EMET: Truth -- Established and Otherwise

There is truth and there is truth.

This is the truth:
The world is dreadful and frightening.
The world is persistently delightful.

This is the truth:
God is a lawgiver.

God is indifferent.

This is the truth:
God is real.

God is a metaphor.

This is the truth:

Religion ensures survival.

Religion kills.

This is the truth:

There is objective truth.

There is only doubt.

Stories and psalms and prophecies,

Learning and ritual and tradition,

We accumulate it all and amidst the contradictions
We try to capture truth 
Within the knowing and the not knowing
For our ancestors, ourselves, and our children.

It is amusing and sad and heroic

That we stubbornly persist
In describing
That which is inherently and permanently
Impossible to describe.

Blessed One-ness

We acknowledge our ridiculous insistence

On ultimate truth.

And give thanks for our small portion of it.

As true as the Ain Sof,
As true as what we ate for breakfast.

There is truth and there is truth,
Emet v'emet.

Amen.

Doubt As An Act of Faith

The latest issue of VOICES, the journal of Kolot Chayeinu.

Our Rebbitzin, Kathryn Conroy, coined the phrase, “Doubt can be an act of faith,” which was then incorporated into our mission statement. When Kolot members first heard this phrase, we all instantly recognized the truth of it, but rarely discussed what it actually meant.

In this issue of VOICES, we do.

I am the editor, and this issue features a great piece by Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, and many other writers including Scott Fox, Arthur Goldwag, Nancy Workman, Raul Rothblatt and myself, all of whom are members of our congregation.

To see other issues of VOICES going back some years, go here.