Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
6 min read
How to feel that God is an active part of your life.
The first of the Ten Commandments is the mitzvah to know God exists. Maimonides, the towering 12th century codifier of Jewish law, opens his magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah, stating: “The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of all wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being who brought all existence into being.”
In Hebrew the word “to know” has an additional, surprising meaning. In the Book of Genesis it says, “Adam knew his wife Eve, she conceived and gave birth to Cain” (Genesis, 4:1). Da’at, knowledge, also means sexual intimacy, carnal knowledge.
Why should the same word be used for both? What’s the deeper connection between knowledge and intimacy?
Knowledge comes when what you know in your head trickles down and penetrates your heart.
You only truly know something when you internalize it and it becomes a part of you. That happens when what you know in your head trickles down and penetrates your heart.
Take a smoker, for example. He intellectually knows smoking is dangerous to his health and causes cancer, but he easily dismisses the facts. Upon visiting a cancer ward, he sees firsthand patients languishing from lung cancer and the reality hits him: smoking can kill you. What changed? He already knew all the facts.
Seeing the consequences in full living color makes it real and delivers a wallop. Only once it penetrates his heart does he truly know the consequences of smoking, even if an hour later the disconnect between mind and heart reemerges.
The commandment to know that God exists starts with the mind, our primary tool to perceive reality, but then it needs to enter the heart, the seat of your emotions. Without intimate knowledge, the existence of God remains an abstraction disconnected from one’s daily life, making it all too easy to ignore Him. The goal is integrate what you know is true, to feel God’s reality in your bones and create a dynamic relationship, one that is grounded in thought but animated with love.
The distance between the mind and the heart is greater than the distance between the Earth and the moon.
It’s a formidable challenge. Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, a 20th century thinker, said that the distance between the mind and the heart is greater than the distance between the Earth and the moon.
How can you close the gap and assimilate your belief in God into the very fiber of your being?
I struggle with this (don’t we all?) but here are a few classic Jewish approaches that make a difference. (Obviously this is only relevant to those who already believe in God.)
God isn’t up in the Heavens, divorced from the world, unaware and uninvolved. Since He is the omniscient and omnipotent Creator who sustains all life every instant, everything that happens is part of His Divine orchestration. Nothing is accidental; things happen for a reason. You may not always see how or why – after all, none of us have God’s “everything-everywhere-all-at-once” bird’s eye view, but you’ll be surprised by how often you can detect God’s active involvement in your life when you start looking for it.
You’ll be surprised by how often you can detect God’s active involvement in your life when you start looking for it.
Start with the big events in your life – the good and the bad. They’re not a coincidence. Peer behind the Divine providence and see if you can determine a message God is sending to you.
Sometimes it’s just a wink, a reminder that He’s got your back, like what happened to me a couple of months ago.
My wife went to pick up our 18-year-old son Yehuda, who has Down’s syndrome, at the pool, he was gone. The pool attendant said that Yehuda had left over an hour ago! It wasn’t the first time our fiercely independent and curious son wandered off, but this was the first time it happened outside our neighborhood and naturally, we were concerned.
My wife couldn’t find him in the eateries at the nearby mall, so we called the police to aid us in the search. I stayed at home to man the phone and 90 minutes later my wife called to tell me that she had found him eating dinner upstairs in the mall. Chastened by the friendly police, they were on their way home.
I finally had two free minutes to tackle that day’s wordle (I’m hooked). I decided to go rogue and skip my go-to starting word, and asked, “Okay God, given what just happened with Yehuda, what would be a fitting word?”
I typed the word “FOUND” and bingo – got it on the first try! The odds of that happening are a fraction of one percent (Google it). Who said God doesn’t have a sense of humor? I laughed out loud as I felt God’s embrace, reminding me He’s right there with me.
Giving, reciprocating, and appreciating create a flourishing emotional bank account that forms the foundation of a loving relationship, whether it’s your marriage, or your relationship with God.
When a couple give to each other and express gratitude, taking nothing for granted, the strength of their love and trust for each other enables them to withstand the occasional rough patch that is a part of every marriage.
If you discount all the blessings God has given to you and take for granted the good that He showers upon you, is it any wonder you feel that He’s distant?
Your relationship with God works the same way. If you discount all the blessings God has given to you over your lifetime, and take for granted all the good that He showers upon you, is it any wonder you feel that He’s distant? Count your blessings and put God into the picture; He’s the source of the abundant gifts you have in your life: your eyesight, hearing, your kids, your home, a cup of espresso….
Take stock and remind yourself that these didn’t just appear in your life. They are gifts you have received from a kind and super-involved God who has demonstrated His love for you time after time. With grateful eyes you can feel God’s unwavering love.
That’s why Jews are obsessed with gratitude and reciting blessings throughout the day. It’s literally the meaning of the word “Jew” – “Yehudi” in Hebrew – which means to admit and give thanks. Because that is the bedrock of a loving relationship.
So if you want to feel that God is an active part of your life, open your eyes, appreciate all the blessings He has and continues to give you, and embrace His love.
