A couple of days ago, "David79" posted this on the forum of http://www.myjewishlearning.com/forums

A local rabbi sent a discussion about Shavuot. In it he states "One of the reasons Shavuot is not widely observed among modern Jews is because revelation is a deeply controversial topic in modernity." He goes on to pose the following questions which I in turn pose to all of us, "Why does God communicate to human beings? If God does communicate, how can He be heard? How can we be sure that what we understand to be God's message is not a projection or a misconstrual? How do we account for profound disagreement among human beings about which revelation is true and certain?" Some of these questions I have posed previously, though not in the same context. The rabbi goes on to discuss briefly The End of Faith, by Sam Harris, in which "the author attacks the claims of religion and argues about the dangers of faith." And he then poses another couple questions. He asks, "How then can we relate to the traditions of revelation in an era of religious fanaticism? How do we filter the wisdom of religious tradition while eschewing its more difficult and even dangerous teachings?"I often ask myself these questions though not quite so clearly or succinctly, and I wonder if any of you have asked these questions of yourselves or others, and what if any answers or partial answers you've found.

David

I responded as follows last night:

Wow, I am so interested in this topic. In fact if you go to my last 4 posts on another thread in this forum entitled “Israel support worldwide”, you will see I just went to a conference called “When God Speaks.” I ponder these very questions David79 has raised. I ponder them because I find them profound and not readily answered for the enquiring mind.

Can we explore them together?

One day this week these questions just welled up within me, not as an intellectual pursuit, but as a deep, deep inner longing – so strong it was almost physical. Like David expressed in Psalm 83:2 “My soul yearns, yes, pines for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” Here is someone I identified with in the yearning of his whole being for the presence and reality of the only living God.

"Why does God communicate to human beings?” In the very beginning of the Torah, in Bereishit (Genesis) chapter 1, we see that God has a desire and carries it out. He says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” I doubt I can ever grasp what that all means, but one thing is for sure, God is a communicator and created us for communication with him. The first thing he does is bless the man and woman and speak to them! It is as though we are his offspring. What parent does not speak to his child before ever that child has a clue what is being said? Yet there is, even in cooing, and (to the baby) unintelligible sounds, communication of love and protection. So we may as well ask why a mother speaks to her child as to ask why God communicates to humans. When David expressed his deep longing for communion with God, he was expressing the image and likeness of his creator who likewise longs for communion with us. And God is never the one who breaks that communion – always it is the humans. Sometimes there is profound truth in bumper stickers – like the one which says, “Feel far from God? Who moved?"

God spoke to Adam and Eve, apparently enjoying their company, until they disobeyed. Then, in their shame, they hid from him. He was still seeking them out. It is Shavuot and we think bout Sinai. At Sinai, God appears in the cloud and his glory as a consuming fire. He wanted to speak with the people he has chosen out from all the nations to be his own, but they said, “No. Do not speak to us. Speak to Moses and let him tell us.” I thought about that this week. I thought, if I asked my daughter to come up on my knee and talk to me, and she were to say, “No. I am afraid. Just write a letter to the Rabbi and have him read it to me in the synagogue on Shabbat. I may or may not write back.” How would I feel? Hurt, misunderstood, angry, sad, broken-hearted?

When Moses is on Sinai for 40 days, the people become impatient. They are the ones who told God “no,” but now they are in a hurry. So they take off their gold (a sign of purity) earrings (which speaks of hearing) and make a “god” which can neither hear nor speak. They refused the living God who both speaks and hears, and in direct violations of his words, they do this. No wonder he wanted to wipe them out. Oh, but his mercy and love are great, or who of us would be alive?So, in Exodus 33, the Lord says he will not go in the midst of Israel as they go into the promised land, lest he kill those stiff-necked people in an instant. Instead, he lets himself be put in a box, in a manner of speaking, and hides it in the back part of a tent of meeting. This is a very sad chapter for me to read. I see the longing and disappointment of God. I see the fear and distancing by the people. It says in verse 7 that “anyone” or “everyone” seeking the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting. But as you read on, you find nobody is seeking him except Moses and Joshua. Whenever they go to the tent of meeting, the people stay at their own tents and worship from afar.

Have not we become distant? Though our heart and our flesh yearn for the living God, we look for him in texts, in rituals, in traditions. What about a vital and living communication? Where can that be found?