Once when Rabban Gamliel was in the court of Caesar, Caesar asked him: “I have read in your people”s scriptures that your God knows how many stars there are in the heavens (Psalms 147:4). What is so great about that? I too can count the stars.” Rabban Gamliel replied: “Does Caesar know how many teeth are in his mouth?” Caesar stuck his fingers inside his mouth and began counting his teeth when the rabbi interrupted him: “You don not know what is in your mouth, yet you presume to know what is outside your mouth?” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 39a).
Or as paraphrased by the 16th-century Rabbi Yehudah Loew of Prague: “If Caesar does not even know how many teeth he has without sticking his fingers in his mouth because they are hidden from sight, how can he presume to know how many stars there are in the heavens, when many of them too are hidden from sight?” (Chidushei Aggadot on Sanhedrin 39a).

Another version of the story: A heretic asked Rabban Gamliel,
“It is written that God counts the stars in the heavens. Anyone could do that, so what”s the big deal?” In that moment a flock of sheep passed by. Said Rabban Gamliel: “Can you count these?” Said the heretic: “I can not count them while they are moving! Stand them still and I will count them.” Said Rabban Gamiliel: “That which is in motion on earth before your very eyes you cannot count, yet you claim you can count that which is in motion in the distant heavens?”

These cute stories remind us of how small we are, how little we know, how distant our perception is of the origin of life, the purpose of our being, the nature of God. They are important stories to recount again and again to remind us that our rhetoric about God is just that, rhetoric – even this very teaching! Many of us presume that we understand the “nature” of God and thus attribute to the Great Mystery the cause of all our woes, personally and globally. Where was God? We often ask when we read of tragedies, an arrogant assumption predicated on absolutely nothing more than our own home-grown notions and expectations of God. We can’t even count our own teeth without sticking our fingers in our mouths, yet we presume to know the mysteries of God. We can’t even figure out our own purpose, yet we purport to know the God’s purpose.

In one of the prophet Isaiah’s many interviews with God, God is quoted as declaring: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways, and as high as are the heavens from the earth, so high are my ways from your ways and my thoughts from your thoughts  (Isaiah 55:8-9). To whom will you liken me? And to whom can you compare me?”(Isaiah 40:25). [Do not assume that, because I dwell within all creations that any one of them represents all of who I am, or that even all of them combined represents all of who I am, for I am more than you can ever know, far more than what I have chosen to reveal of myself.]  “Who can fathom my spirit? What mortal can inform you of my plans? To whom will you equate me, and what form will you dream up to describe me?” (Isaiah 40:13).

“The Torah’s warnings about punishment for wrongdoings,” wrote the great masters of the lesser-promulgated Kabbalah, “are not like we suppose, that God is executing this or that punishment upon us for this or that sin like a king punishing his servants for their failures. Rather, it is more a natural phenomenon no different than plowing and planting (Sefer HaSh’lah, Toldot Ahdam, Beyt Choch’mah, No. 3-4). How you seed the earth determines the quality of what she will yield. If you withhold goodness, if you refrain from performing a good deed when the opportunity arises, it is no different than refraining from planting a seed in the earth, and the consequence is the same: nothing will grow. And if you do wrong, it is akin to neglecting your field, or abusing the earth, and you will reap thorns and thistles, or desert sands (Rikanti on Leviticus 26:3).

The ancient rabbis also taught that God shadows our attitudes and perspectives. So if we choose to be positive and cheerful, God mirrors that cheerfulness as well. If we choose to be negative and angry, God comes across as negative and angry. In other words: “I Will Be with you as you are with me” (Sefer HaSh’lah, Toldot Ahdam, Sha’ar HaGadol, No.5), as is written in Psalms: “God will shadow you”(Psalms 121:5).

If things are going awry, we are taught, look inside, see what we are mirroring from the inside out, and whether it parallels what we are experiencing from outside in (Talmud, Berachot 5a). And if we can’t find anything within us that might be drawing shadows we can do without, then we are told to smile and say:
“This is a sign that God loves me” as is written: “For whom God loves does God chastise like a parent would a child” (Mishlei 3:12).

So on the other hand, Judaism teaches, we are not to arbitrarily accept the blame for bad things that happen to us. Bad things can happen for the pure hell of it, too. “There is death and suffering even without sin,” taught the second-century Rabbi Shim’on ben El’azar (Talmud, Shabbat 55b). And often enough the innocent are caught up in the consequences wreaked by the guilty (Talmud, Baba Kama 16a).

The 18th-century Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch summed it up this way: “The evil and challenges that come our way which God at times seems in our eyes to tolerate actually serves to ennoble us and strengthen our moral fiber. The wrong which we must sometimes endure is part of that training course of suffering that will refine us – a training that God reserves primarily for those who by their choices and actions in life have demonstrated their capacity to learn and to grow from it. This is why suffering is not given to the wicked as often as it is given to the righteous” (S.R. Hirsch in The Psalms, Vol. 2, pp. 167-169).

Then again, as a second-century rabbi put it: “Don’t do me any favors; I don’t need this suffering, and I don’t need its benefits, thank you very much!” (Talmud, Berachot 5a).

Sin is not so much what we believe we have done against God – quite an arrogant presumption at best. Rather, sin is more about wronging ourselves and others. It is more about self-compromise, belittling ourselves for our vulnerabilities, apologizing to God for being human. When we hide from God, then, whether out of guilt or out of spite, God, in turn will appear to be hidden from us, for that then becomes our choice for the cosmic choreography we create with Creator (Midrash Tehilim, Ch. 13). We are the ones who get angry and bear grudges, not God (Jeremiah 3:12, 7:19, and Hosea 11:8-9).

Like Martin Buber put it: “One who rejects God is not struck down by lightning; one who chooses God does not find hidden treasures. Everything seems to remain just as it was. Obviously, God does not wish to dispense either medals or prison sentences” [from Literarishce Welt, published in June 7, 1929, and “What Are We to Do About the Ten Commandments?” published in Israel and the World, p. 85].

As God steps back to allow us to be fully ourselves, so we step back from our mortal assumptions and expectations and definitions to allow God the space to be God. This is a great lesson in relationship, in general, and it is one of the most important messages of the Torah. For the Torah is not a monologue, a one-sided script. It is a covenant, a relationship. “The Torah”, wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel, “is more than the word of God; it is the word of God and man; a record of both revelation and response; the drama of covenant between God and man”(God in Search of Man, pp. 260-261).

And our life on earth is the stage upon which that drama is played out.

Rabbi Garshon Winkler

This essay was written by my dear friend and colleague Rabbi Gershon Winkler and posted with his permission. Read more inspirational teachings by Reb Gershon on his website www.walkingstick.org