Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Children's questions about God. 

by Harold M. Schulweis

We are going to be talking tonight about children, and about questions that children ask and about answers that parents and teachers are supposed to give.

Questions are the most important thing in the development of a human being and his mind. And you have to answer a question in such a way that you don't shut up the questioner. It's possible for parents or teachers or Rabbis to give such an answer that never again will the child ask the question. That's not good answering. Answers have to be in such a way that it is possible for the child at a later stage and a later age to ask anew the question without fear. This is what tradition is and this is what the task of all of us happens to be. To be able to transmit to our children and to our children's children wisdom, understanding, and thought. To answer a child Jewishly is to enable that child to ask with confidence.  The fearful person does not learn, and the stringent who give dogmatic answers should not teach.  

So let's pray together. This art of transmitting a tradition with patience, with love and with understanding. With everlasting love hast Thou loved the house of Israel, teaching us Thy Torah and commandments, Thy statutes and judgments. Therefore, our Lord and our God, when we lie down and when we rise up we will meditate on Thy teachings and rejoice forever in the words of Thy Torah and in its commandments.  May Thy love never depart from us. When we recite the Sh’ma Israel and speak of the love that we are to have for God, to love Him with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our might, the text indicates how one is to love God. One is to love God, to begin with by loving one's children. One is to teach them diligently, to speak of them when thou sittest in thy house and walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up. Whatever the children say in the street, the parents speak at home. That's an old Yiddish proverb and it's very true.

Plato and Aristotle said that curiosity is the father of philosophy. That is why every child who is very curious is a born philosopher and asks all kinds of questions about the thickness of the sky, about its blueness, about rain. Everything is greeted with a remarkable sense of surprise and wonder. And it is the function of parents to respect that curiosity and to do so with love and understanding. What is important is to respect the question. Jews believe that we are a questioning people. There are many people who are Jews, and think of themselves as good Jews who limit the questions to the four questions of the Seder and no more. You have to listen carefully to the question to understand that behind every question is a world of assumptions and presuppositions. Therefore, to be a great answerer, is to be an individual who respects the dignity of the question, who encourages the child to question and who rejoices in the questioning of the child. This is important for both children and parents. It's important for grandparents because as one of them, and I'm a grandparent, I have learned of what the Rabbis said:  Kol hamelamed ben beno kelu yolado — He who teaches the child of his child is considered as if he has given birth to that child. So let the grandparents, let the parents be given wisdom and patience and understanding to transmit with love the precious traditions which will make our children wise and bright and strong.

I don't know what your experience was as a young person. When I was a little boy and whenever I would ask what I thought was an important question, my grandfather who would teach me would always answer with what I later figured out was a strategy that all teachers like to use. He would always say to me, “Herschel, my Christian name, “Shpeter”, which meant “later.”  When I went to tell him the Torah and I would ask questions about the things most kids ask about God, prayer, miracles, Bible stories they would also say later. When I went to yeshiva, I would ask similar questions and I got a similar response which was “later.”   Until I woke up very late in my life and realized that “later” never came. It was a kind of procrastination, a kind of postponement and I think it was a little bit because they were afraid of the questions. Not because the questions were so great but they were questions which adult themselves have and are afraid to deal with.

They would give all kinds of explanations. Even today when I speak with staff and faculty, they talk about the lesson plans, how important it is to cover a certain amount of material. Therefore, the most neglected area in all of Jewish life, I am convinced is Jewish thought, Jewish philosophy and Jewish theology. It's the most neglected and the reasons are tremendous. The reasons are well, it's very difficult to speak in the language of youngsters who are only 8, 9, 10 or eleven. I don't believe that. I don't believe that it's a question of language but rather a question of a very interesting neglect and fear of religious questions. But children remember this. They remember the bad answers to good questions or they remember the procrastination.

I think this evening we are going to begin with what I hope will be a series of discussions on theological, religious questions which children ask and which we have an obligation to answer. Before you can answer a child’s question, you must be pretty sure that you understand her question, its implications and you have to understand what you think a proper answer will be. That's a formidable task. So I'd like for us to rise when we come to the Amidah, which is a prayer of introspection, and ask yourself to think back when you were very young and first heard stories from the Bible and stories about prayer, stories about miracles and ask yourself what were the questions that you asked and did you ever get an answer?  “Falsely do I hasten and seek to make the widow suffer want. Do I eat my bread alone sharing it not with the followers. Do I open my door to the stranger? Do I let go my hope and my confidence? Do I boast because my wealth is great? Do I rejoice in the destruction of my foe? Do I fear what the multitude will say? Oh God, dost thou not see? Dost thou not know my every step? What can I say to thee when Thou remberest? What can I answer when Thou takest me to task?”

In many a Sunday school, as an assignment, the teachers give to children of all ages to stimulate them to think about God, to ask questions and some of them are collected in some very interesting books. One of them is a book called Questions Children Ask: Dear God. They are wonderfully innocent questions. The are valued for their precociousness, for their innocence. For example, “Dear God, can you keep it from raining on Saturday all the time?” signed Stephen.  Or, “Dear God, the teacher said that we are all created in God's image. If so, how come there are so many ugly people?” “Dear God I wrote you before. Do you remember? Well, I did what I promised but You didn't send me the horse yet. What about it? Lewis.” I have a particular favorite one by Raymond. “Dear God I got left back. Thanks a lot.”

You have very, very sophisticated questions. They become sophisticated especially if you think about what it is that assumes these petitions about God. For example, the question about “If we are all created in God's image how come some people are ugly?”  sounds funny until you simply write it a little differently and say, “If we are all created in the image of God, how come some people are born deformed without noses or with twisted features?”  Or take the question that I want to deal with this evening. It's a question which is asked in every class:  “Does God hear my prayer?” After all, the child is taught, as you were taught probably by your parents, at night to pray to God, as students are constantly told to pray to God. It's a forthright, legitimate question and you want to give a forthright answer. You want to say “Yes, God hears your prayers” or you want to say “No, God doesn't hear your prayers.”  We're usually placed in a trap because the questions the children ask are usually very simple either or questions. If you say no, then it sounds as if you don't believe in God. If you say yes, you've got to be very careful because behind, beneath and within every question that the child asks, and that we ourselves ask is an assumption about the nature of reality, the world and the character of God.

A lot of people want to be religious and sound religious. The way in which they sound religious is to say “God” to almost every question that can be asked. “Why are babies born?” “God.”  Why is the sky blue?” “God”  “Why is it raining?” “God.”  “Who causes death?” “God.”  You get a sort of instant omniscience. You can answer all questions. But if you begin to answer in such a manner which is sort of a mechanical theological answer to all questions in the name of God or to say yes, you have to understand that you are already building blocks for that child who is developing a conception of God which he or she will not very soon or easily surrender.

Let's take the question which Susie asks. “Does God hear prayer?”   Now Susie comes and says, “I prayed to God for a Cabbage doll and I didn't get it,” so the logic is that God doesn't hear prayer. They posed that question to some very interesting and sophisticated theologians, one of whom was Rabbi Louis Jacobs, who said, “No, I would say to Susie yes, God hears prayer. In your case He said ‘No.’” There is something very appealing to that answer. It's simple, it's direct, it's forthright and it's dangerous. That danger is something that intelligent teachers and caring parents have to be concerned about because Susie may accept that answer for the doll. But now Susie is a little bit older, maybe even a year older, and her mother is dying in the hospital. Or Susie's friend's mother is dying in the hospital and Susie and her friend are praying that God should heal the mother. The mother dies. Does it mean that God said “no” ?  Is that what you want to indicate and teach Susie? That in some sense if there is some tragedy, some terrible misfortune that it means that God said no and refused to help? If God said no, unless He is an unreasonable God, unless He is a cruel God, it must mean that Susie did something very bad for God to say no. “Either I did something very bad or mommy did something very bad.”  In any case, the answer which is so charming and so simple and so satisfying because it shuts the kid up for the moment so you don't have to think of the consequences of the answer for the future. That leaves a path of guilt and blame and toward the end a bit of resentment against this great big powerful God who takes mommy away.

It is not difficult to see that you already plant the seeds of disillusionment, the seeds of anger, the seeds of atheism in a child because you have given legitimacy to the assumptions beneath the questions.   Does God hear prayer? You have to understand that we are never talking simply about God or talking about prayer, we are talking about the way in which we want Susie to understand the nature of reality, the way things are, how to interpret the universe. If you wait until the child grows up, what do you think is going to happen? The child is going to get very similar responses in more sophisticated language. Perhaps someone will say to the child grown up that God is inscrutable. God is mysterious, one does not know the cunning of God and the mystery and incomprehensibility of His ways. It amounts to the same thing. God said “No.” 

I mentioned a while back, and it was in all the Jewish papers, that when 22 children and adults were killed in a bus-train collision, children and citizens from Pettah Tikvah, on television there appeared the Minister of Interior, Rabbi Yickvah Peretz, who explained the tragedy to all in this fashion, and he is not a slouch. His opinion was also corroborated by Rabbi Eleazor Shoch of the Adugdah. It has to be understood that nothing accidental happens to the Jewish people. This is a fundamental tenet in Judaism. I am very sorry that the parents of the children were hurt. My intention was to hold up this sacrifice so that it becomes a warning bell arousing Jews to be better Jews. In a television interview he is quoted as saying, “The collision could not have been avoided at the time by any human being's means, for it was a case of Divine punishment for the violation of Divine commandment.” In other words, he said God said “no” to petitions, requests, etc.

Now you forget the abuse of the term “sacrifice,” as if this was a willing sacrifice which was given by people to God. You also forget for a moment the certainty that the Rabbi knows that the purpose of the destruction of these innocent children was to make Jews more observant. It's a very tough kind of love and he knows that the cause of this accident was a punishment because of the violation of Jewish law. Now far from being a simple and extraordinary conception of God, this is something we hear over and over again. The Lubavitcher Rebbe for example, explains that the children who were slain at Maalot by the Arab terrorists were slain because the mazuzzot on the doors were not kosher. Don't cluck to me because all of you know about Lubavitch, and don't you read that he writes that the reason for the calamity of the Israeli defense force in Lebanon was due to the fact that the Knesset refuses to appeal to the law of return? So this is a very, very long and dignified kind of a theology.

If this is wrong, isn't this Jewish to answer to Susie, “Yes God hears prayer.” Isn't that a Jewish and authentic matter? And certainly to Rabbi Perretz of the Lubavitch or Eleazor Shakclor this is a very common kind of notion. I want to point out to you that this is not Jewish at all. The reason you think it is Jewish is because there has been such a profound neglect of thinking, of Jewish thinking and of Jewish sources in our schools, seminaries from Olive Base from Pavlor through all the way through Jewish school.

What do you mean, “Does God hear prayer? Any prayer? All prayer, no matter what you pray about?” Is it just a question of petition and the sincerity of heart? The answer, and I hope we will go through some of these sources, and that it will penetrate so you will examine them, you will think and recognize that you can't simply pray for anything whatsoever. There is not that kind of insanity, that kind of wildness. Before you pray, you have got to be intelligent about yourself. That's why the Rabbis, the Rambam, for example in the Mishna Torah, the Mishna itself says, you cannot pray if you are drunk, you cannot pray if you are confused, or dizzy because prayer has to be based upon reason and intelligibility and on reality. Prayer must be rational and prayer must be moral. This is a very important principle.

People think that piety is that man believes in God to such an extend that he always turns to God. That is what the Rabbis in the Mishna, in the Gemuruh fought against. The most famous and celebrated chapter in the Gemuruh Brachut where it says very clearly  if somebody prays about something that already has transpired, is over with, and prays that it should not have been over with, that person is pronouncing a vain and foolish prayer. Then it gives illustrations.  If a man says “God, grant that my wife bear a male child,” that's a foolish, empty, vain prayer. That's not prayer. What is it? Magic. Or if you say, and this is also in the same Gemuruh, if a man is coming home and he hears the cries of distress in this town, there is some sort of a conflagration, some sort of a fire and the man prays, “God grant that this is not in my house.” This is a vain and foolish prayer because it either violates the laws of nature or it violates the canons of ethics. You cannot pray that way, you cannot pray, “Let the amputated limb suddenly spring forth whole.”   It's a wonderful desire but you cannot pray that. You cannot pray, “Let this deceased man or woman come to life.”   It is not the question of that you are not religious enough but in Judaism to be religious is to be sane. You have to know what are the limits of petition otherwise you make out of religion a kind of wishful thinking, a magic, a fantasyland.

That is not it. I am so moved by the tradition that is cited by Rambam. It says if a child is stricken one must not read a Scriptural verse nor place a scroll of law over it. Why not? The child is stricken. Why shouldn't I do whatever I can, pray, recite Torah, whatever, because these people make out of prayer and out of study a healing of the body and it is not. Prayer is a healing of the soul. You do not pray as a substitute for going to a physician. You do not pray and you do not go to a faith healer in Jewish life. Not because you have no faith but because the essence of your religion is based upon your intelligence and your awareness of the reality principle. That is why you explain to Susie in a hundred different ways, “No Susie you cannot pray for an “A” in your tests. You cannot pray for an “A” in your tests because if you got it that is not a result of prayer, that is not prayer, that's magic.” You don't pray for results, you pray for means. You pray that you should have the patience, the energy, the motivation to study so that you can deal with and master the material and get the test. You can't pray for anything unless it is reflexive, unless it requires from you to do something about it. What do you think, you're going to pray “Oseh shalom bimromav” “He who makes peace in the heavens should make peace on earth,” but you do nothing about bringing peace? You are not involved in the peace process because you've prayed for peace three times a day with folderd arms.

We studied this last Shabbot. We studied that every individual who prays the blessings of prayer must hear his own words. You have to speak it out loud so that your ears should hear what you are asking for. Why? Because prayers address you. You think you can ask God for health three or four times a day and eat whatever you want to eat? Not, exercise, look whose talking, well it'll serve me right? You certainly cannot pray “God heals the Jewish people” and think that that prayer is going to accomplish that end. Prayer is always reflexive. It has to do with me. You cannot pray for example for parnoseh and not do anything training your mind and training your talents.

Susie has to understand the Jewish principle that prayer is not like rubbing Aladdin’s lantern. God is not a Genie. Nothing you can pray for without your doing something to bring it about. You pray to move yourself, to energize your own talents for that which you aspire. As the Talmud says, the prayer of man is not heard until he puts his heart into his hands. This is the activism of the majority of citations, philosophers all throughout Jewish life. It's not taught. It sounds as if what I am saying is you don't need God you can do it yourself. On the contrary, it says is when you begin to tap into your divine qualities and you do something that you consider to be important, then that is what it means to pray.

We are bullied by a false piety. You mean to tell me that I have to explain to my people that accidents are God's punishment for our evil doing? That is sick. That is a religious masochism. I this week looked at the Talmud Shabbot. There was a very interesting discussion in which one of the Rabbis says, there is no death without sin and no suffering without doing evil. But Rabbi Yahmeh said that there is no death without sin, and the conclusion is that he is repudiated and rejected. It's on the 55th folio of the Talmud Shabbot. Some things the Rabbis understood happened which has nothing to do with my sinfulness or my evil. In that Talmud which I think is the most exquisite Talmud of all – Avodah Zarah – it is very clear when it says when a man steals a measure of wheat and he sows it in the ground it is right that it should not grow. But it does grow.  Stolen seeds grow just as well as owned seeds. What does that show? The world pursues its own natural course. Nature is nature. It goes on to say a man has intercourse with his neighbor's wife. It is right that she should not conceive. She should not bear a child. But what can we do? Don't we know that women who are raped conceive? Why? Because the world pursues its own course.

This is very important for children to understand in their own language but more importantly that you and I should understand. This is a great tradition we come from. We are not babies. We don't believe in magic. We fight against magic. We don't believe in faith healing for that reason. It does not mean to say that you will not find some willing to give you amulets and faith healing. But that is not the dominant, major philosophic Talmudic tradition. What I am saying to you is that you cannot pray for just anything. What are we teaching Susie? What are we here in this school for? Why are you sending your children to our religious schools?  We are teaching them how to think not how to follow. We are teaching them how to have a healthy mind. We are teaching them to understand the nature of reality. We are teaching them so they do not go around with this constant guilt in feeling that each time they break glasses or each time mommy or papa gets sick that there is something they have done wrong. And we are teaching Susie responsibility and that's the way in which you build it us. It requires a long time.

I know that when kids ask simple questions you want to give simple answers but you have got to use the wisdom of Whitehead who said, “Seek simplicity and suspect it.” Don't do that to your child. You could answer the child the way Louie Jacobs answered the kid and said, “He said no.” But the wise person sees the consequences. That's why our people were so heavily traumatized with the Holocaust on a theological level. They said, “Why God?” They were not trained from the very beginning to understand the reality principle. Reality principle is the world is what it is. There accident, cruelty, contingencies, victimization in the world and what you pray for is not that the world should change its course, but that you and I and our people and all the people in the world should be able to act and think so that you prevent this kind of catastrophe or if you cannot prevent it to console, heal and comfort.

We just touched the periphery but this is the way I think that children have to be respected. When that child asks that little question, the one I like so much, “Dear God, I got left back. Thanks a lot..”   That child already has imbibed something. He doesn't write those kind of letters unless you or I or the environment or the school has taught him to believe that if he gets left back it is because God has betrayed. I'm going to continue with these kinds of questions three weeks on or around March 28. I wish you would bring your children. I will talk in very simple language. I just left out the word theodicy, that's all. Basically we're talking about theodicy, talking about evil. I may have not used the word liturgy, but they'll understand it. On March 28, the question will be one that is frequently asked. We hear all about the miracles, about 10 plagues and Purim is coming up, we talk about miracles, Hanakkahs, how come there are no miracles today? On April 11, I'm going to ask and try to answer the question, “Are the Bible stories true or false?” Either you believe as some Orthodox Rabbi put it, either you believe that the serpent really spoke or you don't believe in the Bible. Either the deluge happened, either the ark occurred, either Noah saved those animals or it's a lie. Either the prophet tells the truth or he is a liar. You have to know how to answer that question and not be sucked into the kind of answer which that loaded question implies.

In short, what am I saying? I am saying that Judaism is not just a magic system in which you can do anything, pray anything as long as you have heart. That's what the Rebbe said to the Hassid who came in and said,  “I can't pray because I have a terrible headache and the Rebbe said, “What has the head to do with the heart?”   He was wrong. And I will show you that our tradition said better to wait a day or two or three before you pray to God with your petitions when you've just come back from business and your mind is on something else.

To be Jewish is to be a thinker. It's to know how to pray after you understand the reality of life. That's why it's the most important thing in the world to give a child a sound Jewish religious education. But that doesn't mean simply learning dikduk  or even learning ritual. It is to learn how to think so that you can know how to act so you can know how to relate to yourself and to your God. Children can understand it. If you have a difficulty talking to your child, it only is a sign of one thing. You've got a difficulty with the question which children are asking because they're yours and they are not resolved. I want you to join with me and to think with me about these questions which are, in fact, matters of reality and unreality of importance and unimportance, of life and of death.

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