Relating to God:
A More Metaphysical Relationship

By Becky Adelberg
KOACH Midwest Field Worker

One of the most delicate subjects is defining our relationship with God. Personally, my relationship with God has taken on many forms. There have been times of confusion, apathy, anger, uncertainty and questioning. There have been moments of complete trust, faith and devotion, instances of love, celebration, praise and thankfulness. On all of these occasions, I have tried to understand my relationship with God, to go deeper and try to piece together what lies within and beyond our world.

Relationships in general are not easy to describe: as humans we strive to find commonalities with one another by talking about our relationships with family and friends. However, when it comes to our relationships with God, we discover that often our encounters and experiences are very different. So many religions exist around the world, in part, because each of us has a different way of connecting to God, the Creator, a higher power.

In our everyday lives, we can see, hear, and talk with one another but with God our relationship does not always manifest itself physically; ultimately, we cannot describe or conceptualize this relationship. Judaism, however, gives us opportunities to cultivate and grow our relationship with God.

What are the ways Judaism allows us to be in connection with God?

Every time we say a blessing over food or drink we stop to thank God. Each time we come together in a minyan (a group of 10 individuals) to pray to God, we speak through words of praise, gratitude, forgiveness and more. In the morning when we wake up, we thank God for restoring that spark of godliness, our souls, back to our lifeless bodies with words that acknowledge God’s presence and compassion, "I am grateful to You, living, enduring Sovereign, for restoring my soul to me in compassion. You are faithful beyond measure."

The holidays are also times which allow deep connection with God. We are about to conclude the Omer period; the 49 days which lead up to when we received the Torah. The omer was a measure of barley that the Jews brought as the afternoon offering on the second day of Passover. This was followed by the counting of the omer, every day for seven weeks (49 days total), leading up to the festival of Shavuot. I like to view this time as one of intense character refinement, a chance to work on ourselves and our relationship with God. Each day can be used as a time to reflect on ways to improve our relationship with God and with each other.

We are the tribe of "Yisrael," God wrestlers. I encourage you to wrestle with your relationship with God, question things that occur in your life whether good or bad, grow, learn, dig deep and cultivate your relationship with God.

[Posted 5/25/06]