When will God speak to me?

When will God speak to me? As a Yeshiva student in my early twenties, I was on a serious spiritual quest. I would pray intensely, and yearned to receive a response from God. I was looking for direction in making some difficult decisions, and wanted God to guide me; and I was also struggling with questions about faith, and I hoped that a divine revelation would banish my doubts.

I became interested then in the Goral HaGra, or the lottery of the Vilna Gaon, named for the 18th century Rabbi Elijah of Vilna. (It should be noted that this practice is far older than the 18th century, and quite controversial as well; Maimonides condemns this practice as a desecration of God’s name.) There are multiple versions of how to conduct this lottery, but the basic practice is to take a Tanakh and to turn pages at random in different directions seven times; then a verse is picked at random on the chosen page. That verse will offer clear guidance for what to do next.

The most famous use of the Goral HaGra occurred on December 17th, 1950. In January 1948, the Haganah had sent a group of 35 reinforcements to the kibbutzim of Gush Etzion, which were besieged by Arab forces. They were killed in an ambush, and buried in temporary graves. After the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the 35 soldiers were returned from Jordanian-controlled territory for burial in Har Herzl. However, when they were brought back, only 23 of the original graves were still properly marked; the remaining 12  were reburied in unmarked graves. The families of those 12 unidentified soldiers were extremely distressed. They turned to Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, who referred them to Rav Aryeh Levin, the famed tzadik of Jerusalem, to ask him to use the Goral HaGra to identify the graves. Rav Levin initially said no, but after meeting the families, agreed to do so. The night of December 17th, Rabbi Levin, together with two representatives of the bereaved families, his son, and his son in law, gathered in a small Beit Midrash. They lit 12 candles, and recited Psalms. Then they began the Goral HaGra, selecting a verse in Tanakh to determine who was in each unmarked grave. And each time they did the Goral HaGra, the verse chosen contained the first name or last name of one of the unidentified soldiers. With this miraculous revelation, the graves could now be properly marked.

Sometime after I read this remarkable story, I faced a significant personal decision, and decided to try the Goral HaGra myself; and it was an abject failure. Each time, the verse seemed comically irrelevant, an absolute non sequitur. Not only did the Goral HaGra not give me guidance, it seemed to mock my very interest in it. Several times over the following months, I tried this method again, and each time, it failed. I was not going to hear the word of God by flipping the pages of a Tanakh. So where would I find my revelation?

Shavuot celebrates the moment of awe and trembling when God spoke to the Jewish people at Sinai. While prophecy has long disappeared, the quest to hear God’s word never stopped. Some sought to find revelation in the everyday. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch thought that our moral intuitions carry traces of the divine, and that, humanity and justice and all the spiritual and ethical qualities of mankind received their eternal confirmation through this Divine echo in man’s heart. Rav Chaim of Volozhin (1749-1821), was asked by another Rabbi to offer a ruling regarding an Agunah, a woman whose husband was assumed to have drowned, but there were doubts regarding the evidence. He felt compelled to find a way to release this woman from her marriage, and wrote, I have consulted with my creator, and saw it was my obligation to use all my might to find a solution for agunot; may God save me from mistakes. In his quest to help this Agunah, Rav Chaim heard God’s voice urging him to help her; he saw this moral imperative as nothing less than a divine revelation.

Everyday revelation can also be found in the ordinary and mundane, in what Rabbi Avraham Joshua Heschel calls radical amazement. It requires us to look at the world with wonder, and experience revelation in the song of a bird and the blossom of the tree. This is another form of everyday revelation; and even those who did not stand at Sinai can hear the voice of God, both in the world around us, and within our own hearts.

Perhaps the search for revelation can stop here, content with the knowledge that there is more than enough divine inspiration in the everyday. But many of us thirst for more. And sometimes, if we keep looking, we can experience the extraordinary. The Talmud refers to a divine communication called a Bat Kol. What does this term mean? The 12th century commentary Yad Ramah translates this as an echo, when one hears God’s voice indirectly. But the Bat Kol need not be an actual voice; sometimes there are coincidences that seem just a bit too remarkable to ignore, and are an extraordinary revelation. Yes, I know that mathematicians will tell you that you need to always expect the unexpected, and that life will always have random moments. But when you see the world with radical amazement, you see beyond the numbers, and recognize these coincidences as a moment when God is winking at you.

When I got older and moved past my Yeshiva student stage, I became much more of a rationalist, and I was no longer on a quest. But even rationalists can sometimes experience a coincidence that makes them pause; and so it was for me. My wife Lisa and I had struggled to have children into the third year of our marriage. One Friday night, after a long week, we chose to have dinner at home alone. During Kiddush, we heard a knock on the door. Outside was a young Chassidic man with his very pregnant wife. They had gotten stuck in traffic and had to get off the highway before Shabbat began. After finding their way to the local Reform Synagogue, they got directions to our home over a mile away. We had not been prepared for guests, but happily shared our home with our unexpected visitors. Lisa and I felt that taking in unexpected guests was our special obligation; after all, that Shabbat the Torah reading was about how Avraham and Sarah show exceptional hospitality to three strangers. It turns out that the three strangers who visit Avraham and Sarah are angels; and they are there to inform the old couple that they will finally have a child. Avraham and Sarah have a son one year later. And, as it turns out, after inviting in unexpected, pregnant guests, Lisa and I had twin boys ten months later. This young couple were not angels; but there is no doubt in our minds that they were malachim, messengers from God. We were hearing a divine echo.

When will God speak to us? First, we might want to consider how carefully we are listening, because a bit of wonder changes what one can hear.

The Selfish Person's Guide to Love

Self-interest has a bad moral reputation; it seems so ugly when compared to love. Self-interest is egotistical and materialistic, while love is beautiful enough that one can imagine a world built on love alone; as the Beatles put it: “All you need is love.” This negative reputation is undeserved, because self-interest is absolutely critical. The Talmud tells of a time when the Rabbis captured the evil inclination and society immediately fell apart. Desire and self-interest make the world a better place.

Sometimes idealists ignore their own interests; that too is a mistake. I had a friend in Montreal who constantly would tell me that “You need to take care of your mother's son” (i.e., myself). It was his way of pointing out that if there is a moral obligation to help others, it should be accompanied by a moral obligation to help yourself. The ethics of self-interest is a significant issue in Halakhah, and the subject of the following passage in the Talmud (Bava Metzia 62a):

Two people were walking on a desolate path and they had only one jug of water; if both drink from the jug, both will die, but if only one of them drinks, he will survive long enough to reach a settled area. Ben Petora taught: It is preferable that both of them drink and die, and let neither one of them see the death of the other. This was the accepted opinion until Rabbi Akiva came and taught that the verse states: “And your brother shall live with you,” indicating that your life takes precedence over the life of the other.

Rabbi Akiva and Ben Petora debate whether you are allowed to put your life before the lives of others. This question has long interested philosophers. Rabbi Saul Lieberman notes that a similar moral dilemma is posed by Cicero. But this Talmudic passage came to the forefront in the last century in a debate regarding the role of love in Jewish thought.

In 1910, Ahad Ha'am wrote an essay attacking the views of Claude Montefiore on love. Montefiore was a great-nephew of Moses Montefiore, and a renowned Jewish leader and scholar. Montefiore had just completed a commentary to the Gospels, in which he argued that the New Testament at times better expressed the essence of Judaism than the Talmud. Montefiore focused on the Christian ideal of love as one that kept to the “prophetic temperament.” Ahad Ha'am responded by attacking the very idea that love should be a society’s fundamental value; instead, he argues that justice is a more appropriate moral foundation. He points to this Talmudic passage in Bava Metzia, which instructs the person with the jug to drink the water, even though his companion will die. Ahad Ha’am explains Rabbi Akiva’s ruling as an imperative for people to take care of themselves first before caring for others. Ethics must be objective, and take into account what is good for everyone in equal measure. This, he explains, is why you are meant to love your neighbor as yourself. Even our love for others must not undermine our love for ourselves, and this love must ensure that both parties are treated with respect. (Ahad Ha’am adds that this is true of nations as well; to pursue peace should not require you to renounce your own existence.) Ahad Ha’am asserts that it is unethical to sacrifice yourself for others.

Ahad Ha’am’s view is both right and wrong at the same time. Yes, you can’t expect self-sacrifice from everyone. But one is permitted to be a hero. Rav Avraham Isaac Kook argues that even Rabbi Akiva would allow the owner of the jug to offer the water to their friend, so that the friend will live instead of them. Rabbi Akiva simply says: Don’t split the water and die together. The ruling is pragmatic, demanding that at least one person use this water to live. But, of course, a hero may choose to give his life to save the lives of others. Rav Kook’s view is more than an academic ruling; in the course of history, many a hero has chosen to sacrifice their own life for the sake of others.

Ahad Ha’am’s mistake is in failing to recognize that there are two levels of ethics. There is one of justice, which is based on the understanding that “What’s mine is mine and what's yours is yours” (Avot 5:10). Without this reasonable foundation, society would disintegrate. But there is a higher level of ethical standards, that of the “chasid,” the pious individuals, who will offer unreciprocated kindness and go beyond the letter of the law. They are the heroes who will hand the other person the last bottle of water, and jump on a grenade to protect their fellow soldiers.

Most of us are not at the level of the “chasid,” and struggle with love. We struggle precisely because of what Rabbi Akiva taught; we cannot expect an ordinary person to sacrifice themselves for others. God created humanity with an inborn self-interest, which is critical to ensure that we take care of ourselves. But at the same time, this self-interest makes it difficult to put others first. 

But what if our egos could teach us how to love? This is not as absurd as it sounds. Rav Shimon Shkop, in the introduction to his Sha’arei Yosher, discusses our problem: We have a God-given instinct for self-love, and at the same time are commanded to love others. How can we reconcile these diametrically opposed demands? His solution is brilliant. He says that the commandment to love others is a command to redefine who we are. He writes that: The entire “I” of a coarse and lowly person is restricted only to his substance and body. Above him is someone who feels that his “I” is a synthesis of body and soul. And above him is someone who can include in his “I” all of his household and family. Someone who walks according to the way of the Torah, his “I” includes the whole Jewish people... And there are more levels in this of a person who is whole, who can connect his soul to feel that all of the world and worlds are his “I”, and he himself is only one small limb in all of creation. Then, his self-love helps him love ... all of creation.

This is how a selfish person can learn how to love; by seeing themselves as interconnected with everyone around them. For many of us, we experience this feeling with family. Rav Shimon Shkop reminds us that we can take this idea further, and embrace an even larger definition of what “I” means; we can learn to identify ourselves completely with the Jewish people, all of humanity, and even all living beings. This oceanic feeling that we are a part of a larger whole allows us to redefine ourselves, and redefine our self-interest.

Rav Aryeh Levin was known as the Tzadik of Jerusalem because of his exceptional compassion. There's an oft repeated anecdote about the day he took his wife to the doctor. When they entered into the doctor’s office, Rav Aryeh blurted out, “My wife's foot is hurting us.” Rav Aryeh’s total identification with his wife is inspiring, and to this day this anecdote is used by marriage instructors in Israeli yeshivot as the paradigm of what a good marriage is all about. But Rav Aryeh’s example goes beyond marriage, and is the perfect illustration of what love ought to be. Love is not about sacrificing yourself; it is about embracing others as a part of your own identity. Then, when you embrace others, offering devotion isn’t a sacrifice.

No man is an island, and the welfare of others is my welfare, as well. With this realization, even the most self-interested of people can learn how to love.