According to Elie Wiesel,
For a Jew to believe in G-d is good. For a Jew to protest against G-d is still good. But simply to ignore G-d--that is not good. Anger, yes. Protest, yes. Affirmation, yes. But indifference? No. You can be a Jew with G-d. You can be a Jew against G-d. But not without G-d.
I realized tonight that the only time I feel I authentically address G-d, that I am speaking to Someone, is when I, to use Wiesel's phrasing, "protest against G-d." When something in me refuses to accept the brokenness of the world, when I demand--and it is a demand, not a plea or a request--that the world be other than it is. That it be just, that suffering not be pointless. That, to bring the explanation down to what's really in my heart, life not be so fucked up in so many fucking ways. It's only in those times, when my protest comes in words or in this surging anger or sorrow at . . . well, at G-d . . . that I feel connected to what is Holy, what is True, what is Divine. My prayers are accusations, condemnations, indictments.
Or, better, my accusations, condemnations, and indictments are prayers.
I tell people I'm an atheist (why I converted as an atheist is another conversation, yes), but am I truly if I feel so disappointed, so heartbroken by the world, if I demand that it not be this way, if I point a finger at G-d for it all? (No, I'm not denying human agency in helping to fuck things up; but (a) Who supposedly gave us agency and (b) our agency doesn't come close at in explaining everything that happens to us, now does it?). In the introduction to his rendering of the Job, Stephen Mitchell says that "[a]ll this bewilderment and outrage couldn't be so intense if Job didn't truly love G-d. He senses that in spite of appearances there is somewhere an ultimate justice, but he doesn't know where."
Am I with G-d, the G-d Who seems not with us?
