How to Live a Good Life by Massimo Pigliucci & Skye Cleary & Daniel Kaufman

Author:Massimo Pigliucci & Skye Cleary & Daniel Kaufman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2020-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

When thinking about God, it is important to consider: What questions are worth asking? Medieval Jews, like their Christian counterparts, tried to find proof for the existence of God, but I don’t believe this is productive. Nor do I find it productive to try to pin down who God is or what qualities God has. Like Maimonides, a rabbi and philosopher of the twelfth century, I believe there is little or nothing positive we can say about God. Our finite minds cannot comprehend the infinite.

And yet, there are Jewish teachings about God that are instructive. One way of understanding the Torah is that it tells the story of humankind’s developing understanding of God and of the way of life God would have us live. This idea is contained in a passage in the Torah itself, a passage that has been copied by the rabbis into the daily prayer service. When God appears to Moses at the burning bush, God says, “I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). The rabbis ask the question, “Why does the text not read simply, ‘God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’? Is not God unchanging?” They answer that although God does not change, our understanding of God, and therefore our relationship with God, does change. Each generation conceives of God and experiences God in its own way.

The Torah is not the only Jewish text that teaches about God. Jewish prayer helps me to frame my relationship with God. Many Jewish prayers begin with a formula: “Blessed are You, Eternal One, Our God, Ruler of the Universe.” While I do not believe that God is an omnipotent ruler, I find this formula worthwhile. Blessing God for things reminds me that not everything that happens is due to my own efforts. I sit here typing on my laptop. I take credit for learning how to type, for choosing my words, and for moving my fingers over the keyboard. But how did I come to have this body that allows me to see and to move and to learn? I cannot take credit for the design of my body or my mind, nor for their development. Remembering that I did not create myself and reminding myself that I cannot control all that happens serves to keep me appropriately humble. I cannot take complete credit for what I accomplish, nor am I entirely to blame for what is wrong in my life, for I do not have complete control over my world.

I also find the words that follow the opening formula to be helpful. One of my favorite sets of prayers is called “the miracles of every day.” Every morning we recite the fifteen prayers in this set, each of which begins with the formula followed by something that we might take for granted. “Blessed are You…who gives the rooster the instinct to distinguish between day and night.” Both the rooster and we are able

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