So, in a day and age when science offers me so much possibility to discover the “secrets” of my Universe, my planet, my own body and the tiniest things alive and what makes them tick, why do I still depend on something as old-fashioned as GOD?
This morning while reading the Psalms with my family to celebrate YOM KIPPUR, I began to ask myself why people don’t need God or gods or goddesses in their life. The first person I ever met who told me they had no need for a higher power was a very talented violinist who happened to be my teacher. His name was Mr. Ortenberg. He had lived in Budapest, Hungary until Adolf Hitler occupied the country and offered to place him in a special place with other Jewish people called Auschwitz. Edgar Ortenberg escaped this fate but others didn’t. This was the beginning for Edgar of not trusting a God who would abandon his people and “allow” so many to die.
As I read the 23rd Psalm again today I was reminded of the first time I brought a gift for the holidays to Mr. Ortenberg. He threw it back at me and said, “I don’t celebrate religious holidays because if Edgar doesn’t take care of himself no one else will.” The year was 1972. It was 30 years since Edgar had narrowly escaped death in Eastern Europe. Twenty years later when I read an article in a local paper about his life just before Edgar turned 95, I noticed a change in his life philosophy. He told the interviewer that for most of his adult life from the 1940’s on he had been very bitter towards a God that would abandon his people. He had no need for God. God did not exist. Then somewhere in the 1960’s when he watched the students here in the United States get up early in the morning with their violin cases to walk or take a public bus (often narrowly escaping gangs of other youth who tried to steal or damage their instruments) to school to learn from Edgar how to play the violin, he realized that these students found him to be an important vessel from whom they were receiving the gift of music.
To be a teacher, to be here, to be alive, he began to wonder, was this the miracle he was seeking…just to be alive? As he thought back over his life at age 94, Edgar said he began to realize that people have the opportunity to do what God as a higher power asks them to do or they can destroy what God has given them through bitterness and hatred. Was he, Edgar, helping God or hurting what God was trying to do. On his deathbed Edgar thanked God for the opportunity to share what he had learned in Hungary as the first violinist of the Budapest String Quartet with a new generation in America. He thanked God for turning his heart from bitterness to joy so that he could make out of the evil destruction which MAN not GOD had caused, something wonderful, a legacy to leave behind to make the world a better place.
No matter what you do today I hope you will consider for just a moment that there might just be a power that is bigger than any human that is constantly working to return balance to the Universe…it could just be that this is going on around us all the time…then again as we look through microscopes and telescopes and concentrate on discovering just the mechanics of Creation…we could miss the beauty of it altogether.
Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that this essay does not necessarily reflect the beliefs or life philosophy of other members here at the ULC Monastery in whole or in part. I fully represent this to be a statement of my beliefs about the Universe in which I live and which I share with others. I claim the right and responsibility to share it openly in this place. I understand that others have the right to post responses which reflect how they feel about this subject matter. I likewise acknowledge that some may feel that I have no authority with which to make the claims I make, that I am not qualified to speak and that my experiences do not matter. For those who can appreciate what is written and/or choose to learn from what is posted, I offer thanks for their courtesy and generosity, for believing in me and for acknowledging my existence. ~ Mom Nanhi.
