大象传媒

Good morning!One day a Jewish mother and her 8-year-old daughter were walking along a beach. Suddenly, a gigantic wave hit the shore, sweeping the little girl out to sea. 聽鈥淥h, God,鈥� lamented the mother, turning her face toward heaven and shaking her fist. 鈥淭his is my only child. She is the love and joy of my life. I have cherished every day that she has been with me. Give her back to me and I will go to the synagogue every day for the rest of my life!鈥澛犅燬uddenly, another gigantic wave hit the beach but this time deposited the girl back on the sand. The mother looked up to heaven and said, 鈥淎nd what happened to her hat?鈥澛燭he tradition of arguing with God has a long history, going back to biblical times. 聽Abraham, whom the Bible called a 鈥榝riend of God鈥�, famously argued with the Almighty when the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were about to be destroyed.聽聽Even when you read a Jewish commentary on the Bible you witness a kind of rabbinic argument going on. In the surrounding small print there are arguments about the arguments about the arguments. If I were to describe the literature of Judaism, indeed of all faiths, the best I鈥檇 come up with, is that it鈥檚 an 鈥榓nthology of arguments鈥�; or a millennial chat room聽And the question is not just: why do we argue? I suppose everyone argues. The question is: why is argument central to the religious experience? How can argument be holy?聽The answer is that when we give a respectful hearing to another side and learn how to disagree, we not only do justice to more than one point of view, but make our arguments holy.聽聽And then we can truly say we argue for the sake of heaven.聽Amen