Title: My View of God

Since the very beginning of his Existence, Man attributed the things that he saw, but could not understand to a number of gods. These gods, he supposed, ruled certain areas in the relations with men.

For example,

if a man needed food, he prayed to the god of the hunt to be “good” to him and to allow him to catch a fat deer. These gods became more and more numerous until it occurred to someone that there must be a God Who Ruled the Gods Who Ruled the People.

As time went on, it became apparent that one could get a “better harvest” on his prayers if he went to the headman instead of some middleman. The middle gods fell by the wayside and died.

From the need of man to have a feeling of being loved and protected by “someone” came the concept of God.

Now it is academically impossible to prove that there is a God.

No one has ever seen Him, or taken His picture, or been able to prove of a conversation with Him. However, if we first assume that there is no God, then it becomes immediately evident that there is a God, for if we look at our solar system, with its bodies moving with orderly and predictable motion, we knowthat this cannot be an accident … it couldn’t just “happen” … someone had to make it happen.

This someone is God.

I know this “God” well … many people are afraid of Him, others worship Him because they are afraid not to, but I look on God as sort of a brother-father combination. He is brother-like in His love for me and never dying faith in me. He is always encouraging me, and is perpetually getting me out of tight spots.

He is father-like in that He is forgiving. He has taught me to try to do what I think is Right. If, in trying to do Right, I make an honest mistake, He forgives me. But if I neglect to do what I know to be right, then He always punishes me in some way or the other.

He may not do it today or tomorrow, but I always get my Reward.

Another father-like quality is His guidance.

He never commands me, He suggests through my conscience, that I ought to do thus and so, and He has taught me to weigh one of His wishes against another and to pick the more important.

For Example,

whether or not to help someone who needs my help instead of going somewhere for my own pleasure. When I don’t follow His suggestions, my conscience usually bothers me until I wish I had.

A very interesting fact is, that when I ask God to do me a favor, I rarely get it … but when I ask Him to help me to do it myself, I always receive the help.

This is how I see God …

but what is His place in what we call Religion?

Have you ever wondered whether or not Judiasm was the “true” religion … perhaps Catholicism is the “true” religion and we Jews just think that ours is the right one.

Does God just love Jews … or just Catholics?

Obviously not!

God loves all men … then all Religions must be the “true” Religion. From this we see that the God Jews see is the very same God that Catholics see, but seen through a different picture frame!

Religion, then, is not the Way we Worship,

but the way in which we lead our lives and conduct ourselves in the execution of what we see as God’s wishes.

Speech delivered to the Congregation of Temple Beth El
by Robert Jorrie
Dec. 23, 1960