PRACTICING THE PRESENCE OF GOD

Last night I attended a class for single moms where I am a mentor. The teaching was on the story of Hagar from the Book of Genesis. Rather than concentrating on Sarah in this story of the beginning of the Jewish people, the teacher highlighted Hagar, the Egyptian slave. Hagar had no voice in the way her life was going and no husband to protect or provide for her. After being mistreated by Sarah while she was pregnant, she ran away to the desert. She was alone, pregnant and facing a grim future. But, as the Scriptures relate, the angel of the Lord found her and told her to go back and submit to her mistress as her son would be the father of a great nation. The story is told as if there is nothing unusual about an angel turning up to help someone out of a dire situation. What fascinated me was Hagar’s declaration after this amazing encounter. “You are the God who sees me...Now I have seen the One who sees me.” This simple but profound revelation is the core of a belief in God. At the end of the class I went up to the teacher and told her a truth that close friend Bobi Stern had told me many times before. She had heard a rabbi say that we are all living our lives in the presence of God and if we realized that, we would live our lives differently. This did not mean that God was snooping around, watching to see what we did wrong and then pouncing on us about it. It meant that we are never alone but have a loving God who is there for us in times of joy and sorrow. There’s no question that we would be more at peace and make better choices if we included what I call The God Factor. This is not to say that I don’t often forget about this truth myself when difficult situations arise. Hagar was to make another trip to the wilderness, this time at Sarah’s request. Her son was a threat to Isaac in Sarah’s mind, and she urged Abraham to send her and the boy away. Again, Hagar found herself alone and without food and water. As she put the young Ishmael under a tree to die, she began sobbing. It wasn’t long before the same Angel of the Lord appeared and spoke to her. (Not bad for an Egyptian woman who didn’t even know the God who had revealed Himself to Abraham.) Again, she was comforted and opened her eyes to see a well in front of her that would provide fresh water for her and her son. Throughout the Bible there are stories of what we would call miracles – God’s intervening in the events of people’s lives often by sending an angel to help them. But there are still miracles with us today. If you have ever read Small Miracles for the Jewish Heart, you will be amazed by how many present day stories there are about extraordinary happenings in the lives of ordinary people. As I watched the faces of these single moms light up, I knew the teacher had given these women what they came for – hope that things would get better and they were not alone. All of this took place in the context of community – people getting together to enjoy and help one another. And if there is one thing that Jews excel at, it’s creating a community. Beginning with Shabbat dinners and Passover seders in our homes, we have made the family the first and foremost “community” we are part of. But for those of us who don’t have the luxury of a nearby family, there is a new option: OurJewishCommunity.org. This is an online congregation that a young rabbi is leading according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. For her online Seder, Rabbi Baum’s guest list was about 400 though “it is not as if we will run out of gefilte fish,” she said. Another rabbi led his home Seder on a widescreen TV, not around the dining room table. His high-tech version was just another way to get his guests more engaged with the story of Passover. For Jewish young people who live in the world of iPads and YouTube, there are religious leaders who are attempting to connect with them through the technology that defines their lifestyles. Whatever the means, we all want to know that we are not alone and that someone is always there for us. If we don’t quite believe in “the God who sees us,” can we believe that there is something miraculous in the helping hand of a friend or the hug of a child? Our experiences may not be as dramatic as Hagar’s but they can be just as life changing.