After the joy of Chanukah, the tiem of dedication, it is important to remember what God desires amd what religion is for. The powerful urge to treasure mythg over truth and shut out anything which expands our understanding of our ancient stories fills religion. So does the desire to find, at the cost of making oursleves smaller than we really are, "our people", "our crowd" and essentially ignoring everybody else. In this type of religion, where we tradefairy tales for truths and reality for oversimplicity, we please ourselves, prove to those without faith that most faith is wishful thinking, and draw no nearer to holiness than we were before.




Coming to the end of Genesis, we are filled with stories of those who were challenged and stretched. What God came to show was something which existed beyond reason. It existed in dreams by a stone, on mountains of sacrifice, in barren wombs and in hrazy deserts. We want all of the comforts of religion, but none of the stretching, and it is not crime to want. But to expect, to limit the Divine and say, no, stay in this place where you prove that I am right and others are wrong, this is the real blasphemy.