Guest columnist Robert Nosanchuk is senior rabbi of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, a community that nurtures love, justice, hope, joy, connection and growth. For more information, see http://fairmounttemple.org.
A rabbi I know was approached by a young student and her family. The student asked if God was sitting next to them.
The rabbi responded that, indeed, Judaism posits that God is sitting next to us, when we open our heart to that possibility.
The student pressed further: “But how do I know that God is here?”
The rabbi responded with the philosophy of taking a leap of faith. “But what do you really want to know?” my colleague asked.
To which the student replied: “Rabbi, does God have an action figure?”
Does God have an action figure? Surely many young children at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple might love for me to say “yes” so their parent could run out to buy them God’s action figure.
But this story is to me just one example of many generations in all faiths, who each long for tangible signs of God’s immanent presence. We have trouble relating to images of a transcendent Holy One at rest. We want “action figures” immanent to and near us, taking action as a redemptive force in the world!
As a rabbi, I hear many adults convey as much as children a longing for God to be at their side, intervening in the world. People want God to take super-heroic actions.
They see disease, violence, racism, anti-Semitism and indifference to all these threats, and they want to know that critical action will be taken in response to such foreboding concerns.
That’s as true today as it was when I was a child playing with action figures, imagining ways for my Batman toy to vanquish the villains wrecking Gotham City.
So who are God’s “action figures?” I believe that we are!
All human beings, created with infinite worth, have within them the capacity to repair our world. We demonstrate our capacity to take such action when we:
• Find compassion for vulnerable people in our midst, such as refugees or citizens returning from incarceration
• Grow our knowledge through education and by listening and respecting viewpoints other than our own
• Protect the holiness of creation in our natural environment
• Act to benefit our society through works of service, volunteerism and advocacy
One way to get in the mindset of an “action figure” and become ready to impact intractable issues is to contemplate the lyrics in the musical “Hamilton.” We must “look around” and see “how lucky we are to be alive right now!”
For perhaps as no time before, we have the capacity right now to bring knowledge, compassion, acceptance and protection to a world desperately in need of such redemptive human conduct.
If there is a God, then, to my mind, these are just some of the ways God would want their immanence to be evidenced. Someone sitting next to us could see us taking actions of healing and activism and realize that, indeed, God is near.
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