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Morning Devotion for the Season of Epiphany

January 8, 2024

The Invitatory

I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: I Left My Faith. God Didn’t Flinch. By Temim Fruchter

The first time I intentionally broke a Jewish law, I was in college. It was a Saturday. I glanced around furtively, though I was alone in my dorm room. Then I flicked off the light, an act forbidden on the Sabbath. I flicked it on again. Around me, in the bright quiet, I exhaled.

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

I imagine that this meditation represents quite a departure in terms of the source of the reading. This Opinion piece appeared in The New York Times on January 3, 2024. It caught my eye, given the boldness of the claim the author makes about the effect of the author’s behavior on God. It reminded me of the absence for many years of pages given to religion in the nations’ newspapers. I recall the days when there was a listing of churches and the times of the services they offered in many newspapers, together with sections on religion. These have all disappeared, replaced occasionally, at least on the New York Times, by Opinion pieces. ( I suppose one takes what one can get.)

Ms. Fruchter reminisces about the times when she intentionally broke Jewish law. On the first occasion she turned the light off in her dormitory room on the Sabbath. This is forbidden on the Sabbath. Her reaction: she exhaled. This is reminiscent of young adult behavior, pushing back against upbringing. 

The Torah plays a major part in the lives of Jews today as it is believed to be the word of God. All Jews use the Torah to assist in guiding them in their lives. Naturally, some Jews use the Torah more strictly than others. For example, some Orthodox Jews believe that it is important to follow every single rule in the Torah; whereas, Reform Jews tend to follow the rules they feel are most important and disregard some rules they see as outdated. The commandments in the Torah shape the way that Jews live their lives today.

Ms. Fruchter goes on to note that her personal practices now are random. She writes, “As much as I love lighting Shabbat candles, in my adult life I rarely remember to do it. I resent my practice. I defend it. I love it. I am a part of it, this half-practice, and it is a part of me.” While she almost celebrates this newfound practice she is not ignorant of nor unobservant about something more powerful and insistent since abandoning regular observance of the Torah. She forthrightly acknowledges the effect her religion has had on her own formation. It is the powerful witness that she brings to her acknowledgement of God that captured my attention. “Religious observance fueled my neuroses, my obsessions and my imagination. And belief in God has made me, too. God, a relationship I can’t language. God, the ocean. God, a sense of something more. God, the extra inches a room grows when we sing together.” What beautiful and imaginative language for the continuing revelation of who God is! She is forthright in expressing the inability to limit God. She uses somewhat unorthodox expressions to acknowledge, nonetheless, the correction that Jesus offered us about the value of the Law. Its value lies in the way in which it serves to guard and guide us, and to point us to the one who would make us whole, Jesus Christ. And one can sense in these last words that I quoted, the value of the freedom from its strictures lends to her to be present to the God who comes to us with his gracious love.

A Prayer for Guidance

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly. Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.