The authors of Searching for God: Study Partners Explore Contemporary Jewish Texts introduce “self-directed hevruta,” a novel twist on the traditional Jewish path of in-depth learning with a study partner. Together, they choose the most challenging topic of all, searching for God, and explore five contemporary Jewish texts that present several approaches: mysticism, rationalism, nontraditional Judaism, metaphors from science, and character development.

These spiritual seekers are lay-people. Joan Burstyn is an historian and poet; Gershon Vincow is a scientist and community leader. They study, discuss, teach each other, and draw conclusions. The result of this study partnership is a transformative learning experience about Judaism and the search for God.

“This touching and inspiring account of the commitment of two friends to study texts and share their insights with each other on behalf of their own, and each other’s connection to holiness could well be titled Thinking as a Spiritual Path. Celebrating intellect as an instrument of prayer, this book will serve as a template for seekers across religious traditions who long for a spiritual practice that satisfies their minds as it gladdens their hearts.”

—Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life.

“This book successfully probes the most basic questions anyone should ask: What do I mean when I use the word ‘God’? And how does the answer affect the way I live?”

—Edward D. Zinbarg, board member, Jewish Theological Seminary Rabbinical School; author of Faith, Morals and Money: What the World’s Religions Tell Us about Ethics in the Marketplace.

Searching for God

Study Partners Explore Contemporary Jewish TextsBy Joan Burstyn Gershon Vincow

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Joan Burstyn and Gershon Vincow
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-1219-0

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................................................................ixIntroduction...............................................................................................................xiPart One Deciding to Study Together........................................................................................1Discussing Judaism in a Chinese Restaurant.................................................................................3Chapter One A Year of Conversations and Letters............................................................................5Part Two Starting with a Mystical Approach to God..........................................................................19Selecting Arthur Green's Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology..........................................................21Chapter Two God and the Ways of Knowing....................................................................................23Chapter Three Creation and Four Mitzvot Based on Creation..................................................................37Chapter Four Reflections after Discussing Green............................................................................50Part Three Examining Maimonides' Rational Approach.........................................................................59Selecting Kenneth Seeskin's Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed......................................................61Chapter Five On God and the Meaning of Monotheism..........................................................................63Chapter Six On Creation and Prophecy.......................................................................................69Chapter Seven On the Commandments and an Examined Practice of Mitzvot......................................................81Chapter Eight Are Maimonides' Ideas Useful for Today's Perplexed?..........................................................89Part Four Exploring Mussar: A Jewish Discipline for Building Character.....................................................95An Exchange of Letters about What to Study Next............................................................................97Selecting Alan Morinis' Climbing Jacob's Ladder: One Man's Rediscovery of a Jewish Spiritual Tradition.....................100Chapter Nine Climbing Jacob's Ladder and What We Learned about Mussar......................................................102Chapter Ten Our Mussar Practices...........................................................................................110Part Five Understanding Revelation and Commandment through Metaphor........................................................127Selecting Neil Gillman's Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew..........................................129Chapter Eleven On Revelation...............................................................................................131Chapter Twelve On Religious Authority......................................................................................147Part Six Using Metaphors from Physics to Describe God......................................................................161Selecting David Nelson's Judaism, Physics and God: Searching for Metaphors in a Post-Einstein World........................163Chapter Thirteen Introduction to Religious Metaphors.......................................................................165Chapter Fourteen Modern Cosmology and Creation.............................................................................170Chapter Fifteen Chaos Theory and Fractals..................................................................................177Chapter Sixteen Special Relativity and Light...............................................................................186Chapter Seventeen The New Metaphors and Nelson's Belief about God..........................................................197Part Seven Summing Up......................................................................................................203Chapter Eighteen Reflecting on Our Hevruta Relationship....................................................................205Chapter Nineteen Gershon's Concluding Thoughts.............................................................................211Chapter Twenty Joan's Concluding Thoughts..................................................................................218Bibliography...............................................................................................................225About the Authors..........................................................................................................229Index......................................................................................................................231

Chapter One

A Year of Conversations and Letters

September

Dear Gershon:

After I left you this afternoon, I had a brainstorm: that you and I take on a project, together, over the next twelve months to think through the issues we were talking about as we parted—namely, to find Jewish expression for the meaning of God to us, college educated people of the twenty-first century.

As part of that project, we'll talk as we usually do, and then we'll share with each other, letters about our reading and thoughts. We will amass by year's end a record of our thinking. Our thoughts as we progress with the project will interest others who may be seeking for ways to develop a new understanding of God. Our contribution will be a process to use in taking on the search we have outlined. Since we are educated lay persons, and not professional Jewish scholars, our method could have a strong appeal to other lay persons.

Our letters would not form a "how to" book, but rather an exchange of ideas that hinted at a process any two "study partners" might follow to tackle the issues. How about that? If you are game to take it on, I am.

"What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

Goethe – Faust

Yours, Joan

Dear Joan:

What an ambitious idea! I'm interested in the possibility of a study project about Jewish theology but the timing isn't yet right—perhaps when I finish my term as president of the Federation, next June.

As for writing a book, that is an overwhelming thought. You've written and published books. I've published only scientific articles and, recently, bimonthly letters to the community in the Syracuse Jewish Observer. So, I won't say "no" but I can't say "yes." A lot depends on how our studies develop.

Yours, Gershon

October

Dear Gershon:

I was all agog last week when I wrote the note to you about planning our activities for the next twelve months. Then, I found myself mulling over the task, and I felt the hubris of the undertaking.

What led me to feel our hubris was a comment you had made that Arthur Green had started on his intellectual journey in Judaism when he was twenty. Here are we, almost or more than half a century further on in our lives and we are only at the beginning of our quest. What can we offer to people who are younger than we? And aren't we arrogant to cast ourselves in the guise of...