Religion is a storehouse of human wisdom, retaining for the ages the genius of those spiritual giants who walk among us now and again. The purpose of this stored wisdom is not to supply us with the Truth, but to help us learn how to gain access to the Truth for ourselves and understand the implications of Truth for our daily lives. Unfortunately, the formalities and politics of religion often obscure its real gifts. Minyan is my way of recovering the gifts of Judaism.

I am a Jew because my primary encounter with God comes through the teachings of Torah and her sages.

I am a Jew because my articulation of my own encounter with God is expressed in the idiom of Torah and Jewish tradition.

I am a Jew because Torah speaks to me more loudly, more clearly, and more compellingly than do the other great books of divine encounter.

I am a Jew because I find within the history and culture of my people teachings, insights, and practices that bring me to proximity with God.

Proximity, not yet unity or even meeting. A Jew cannot meet God; nor can a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, or Taoist. No labeled person can meet the Unlabeled and Unlabelable. Each religious tradition must be self-transcending. Each must lead its students to a point of departure and help them make the leap from tradition to Truth, God, the nondual Reality that is the Source and Substance of all things.

The experience of God does not erase my Jewishness, however. It simply reminds me that Judaism is a pointer leading me beyond itself to God. People who see religion in this way are people I call true persons of faith.

The true person of faith sees this leap not as the abandonment of her past, but as the fulfillment of her present.

The true person of faith is so secure in her tradition that she has no reason to fear learning from the insights of another.

The true person of faith seeks Truth and is not misled by ideas about Truth.

The true person of faith knows that Reality cannot be reduced to doctrine, dogma, or canon.

The true person of faith understands that the God that can be named is not the Eternal God; that the God that can be worshipped is not yet the One Beyond Thought and Label.

The true person of faith does not mistake the ism for the Is.

The true person of faith loves his tradition for what it can do and is not ashamed to admit what it cannot do.

The true person of faith knows that Reality is perceived by different peoples in different ways, and that as a human being all those ways are part of her heritage.

Thus the true person of faith seeks to learn from every tradition while being at home in her own.

If we dare to be true persons of faith, we can talk and teach, listen and learn.

If we dare to be true persons of faith, we can unite in our unknowing: doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God and each other.

Minyan is a way for me, and perhaps also for you, to become a true person of faith. I hope your experiences with these ten practices are positive ones, and I welcome hearing from you. If you would like to share your experiences with me and other like-minded people, please contact me via my website, the Virtual Yeshiva (http://www.simplyjewish.com/).