Q&A: How to Know What the Creator Wants from Me?
How to Know What the Creator Wants from Me?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I have a lot of questions and doubts, after having accepted that there is a Creator of the world. My assumption is that if He created the world and us, especially given that we have free choice, then apparently He wants us to choose to behave in a certain way — so my next question is: how can I know what He wants from me?
And if it is through religion, there are many religions in the world — why focus on one of them?
I would appreciate some guidance on this.
Answer
You’ve reached the conclusion that there has to be revelation, so that you can know what is incumbent upon you. Now, there is a tradition about the giving of the Torah, in which He was revealed and told us what He wants. True, there are claims in other religions saying that He wants different things. About that I would say two things: A. You need to weigh what is more plausible. The revelation at Sinai is accepted by all the religions, and it was the first. The burden of proof that everything later changed is on them. All the more so since the reports about those other revelations are very unreliable (revelation to isolated individuals, and other parameters). B. Even if all of them are reliable, what remains is that each person should do what seems right to him, and all of it will be acceptable to the Holy One, blessed be He. My assumption is that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not come with unfair demands against His creatures, and if a person reaches the conclusion that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants from him, then even if he is mistaken, from God’s perspective he is still fine. He did what he could. In my opinion, the exclusive discourse according to which there is only one correct path and all the others are criminal and worthless was created mainly for internal needs (to create attachment and faith in the rightness of the path). Note that I am not claiming that everyone is right, only that even if they are not — all the others are still under compulsion, and therefore no claims can be made against them.
Discussion on Answer
But shouldn’t we also have expected some kind of feedback from reality by which it would be possible to verify whether we have gone in the Creator’s ways or not? That is, that there be some distinction that can be examined with external eyes. For example, that the path which leads its believers to more moral lives, happier lives, greater material prosperity (through mysticism and “heavenly assistance”), longevity, etc…. After all, if the Creator created the world and also expects from us a specific path, it is not impossible that those who do go in His ways would receive some sort of answer that they really are aiming at the truth of His will, as opposed to those who do not — in that they would continue to endure, since in the end that is God’s interest, no? .
And even if we still haven’t seen this happen in practice, maybe that really means we haven’t actually aimed at the Creator’s true will…
(In practice it would be hard really to propose a way to test this, but we still need to discuss the proposal in principle.)
Yossi, so? That’s what I think. If you want to call it exclusivity, be my guest. It’s a semantic discussion that isn’t very interesting.
David, then discuss it. Good luck.
Hello Shay,
Regarding the story of the revelation to the Jewish people, I recommend the following:
A. Search on YouTube for “Meor Ovadia” (listen to as many of his lectures as possible).
B. Read evidence that supports, even indirectly, the story of the Exodus from Egypt. For example:
Joshua’s altar.
A “sudden” settlement in the Jordan Valley by infiltration from the east in the 13th century BCE (I recommend the book The Footsteps of God by Professor Adam Zertal).
Joshua Berman’s book I Believe (it contains at least one chapter on the subject).
The book The Exodus from Egypt: Reality or Imagination.
The Brooklyn Papyrus.
The Israel/Merneptah Stele.
It is important for me to point out one more thing — aside from Joshua’s altar, all the things I mentioned above are not disputed among researchers. And regarding Joshua’s altar, I suggest that you look into the various opinions in depth, and I believe that in the end you will conclude that it is indeed the altar mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. You are welcome to look into it, and even welcome to visit the site.
And one more thing: don’t be put off by the bombastic headlines of people like Dr. Yigal Ben-Nun or Professor Israel Finkelstein. Listen to them, but in addition, check the matter in depth yourself.
Another point that is important to emphasize — the Jewish people are first and foremost a people made up of everything: religious and secular, righteous and wicked. This people also has a religion, and that religion also has Jewish law. But from reading the Hebrew Bible it is completely clear that we are first of all a people.
Therefore, the comparison with religions is, at best, imprecise, and at worst simply incorrect.
In any case, you belong to a people that has a purpose and destiny — to lead the revelation of God in the world.
Good luck!
Rabbi Michi, this is simply a claim that you keep repeating and it isn’t accurate. The answer is: “Yes, the Jewish people are right and everyone else is wrong, and that’s what I think.” That sounds a bit different, I think. Beyond semantics.
Second, this claim supposedly answers the question why only such a small group would fulfill the Creator’s will while billions were created for nothing. It is reasonable that everyone’s existence should have real meaning (if morality is not a reason in itself, as you keep saying). And if we formulate it accurately the way I explained, it turns out that this does not answer it.
I would add that lately I’ve been wondering a lot about the jump you make from deism to theism. The vague assumption that there has to be revelation does not fit with the tradition of revelation. The simple assumption is that there should be revelation to everyone, not only to an exclusive group.
In addition, character refinement sounds like a sufficiently lofty goal for the role of human beings in the world (the ten sefirot also hold up even apart from Judaism), so again there is a bit of a “gap” in the assumption that there has to be revelation.
Yossi, I’d be happy if you could clarify something in your question in relation to what I’m going to write here:
On the individual level, it is known that in periods when there was prophecy, it was also given to gentiles (Balaam, Jethro), and according to Maimonides prophecy can also be given to someone from the nations of the world who reaches that level. And also on the level of prayer, Judaism is of course in favor of a gentile having a relationship with God.
On the national level, one can cite midrashim of the Sages that the Holy One, blessed be He, first spoke with the nations of the world before giving the Torah to Israel, and even adjured them not to oppress the Jewish people too much. True, it is hard to think of these midrashim literally, but it still shows that among the Sages there were indeed views of interaction between God and the nations of the world, even if the intention is interaction on the spiritual-psychological level of the nation, and not the literal meaning of the midrashim.
And nevertheless it is important to note that even if God’s revelation to a nation is really only to the people of Israel, the goal according to the prophecies is that in the end everyone will recognize God (“Let all the inhabitants of the world recognize and know that to You every knee shall bend…”), so even if the Jewish people are only the spearhead in this matter (that is our unique quality), in the end it is indeed supposed to be for the whole world.
You also agree that there is exclusivity in Judaism. Instead of saying: there is only one correct path and all the others are criminal and worth nothing, you say: there is only one correct path and all the others are mistaken, but whoever holds by it is under compulsion and no claims will be made against him. That is still an exclusivist claim in the strictest sense.