20. Building the Sanctuary

God does not change. This is an essential difference between mitzvoth bein adam le’makom (commandments involving Man and God) and mitzvoth bein adam le’chavero (commandments involving Man and Man): there is only one variable in the former (the Self) while there are two variables in the latter (the Self and the Other). But the Man-God relationship is often anthropomorphized, causing one to blur the lines between changes that he (the Self) has undergone and imagined changes in God, so that absurd sentiments are accepted and expressed, such as, “God no longer needs sacrifices.” This kind of error is especially relevant, on a more subtle level, when considering the interplay of faith and doubt in Halacha.
The Torah has obligated us to study. While it may well be that Torah study that is instantly forgotten still fulfills the mitzvah of Talmud Torah, it is clearly not the ideal. The expectation is that through our study, we will deepen our devotion to Halacha and our faith will grow more reliable and more durable (‘Study is preferred because it leads to action.’). At the same time, in obligating us to constantly immerse ourselves in study, God sets us up for recurring theological and philosophical upheaval, as it is impossible to honestly pursue knowledge without simultaneously being exposed to valid and significant challenges to one’s beliefs (“He who increases knowledge, increases pain,” Kohelet 1:18). It appears, then, that the obligation to learn Torah carries with it mutually exclusive developments: an increase in faith and an increase in doubt.
The misrepresentation of the Man-God relationship causes the concurrence of these two developments to seem impossible, as we naturally consider an increase in faith as indicative of a movement towards a ‘better’ relationship with God and an increase in doubt as indicative of a movement towards a ‘worse’ relationship with God. And how can a relationship get stronger and weaker simultaneously?
In response to this question, most Torah study is approached with the self-sustaining illusion that study which leads to faith is then verified as True Torah and study which leads to doubt can be discounted as False Torah (that is, somewhere along the way, the scholar veered off the proper course of Torah). This is not, however, an accurate depiction of Torah nor an honest appraisal of the Man-God relationship.
The Man-Man relationship, on which we generally (and erroneously) base our perception of the Man-God relationship, takes as a given the existence of both parties. For a Man-Man relationship to exist, it is assumed that all parties in the relationship must be real, at least in some basic sense. Therefore the quality of the relationship in no way hinges on ‘belief’ in the other. Rather, it hinges on who the people are and how they develop over time.
In human relationships, as the two people interact they are each being uncovered to the other, while, simultaneously, they are each being affected by the other. So it is a constant interaction of exposure and development and the very act of exposure affects the development and the varying developments affect what is exposed and how it is exposed, not to mention how it is received by the other. If the relationship is based on something that occurs as a connection between the essence of one person and the essence of the other person, it can be understood why relationships can get ‘better’ or ‘worse’: we are dealing with two existent people who are changing.
But the Man-God relationship deals instead with one existent person who is changing and an unchanging God whose existence is not provable. Is it even fair to call this a ‘relationship’? Certainly not with the same connotation as is implicit when the term is used to describe what occurs between two people.
Imagine a Man-Man relationship in which one party was in doubt as to the existence of the other party. Would we say that an increased belief in the other person’s existence is indicative of a movement towards a ‘better’ relationship? Probably not. We would more likely say that it is a movement closer to or further from sanity, depending on whether the other person is in fact real or imaginary.
Clearly this is not analogous to the investigation into God’s existence since there is no objective standard whereby to affirm or deny His existence—it cannot be said that the believer is sane and the atheist insane, nor vice versa—a further distinction between the Man-Man relationship and the Man-God relationship. But if there does exist a relationship between Man and God—that is, if we can rightly classify it as a relationship—it cannot depend on the level of faith inherent in the particular Man since belief must pre-exist a relationship: you cannot relate to something that is not there.
And this is probably where the problem begins. It could be thought that the Man-God relationship is built exclusively in the realm of faith. This is where God exists and so it is only here that a relationship can develop. In the realm of doubt, God’s existence is questioned and a relationship is impossible. But we so often lose sight of a crucial fact: God’s existence does not depend on whether you believe in Him or not.
There are two possible realities: God exists or God does not exist. And there are two possible beliefs: God exists or God does not exist. And the God I believe in may not be the God that exists. Who do I want to relate to, the God that exists or the God I believe in?
The Man-God relationship does not rise or fall with personal faith or doubt because personal faith and doubt are flawed. Furthermore, since God is unchanging, it cannot be compared to the Man-Man relationship—you cannot judge the progress of your relationship based on how much the two of you have exposed to each other and how much each of you have changed due to the other. There is only one variable—the Self—and the burden of furthering the relationship falls entirely on him.
The Self recognizes a concept: God. This concept can be understood in an infinite number of ways. The self-serving person seeks to further a relationship with God as personally conceived. And, most likely, such a person will allow his God to change along with him. The development of such a Man-God relationship will mirror the Man-Man relationship because both Man and God will be changing over time. And the model will be the classic interpretation of Avraham arguing with God to defend Sodom: Avraham relates to God, presenting his feelings and thoughts and responding to God’s feelings and thoughts. And the relationship is furthered due to this interchange and God has been affected by Avraham: a relationship. But this is not an appropriate interpretation since it involves a change in God.
Ideally, we should have little interest in furthering the above kind of relationship, a relationship with the personally conceived God—for such a God could be a figment of our imagination. The Man-God relationship should be exclusively about furthering a relationship with the objective God, the God that exists regardless of our belief, the unchanging God. This, I believe, is what was happening between Avraham and God regarding Sodom: Avraham was not trying to affect God, he was trying to reveal God, to understand God. (It was Torah study.)
And it shouldn’t much matter if I stand in place and you move a step to the right or you stand in place and I move a step to the left—relatively, the same change has occurred. So as our understanding of God changes, we relatively witness a change in God. Although, in actuality, the Self changes and God does not, the changes in the Self reveal truths about God, truths that were previously unknown and which can be, for the purpose of the relationship, interpreted as changes in God, as long as the reality (God’s eternal consistency) is remembered.
Faith drives a certain kind of investigation, and it is an important investigation. But on its own it will not further the relationship with God. It is doubt—and not just a secondary, subdued voice suggesting that God might not exist, but a voice of equal strength arguing the non-believer’s views—that is essential for the furthering of a relationship with God. Because I must always remember that my conception of God, though sincere, could be misguided: I may believe that He would destroy a city that housed fifty righteous men. Faith will compel me to understand God as I conceive of Him, to understand, based on what I believe, why God would destroy such a city, and that is important. But it is doubt that will allow me to eventually recognize a God who would not destroy a city that housed even ten righteous men. Now I have an updated faith in God because I have changed—I understand God more precisely now. But, relatively, God has changed. Avraham’s relationship with God, after his discussion about Sodom, is thereby deepened.
But God does not listen to us and reconsider His views on life; He does not hear our prayers and change His mind. He is not an imaginary friend that relates to us in whatever way we need Him to relate to us. He has never changed, will never change. If we seek a relationship with God, we have to change. (This is impossible in a Man-Man relationship; if only one party is changing, it is not a relationship, not even in a relative sense—for a Man-Man relationship to exist, both parties must undergo change in response to the other. Again: two variables in ‘bein adam le’chavero,’ one variable in ‘bein adam le’makom.’ Really, there should be a unique word to refer to each of the two kinds of relationships and perhaps this is the significance behind the two classifications of mitzvah-types.)
The Beit HaMikdash existed to give God a place to dwell on Earth. Of course, that is a preposterous concept. It was a place for us. And when people speak of a ritualistic, spiritual Judaism that we no longer understand, I think that the point is being largely missed. Rambam was of the opinion that as we developed as a People, we would move towards a time when sacrifices were no longer needed. Why, because God no longer had a need for them? Certainly not—that would imply a change in God, an impossibility. Rather, because we no longer had a need to offer them. As our faith-system matured, we would no longer require a ‘home’ for God. But our faith-system matures in-line with our doubt-system, and one depends on the other. The Beit HaMikdash was not only a place for us to develop as believers; it was also a place for us to develop as doubters: it is as we ‘visited’ God in the Beit HaMikdash, I imagine, that we were forced to admit how little we knew of God at all. Surrounded by ritual, we had to notice how strange it all was, how confusing, how, in ways, while it seemed so very holy, we were doing something not quite ideal—and certainly this attitude, this doubt, is essential before one can move beyond the lower level of faith that (according to Rambam) includes sacrifice.
The Beit HaMikdash was a place of faith, of true, loyal, unwavering faith, but it must also have been a place of doubt, a place where each Jew had to question his actions, examine his beliefs, look up to heaven and wonder: “Did I just give away my livestock for nothing?” Many consider the mishkan a response to one of the most blatant displays of doubt in our history, the incident with the Golden Calf. Its purpose in this light, as classically viewed, was to transition us towards a preferred level of faith and away from doubt, but, realistically, it must also then have been to provide us with a Halachic venue for our doubt. (Of interest also: the very brief conversation between God and Moshe after Moshe, upon witnessing the idol, broke the tablets, in which Moshe asks God to forgive the people for their sin. There is a strange reverse-parallel between this conversation and Avraham’s conversation with God about Sodom. Here, Moshe wants to be included in the punishment—a sentiment expressed by Ramban, Shemot 32:32—even though he is not actually guilty: he wants his name removed from the Torah should God decide to destroy His people. Essentially, Moshe wants God to punish the innocent along with the guilty, an offer God bluntly refuses. Is this a more precise God than the God at Sodom, a God who was willing to destroy an entire nation if less than ten righteous people resided there? No, God has not changed, but Moshe’s understanding—our understanding—of God has deepened.)
I think that when we now mourn the absence of the Beit HaMikdash, we focus largely on how this has affected our faith, on both a practical and theological level, but we disregard how it has stagnated the development of our doubt, in turn stagnating our increased understanding of God, in essence stunting the continued growth of the Man-God relationship. Faith without doubt, though a tempting (and, often, over-idealized) alternative for anyone who struggles with the shadowy duel of conflicted belief, should not be encouraged or excused; it is, though not necessarily simplistic or dogmatic, an egocentric, passive manner of dealing with the challenges of Torah, highlighted by a relationship with God that reduces our Creator to a complex and portable character, a trusted and feared comrade—in other words, a Being who can be related to in the same manner as one relates to any other being. While we struggle to advance in faith without a home for God on Earth, we must also struggle to advance in doubt, to question God despite His extreme intangibility, to change so that the relationship with God continues to progress. Doubt should not be viewed as the lazy, default status of those with heretical tendencies or sinful drives. It is effort to doubt appropriately, and to fail to make that effort, to fail to bravely accept doubt as an outgrowth of genuine study, is to fail to attempt a relationship with God. Because to question God, to question even his existence as we see it, is truly to question our knowledge of God, our conception of God, our comprehension of His Incomprehensibility, and that is the only way—through sincere doubt coupled with sincere faith—that we may hope to maintain a relationship with God and build for him, again, a Sanctuary on Earth.