If I could talk with.... Sarah Hurwitz

Continuing my series on conversations I'd like to have with Jewish people in the news, I would like to talk with Sarah Hurwitz, author of her book Here all along, and former speechwriter for Michelle Obama.

The subtitle of her book says "Finding meaning, spirituality, and a deeper connection to life in Judaism (after finally choosing to look there)."

It all began when she broke up with a man, and she had extra time on her hands. She heard about an "Introduction to Judaism" class at the local Jewish community center. In an interview on the NBC Today show, she said the ancient Jewish texts had "wisdom to offer about how to be a good person, how to live a worthy life and how to find deep spiritual connection."

Sarah made the point that in her reading of Torah she discovered that since we are all created in the image of God (Genesis 1.26-27), that each of us is infinitely worthy, each of us is equal, and each of us is unique.  That changed her way of thinking, along with a long meditation retreat with others discovering their Jewish roots.

It allowed her to have a conversation with the Lord in a nature-filled setting, praying out loud and releasing her to be transformed from being a "good person" who didn't lie or cheat, into working towards being a 'great person." At the time she was not even a believer in God!

In the NBC interview, she spoke about Shabbat and the release that taking that day off, from screens and work and shopping, from the 'not enough' nature of our everyday lives to allow us to say, "We have enough right now." It's a view of satisfaction that is a beaut (By the way, I'm writing this blog on Shabbat in Sydney, whilst the fires surround us and the commensurate smoke droops over the city like a blanket of peril)

"It's about finding a balance that works for you," she said in the discussion of the all-or-nothing nature of many in religion. 

In an interview with The Times of Israel she said, "Something has to light that spark. It's different for different people. Once you find a way to ignite that spark, it does light up. It's there all along. I did not figure out how to ignite it till (sic) a little bit later in life."  

Her journey is more deeply chronicled in the book and in the Jewish Telegraph Agency report here. 

If I could speak with Sarah, I would be enriched, I think, by a very serious and pleasant woman of newly-found spirituality and ethical challenge. I would be informed by a woman of fine rhetoric about her own journey of faith. And if I could share with Sarah some of my own story, I would tell her that although she was raised Reform in Massachusetts and went to Harvard, I went to Washington University (St Louis) and was raised Orthodox in Kansas City. That is, our views of life were shaped by different forces to be sure. And I am 68 years old and she's 42, so our generations are also different. If she would allow a Midwestern Orthodox Jew from the 1960s to share a bit of story (which I expect she would welcome), then I would tell her of my encounter with God as well. And in a very strange angle.

I too found God in the reading of the Scriptures.
I too spoke out loud to God in a nature-filled scene (Estes Park, Colorado each morning of a week-long retreat in 1973 or so)
I too believe the Scriptures are relevant to our lives and give us deep "wisdom about how to be a good person, how to live a worthy life and how to find deep spiritual connection."

What surprised me, though, was that I found out that I would never be a good (enough) person to satisfy the real demands of the God of the Scriptures. He expects His people to be holy, to be pure, to be not only externally right but internally righteous as well.  Washing the outside of the cup is good, and washing the inside is even better. That's outrageous given our nature, given our sinfulness, given our self-consumption and selfishness.

How do I live a worthy life and find a deep spiritual connection? For me that was in the realization fo the greatest story in the Scriptures, the story of the Prodigal Son recorded in Luke 15. I know, that's not in Torah or even Talmud, but it certainly is one of the most Jewish stories ever written.

Sarah, I would want you to read that story and tell me which character is the one which best describes you. And by the way, I have no idea which one you would see as 'you.' Are you the wayward son who prefers his father to be dead and gets the life insurance, who spends his life wrongly, and in your case, finds Judaism's beauty again in recent years? Are you the older son who angrily and self-righteously almost refused to celebrate his brother's return? Are you one of the servants? The father? None of the above?

I guess the reason I read and reread this story is that I for years was the younger brother, spending on myself anything I wanted for the passing pleasures of life as I understood it. I was wrong and had to admit that to the God who was patiently and longingly waiting for my return. I needed forgiveness and restoration. I needed grace and was not finding it in my Orthodox, orthopractic Judaism. I couldn't find it anywhere. Self-serving is a lousy situation in which to find anything besides yourself.  And I needed God. But not the God of my youth who seemed distant and harsh, demanding and never satisfied. I needed the God of this Prodigal story, in fact, the One I title the Prodigal Father.

My "deep spiritual connection" was found the day I found Yeshua, our Jewish Messiah. He forgave my sins. He offered me hope and restoration. He died as a sacrifice for me, to take away what separated me from the Almighty. He paid the debt He did not owe; I owed the debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away."

Real freedom.
Real release.
A real encounter with the Living God is ours in relating to Yeshua, the King of Israel,  the Messiah, born in Bethlehem about whom the Christmas choirs today and the shepherds and angels sang 2,000 years ago.

Maybe, in the same way you admit to finally looking into Judaism, maybe now you will read or re-read the Prodigal story or any or all of the story of Yeshua (Found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John).  His story is true and worthy of notice and worthy of a Jewish woman's time and meditation. And that might spark something deeper yet.

At least that's my opinion.

I wish you a Happy Hanukkah 5780 and a joyful 2020.

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The other "If I could speak with..." in the series include: .  . .

Troye Sivan   https://bob-mendelsohn.blogspot.com/…/if-i-could-speak-with….  
Charles Krauthammer https://bob-mendelsohn.blogspot.com/…/if-i-could-speak-with…
Woody Allen https://bob-mendelsohn.blogspot.com/…/if-i-could-speak-with…. 
Ari Hershkowitz https://bob-mendelsohn.blogspot.com/…/if-i-could-speak-with…. 
Geoffrey Edelston https://bob-mendelsohn.blogspot.com/…/if-i-could-speak-with…. 
Abby Stein: https://bob-mendelsohn.blogspot.com/…/if-i-could-speak-with…

Cults, Families and some personal reflections

I watched the NBC Today Show exposé they title #Uncovered on their Friday 19 February. The story featured a woman and her parents and the Korean church titled "World Mission Society Church of God." The founder, a woman, claims to be the incarnate God, born in 1948. The church claims on their 'welcome' page to be "the only true church which God has established on this earth. (Acts 20.28)"

On their introduction page, they say "In 1948 the Second Coming Christ Ahnsahnghong restored the truth of life. The Church of God started as Christ Ahnsahnghong came to Korea." What is the reader to understand? That The church which Paul references in Acts 20 actually existed then, but not again (where did it go?) until 1948 in Korea when a woman was born and became the 2nd coming of Jesus. Wow, what hyperbole, what a leap, what narishkeit!

But the story caught my attention for another and personal reason. You see, after I came to faith in Yeshua in 1971, my family was at a loss what to say, what to do, how to win me back to rabbinic Judaism. My father had already thrown me out of the family home because I had announced "Jesus is our messiah." But sometime that summer, two Jewish men showed up at my apartment in Kansas City. One was from my past, a 20-something rabbi who had some influence on me in my earlier teens. Their purpose was to stop my new faith, to call me back to their understanding of Judaism, and to restore our family. I wasn't really sure what to tell them. If I had that chance again, if I could rewrite history, I would have asked the two to tell my family that I love them, and wish we could all have good time again together. But I cannot play "Back to the Future" so I have to live with whatever weak responses I actually gave.

Over the decade of the 1970s we had our ups and downs in family relationship. My parents couldn't bear to attend my wedding in 1977, even though it was held only a few blocks from their home. But after our son was born in 1979, they welcomed us back into their fold. Until I told them we were joining the organisation "Jews for Jesus." The last decades before they passed some years ago, we were in very good relationship. Or at least better.

So when I watched the Today Show episode, I was sad for the parents and sad for the adult daughter who seemed at odds, but when "I love them" came out of the daughter's mouth, something was different. The firm, staunch supporter and representative of the heretical group WMSCOG actually expressed a sadness, almost cry-like statement, and it touched my heart. I think that the main problem with so many of these religions is the dissolution of family. And although there is a verse or two about making right choices in this regard, most of the time, God's love is about the harmony of families.

I remember when I told my dad that I loved my mom as much as I loved the prostitute on 39th Street. He heard it the other way around. He heard me saying that I didn't love my mother in a special way at all, and that my love for her was as limited as it was for a hooker on the streets. What I was actually saying was that because of Jesus and His dying for us on the cross, that God demonstrated His own love for us (all!) and thus we should love everyone equally, the lowly and the high, the family and the non-family. I was actually elevating the love I had for my mother and saying that I could extend grace, kindness, and real compassionate love even to the seriously lost.

But it didn't go down well, to say the least.

Over the decades I've discovered that family love IS different and that I think about my own wife and kids much more than other people's wives and children. I pray for them more than others. I hope for their lives to be full of life and full of blessing. And no matter what else might happen between us, or in their choices of partners or religions or job or homeland, they are still family. And that's thicker than anything else. So I get what upset my dad. And I am sorry I caused him stress that day. And hopeful that my own family, sister, aunts, cousins, children...etc...all find eternity with God the most blessed estate. But even if they don't agree with me... we are still mishpochah. And #familymatters. (For some unpacking by opponents of the movement, see this Website )