14 May THE UNIVERSITY CRISIS PROVIDES A HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY THE DANGER WHEN MY COMFORT ZONES AND FEARS BECOME MY GOD

Every evening, I
turn my worries
over to God. He’s
going to be up all
night anyway.
— Mary C. Crowley
God loved the birds
and invented trees. Man loved the birds
and invented cages. — Jacques Deval
The University Protests
Our universities have been a source of
longing for countless American Jewish
families. Jewish immigrant parents
labored tirelessly to send their children to
higher education institutions, where they
would become integrated into the larger
society and build successful futures.
The chaos we are observing in the
universities today, with protesters,
including many Jews, calling for the
death of their own people, the destruction
of their homeland, and the country that
has given them so much freedom, is
horrific and tragic beyond words.
Still, like every crisis, it contains a
historic opportunity for rebirth.
The present moral confusion of so many
students and their academic leaders will
teach a whole generation how twisted the
human mind can become when divorced
from truth; how when we strip G-d from
all reality and are left to figure things out
with our brilliance alone, Hitler, Stalin,
and Bin Laden can become tzaddikim.
“The genesis of all wisdom is the awe of
G-d,” we read in the Tehillim (Ch. 111).
Without respect for G-d, without the
recognition that there is something called
Reality, there is a truth in the universe,
enlightened academics can align
themselves with murderers, rapists, and
genocidal terrorists.
Just as Allah, without any logic and
reason, can produce Islamist monsters, so
too logic without G-d, without respect for
absolute truth, produce liberal monsters,
calling for the death and rape of 6 million
Jews. The protesters at the universities
have turned their views and perspectives
into a god, and are stuck in a new form of
idol worship, not open to challenging
themselves in any real way. This dogma
creates the death of ideas and all
emotional, intellectual, and spiritual
growth.
This is our historic opportunity. We can,
at last, say goodbye to the idol we created
entitled “higher secular education.” It is

corrupt, sinister, and a breeding ground
for Nazi supporters. We can educate a
new generation of Jews with the timeless,
eternal values of Torah and Mitzvos,
which teach us sanity, decency, honesty,
and the sanctity of life. This will allow all
of our children to distinguish between
good and evil, death and life, and truly
celebrate the sanctity of life.
Metal Gods?
“Do not make yourselves gods out of
cast metal, the Torah instructs us in the
portion of Kedoshim.
How could any intelligent person
believe a piece of metal is a god? We
could perhaps appreciate how ancient
pagan societies attributed divine qualities
to powerful, transcendent forces of
nature, like the Zodiac signs, the sun, the
moon, the galaxies, the wind, fire, water,
etc. But why would a thoughtful human
believe god could be fashioned out of
cast metal?
Even if we can explain how such an idea
could have been entertained seriously in
the ancient, pagan world, how does this
commandment in Torah—a timeless
blueprint for human life—apply to our
lives today?
I once encountered a beautiful
interpretation of these words. This
biblical verse—”Do not make yourselves
gods out of cast metal”—tells us not to
construct a god of a lifestyle and a
weltanschauung that has become like
“cast metal;” one that is cast and solidified
in a fixed mold.
A natural human tendency is to worship
what we have become comfortable with.
We worship our habits, patterns, attitudes,
routines, and inclinations because we
have accustomed ourselves to them, and
they are now part of our lives. We worship
the icons, culture, perspective, and
emotions we have been raised with; we
surrender to what has become the norm in
our communities, schools, and homes.
People love that which does not surprise
them; we want to enjoy a god that suits
our philosophical and emotional
paradigms and comfort zones. We tend to
embrace a fixed and molten god.
This is true for religious and secular
people, for believers and self-proclaimed
atheists or agnostics. “Don’t rock my
neural pathways” is the call of our
psyche. “I already have an established
god; do not threaten it… I have my own
patterns of thought and life systems,

which I am used to. Do not challenge it.
If you do, I will have no choice but to
dismiss you as a heretic or a boor. “
Sometimes, a religious person invests
his or her entire life into constructing a
particular image of G-d, of truth, of
ultimate reality. To let go of that is simply
too painful. To even entertain the idea
that my entire religion may be man-made
in so many ways is profoundly
challenging.
If you speak to so many people today
who call themselves secular, scientific,
free from dogma and indoctrination, you
can notice how they too often create
secular gods, which one may never
challenge or question. It is appalling how,
in the name of openness and tolerance,
people can become so vengeful and
supportive of pure evil.
Raw Truth
Comes the Torah and declares: Do not
turn your pre-established mold into your
G-d. Do not turn your habits, natural
patterns of thought, fears, inclinations, or
addictions into a deity. Allow yourself to
search for the truth. The real truth—
naked, raw, and authentic, even if painful.
Life is about challenge, not conformity.
Allow your soul to be enchanted by
mystery.
Never say, “This is the way I am; this is
how I do things; I cannot change.” Never
think, “This is the worldview I am
comfortable with; any other way must be
wrong.” Rather, muster the courage to
challenge every instinct, temptation, and
convention; question every dogma,
including dogmas that speak in the name
of open-mindedness and are embraced
simply because you fall back on that
which you have been taught again and
again. Let your life not become enslaved
to a particular pattern just because it has
been that way for many years or decades.
G-d, the real G-d, is not defined by any
conventions; let your soul, too, not be
confined by any external conventions.
Experience the freedom of your Creator.
Often, we fall prey to a certain image of
what our lives are supposed to look like;
what our marriages or children are
supposed to look like; what our mission
is supposed to look like. But this is
another way of fashioning our god with
the tools of our understanding. There
comes a point I need to open myself up to
the possibility that perhaps my purpose in
life is completely different than what I

imagined; I need to stop asking what I
want from G-d and start asking what G-d
wants from me.
It is a serious paradigm shift. But it sets
you free.
Judaism never articulated who G-d is
and what G-d looks like. It taught us what
G-d does NOT look like: G-d ought never
to be defined by any image we attribute
to Him, hewn by the instruments of our
conscious or subconscious needs, fears,
and aspirations. In Jewish philosophy,
never mind in Kabbalah and Chassidic
thought, we never speak of what G-d is;
only of what He is not: G-d is not an
extension of my being or imagination.
The common Yiddish term for G-d used
by some of the greatest Jewish mystics,
thinkers, and holy men and women is
“Oybershter,” which means “higher.”

Not Creator, not Master, not All-
Powerful, but “Higher.” What this term

represents is this idea: I do not know
what He is; all I know is that whatever
my definition of truth and reality,
whatever my definition for G-d — He is
“higher” than that. All I know is that I do
not know.
To be open to the G-d of the Torah
means to be open to never-ending
mystery, infinite grandeur, limitless
sublimity, and possibility; it is the
profound readiness at every moment of
life to open ourselves to transcendence.
And what was transcendent yesterday —
can become a form of exile today.
Transcendence itself must also be
transcendent, for it too can become a trap.
And that which remains of your
ambitions and desires after you have
faced all of your fears and challenged
your defenses is where your will meets
G-d’s will. At that point of complete
humility and sincerity, you become truly
one with yourself, one with the inner core
of reality.
In the words of the Zohar, “No thought,
no idea, can grasp Him; yet He can be
grasped with the pure desire of the heart.”