Where was God on Oct. 7?

(RNS) — He stopped me within the aisle at Total Foods.

“Rabbi, it’s good to see you, and I hope you’ve been enjoying your retirement. (Retirement? More like semi-semi-retirement.) But I hope you’re not so retired that you can’t acknowledge a request from me.”

“Scramble for it,” I replied. (Because if I’ve learned anything, it’s that rabbis never retire from answering questions. Or shouldn’t.)

“How can I believe in God after what happened on Oct. 7?”

In a saying.

Because I knew that this would take a while — and other people in the granola section were already trying to steer their shopping carts around us.

Because of that there is no steering any psychological or theological shopping carts around this demand of.

That’s why we at Wisdom Without Walls: an online salon for Jewish ideas proudly invited Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, arguably the most important contemporary Orthodox thinker in the world today, to have a conversation with our people. More than 60 people showed up, just about — on a Sunday afternoon.

Because of the, fancy my interlocutor in Total Foods, they’re struggling with this demand of along with.

It would no longer matter that it’s an old demand of; for contemporary Jews, ever since the Holocaust.

It is an enduring demand of, and human nature being what it is, it will never disappear.

First, about Rabbi Yitz Greenberg.

For the past 50 years, Greenberg has been an important part of my life, and surely one of the people who has shaped both my rabbinate and my Jewish worldview. He has been a maverick; an institution builder; someone who has pushed the boundaries of Orthodoxy in a way that was absolutely fundamental; a remarkable husband to Blu Greenberg who was the first to envision what an Orthodox feminism could also look like; a father, grandfather, great-grandfather, whose family still upholds the teaching of Israel.

This past summer, he graciously invited me to his home in Jerusalem. We spent a day together talking from our hearts, learning, struggling. When it was over, I was shaking and in tears.

His books have influenced me, and quite a complete lot of others. His book on the Jewish holidays, “The Jewish Map: Living the Holidays,” isn’t very any longer perfect the single perfect one-volume introduction to the Jewish vacation cycle, it’s also surely one of the correct introductions to unusual Judaism. It is my No. 1 most commended book for folks who’ve to learn more about Judaism.

Right here’s what he taught us several Sundays within the past.

Once upon a time, in biblical times, we expected that God would establish us. That was the age of miracles, of the divine presence bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and parting the sea, and being invoked to fight against our enemies.

But that’s no longer the way Jewish history, and human history, has unfolded. Over time, the apparent presence of God has receded. The age of miracles has ended.

God recedes, so that you may teach human beings into a greater sense of duty. Human beings are fully free.

God is peaceful presence, within the discovery of Shechinah, the female presence of God who wanders with us, and suffers with us. Shechinah is the hidden mother, concealed but paradoxically nearer. She is everywhere. For Jews, she is most present in our homes, and there, most present in our kitchens!

Rav Yitz taught: By pronouncing blessings and preparing a kosher meal, it’s as if you are bringing sacrifices to God — not in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, long since destroyed — but in your own home. Making love is a way of bringing the Shechinah into the bedroom (or, wherever … )

You think that God is going to repeat the “Ten Commandments” version of the scene on Mount Sinai? Not happening. Those days are over.

As a replace: Ship Shechinah into presence by the utilization of your minds and discovering out the inherited traditions.

It is the human duty — truly, the cardinal Jewish duty — to teach the world into a better state of being.

That is what we mean when we speak of tikkun olam, repairing the world — making the world more hospitable to the divine presence, through the ongoing work of sustaining, reaffirming and strengthening the divine name to hallow life in its every aspect.

After the Holocaust, Jews may have walked away from God. Many did. They may have merely affirmed secularism or embraced nihilism. Again, many did.

The Jews may have walked away from God, but we were so committed to the idea of the redemption of the world that we refused to let God go.

So, where was God on Oct. 7?

God was with the Jews, as God is with all suffering peoples. God was also massacred, abused, burnt alive and tortured. God is with the vulnerable, which includes the vulnerable Palestinians.

Getting back to my excellent friend at Total Foods: Here’s what I wanted to tell him.

It is not my faith in God that suffered on Oct. 7.

It is my faith in humanity, in nations, in leaders, in excessive custom, within the universities, in politics. Those minifaiths were shattered.

God, nevertheless, has emerged intact.

As Shechinah.

What does it mean to make a truly perfect world, to engage in tikkun olam?

It is not to begin with the entire world. It means to begin small — with tikkun atzmi, with repairing oneself; to extend into our households, our communities, our own people (tikkun ha’am) — and from there, to the entire world. That’s why God chose Abraham — to make a mensch, and then a people, with a specific covenant tied to a specific land — all of which could become a blueprint for humanity.

One closing thing.

Let me return to that segment where I mentioned the age of Rav Yitz.

He is 91 years worn.

There has been so much in the press, and in our national political conversations, about the vagaries of advancing age.

Ignore it.

In the words of one of my other rabbis, Bob Dylan, intellectually and spiritually, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg is “forever young.”