Hating God

Just before Rosh Hashanah, an email appeared in my inbox without a name — just a raw, unfiltered cry to God. “You have hurt me. You have abused and tortured me. You have taunted and judged me… You left me. And so I leave you, too.”

Every line bled with anguish, defiance, and the raw honesty of a broken heart.

This email punched me in the gut. At first glance, it smacks of blasphemy but when you look closer you can see it’s really a love letter written in the language of loss.

With permission, here is the email, followed by what I sent back as a response:

I write this to you, God, because the time for apologetics has come to an end.

I will express this in no uncertain terms. You have hurt me. You have abused and tortured me. You have taunted and judged me. In my hour of need, you abandoned me. You have condemned me to loneliness and envy. You elect at every moment to continue to subject me to pain which drains the little hope I still have for things in my life to improve. I have been aware of all of this for awhile, but the time has come for me to say it.

You dare call yourself a merciful father. A father who treats his children like you do deserves nothing but the staunchest condemnation. You willingly subject humanity to horrors unimaginable and claim to be a God of kindness and compassion. If you are as they say you are – omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent – then it is within your power to reverse the sadistic creation that you have fashioned. Yet you continuously choose to prop it up. Here is what I have to say to you.

Nearly a decade of dedication to you. Your laws. What I thought was your will. Go on. I’d like you to think about the thousands of times I’ve prayed. Put on tefillin. Kept Shabbat. Pushed normal thoughts of girls out of my developing brain and castigated me when I strayed. I slaved away learning Talmud for years, bored to tears and pressured to meet toxic social standards, because I thought it would make you love me. Well, so be it. You have hurt me, and this time, I’m going to remember it.

Of course, what I’d like to say is that I’m going to hurt you, too. But, if you are as they say you are, that’s not quite something I or anyone else can do. Fine. I accept that hurting you is beyond my control. Fortunately for me, you decided to grant me free will, and oh, I’m itching to use it. This mouth will never utter another word of praise or thanks to you, the source of my pain and misfortune. I will dedicate my arms and legs and ears to helping those in need because you have abandoned them, too. I will forever rue the day your cruel masochism decided to plant me in this traumatic world to suffer and scream. How many times – how many times?! – have I prayed to you to heal me? To comfort and console me? To show me the purpose in my pain? You have left me unanswered. You have stood me up. You left me.

And so I leave you, too.

May you know the pain of a parent witnessing their child turn his back and walk away. May you feel the seething grief that darkens my days and slashes at my guts. May your eyes flood with tears shed over losing your son forever.

I don’t want you to explain anything anymore. I don’t want to hear from you at all. I’m done asking questions, and I’m done reaching out. I suppose the next time I see you will be whenever you decide to pluck me from this world and stand me up before your kangaroo court to judge me as a wicked man for defending myself from an abuser. Until then, please don’t talk to me. Don’t communicate with me. I will never forget what you have done to me, and I know you won’t, either. This Rosh Hashanah, I will be doing some remembering of my own.

I hope it was worth it.

My response:

I have read and re-read your email so many times and each time it breaks my heart and brings tears to my eyes.  I am beyond sorry for your pain and experiences.  I found your words so real, raw, authentic, and profound.

While they are written to “write off” God, I see them as one of the greatest expressions of Emunah, faith in God, I have ever read.  If you didn’t believe He is real you wouldn’t bother being angry or disappointed with Him or walking away from Him.  Your walking away is in fact an enormous demonstration of walking towards.  Maybe on Rosh Hashanah, if you don’t want to open a machzor, print out your letter and read it to Him.  Scream it to Him.

If you want to communicate further and if I can help you in any way, please let me know.  I am honored, humbled, and grateful that you shared your letter with me.

The author ended up revealing himself to me and despite his letter of rejection to God, he not only attended shul on the High Holidays, he never stopped praying for a day.

Putting God on Trial

Although his letter rejected God, the fact that he continued to seek Him reminded me of an image shared by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

After the trial of God was over with a guilty verdict, the very same people who acted as the prosecutors organized a minyan and prayed the afternoon service.

Elie Wiesel said that he was present when a group of inmates, suffering beyond comprehension in Auschwitz, put God on trial.  He described that the Almighty was found guilty for the evils of the Holocaust.  Wiesel later wrote a play on this topic called, “The Trial of God.”  What Wiesel said happened next is truly remarkable.  After the trial of God was over with a guilty verdict, noticing the sun was setting, the very same people who acted as the prosecutors organized a minyan and prayed Mincha, the afternoon service.

I share this with you not as a model or standard for us to aspire to.  Anger at God is not an ideal goal or objective, but it is also not a failure of faith or an expression of heresy.  There are some who go through all the motions of performing commandments and learning Torah, they pray diligently, they would say they talk to God three times a day, but have they ever had a real and honest conversation with Him?

Associating what is happening in our lives as coming from our Creator is not heresy, it is faith.  Disappointment and malcontent are not necessarily indications of faithlessness, they are often evidence of genuine belief in God.  One is not angry at someone that isn’t real.  One doesn’t feel disappointed with a figment of their imagination.

Arguing With God

Indeed, while our greatest teachers and leaders were not ordinary people, and their words need to be studied, analyzed and appreciated for their deeper meaning, we do have precedent for directing dissatisfaction and challenges toward God, beginning in our parsha with our founding father, Abraham.

When informed that Sodom is going to be destroyed, Abraham doesn’t passively accept the will of Hashem.  He brazenly challenges: “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? … Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?”

Generations later, feeling overwhelmed and upset, even somewhat abandoned, Moses challenges: “Why have You dealt ill with Your servant? … Did I conceive all this people? … I am not able to carry all this people alone… if You will deal thus with me, kill me, I pray You, at once.”

This theme continues with the Prophets. After God spares the people of Nineveh, Jonah, feeling his mission is undermined, is explicitly angry: “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed and said, ‘God, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? … Therefore now, God, please take my life from me.’”

Experiencing misery, pain and grief, Job expresses his anger after what he feels is unjust suffering: “I will say to God, Do not condemn me; show me why You contend with me.”

Anger, disappointment, or betrayal toward God can draw us closer, deepen our prayers, and reveal the raw honesty of our faith.

To be clear, our great leaders used these moments to draw close, not to push away.  They believed in and were devoted to God beyond anything we can understand.  Their words deserve to be studied closely. But it is undeniable that the Torah communicates their words in a way that gives us license to confront and protest to God.  After all, that is the basis of all prayer, an invitation to challenge the status quo and to appeal to the Almighty to do things differently.

Drawing Closer

Don’t aspire to be upset at God.  But if that is how you are feeling, don’t deny it, don’t beat yourself up, knock yourself down, or feel guilt and shame.  It’s okay to feel anger, disappointment, or betrayal toward God. These emotions don’t have to distance us, they can draw us closer, deepen our prayers, and reveal the raw honesty of our faith.

Like the letter-writer, we can confront God and yet continue to pray, knowing that our questions and our tears are themselves an expression of deep-seated faith.