OUR NEW BOOK: A GOD WE CAN BELIEVE IN

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D 

A colleague of mine, Rabbi Richard Agler and I have just published a book on theology, entitled A God We Can Believe In. We have also incorporated 25 essays written by other Rabbis and academics. As we state in the Preface: 

          It is self-evident that many of the characterizations of God found in our sacred texts, liturgies, and holidays are replete with images that large numbers of contemporary Jews find neither meaningful nor believable.

          Our annual cycle is filled with references to a Deity who intervenes in history, supernaturally responds to prayers, protects his (sic) faithful and chosen, and executes righteous judgment. In the twenty-first century, such propositions engender doubt and disbelief in rabbis and laypersons alike. At the same time, they are a disincentive to Jewish engagement, commitment, and affiliation.

A God We Can Believe In is a response to this moment. Herein you will find contributions from leading rabbis and academics that articulate paths to Jewish hearts, minds, and souls with God-teachings that are spiritually compelling and intellectually sound.

          Our authors present God in ways that are consistent with the facts that higher learning has established, the principles of reason, and their own life experiences. We are not speaking primarily to academics, but to all inquisitive Jews, and perhaps even non-Jews, who seek to live by these same lights.

          The value and importance of the poetic, the metaphorical, and the ancient religious imagination are vital in Jewish tradition. At the same time, God-language, God-teaching, and God-understanding need to be coherent, comprehensible, and credible if modern Jews are going to hear it.

          In these pages you will find a God that cannot be brushed aside by educated moderns; a God that does not violate the realities of logic or natural law; a God presented in accessible, yet deeply grounded, Jewish language; a God that can be lived with, and lived for.

          Our hope is that this book will help secure a place for a living, non-mythical God at the heart of Jewish life in this generation and in generations to come. We endeavor to strengthen the connections between our people, our faith, and our tradition.

          It is our further goal to impress upon our institutions the need to embrace new and systematic ways of addressing God in formal worship, of hearing God interpreted from the pulpit, of learning about God in classrooms, and of praying to God from future siddurim (“prayerbooks”).

          May our respective strengths strengthen us all— .חזק, חזק, ונתחזק 

          The book is available for sale at Wipf and Stock (www.wipfandstock.com) , the publisher, at  AMAZON and others. 

          Please let us know your reactions.         

Date: April 29, 2022

WHAT IS A "COVENANT"?

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

 The term “covenant” (from the Latin, con, namely “with”, venire, namely, “to come”) refers to “an agreement enacted between two parties in which one or both promises, under oath, to perform or refrain certain actions stipulated in advance” (ABD, 1/1179). The corresponding term in the Hebrew Bible is berit, coming most likely from the Akkadian  biritu, meaning a clasp or a fetter. The Septuagint (3^rd cent. BCE), which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, renders it as diatheke, meaning “will” or “testament.” Thus, Jews have the so-called “Old Testament” (a Christian term) and Christians have the “New Testament.”

           In the Hebrew Bible, a covenant may be established in two different ways:    a) Between two individuals, such as, the covenant signed between King       Solomon and King Hiram, of the city of Tyre (I K 5:26), or

          b) Between God and human beings, such as the covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:9), or, with Abraham (Gen. 15:18), with Phinehas, the priest (Num. 25: 12), with Joshua and the people (Jos. 24:25), with Jehoiada, the priest, and the people (II K 11:17), with king Hezekiah and the people (II Chr.29:10), with Josiah and the people (II K 23:3), with Ezra and the people (Ezra 10:3), and, the crown jewel, with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai, through Moses (Ex.19:5). According to the Rabbis, this covenant includes, not only the Ten Commandments but the entire Torah (i.e., all the Hebrew Scriptures as interpreted by the ancient sages).

           The prophet Jeremiah (6th cent BCE), spoke of a “new covenant” that will be signed in the future between God and the Israelites (Jer.31:31), referring, most likely, to the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian exile and the reconstruction of the second Temple (See, Jewish Study Bible, p. 991). Christians, however, reinterpret this passage as a prophecy through Jesus in the New Testament.

           These covenantal documents were mostly modelled after Hittite covenants of Anatolia (2^nd millennium BCE), either as parity or suzerainty (see examples in ANET, pp. 201ff). They followed a strict literary format that included the following elements: 1. The identification of the covenant giver; 2. The historical prologue; 3. The stipulations; 4. The provision for deposit and public reading; 5. The list of witnesses to the covenant; and 6. The blessings and curses as a means of enforcement.

          Even though, we have many examples of treaties in the ancient Near East, the idea of covenant between a deity and a people is unknown to us from other cultures. In fact, we can state that this covenantal idea is a special feature of the Israelite religion. Jewish sages of the past used the format of legal documents between individuals and applied it to the special relationship between God and others.

           In reality, the concept of berit between God and Israel is more than an agreement between two parties, and implies an  imposition on the part of the deity, as indicated in the Book of Psalms by the expression, “He has commanded his covenant” (Ps. 111: 9). In so doing, God literally “cuts” (karat) a covenant, as clearly stated in Aramaic as gzr ‘ady, by simply imposing unilaterally a pact on the biblical Israelites. The idiom most likely comes from the ceremony that accompanies the covenant by “cutting” (namely, slaughtering) an animal during a ritual.

           How shall we view this concept in our time?  From the perspective of a non-theistic religious naturalism, where God is conceived as the energy of the universe, the idea of a personal God imposing a covenant is hard to accept. Nature acts as it must according to its own rules, and does not discriminate between people. It would be better, I would argue, to reinterpret the covenant as a sign of our own commitment to a particular way of life. Thus, when we say, God made a covenant with Jews, it really means that we are committing ourselves to the pursuit of the high moral standards espoused by the Torah, the text of the covenant. So, Jews can follow the teachings of the Torah as interpreted by the Rabbis (the so-called The Old Testament) and Christians can follow the teachings of the Gospels (the so- called the New Testament) as interpreted by Christian teachers. And we all respect one another.

 Date: 4/6/22