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You are My Witness

The Living Words of Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer

St. Martin's Press

PART ONE

FAITH

For Marshall Meyer, faith and struggle were synonymous. Faith was not simply given; it was never static; it was sometimes achieved through pain, love, or through action. He saw the never-ending search for faith as a great theme in the story of our lives. The Credos that appear here and later in this book were written for the High Holy Days in 1982 in Comunidad Bet El, Buenos Aires, Argentinia.

CREDO

I believe that a life lived without a faith that requires a total commitment is a one-dimensional, boring existence without passion.

I believe that there are moments and events which challenge the human being to such a degree that such moments and events appear to be attempts to make him or her lose all faith.

I believe that in precisely such moments and events, the human being must utilize all of his or her strength to once again generate the power to believe, to have faith, and to have confidence in love and in a future.

I believe that it is half the battle to believe and have faith in something.

I believe that it is a higher achievement to believe and have faith in someone.

I believe that the capacity to authentically confront life is the direct result of possessing genuine faith.

I believe that faith cannot exist without love. Nor without doubt.

I believe that every person in the world, in one moment or another, places his or her faith and confidence in another individual, and that only a select minority are capable of accepting the consequences of such commitment.

I believe that the most profound individual arrives at the conclusion that his capacity for faith in people and ideas derives ultimately from his faith in God.

I believe that the arsenal of a lasting faith in a better future is love between human beings; a love that is capable of outlasting anxieties and disillusionments, desperation and depression.

I believe that humanity must forge a genuine faith of commitment if it is to survive on this planet.

I believe that without faith in God, we as Jews will lose our reason for being and will no longer be witnesses bearing testimony.

Tsadik be'emunato yihyer. "The Righteous shall live by virtue of their faith."

Amen

AMNESIA

In the mid-twentieth century, mankind is in a terrifying dilemma, because he has committed a terrible crime — he has played false to the purposes for which he has been created. His sin is that he has externalized that which must remain internal, and thus he has lost his identity. We are all suffering from a critical attack of amnesia. We have forgotten who we are and why we are living in this world. Our essential, our inner life of spirituality and holiness, has been bartered away for mass entertainment, cheap thrills, and the world of physical possessions.

FAITH IS BUILT SLOWLY

Faith is not a panacea for all of life's pains. Often, it is precisely because of the solidity and strength of my faith that I am able to feel another's pain more acutely. Faith is not a comfortable resting place to which I can repair in the face of life's demands, but rather the strength I can marshal to respond to life's demands. Faith is built slowly, cumulatively, brick by brick. If we are diligent and committed, we perhaps can build a wall of faith strong enough to allow ourselves to stand on the top and look out at life, able to make some sense of what at times seems so absurd.

How can one build a faith in God? If we are prepared to admit that faith in another human being requires ultimate risk and promises ultimate joy or abject disillusionment, how can anyone be expected to take this risk with God? What is required of us? How does one build such a faith? What do we do with our inevitable doubts? Faith in God is the most difficult of all faiths. Such faith changes lives and thunders in one's soul; or, if you prefer, murmurs its existence in breaths of silence, in moments of spiritual ecstasy. This is the faith that makes life a polychromatic, multidimensional drama: sprinting ahead at one moment, falling down with a bruised heart the next.

THE NEVER-ENDING SEARCH FOR FAITH

We are accustomed to judging reality by our ability to touch it, measure it, photograph it, sell it, evaluate it, or exchange it for a newer model. But there are realities that defy physical dimensions. I would go so far as to say that those elements that most explain the very source and dynamic of our existence have no physical dimensions. How can one weigh love? Where is one to find faith? In the forest? On a boat? In a new Cadillac? Are we really that filled with anxiety and sadness because we can't purchase a new fur coat or move to a nicer apartment? Is it not certain that real anxiety and authentic angst appear when we are close to death, or when a loved one is very ill, or when we begin to understand, ever so painfully, that those we thought loved us really do not love us? When someone in whom we deposited all of our faith and confidence acts treacherously? When we find that we do not really know our own son or daughter? These are the moments of which real living is made; real suffering, too.

Is there anything or anyone in which we, post-modern human beings, can find or make our faith? What is faith? Is it a blind acceptance of a creed? Is faith a way for only those of us who have a mystical bent? Is faith simply the last resort of the exhausted soul after its unsuccessful search for truth? Is it something that belonged to another age when the sciences were in swaddling clothes?

It may be helpful at the outset to discuss what faith is not.

Faith is not a magic formula that is recited in moments of danger or difficulty.

Faith is not a blind acceptance of ideas and beliefs handed down from previous generations.

Faith is not a ready-made tranquilizer that is taken when exploring the edge of reality and existence.

Faith is not callousness to the exigencies of the moment and a belief in destiny.

Faith is not a weakness that bids the believer accept the status quo.

Faith is not something with which we are born.

Faith cannot be purchased either by money or by a few meditative moments.

Faith is not an ingenuous and naïve answer to the paradoxes and ironies of life.

Faith is not free from doubt.

FIRED IN THE CRUCIBLE OF THE HEART

It is not enough to mouth the descriptions and epithets of God as they occur in our holy texts — God must be real and meaningful to you. One does not automatically inherit the faith and piety of one's ancestors. Faith in God is that precious element that must be fired in the crucible of one's own heart. But the Jew is not helpless in this task. He belongs to a peculiar people, the key to whose history lies in its ongoing encounter with the Almighty through the centuries. He is the heir to a tradition that has fought to maintain communication with God

We Jews have a precious message to give the world, a central part of which is an unalterable commitment to make the world in which we live a better place. We arecommanded to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are commanded to insure justice, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to liberate the persecuted, and to share our bounty with those who have less than we. We are commanded to be "rahamanim b'nai rahamanim," compassionate, merciful, loving. We are commanded not to be idol worshipers, whatever those idols may be. We are commanded to be God's witnesses: "Atem Edai," you are My witnesses, says Adonai. The Midrash comments: "If you are My witnesses, I am God, and if you are not My witnesses, I am," as it were, "not God." We must not fail.

TEARS AND JUBILATION

If we know anything, we know that the road to real faith is strewn with pain, and occasionally with blood, and always with tears, and hopefully also with a few moments of jubilation and genuine celebration. But if we're so comfortable that all we have to do is make a statement of faith and everything is taken care of, then I think the Bible has never been read. And if it has been read, it hasn't been understood.

BUILDING A FAITH

The carving out of the moments of life, the sculpting of the marble of human existence into a faith capable of confronting life with courage and integrity, with a sensitivity to the incredible opportunity that a moment presents: this is the art of building a faith. And the art of living is found in the type of faith we are able to construct.

What is really needed at this moment is faith in faith. We are surrounded by materialism. The man of ideals is thought foolish. The masses are engaged in the amassing of material wealth. It is difficult indeed to find a man of faith. But yet, if we will investigate the matter a little more carefully, we shall find that the materialists about us are not devoid of faith. What is in question is not their faith, but the object of their faith. On second thought, we come to realize that life cannot be lived without some sort of faith.

LIBERATING FAITH

We have faith in our own senses. We believe that when we see light, it is light, and that when we see darkness, it is dark. This is the minimum investment of faith. For those who think that success, or power, or money, or happiness is the summum bonum of life, their faith is expressed in the deeds they are willing to perform to secure these goals. We need to raise our sights a bit, to make of faith a genuine ultimate concern. That which concerns us ultimately is the object of our faith, and the reasoning and thinking and weighing that goes into locating an ultimate concern — the very machinery of faith — is desperately needed today. We must liberate our faith from the insipid and minimal goals we have set for ourselves.

THE SEARCH

Faith is not found. Faith is built. It is built out of the sweat and blood and sacrifice and earnestness of everyday living. In the Talmud, Rabbi Itzhak suggests that if a man tells you that he has searched and not found, do not believe him. If a man should say I have not searched and yet I have found, do not believe him. If a man should say I have searched and I have found, then you may believe him.

DOUBT IS A PRECIOUS ELEMENT OF FAITH

Doubt is a precious element of faith. Let us not think that the man of faith knows no doubt, and no painful searching of the soul. It is at such moments that the man of faith must exhibit courage and loyalty to the vision of his faith. Faith does not allow one to live an apathetic life but, rather, it is that element which drives man on to nobler accomplishments. The Prophet Habakuk reduced all of the six hundred and thirteen Commandments of the Torah to one: "the righteous man shall live by his faith." If man emerges victorious after the life and death struggle of his faith, he is then a fit partner to aid God in the work of the continuing creation of the universe.

FAITH MAKES LOVE POSSIBLE

To me, love is possible only by virtue of the ultimate deposit of faith. I don't have to call upon faith when I study mathematics or physics. I don't have faith that two and two are four. I know that according to the arithmetic we use, two and two are four. But I must build the faith that leads to love. I must take the risk in building faith, knowing full well that I can be completely disappointed with the outcome, that I can be crushed with a lack of reciprocity, and that all my protestations of love can fall on deaf ears.

LOOK INTO THE DARKNESS

Judaism teaches us to look into the darkness. Surely we will find a spark that, if carefully tended, we can use to light the fire to illuminate our path. Our history teaches us that bones can revive, that in the darkness of the soul, an echo of meaning is audible. If we honestly confront our tradition, and respond with real faith and courage, our words will become meaningful, full of strength and love; our faith and courage will become contagious and the world will look for paths that will lead to a more just society; our material goods will be redistributed so that nobody suffers hunger; our petty lives will become meaningful.

WE ARE NOT THE FIRST

Let us remember, those of us who will embark on this adventure, that we are not the first travelers on the road. We Jews are joining one of the most thrilling searches for faith in the history of the human race. It has been the peculiar genius of our people to aid all of mankind in the search for faith in God. Our tradition and our sacred literature have given the world a lofty and noble conception of faith. Such is our legacy.

Shall we participate in it?

Shall we resolve to participate in the real adventure of life?

Shall we look back upon this season to date the birth of our spiritual life?

Shall we resolve in the silence of our hearts to begin the search?

PART TWO

CONFRONTING GOD IN EVENTS

Marshall Meyer's religion was in no way theoretical. As he intensely mined the bedrock of Judaism, he inevitably found himself confronting the world. Unable and unwilling to ignore its cruelties and inequalities, Marshall Meyer knew that the Jewish response was dissent, action, and rejection of the status quo. There could be no Judaism without a profound dedication to human rights and justice. The words of the prophets spoke to him and through him every day. His "calls to action" reverberated throughout the decades of his life and continue in the decade since his death.

CREDO

I believe in the God of creation who created me with the capacity to create.

I believe in the God of love who created within me the capacity to love.

I believe in the God of truth who created within me the capacity to study, to understand, and to discern between truth and falsehood.

I believe in the God of justice who demands of me that I treat my fellow human being as I would want to be treated, even at the expense of my own well being.

I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, who demands loyalty from His people Israel, as well as the perpetual dynamism necessary to continually search out new and better ways of transmitting His Torah and its essential values to an ever-changing and developing world.

I believe in the One and Unique God who asks of us the unification of our atomized, fractured, and anxiety-ridden personalities.

I believe in the God of Atonement who patiently awaits our return from the ways of error.

I believe in the God of peace who pleads with mankind to cease violence, war, hatred, and destruction, and begs us to live in harmony and to construct an authentic brotherhood and sisterhood on this planet.

I believe in the God of liberation who demands that all creatures live in freedom, accepting the responsibilities inherent in the exercise of liberty.

I believe in the God of compassion who invites us to be partners in the never-ending task of building a world in which there is no hunger, no torture, no slavery, and no forgotten members of the human race.

Elohenu, v'elohei avoteinu, our God and God of our ancestors, help us in our never-ceasing battle to forge a faith and to maintain it in spite of our doubts and the vicissitudes of life.

Amen

OUR HOLY OBLIGATION

I understand that neither the religious Jew, nor the non-religious Jew, can remain faithful to his historical legacy if he is insensitive to the injustice, violence, and terror in our society. Our people have suffered too much historically because of the silence of others. I cannot tolerate a Jew who turns his back to other men, be it Jew or non-Jew, in time of need. I should say to the non-altruist that the Jew cannot survive for long in a society where both the theory and practice of human rights do not prevail. For the religious Jew, the holiness of life is the summum of the Torah. The religious Jew who really knows his tradition knows that the purpose of all mitzrot is "letsaref et habriot," to unite mankind. The union of mankind doesn't mean that one must convert others or that he must agree with them. Judaism says that the just men of all people deserve divine salvation. It also teaches that man cooperates with God in the continuing work of creating the world. I, as a Jew, must fight for human rights, decency, and human sanctity because God commanded me to do so regardless of whether or not society commands it. There are too many forces trying to block out the light of hope for a tomorrow of peace and creativity. Everyone has the holy obligation to keep alive at least a small spark of this light.

OUR UNAVOIDABLE MISSION

The Mishnah in Sanhedrin teaches us:

For this reason was man created alone, to teach us that whosoever destroys a single soul of Israel, The Torah imputes guilt as if he had destroyed a complete world; and whosoever preserves a single soul of Israel, The Torah ascribes merit as though he had preserved a complete world.

Upon this base, then, can we build a faith that will lead us into the future. This is the eternal flame that Judaism offers us to light the way on our dark path. To take this step it is necessary to make a leap of faith. It is necessary to take risks. Judaism has proclaimed for millenia this message of man's interdependence, of the brotherhood of man, under the sovereignty of the creative God of love and justice. But man chose not to listen, time and again denying his role as his brother's, and his neighbor's, keeper. Monotheism continues to be an avant-garde idea in society. It is the unavoidable mission of the Jewish people to live the consequences of this idea.

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Excerpted from You are My Witness by Jane Isay. Copyright © 2004 Naomi Meyer. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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