Angry Abby of Pennsylvania writes,
Dear Future Rabbi,
I have a boyfriend who lives in New Jersey and we don't get to see each other very often but he says he's stopped believing in god. He says that every time he prays to god, his only answer is tears and hardship. What can I tell him to bring him back?
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1 comment:
Dear "Angry",
I am saddened to hear about your boyfriends losing his faith. Unfortunately, it seems to be very common these days for people to stop believing in God. What people do not realize is that by not believing in God the only person they hurt is themselves. Love is one of the most beautiful and greatest emotion a person can ever feel. The bible teaches, most noticeably in the books of Job and Jonah, that we are meant to love, not fear, God. The thing is if we believe in God it really is easy to love "Him". When I look around and I see grass, wood, people, everything I see what God has done for me. When alone, or just feeling down, I know that God is there to listen.
Your boyfriend, along with many other people, may be having problems finding God because he is not looking properly. Your boyfriend brings up a great question he says "his answer is only tears and hardships". If God was real why does he allow horrible things to happen? The problem with this question is that it has an expectation that God "meddles". The bible shows that God no longer controls the world, it doesn't say he has abandoned us, but he has taught us how to live, through giving us the bible, and then slowly weaned us off his miracles. Judaism teaches that one should not wait for miracles. It is better to look for a more spiritual and deistic God, one who speaks to us and guides us but is no longer physically active. Remember God created the natural world so any natural event is an effect of God, yet at the same time it is a natural effect of God, not God smiting us.
Sorry, I think I may have gotten a bit off track, so I'll get back to it by giving you some advice to help your boyfriend. First, you must not try to force your boyfriend to believe, this will only push him away. Your boyfriend may not be praying properly, and this would definitely put a damper upon his beliefs, liturgy is a beautiful thing, if you believe in it, but it doesn't work for everyone. I would suggest he try meditating by himself, and just speaking to God as he would to a friend. I also think it is a good idea to show him what I said in the first two paragraphs, if we can understand that God is not meant to control the world then we can understand why bad things happen. My last suggestion is to let him know that God loves him no matter what, just like a parent, but in order to feel that love he must open himself to it.
God Bless,
Future Rabbi Gupe
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