indifferent?
I told my kids, “You must always have a real and honest relationship with God, and part of that relationship gives you the right to be angry when He allows bad things to happen. We may not know the answers, and we may never know the answers, but we have a right to object to God’s actions because God Himself expects it. After all, He commands us to stand up for life, and that applies even when He has taken that life.
“God controls the world,” I tell my children. “And we thank Him for all of the good things He does for us. The fact that there’s love in the world, that we have food to eat, that our family is together—we’re very grateful for all of that. And you know something? In my opinion, life works out almost 99 percent of the time. And we say ‘Thank God’ for that. But 1 or 2 percent of the time things go horribly wrong. Children die in fires. Children contract leukemia. And mothers and fathers can’t put food on the table.”
At those moments in our relationship with God, we need to be authentic—we’re not going to paper them over. We’re not going to suddenly say, “This is God’s plan. It’s for the best. Those four kids were special souls and God wanted them in heaven.” That’s patronizing, and an insult to the child’s intelligence. It’s about as convincing as the Tooth Fairy.
I tell my kids: “You have a right to be angry at God, because your relationship with God is real. This is a tragic event, and it is devastating. You have to cry out to Him, ‘God, how could you allow something like this? I pray to you every day, God. I believe in your goodness. In all my prayers, I’ve been taught that you are life-affirming and gentle and long-suffering. Where were all those qualities in evidence when these children burned alive? I want to have a real relationship with you, God, and I’m asking you to stop these tragedies. You’re God! You’re capable of it! And I’m not looking for explanations. ‘The children died for this reason or that reason.’ I just want the world to be a better place. That’s what I pray for. I don’t seek to understand bad things. I just don’t want them to ever happen again. That’s what I invoke from you. That’s what I demand of you.’”
Children have to be taught that they have a right to make those demands. When my children come to me to complain about my own shortcomings, they don’t want to hear that I yell at them because I had a turbulent childhood. That’s just a poor excuse! They don’t want an explanation. They want to have a stable and peaceful family life, which is what they deserve as children. And that’s what they deserve from God as well. What would be the point of having a relationship with God if it was a dishonest relationship? If you can’t tell God what’s in your heart, if you can’t show anger and frustration, you’re not being true to yourself or to your relationship with Him—and surely that’s not what He wants.
For all the strength and beauty of Christianity, this is one aspect of it with which I have always been at odds. Why isn’t one permitted to challenge God? Why must one assume that God is always right and that there must be a good, cosmic reason for children to die in fires?
Similarly with Islam. The word Islam literally translates as submission, to submit. “God is always right. God is great.”
Judaism takes a markedly different approach. The word Israel translates, literally, into He who wrestles with God. I teach my kids all the time to wrestle with God. We Jews have had a three-and-a-half-thousand year relationship with God, which has also incorporated a three millennia struggle and debate with God. We thank Him for the good times, but we also hold Him accountable for the bad. That’s what makes Judaism unique: We give humanity a unique role in the Divine Plan. We are not cosmic chaff. We have a right to demand justice from God. That’s why Abraham was the first Jew, because he pleaded with God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He said to God, “You’re wrong! You’re the judge of the earth, how could you not practice justice?” These are amazing things for a man to say to God—to accuse God of seeming injustice. Moses did the same thing. God wanted to destroy the Jewish people over the golden calf, and Moses said to God, “You want to destroy the people for being idolaters? After bringing them out of Egypt, splitting the sea, and the ten plagues? Go ahead and destroy them if that’s what you want, but take my name out of the Torah. I would rather have nothing to do with your holy Torah if you’re the kind of God that would allow so many people to suffer. If you have some cosmic reason to kill people and destroy entire communities that is beyond my own puny, mortal comprehension, that’s fine. Go ahead and do what you have to do. But keep me out of it—that’s not where I’m at.” And how was it resolved? God relented and let the people live. The same thing happened with Abraham. God gave in to his plea to spare the city so long as it contained ten righteous inhabitants.
I tell my kids, “You’re allowed to be angry at God. You’re allowed to make demands. It is through you, God’s children, that God’s will is realized. Without humanity, God cannot be known on earth. We reveal Him. By talking to God honestly, you are making yourself count, you are making a difference.”
And that’s the concept—an amazing, theological concept. The Jews sincerely believe that God wants and expects us to clamor for justice, that He wants us to hold Him accountable when others suffer.
“At the end of the day, we don’t know why God lets terrible things happen, and maybe we shouldn’t be asking the question,” I tell my kids. “If a child dies of leukemia, we can say it was the will of God, the child was an angel—all that meaningless talk that comforts no one. Or we can push God for an answer: ‘No, God! It’s not okay! I want to know! How could you let this happen?’ And let’s imagine for a moment that God actually comes to you with an explanation: ‘He had to die because of X, Y, and Z, and it was all part of the Big Plan.’ Now you have your answer, but are you satisfied? You might say, ‘That was a good explanation, God, and I think I get it, more or less, but you’re God, for God’s sake. Couldn’t you have done it in some other way, where nobody suffered, where no parents have to grieve over their children’s coffins?’”
I say to my kids: “That’s the reason we don’t ask for an explanation. We don’t want to know ‘why.’ We don’t want to know what the plan was. We don’t want to know why there was a Holocaust—we want there to not have been a Holocaust. Similarly, no child should die of leukemia. No matter how good the reason, and no matter how well God explains it, it is still a terrible, heart-wrenching thing.
“We don’t look for answers because the answers will not satisfy us, but we can get mad at God because through our anger we are pushing Him to do things differently next time; we are making ourselves heard. And you know what? That’s our job. To make God listen to us.”
I often tell my children about Rabbi Levi Yitzhak, a great rabbi from the city of Berditchev, in Russia. He was famous for sparring with God; he was known throughout the world as a guy who constantly argued with God. It shocked people because he was such a saintly man, and clearly God loved him for it. And I tell my children the story that once, on Yom Kippur, the holy night, the night of atonement, thousands of people came to pray with him, as always. It was standing room only. And he got up and said, “I want to have a conversation with God tonight. Right now.” And in front of all those people, he plunged in: “Listen, God, we’re all here to ask for atonement for our sins,” he said. “If we have desecrated the Sabbath, if we lied, if we stole a little bit—we’re sorry. But you know what, God? As I sit here asking for that, I recall now that not one of us turned a woman into a widow this year—but you did, God; not one of us made children orphans this year—but you did, God; not one of us gave a fatal disease to anyone this year—but you did, God. It seems to me that you should be asking us for forgiveness. But I’ll tell you what, God. I’ll make a deal with you. You forgive my community, my congregation, the flock of Israel, for the little bad things they did, and we’ll forgive you for the horrendous things you allowed. Do that for me and we’ll call it even.”
That’s an honest relationship with God. Here was a rabbi who had so much faith in God that he believed that everything happened as a result of Divine Will. Everything. That’s a lot of faith.
“When he challenged God,” I tell my children, “he was actually asserting the greatest testimonial of faith. He believed in God so much that he knew God was capable of stopping all this stuff. That’s why he challenged him. It isn’t a challenge to faith. On the contrary, it’s what faith is ultimately all about. It suddenly makes God real to people, because the relationship is honest and we get to retain our human feelings.”
Unfortunately, so much of religion today is about suppressing our emotions toward God. Children are not allowed to feel human around God, not allowed to feel anger, not allowed to feel disappointment, not allowed to question Him. Well, what is that? We are promoting a fake relationship, and that’s why God has become so impotent in people’s lives.
When my kids and their friends learned about that terrible fire, an unspeakably traumatic experience—four kids from their school, four kids from one household, dead—they were absolutely devastated. And the school invited several rabbis to the school to talk to the children about it, to try to comfort them. One by one the rabbis stood in front of the children and said the same thing: They’re with God. They’re better off. This was His plan. He will take care of them. And the kids hated those speeches. My kids, all the kids. And my kids went around telling anyone who would listen: “No! That’s wrong! God should never have allowed this!” And their attitude scandalized a great many people, including some of the teachers, who said I was wrong for teaching such things to my children. Some even called me a heretic! But here’s the thing: My kids were able to deal with the tragedy with their relationship with God intact and even strengthened, and they were able to do this because they were able to express their anger and their outrage. As a result, their faith in God increased. Because they understood that if they were going to have a relationship with God, it had to be authentic. They had a right, and even an obligation, to spar and wrestle with God.
It wasn’t their job to exonerate God. It was their job to express their true feelings, based on the values that God told them to hold dear, and if they were shocked and disappointed with what had happened, they had a right to tell Him so. Then they could go back to keeping all of God’s commandments. Their objections to God did not sever their relationship with Him, but reinforced it. That is what an honest relationship with God comes down to: truthfulness, honesty, speaking from the heart. It all goes back to that inner voice, call it what you will: Conscience, Soul, Spirit, Innermost Will, Deepest Self, Quintessence. It is all about getting in touch with the Pure You. And perhaps, at the end of the day, that’s where God resides.
For me, one of the most powerful verses in the Bible comes at the very end, with the death of Moses. He is blessing the people on the last day of his life, at the age of one hundred and twenty, and he goes off to die alone.
I tell my children, “The power of this story is this: Here you have the greatest Jewish prophet of all time, the man who with the Ten Commandments brought the great moral code to the world, the man who brought the mighty civilization of Egypt to its knees, truly a great man—and look at how he dies. He ascends the mountain, forlorn, abandoned, and no one is even allowed to go up with him to comfort him in his last moments. And there he dies, completely isolated, with almost all of his dreams broken. He wasn’t allowed to go into the Promised Land. He died in Jordan, not in Israel, and it fell to his student, Joshua, to lead the people into Israel. There would be no one there to mourn him, no statue erected to his glory, no twenty-one-gun salute.
“He exits the world’s stage quietly, and he is gone. And the point is this: It was never about glory; it was never about a reward; it was never about being remembered. He had done the right because it was right. And that’s the thing: It was never about him; it was about God.
“And that’s why the Bible ends with that incredible story, the ultimate high note of sacrifice and humility, to teach us that that’s the way to live. You do it for God. You do it because it’s right. You do it for morality, for justice, for goodness, for righteousness, even if you have to suffer for it. Even if all the good you did was never known or was instantly forgotten.
“I repeat: God knows everything. And it’s enough that He knows. But it’s good that you know, too.
“And as you go through life, you must try to guide your actions by one thing and one thing only: Would God, the supreme moral authority, the supreme governor of the universe—would He approve of my actions? Would He want me to do what I’m doing or not?”
And the interesting thing is, if you can teach your kids to try to live this way, it will teach them to look deeper. If they can learn to look beyond the surface, if they can peer beneath the hood, the world will reveal itself to them in all its majesty. Not only will they understand their own motivations, but they’ll understand the motivations of others, and they’ll be more forgiving, more resilient, more human.
The most beautiful things in life can never be seen or touched, like God and love. They are intangible.
Even if you don’t believe in God—whether you’re an agnostic and you’re not sure, or whether you an atheist and feel certain there is no God—you still want to convey to your children that there is a moral order to the universe, that there is a higher authority to which they will have to answer some day. And that doesn’t have to mean God. It could mean answering to your own moral conscience (that inner voice). It could mean answering to the community’s collective conscience. It could mean answering to the needs of humanity. Whatever it is, we have to convey to our kids that there really is a moral order to the universe, whether human or cosmic, and that it demands goodness from each and every one of us.
An atheist desires also, of course, to convey to his child that his existence is purposeful and meaningful. He tells his child that his life has meaning, that he wasn’t born by accident, and that his behavior has consequences for himself, for his community, and for his family. An atheist also tells his child, “If people are bullying a kid, don’t join in. On the contrary, you should stand up for that kid.” And he doesn’t do this because he thinks God will frown on his child’s behavior, but because he, too, is on the side of righteousness; he, too, accepts the moral code.
There will always be people who don’t believe in God, just as those who believe will seldom agree on the details. As a rabbi, for example, I sometimes engage in debate with leading Christian thinkers. And among the differences between Judaism and Christianity is the issue of perfection. The perfection of Christianity lies in just that—perfection. Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament as perfect. He never sins. He never does anything wrong. He doesn’t lust. He doesn’t yell at his mother. He suffers for other people’s sins but has none of his own. He’s the perfect man. In fact, he’s so perfect that he’s divine.
The Christian conception of goodness, then, is that Jesus had no evil in him. To this, the Jew would respectfully respond: What do I have in common with him? How could I ever be inspired by someone who cannot understand my struggle? I’m a collection of flaws, forever trying to fix myself, and he’s perfect! Jesus had no inclination toward selfishness, or to wickedness, so what’s the big deal? There’s no struggle going on within him. If you’re perfect, there’s no temptation, and you’re never faced with any choices: You always do the right thing.
The Hebrew view is all about imperfection. Moses is flawed—he can’t go to the Promised Land because he has let God down by not sanctifying His holy name before the people. Abraham is flawed and parents Ishmael imperfectly. David is flawed and lusts after another man’s wife. So why are these men giants? Why are they Biblical figures if they’re so flawed? And the answer is this: Perfection does not lie in never doing anything wrong; perfection lies in the struggle to do the right thing amidst the predilection to do otherwise.
These were men who always cared about God’s word and struggled to honor it, even though the human tendency is to do what we want to do. And that’s what made them good, moral men.
I tell my children, “The man who struggles is a real hero. The man who fights to do the right thing, that’s a true hero. I am not asking you to be perfect, because I am not perfect, and perfection is elusive. All I’m asking is that you struggle, that you fight to become better, that you care enough to maximize your fullest potential. That’s all. Be the best person you can be. Now, really, when you think about it, that’s not very hard, is it? The best you can be is not going to be perfect, but it’s good enough for me, and it’s good enough for God.”
The story is told of the Rabbi Zusya of Anipoli, who began to cry as he lay on his deathbed. Many of his devoted students were gathered around him, and they asked him what had brought forth his tears. “I’m afraid of what I’ll tell God when I meet him,” he answered. “You see, when God asks me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you as great as Abraham?’ I’ll answer, ‘Lord, you did not make me Abraham,’ And when God asks, ‘Then why weren’t you as great as Moses?’ I’ll answer, ‘Lord, you did not make me Moses.’ But when He asks me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you as great as Zusya could have been?’ I will have nothing to answer.”
God gives us a sense of purpose. God tells us that the world has a design and a plan. God’s existence tells the child that his own existence is meaningful.
The principal thing about God, however, especially for kids, is that God is a comforter. God is always there. A child is never alone. God is with him at all times.
By losing ourselves in God, we discover our truest, deepest self.
By letting God into our lives, we are linking to the infinite. And by linking to the infinite, we inspire this generation, and all those to come.