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Open Secrets is a collection of letters penned by a Rabbi to his student in America. In it, the Rabbi discusses the salient points of Judaism as responses to questions posed by his student.

I don’t know much about Judaism, and what I do know may be extremely flawed. As such, I can not attest to how much this book accurately describes the Jewish tradition. I do know that it resonates within my soul. To be clear, the book is spiritual fiction, but it presents a deeper understanding of the Jewish faith.

Within the first few chapters, the point that jumps out at me is “God is All.”

What does it mean to be All? God is the sole Reality. God is the Source of all things and their Substance. There is no thing or feeling or thought that is not from God, even the idea that there is no God! For this is what it is to be All: God must embrace even God’s own negation.

That’s a neat idea, but I had to stop at that statement. I’m with the idea that God is the sole Reality, even that God is the Source and Substance of all things: the invisible and the visible. However, that brings into question all the seemingly “bad” things in the world. I’m not talking illness, I’m talking the twisted stuff like killing sprees, or famine, or war. Is God the Substance of war?

Well, I could explain that with the Lens theory. The idea that we filter with our mind and thoughts the pure good that God is. As a result, if we have a heavy filter on, it would appear as though there are really “bad” things. Those “bad” things would still be a manifestation of God, but a very filtered sliver of God. Or, taken from a different perspective, even in the midst of seemingly “bad” things God exists and good can be witnessed.

However, he went on to say that there is no thing, or feeling, or thought that is not from God. That’s a tough one to swallow. Frankly, I’m not willing to swallow it. It would mean that even the filter is God, and that war, death, destruction, and famine is God.

I leave this to you, how can you reconcile the idea that God is All, with the appearance/reality of things that seem not of God? I’ll be pondering this one for some time.

In Spirit,
Nneka

This is the first in a 6-part series review of the book Open Secrets.