Q&A: What Is the Meaning of Being Religious?
What Is the Meaning of Being Religious?
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
"What is the meaning of my being religious?" This is the hardest religious question I’ve been asked.
Because if I answer that God is strong and all-powerful, then I turn into an admirer of power, and God is the most successful mediator of that.
And likewise regarding morality, the general good, truth, and so on.
And I don’t need mediators when I have the thing itself (if I can recognize that God is moral, then I can recognize morality on my own, and I don’t need God as a means to that).
The answer I give myself is that Judaism is the building of a relationship between the human being and God, through recognizing His will (the commandments) and His wisdom (Torah).
And that relationship is like a person’s relationship with his parents, which is not based on the good things they did for him, but on the very fact that they gave him the most important thing: his very existence. And so that relationship, built on honoring his parents, elevates his very being.
All the more so, the greatest gift we received from the Creator is a relationship with Him, with our deepest root.
Of course, I’d be happy to hear criticism and learn from it.
Answer
I don’t understand the question at all. You didn’t mean to ask why be religious (because there is an obligation toward the Creator of the world). You didn’t mean to ask what the content of being religious is (to observe commandments). So what were you asking?
Discussion on Answer
Now you’re clearer. See my article on ontological/philosophical gratitude.
What is the obligation toward the Creator of the world based on? Because He is powerful? Wise? Moral? Because one has to keep the commandments? Or is it based on nothing at all (and therefore devoid of any prior logic whatsoever)?
Am I clearer now?
And thank you for the response.