From my notebook

Wrote this in class today in my notebook:

Can life really be so simple? It seems at times to me that Judaism is a little to simple, we tell stories about the times of the Temple, about miracles, the power of Navim(prophets), etc. And it all seems just a bit to simple to me. Am I really being asked to believe, that at this time in history life was like a science fiction novel? I don't know about all that, if you believe all the commentaries and all the stories then you're a fool, if you believe none of them you're a heretic. So what am I? I believe the stories are real in the sense that I see them reflected in my own life, stories about the destruction of the first Temple, King David's adventures and the lives of the Patriarchs, but did they actually happen? I just don't know after all I don't have stories like these told about me. But at the end of the day if all I regard them as are stories them what does that mean? How does that change the way I approach my own life, religion, and most importantly my god?

So thats what I wrote I understand that ultimately I have to choose how I live and I know that many of my questions will go unanswered and new ones will crop up. But I had that thought, its worth considering. There is a story told about a Rabbi's son and his friend, they grow up together and eventually go off to different universities. They lose touch and one day a few years later the Rabbi's son sees his old friend and he's no longer religious. He runs up to his friend and says, what happened, etc? To which his friend responds "I was sitting in class one day and these three questions occurred to me and I asked people for answers but no one had any for me and I realized I couldn't go on like this unless I had answers". The Rabbis son is greatly disturbed by this and he runs to his fathers and tells him what happened and asks the three questions. His father looks at him for a while before finally telling his son that he needs three days to think about them and then he'll have answers for his questions. The son is greatly disturbed by this he'd never before asked his father a question he didn't have an answer to. And so for three days he's burning to know, finally after three days he runs to his father and without pause the Rabbi answers his questions. He does it is such a manner that the son realizes his father knew the answers three days ago. So why did he not tell him? He asks, his father looks at him and says this. "My son do you think that when god told Abraham to take his beloved son Issac to Mt. Moriah and sacrifice him that Abraham did not question god? And yet he journeyed for for three days with him to perform this task. What did you do in the last three days did you stop serving god? Or did you continue despite the questions?" In the end we will always have questions that we don't understand, problems that we may not necessarily be able to work out but it s what we do while we're struggling thats important.