Above all, many of us forgot that religious teaching was what the rabbis called miqra. It was essentially and crucially a program for action. You had to engage with a symbol imaginatively, become ritually and ethically involved with it, and allow it to effect a profound change in you. That was the original meaning of the words “faith” and “belief.” If you held aloof, a symbol would remain opaque and implausible. Many people today can work with the symbolism of the modern God in this way; backed up by ritual and compassionate, self-emptying practice, it still introduces them to the
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