Believers might readily embrace the spiritual prospect of asking God a question and receiving a response (whether with a knowing or feeling beyond self, or an inner sense within).
But how about disbelievers? In a rational world of left-brain logic, can suffering and brokenness drive a rational response that is spiritual? Indeed they can, and the source is poignant.
| By Rabbi David Evan Markus Toledot 5786 (2025) | • When Because Doesn’t Answer Why (2023) • The Flags Up Front (2024) |
Jews are diverse in most every way – spanning race, ethnicity, culture and belief (or disbelief). Even among believers in God, many moderns struggle to precisely define much less justify what it is they believe. Add left-brained logic and reason in our broken world, and Jewish theology can be as diverse as we are.
For Torah to be universally relevant, Torah also must speak to the rationalists among us. This week, while reading a part of Torah that I’ve read for many years, I saw something new that alluded to rational spirituality beyond belief.
This week’s Torah portion opens with a recurring plot point: Yitzhak and his new wife Rivkah yearn to bear children. Yitzhak was a believer who prayed (Genesis 25:21-22):
| וַיֶּעְתַּ֨ר יִצְחָ֤ק לַיהו”ה֙ לְנֹ֣כַח אִשְׁתּ֔וֹ כִּ֥י עֲקָרָ֖ה הִ֑וא וַיֵּעָ֤תֶר לוֹ֙ יהו”ה וַתַּ֖הַר רִבְקָ֥ה אִשְׁתּֽוֹ׃ וַיִּתְרֹֽצְצ֤וּ הַבָּנִים֙ בְּקִרְבָּ֔הּ וַתֹּ֣אמֶר אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי וַתֵּ֖לֶךְ לִדְרֹ֥שׁ אֶת־יהו”ה׃ | Yitzhak pleaded with YHVH on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; YHVH responded to his plea, and his wife Rivkah conceived. The children scampered within her [womb], and she said, “If so, why am I this?” – and she went to inquire of YHVH. |
Rivkah didn’t quite pray: she went to find out. Biblically, it was the first time anyone went to God asking a question.
As we might do amidst the drama of our lives, Rivkah’s question linked what happened with who she is (“Why am I this?”). Of course, we moderns know that we are far more than what happens (don’t we?), yet often it is an identity challenge that launches a spiritual search.
Believers might easily understand asking God a question. Some might resonate with getting a response – whether a knowing or feeling that comes seemingly from beyond oneself, or an inner sense arising from one’s own inquiry and discernment. Believers might find comfort in Torah’s narrative of what happened next: God responded to Rivkah, with words she (and we) can understand (Gen. 25:23). Even more, God’s words verified. As God told her, Rivkah bore twins Eisav and Ya’akov, and in a cultural role reversal, the younger (Ya’akov) would dominate.
But what is a disbeliever to do with this story, besides reject it out of hand? Is there a hidden message for the rationalists among us? I believe there is.
Rivkah “went to inquire of YHVH,” but the Hebrew (וַתֵּ֖לֶךְ לִדְרֹ֥שׁ אֶת־יהו”ה) also can mean that Rivkah “went to midrash YHVH.” Her identity challenged, Rivkah went and told sacred stories about God – finding in herself an answer to her question and attributing the answer to God.
Rivkah invites a rational spirituality for the agnostic unsure about divinity and the atheist sure that there is none beyond ourselves. In this understanding, it is the search for meaning – not a particular theology – that is the wellspring of spirituality and spiritual experience.
A rationalist finding themselves by looking within (or looking to community, or thousands of years of ethical tradition) takes nothing from the believer finding themselves in partnership with God. Ultimately both seek meaning, and can do so together amidst their diverse beliefs.
Maybe Torah’s greatest wisdom is precisely that she can call to both “camps,” maybe even parts of each of us, on terms wholly authentic to each – uniting a people infinitely diverse in a call to meaning that transcends time.
David Evan Markus 