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How precious and consistent is the ancient wisdom of Jewish tradition!  Even now, our High Holy Day liturgy manages to take eagle-eyed aim at our anxiety.

On Rosh HaShanah it is written; on Yom Kippur it is sealed:
Who shall live and who shall die
Who shall see ripe age and who shall not
Who shall perish by fire and who by water
Who by sword and who by beast
Who by earthquake and who by plague
Who by strangling and who by stoning
Who shall be secure and who shall be driven
Who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled
Who shall be poor and who shall be rich
Who shall be humbled and who exalted.

This High Holy Day season finds too many of us troubled and driven.  Yet with all of our well-earned angst, Judaism still gives us cause for hope.

A couple of years ago, John Mayer released a song titled “Waiting on the World to Change.”   I’ve read that Mayer wrote this song as a gentle critique of Generation Y.  I hope he meant it as a critique of someone.  Because simply sitting back and waiting isn’t going to change anything.  Judaism is first and foremost an activist faith.  Prayer is wonderful and can be healing in a variety of ways.  But if we really want our problems to go away, we have to do something.  As our liturgy reminds us: “Pray as if everything depended on God; act as if everything depended on you.”  Like the legendary Nachshon at the shore of the Red Sea, we have to wade on in if we expect the waters to part.

In my Introduction to Judaism class, I teach an “on one foot” mini-survey course about God.  We begin, naturally, with the bold outlines of Torah and rabbinic literature – God is One, Unique, acts in history, is the Creator of all,” etc.  We continue by discussing the diverse theologies of thinkers like Maimonides, Spinoza, Buber, and Kaplan.  Through this discussion, we discover that Judaism is not at all dogmatic about faith.  The one thing our theologians have in common is a belief in the Oneness of God.  Some hold fast to the idea of a very personal God; others to a Great Force of the Universe or “prime mover.” Some say that God’s power transcends science; others teach that God’s creations must conform to scientific principles.  From Maimonides we learn the widely-embraced Jewish principle of free will; yet other great Jewish minds held fast to the idea of determinism.

Alongside this confusing cacophony of Jewish voices, we hear the proclaimers of other faiths declaring their certitude (though perhaps the volume only serves to drown out their own doubts!).  Worse, some of their self-appointed representatives politicize their faith and attempt to impose its restrictions and dogmas on us.  Locally, we’ve seen this manifest in everything from the posting of “In God We Trust” posters in our children’s classrooms, to the promotion of “abstinence only” teen health curriculums, to a (defeated) proposal from a member of a school board asking that body to sign on in support of Proposition 8.  Nationally, one political party has included in its platform a statement of intent to work toward a Constitutional amendment banning abortion.

These are not matters for political policy; they are matters of personal faith.  What one believes about abortion or marriage or the creation of the universe is the purview of religion, not of government – and our government was founded on the principle that faith ought not to be legislated.

Beyond  -- might we suggest, because of? – those who are “entirely too certain,” there are also those naysayers who insist that religion itself is the source of much of the hatred and violence that plagues our world.  “Books such as Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation" and "The End of Faith," Richard Dawson's "The God Delusion," Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great" and Bill Maher's soon-to-be-released film, "Religulous," would have us see faith as antiquated, illogical and dangerous. In a world where religion is the cause of so much folly, faith is harder to defend (reports The Jewish Journal’s Tom Teicholz).

With so much distortion around the issue of faith, is it any wonder that we’re muddled about its significance?

My colleague, Joe Black of Albuquerque, New Mexico, just released a new Chanukah album, which includes a song I wish the world could hear.  The chorus says:

Faith is not a flag you can wave
Faith is not a soul you can save
When our earthly days are done, and we face the setting sun
We’ll give thanks not for what we had, but for what we gave.
Oh, faith is not a flag you can wave.
Each day we build our masterpiece, the vision of our dreams
The answer to our own caprice is never what it seems.

The verses of Rabbi Black’s song are narratives about real faith – not as some theological argument, but faith as demonstrated by action: A construction worker who anonymously secretes his faith-inspired art on upside of ceiling support beam, where no human eye can spy it.  A woman who, though living in the narrowest sense of the word – bedridden and ill – never complains, but is grateful just to wake up each morning.  She shares her stories and her strength with those who visit her, making them feel as if they and not she are the beneficiaries of those visits.   Then there’s the teacher working in the underprivileged school, who pours his heart and soul each day into lifting up the lives and minds of his students.

You see, the details of the Divinity you believe in are – well, just details.  What matters is the faith you embody in your daily life. “Monotheism,” writes Rabbi David Wolpe, ‘is based on "not how you treat God, but how you treat others’ -- and in that respect, religion may be seen as a brake on human nature's more evil inclinations.”

Of course, faith can also be a salve, or as Simon and Garfunkel put it, "a bridge over troubled waters."  A recent article reprinted in the Jewish Journal was about the apparent religious revival going on around Wall Street.  Churches in the neighborhood have reported a surge in attendance.  As for the venerable Wall Street Synagogue – founded, not coincidentally, after the stock market crash of 1929 – its rabbi has noticed not so much an increase in attendance, as a change in the demeanor of the members of his minyan.

We live in challenging times.  Given those challenges, it is easy to surrender to hopelessness and helplessness and “why me?”  But that isn’t what Judaism prescribes.  Even when we’re suffering – especially when we’re suffering - something is asked of us.  We do have free will.  We have choices.

As our liturgy reminds us:
U’teshuvah, u’tefilah, utzedakah
Ma’avirin et ra hag’zerah
Repentance, prayer and righteousness
Temper the evil of the decree.

If we repent of our errors; if we through prayer search our innermost selves for the Godliness within; if we rise from our stupor and our grief to serve and bless others and create more justice in our world, we will be redeemed from our suffering.  We will write for ourselves a new chapter in the eternal book of life.

Rabbi Cheryl Rosenstein is with Temple Beth El in Bakersfield.