God Is In Need of Humanity

We have tried to understand religion as a universal phenom-
enon. It is now our task to define the Jewish conception of
religion. As noted above, religion—its human side—begins
with a sense of obligation, “with the awareness that something is
asked of us,” with the consciousness of an ultimate commit-
ment. It is furthermore an awareness of “God who sues for our
devotion, constantly, persistently, who goes out to meet us as
soon as we long to know God.” Accordingly, religious con-
sciouness is to be characterized by two features—it must be a
consciousness of an ultimate commitment and it must be a con-
sciouness of ultimate reciprocity.
      There is only one way to define Jewish religion. It is the
awareness of God’s interest in humanity, the awareness of a cove-
nant, of a responsibility that lies on God as well as on us. Our
task is to concur with God’s interest, to carry out God’s vision of
our task. God is in need of humanity for the attainment of God’s ends,
and religion, as Jewish tradition understands it, is a way of serv-
ing these ends, of which we are in need, even though we may
not be aware of them, ends which we must learn to feel the 
need of.
      Life is a partnership of God and humanity; God is not detached
from or indifferent to our joys and griefs. Authentic vital needs
of a person’s body and soul are a divine concern. This is why hu-
man life is holy. God is a partner and a partisan in a person’s strug-
gle for justice, peace and holiness, and it is because of God’s be-
ing in need of humanity that God entered a covenant with humanity for all
time, a mutual bond embracing God and humans, a relationship to
which God, not only a human, is committed.

This day you have avowed the Lord to be your God, promising to
walk in God’s ways, to obey God’s rules and commandments, and to
hearken to God’s voice; And this day the Lord has avowed you to be
God’s very own people, as God has promised you, and to obey God’s
commandments.
                                                                             Deuteronomy 26:17-18)

      Some people think that religion comes about as a percep-
tion of an answer to a prayer, while in truth it comes about in
our knowing that God shares our prayer. The essence of Juda-
ism is the awareness of the reciprocity of God and humanity, of
humanity’s togetherness with God who abides in eternal otherness.
For the task of living is God’s and ours, and so is the responsibil-
ity. We have rights, not only obligations; our ultimate com-
mitment is our ultimate privilege.
      In interpreting Malachi 3:18, Rabbi Aha ben Ada said:
“Then shall ye again discern between the righteous and the 
wicked,” meaning “between they who have faith and they who 
have no faith;” "between they that serveth God and they that
serveth not God,” meaning: “between they who serves
God’s need and they who do not serve need. One
should not make of the Torah a spade with which to dig, a
tool for personal use or a crown to magnify oneself.” (Midrash
Tehillim, ed. Buber, p.240f).
      God’s need is a self-imposed concern. God is now in need of
humanity, because God freely made humanity a partner in God’s enterprise,
“a partner in the work of creation.” “From the first day of cre-
ation the Holy One, blessed be God, longed to enter into partner-
ship with the terrestrial world” to dwell with God’s creatures
within the terrestrial world. (Numbers Rabba, ch. 13,6; com-
pare Genesis Rabba ch. 3,9.) Expounding the verse in Genesis
17:1, the Midrash remarked: “In the view of Rabbi Johanan we
need God’s honor, in the view of Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish God
needs our honor” (Genesis Rabba, ch. 30, unlike Theodor, p.
277).
      “When Israel performs the will of the Omnipresent, they
add strength to the heavenly power; as it is said: ‘To God we
render strength’ (Psalm 60:14). When, however, Israel does
not perform the will of the Omnipresent, they weaken—if it is
possible to say so—the great power of God who is above; as it
is written. ‘Thou didst weaken the Rock that begot Thee.’”
Peskita, ed. Buber, XXVI, 166b; compare the two versions.)
      Humanity’s relationship to God is not one of passive reliance up-
on God’s Omnipotence but one of active assistance. “The im-
pious rely on their gods…the righteous are the support of
God.” Genesis Rabba, ch. 69,3.)
      The Patriarchs are therefore called “the chariot of the Lord.”
Genesis Rabba, ch. 47,6 82,6.)

                     God glories in me, God delights in me;
                         My crown of beauty God shall be.
                         God’s glory rests on me, and mine on God;
                         God is near to me, when I call on God.
                                           (The Hymn of Glory)

      The extreme boldness of this paradox was expressed in a 
Tannaitic interpretation of Isaiah 43:12: “ye are my witnesses,
saith the Lord, and I am God”—when you are my witnesses I
am God, and when you are not my witnesses I am not God."

The Divine Pathos

The God of the philosophers is all indifference, too sublime
to possess a heart or to cast a glance at our world. The
philosopher’s wisdom consists of being conscious of God and oblivious
to the world. In contrast, the God of the prophets is all concern, too
merciful to remain aloof to God’s creation. God not only rules the
world in the majesty of God’s might; God is personally concerned
and even stirred by the conduct and fate of humanity.“God’s mercy is 
upon all God’s work”(Psalms 145:9)
      These are the two poles of prophetic thinking: The idea
that God is one, holy, different and apart from all that exists,
and the idea of the inexhaustible concern of God for humanity, at
times brightened by God’s mercy, at times darkened by God’s
anger. God is both transcendent, beyond human understanding,
and full of love, compassion, grief or anger.
      God does not judge the deeds of humans impassively, in a spirit
of cool detachment. God’s judgement is imbued with a feeling of
intimate concern. God is the lord of all humans, not only a judge;
God is a lover engaged to God’s people, not only a ruler. God
stands in a passionate relationship to humanity. God’s love or anger,
God’s mercy or disappointment is an expression of God’s profound
participation in the history of Israel and all humanity.
      Prophecy, then, consists in the proclamation of the divine
pathos, expressed in the language of the prophets as love,
mercy or anger. Behind the various manifestations of God’s
pathos is one motive, one need: The divine need for human
righteousness.
     The pagan gods had animal passions, carnal desires, they
were more fitful, licentious then humans; the God of Israel has a
passion for righteousness. The pagan gods had selfish needs,
while the God of Israel is only in need of a human’s integrity. The
need of Moloch was the death of a human, the need of the lord is
the life of a human. The divine pathos which the prophets try to
express in many ways was not a name for God’s essence but
rather for the modes of God’s reaction to Israel’s conduct which
would change if Israel modified its ways.
      The surge of divine pathos, which came to the souls of the
prophets like a fierce passion, startling, shaking, burning, led
them forth to the perilous defiance of people’s self-assurance
and contentment. Beneath all songs and sermons they held con-
ference with God’s concern for the people, with the well, out 
of which the tides of anger raged.
      The Bible is not a history of the Jewish people, but the story
of God’s quest of the righteous person. Because of the failure of
the human species as a whole to follow in the path of righteous-
ness, it is an individual—Noah, Abraham—a people: Israel—or
a remnant of the people, on which the task is bestowed to sat-
isfy that quest by making every person a righteous person.
      There is an eternal cry in the world: God is beseeching humanity.
Some are startled; others remain deaf. We are all looked for.
An air of expectancy hovers over life. Something is asked of
a human, of all humans.
 
“What Does God Desire?”

For thousands of years the deity and darkness were thought
to be the same: a being, self-attached and full of blind desires;
a being whom a person revered but did not trust; that would re-
veal itself to the mad but not to the meek. For thousands of
years it was accepted as a fact that the ultimate deity was hos-
tile to humanity and could only be appeased by offerings of blood,
until the prophets came who could not bear any more to see
the defeat of God at the hands of fear, and proclaimed that
darkness was God’s abode, not God’s essence; that as bright as mid-
day’s sun was God’s voice giving an answer to the question:
What does God desire?
      Is it music?

            Take away from me the noise of your songs,
            And to the melody of your lyres I will not listen.
                                                             (Amos 5:23) 

Is it prayer?

            When you spread out your hands
              I will hide my eyes from you;
             Though you may make many a prayer
              I will not listen,
            Your hands are full of bloodshed—          
                                                             (Isaiah 1:15-16) 

Is it sacrifice?

Does the Lord delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obedience to the voice of the Lord?
                                              I Samuel 15:22

And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but
to stand in awe of the Lord your God, walk in God’s ways, love God,
serve the Lord your God with all your mind and heart, and keep
the commands of the Lord and God’s statutes that I am commanding
you today, for your good?                                                                    
                                        (Deuteronomy 10:12) 

The Religious Need

Religion, it is almost generally acknowledged, corresponds to
a particular need of the human personality. Just as there are
needs for health and wealth, for knowledge and beauty, for
prestige and power, there is a need for religion. Such an inter-
pretation of religion, to be valid, must prove the religious need
to be different from all other needs and to be incapable of be-
ing satisfied in any other but its own way. It must further
demonstrate that just as nonreligious goals, like power, wealth
and prestige, cannot be attained through religion, the religious
need cannot be satisfied through the pursuit of those nonre-
ligious goals.
      To satisfy nonreligious needs we seek to exploit the forces
of nature to our advantage. But do we seek to exploit any-
thing in order to satisfy our religious needs? What, then, is the
way of satisfying the religious need? What are the ends a person 
is striving to attain in religion?
      There is, indeed, in every human being an unquenchable
need for the lasting, an urge to worship and to revere. Diver-
gence begins in the object and manner of worship. Yet that un-
quenchable need is often miscarried into self-aggrandizement
or a desire to find a guarantee for personal immortality. Juda-
ism, shows it to be a need to be needed by God. It teaches us
that every human is in need of God because God is in need of a
human. Our need of God is but an echo of God’s need of us.
      There is, of course, the constant danger of believing what
we wish rather than wishing what we believe, of cherishing
our need as God rather than adopting God as our need. This
is why we must always appraise our needs in the light of divine
ends.

The Unknown Ends

It is natural and common to care for personal and national
goals. But is it as natural and common to care for other people’s
needs or to be concerned with universal ends? Conventional
needs like pleasure are easily assimilated by social osmosis.
Spiritual needs have to be implanted, cherished and cultivated
by the vision of their ends. We do not have to rise above our-
selves in order to dream of being strong, brave, rich, of being
rulers of an empire or “a kingdom of soldiers.” But we have
to be inspired in order to dream God’s dream: “Thou shalt
be holy, for I thy God am holy”…"Thou shalt be unto
Me a kingdom of priests, a holy people.”
      It is God who teaches us our ultimate ends. Abraham may
not have felt the need for abandoning home and country, nor
were the people of Israel eager to give up the flesh-pots of
Egypt for the prospect of going into the wilderness.
      Analyzing a person’s potentialities, it becomes evident that their
uniqueness and essential meaning lie in their ability to satisfy ends
that go beyond their ego, while their natural concern is: What
may others do for my ego? Religion teaches them to ponder
about what they may do for others and to realize that no person’s
ego is worthy of being the ultimate end.
      There is an ancient hymn with which we conclude our
daily prayers and which gives expression to our conception of
ultimate ends. It is a hymn which may be regarded as the na-
tional anthem of the Jewish people.    

We hope therefore, Lord our God, soon to behold thy majestic
glory, when the abominations shall be removed from the earth, and
the false gods exterminated, when the world shall be perfected under
the reign of the Almighty, and all humankind will call upon thy name,
and all the wicked of the earth will be turned to thee. May all the
inhabitants of the world realize and know that to thee every knee
must bend, every tongue must vow allegiance. May they bend the
knee and prostrate themselves before thee, Lord our God, and give
honor to thy glorious name; may they all accept the yoke of thy
kingdom, and do thou reign over them speedily forever and ever.
For the kingdom is thine, and to all eternity thou wilt reign in glory,
as it is written in thy Torah: “The Lord shall be King forever and
ever.” And it is said: “The Lord shall be King over all the earth; on
that day the Lord shall be One, and God’s name One.”


The Conversion of Ends Into Needs

Jewish religious education consists in converting ends into
personal needs rather than in converting needs into ends, so 
that, for example, the end to have regard for other people’s
lives becomes my concern. Yet, if those ends are not assimilated
as needs but remain mere duties, uncongenial to the heart, in-
cumbent but not enjoyed, then there is a state of tension be-
tween the self and the task. The perfectly moral act bears a
seed within its flower: the sense of objective requiredeness
within the subjective concern. Thus, justice is good not be-
cause we feel the need of it; rather we ought to feel the need
of justice because it is good.
      Religions may be classified as those of self-satisfaction, of
self-annihilation or of fellowship. In the first worship is a quest
for satisfaction of personal needs like salvation or desire for
immortality. In the second all personal needs are discarded, and
a human seeks to dedicate their life to God at the price of annihilat-
ing all desire, believing that human sacrifice or at least com-
plete self-denial is the only true form of worship. The third
form of religion, while shunning the idea of considering God a
means for attaining personal ends, insists that there is a part-
nership of God and humans, that human needs are God’s concern
and that divine ends ought to become human needs. It rejects
the idea that the good should be done in self-detachment, that
the satisfaction felt in doing the good would taint the purity
of the act. Judaism demands the full participation of the per-
son in the service of the Lord; the heart rather than boycott-
ing the acts of the will ought to respond in joy and undivided
delight.

The Pleasure of Good Deeds

Pleasure, though not the spring, may and ought to be the by-
product of moral or religious action. The good or the holy is
not necessarily that which I do not desire, and the feeling of
pleasure or gratification does not divest a good deed of its
quality of goodness. The heart and the mind are rivals but not 
irreconcilable enemies, and their reconciliation is a major end
in striving for integrity. It is true that the idea of justice and
the will to justice are not twin-born. But a moral person is a
partisan who loves the love of good. It is not true that love and
obedience cannot live together, that the good never springs
from the heart. To be free of selfish interests does not mean to
be neutral, indifferent, or to be devoid of interests, but, on the
contrary, to be a partisan of the self-surpassing. God does not
dwell beyond the sky. God dwells, we believe, in every heart
that is willing to let God in.
      The sense of moral obligation remains impotent unless it is
stronger than all other obligations, stronger than the stubborn
power of selfish interests. To compete with selfish inclinations
the moral obligation must be allied with the highest passion of
the spirit.
      To be stronger than evil, the moral imperative must be more
powerful than the passion for evil. An abstract norm, an ethe-
real idea, is no match for the gravitation of the ego. Passion can
only be subdued by stronger passion.
      From the fact that an end is adopted and cherished as a per-
sonal interest, it does not follow that the end was of psycho-
logical origin, just as our utilization of the quantum theory
does not prove that it came about as the result of utilitarian
motives. Thus, the fact of God becoming a human need does
not vitiate the objectivity and validity of the idea of God.
      The solution to the problem of needs lies not in fostering a
need to end all needs but in fostering a need to calm all other
needs. There is a breath of God in every human, a force lying
deeper than the stratum of will, and which may be stirred to
become an aspiration strong enough to give direction and even
to run counter to all winds.