KaBlogAlah

If I have discovered anything, it's that life is about the journey. About asking or hearing the good questions, and knowing there are no good answers. The best teaching I have at hand is from my rebbe, paraphrased version:

Why does a good G_d create mitzvot which depend on someone else's suffering? (think orphans & widows) What is going on and why does G_d want some people to have and some people not to have???

When you want to explore questions about your own faith, ask what is it that I really believe? Two directions are possible.
1. I'm not going to let people talk me into things – I won't believe what others believe. (Crazy fundamentalists of all faiths.) (the flying spaghetti monster.)(hmm...)
2. Think about it & tentatively give G_d the credit. This splits into two:
A. "I assume I know what G_d meant & G_d is wrong." (or quite the prankster.)

B. You admit that G_d is smarter than you are and ask, " Why did G_d do it the way that G_d did?" Assume there is a good reason & ask "what might that good reason be?" R. Zalmon Schachter-Shalomi. If I understand, faith is assuming there is a good reason, somehow, by way of G_d.

I frequently don't get it, and have to have some kugel, a glass of shiraz, and follow Shifra's advice about not thinking too much.

For me, the real question is the daily how I live in the world (not apart from it), and deal with it. The communities frequently seem alien to me. And my tribe seems scattered here and there and across the internet. But what a great community we are, our different tribes. This is where I belong.