ASK THE RABBI
I know this will sound silly, but it comes from the heart of a wounded child. Does God love men more than women?∼ Pamela P.
Dear Pamela,
Your question doesn’t sound silly at all. Our first instinct, however, was silly – simply to answer ‘no’. We then realized that we needed to answer not with a gut reaction but to be able to support Biblically whatever we said.
Our answer is still ‘no’, but here is why we feel confident with that response. Sometimes good ideas or things become sullied when they are misused or when they are associated with something bad. A physical example might be if a person is served overcooked, mushy and unpalatable vegetables while growing up. They now shun veggies and are missing wonderful tastes and nutrition—not because something is wrong with vegetables, but because it was presented in an awful way.
Because of the racist, hate-filled way it was used in the United States, the concept of ‘separate but equal’ was vilified. Partially because of this abuse, as well as a mistaken idea of what equality means, our society has great difficulty with making distinctions at all.
God has no such problems. He encourages distinction. In the Bible, the first-born was set apart with certain unique privileges and responsibilities. After the episode of the Golden Calf, most of those distinctive rules were transferred to the priests from the tribe of Levi. To this day, descendants of Aaron the High Priest have obligations and limitations on their behavior that the rest of Israel does not share. They are also accorded extra respect, for example being called up to the Torah in synagogue before other members of the congregation. In this way, they are ‘set aside,’ but that is very different than being loved more or less.
Similarly, God expects different things from men and women and those of us who believe that He designed the world to work best when we follow His ways would do well to retain those distinctions. If human beings abuse that concept, and treat women in a less loving way, it doesn’t reflect on God’s reality, but on human weakness and stupidity. We believe that one way that God showed us how men and women are equally valued and how dependent they are on each other was by creating one male/female creation in Genesis 1:27, and then separating that creation into two individuals. (We show how you can see this in the Hebrew, in our program, Madam, I’m Adam.)
We hope this gives you a starting point as to why we feel that you can be confident in God’s love for each and every one of us, both female and male.
Never hesitate to ask questions,
Your question doesn’t sound silly at all. Our first instinct, however, was silly – simply to answer ‘no’. We then realized that we needed to answer not with a gut reaction but to be able to support Biblically whatever we said.
Our answer is still ‘no’, but here is why we feel confident with that response. Sometimes good ideas or things become sullied when they are misused or when they are associated with something bad. A physical example might be if a person is served overcooked, mushy and unpalatable vegetables while growing up. They now shun veggies and are missing wonderful tastes and nutrition—not because something is wrong with vegetables, but because it was presented in an awful way.
Because of the racist, hate-filled way it was used in the United States, the concept of ‘separate but equal’ was vilified. Partially because of this abuse, as well as a mistaken idea of what equality means, our society has great difficulty with making distinctions at all.
God has no such problems. He encourages distinction. In the Bible, the first-born was set apart with certain unique privileges and responsibilities. After the episode of the Golden Calf, most of those distinctive rules were transferred to the priests from the tribe of Levi. To this day, descendants of Aaron the High Priest have obligations and limitations on their behavior that the rest of Israel does not share. They are also accorded extra respect, for example being called up to the Torah in synagogue before other members of the congregation. In this way, they are ‘set aside,’ but that is very different than being loved more or less.
Similarly, God expects different things from men and women and those of us who believe that He designed the world to work best when we follow His ways would do well to retain those distinctions. If human beings abuse that concept, and treat women in a less loving way, it doesn’t reflect on God’s reality, but on human weakness and stupidity. We believe that one way that God showed us how men and women are equally valued and how dependent they are on each other was by creating one male/female creation in Genesis 1:27, and then separating that creation into two individuals. (We show how you can see this in the Hebrew, in our program, Madam, I’m Adam.)
We hope this gives you a starting point as to why we feel that you can be confident in God’s love for each and every one of us, both female and male.
Never hesitate to ask questions,
Rabbi Daniel and Susan Lapin
Labels: blogging, careers, dating, dreams, faith, goals, health, hopes, jobs, life, life relationships, plans, poetry, relationships, religion, romance, sermons, travel, work, writing
posted by Unknown at 3:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home