God as a father

I have mentioned before a line that my therapist told me and that is to view God as a loving zeide (grandfather) rather than an abusive father. It is a beautiful thought. As with everything there is a gap between knowledge and implementation.

I want to explore why I find this ideal to be incredibly difficult to implement.

It has been said that out of The 10 Commandments, the first 5 are of a "bein adam l'makom" nature (between man and God). These include belief in God, not to commit idolatry and shabbos. The last 5 have been said to be "bein adam l'chaveiro" (between man and his friend or fellow man). These include, murder, kidnapping, coveting etc.

One of the 10 commandments is honoring your father and mother. On a simple level we might suggest the idea behind this mitzva is very much "bein adam l'chaveiro" (between man and friend). The concept being to give thanks to your parents for giving you life, raising and supporting you.

However, which number commandment is honoring your parents? Number 5. It is part of the "Bein adam l'makom" mitzvos.

The obvious question is why? While one might say it's really God that gives you life and sustains you etc, that would be a cute approach but doesn't seem to lend to the core of the reasoning and placement of this commandment.

I believe I have the correct (albeit painful) approach.

I wonder if the reason God gave us the mitzvah of honoring our parents is because he wanted us to have a human entity that would serve as a platform to allow us to learn how to honor Him. (Please take that in for a moment). Who in our physical existence would be the best "moshol" or parable for us to use as a means to learn to honor Him? Certainly our parents! All we know as a baby, then an adolescent and into child and adulthood is that our parents are our care givers. They are the ones who are supposed to supply security, comfort and love to us. If we learn to honor them we learn to honor God. We can look at this as a mitzva that squarely falls on us as individuals to learn how to perform. With this logic it is almost more incumbent on the parents to teach us to honor them appropriately so that we can live a life of honor, love and respect toward God.

I believe that a persons relationship with God will mirror their relationship with their parents (specifically in my case with my father). A healthy loving, nurturing and mutual respect between a parent and child will lead to the same with Hashem. A difficult and painful relationship with a parent will leave us feeling that God is the same. I recognize that it's not always this black and white and ones situation can fall anywhere between the two extremes.

I challenge you to think about the relationship you have with Hashem and see if it connected with the relationship you had with the parent that had the more profound influence on your life (Think about your partners, close friends as well and I am confident you will perceive the same pattern).

This is undoubtedly my story as well as many of my close friends.

This is why, while I adored my grandfather and would love to see God in that light, it simply is against teva (nature) and is a lifelong battle.

Confronting the God issue

I started this blog for numerous reasons. One of them was the for the therapeutic benefits of putting thoughts into writing. Writing about my feelings and emotions forces me to face the difficulty of actually thinking through the topic I am writing about. It doesn't allow me the ability to distract myself and send my thoughts elsewhere. One topic I haven't confronted but I've been wanting to write about is the issue I have with my "relationship" (or lack thereof) with Hashem. Understanding the irony of the following request, I ask God to help me write this post with clarity so that I can get to the depth of my emotions and bring them to light in a clear manner .

This I know; I have a love-hate relationship with God. I don't have a problem with belief in Him. I have thought this through. I have read books on emunah and books on atheism. I am comfortable and confident in the belief that there is an infinite, all powerful God who created the world. I don't believe that somehow the world came into existence on its own and evolved to where it is today. I know that sounds simple and pedestrian. Creationism and evolution isn't my topic so I will leave it at that.

Once I established in my mind that there is an infinite God (key word is infinite), I then realized that He has no needs. Since He is infinite, he is perfect. The result of His not having any needs is that He doesn't need to prove himself. He cannot do anything out of spite. He can't act irrational. He can't bear a grudge. He can't hate. He can't be angry and lash out. He can't have a bad day or month and create a disaster to make Himself feel better.

From his state of perfection, He created all the poverty, wealth, disease, health, anger, sadness, joy and gladness in the world. He created heterosexuality and homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexualism. That which He gives challenges and difficulties to people can't be malicious. In fact, when we say, "It's all for the best", It's not that we just have faith. If you believe in God, this has to be true. It has to be for the best because there really is no other option.

For me though there is a clear gap between belief and implementation, between knowing and doing.

Based on what I have written, I should understand that my homosexuality is critical to my existence. I need it and it is for the best. I should not be angry with God because he would never have given me this challenge without it being exactly what is perfect for me.

Yet, I am human. I am still angry. There are still many questions; What possible good can come from this loneliness and pain? What exactly does He want from me at this point? Why does this area of my life dominate the very core of my being so powerfully? Why can't I feel good about myself and my personal accomplishments?

I ask myself if I am blaming Him for a self made predicament. I chose to get married and thus far I choose to stay married. I chose to have children. I choose to stay in the closet. Is this all my own doing?

At the same time, at every point in my life in which those decisions were made it all seemed to make sense. I don't know that I could have done any different. Maybe this is all part of the "good"? Is this "all for the best"?

I have no answers. I don't know that I ever will. The questions really make it difficult though to connect with Hashem. It's hard to connect with something that I associate with so much pain.

I still daven and learn every day. I still put keep kosher and shabbos. I do it because I believe it is the correct thing. The problem is that the meaning and beauty of it is gone because I can't break down the barrier that should allow me to use these mitzvos as a means for connection.

I hope this all makes sense. This topic is far from over. I wanted to get some initial thoughts on the table. I hope you can share your thoughts so that I (we) can continue to challenge myself (ourselves) and together we can develop and grow to get some clarity in this area.

Thank you for reading and sharing.