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starfrostingbut here's some stuff from the unfortunately-titled jewish with feeling book that clicked with me:
Contradictions we can live with. Nothing we can say about G-d will survive the rigors of logical analysis. But that shouldn't get in the way of our search for the presence we have felt in our most spiritually open-- or spiritually hungry-- moments. If there is a tension between what we know in our minds and what we feel in our hearts, then let's stay with that tension. If there is a contradiction, let us take it upon ourselves. Only let us press on with our desire to experience the numinous and serve the patterns of the universe in a deeper, more meaningful way.
and
Faith is not something we can arrive at by careful, step-by-step process. It is not something we can square with our intellect. Faith does not make sense,nor does it feel safe...The quality, the essence, the whatness of G-d-- that we can only reach with the opening-up, the joyful surrender, that is faith. To experience faith even for a moment we must make a leap beyond intellect, beyond logic.
(pg 27-28, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi)
These passages are really hitting me cos I've been feeling an insistent desire for the old closeness I used to have, the entirely obvious presence of the Goddess, the Gods, G-d Herself that saturated my life, that stirred in the wind or pulsed through the pavement. I think one negative side effect of this philosophy business has been an increased tendency to submit G-d stuff no less than anything else to (albeit not too rigorous) logical analysis that is, to be honest, entirely unfitting the matter at hand.
There's much more to say about this but that's it for now.
Contradictions we can live with. Nothing we can say about G-d will survive the rigors of logical analysis. But that shouldn't get in the way of our search for the presence we have felt in our most spiritually open-- or spiritually hungry-- moments. If there is a tension between what we know in our minds and what we feel in our hearts, then let's stay with that tension. If there is a contradiction, let us take it upon ourselves. Only let us press on with our desire to experience the numinous and serve the patterns of the universe in a deeper, more meaningful way.
and
Faith is not something we can arrive at by careful, step-by-step process. It is not something we can square with our intellect. Faith does not make sense,nor does it feel safe...The quality, the essence, the whatness of G-d-- that we can only reach with the opening-up, the joyful surrender, that is faith. To experience faith even for a moment we must make a leap beyond intellect, beyond logic.
(pg 27-28, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi)
These passages are really hitting me cos I've been feeling an insistent desire for the old closeness I used to have, the entirely obvious presence of the Goddess, the Gods, G-d Herself that saturated my life, that stirred in the wind or pulsed through the pavement. I think one negative side effect of this philosophy business has been an increased tendency to submit G-d stuff no less than anything else to (albeit not too rigorous) logical analysis that is, to be honest, entirely unfitting the matter at hand.
There's much more to say about this but that's it for now.
