Epigraph: “And when My servants ask thee (Muhammad) about Me, say: ‘I am near. I answer the prayer of the supplicant when he prays to Me. So they should hearken to Me and believe in Me, that they may follow the right way.’” (Al Quran 2:187)
“Why was there no other people, save the people of Jonah, who should have believed so that their belief would have profited them? When they believed, We removed from them the punishment of disgrace in the present life, and We gave them provision for a while.” (Al Quran 10:99)
Source: The Huffington Post
By Rabbi Gil Steinlauf: Senior Rabbi, Adas Israel Congregation
When asteroid 2012 DA14 makes its perilously close encounter and near miss with Earth, there will be plenty of people who will thank God. We all know that one hit from a big asteroid, and life on earth as we know it could be wiped out. But, as some may reason, God is not letting that happen to us. Not now. For now, God is still merciful.
As a deeply religious Jew, I must admit that I cringe when I hear people express certitude that God chooses to avert asteroids or hurricanes or any random destructive force of nature — especially if we pray hard enough. The God I pray to is a God of a 13.7-billion-year-old universe. My God is a God whose majesty and greatness only deepens for me as we collectively discover the ever-expanding mystery of the cosmos. My God is a God of a universe that includes randomness and accidents. And yes, my God is a God of a universe where, sometimes, tragically, bad things happen to good people despite our prayers, and asteroids might hit the earth and wipe almost all life out.
It’s not that my religious traditions and texts don’t affirm the classic omnipotent, infallible God who runs the show. I have come to see, however, that religious texts and rituals exist not so much to shape hardened, dogmatic beliefs about God or the universe.
The judgmental Heavenly Monarch-on-the-Throne imagery isn’t there to be taken literally. It’s there to capture the awe and mystery of our experience of life itself. When I contemplate a 45-meter-wide boulder hurtling to earth at 17,500 miles-per-hour, I am terrified and humbled. When I hear it will come right in line with the orbits of some GPS satellites — and then miss us — yes, I’m relieved. But I’m also further humbled and awe-struck that life as we know it is so precious and tenuous. And it’s right in that moment, in that uncanny experience of fear and wonder, that I truly find God. My God arises not in arrogant assertions of Absolute Truth, but in those life-experiences that inspire the greatest of doubt and a multiplicity of more questions.
Read further in the Huffington Post.
Further Reading