practice

Why be religious? Can't we just be spiritual?

I don't think so. The soul has got to be in tune before it can sing with God. We get this tune-up through religion, and we're playing with the Maestro. Religious observance is the practice that prepares us to experience God.

According to Alasdair MacIntyre’s definition in After Virtue, a practice is “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence.” For example, yoga, chess, weight-lifting and reading are all practices - they are human activities with set standards and their own essential goals. With regular effort, we are rewarded with the skills or muscles we need: in yoga, flexibility; in chess, strategy; by reading, wisdom, and so on.

In my life, Jewish observance is a practice that raises my awareness of the fragile beauty of life and increases my thankfulness for it. Although the practice does not promise an experience of God, it can make me ready for it, by making my soul fit and precise. “I would rather be exact,” says Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea, “Then when luck comes you are ready.” Like Hemingway's fisherman, we all train for that one special moment.

The goal is to be ready to meet God with love, awe and reverence. “The purpose of observance is to train us in achieving spiritual ends,” said Abraham Joshua Heschel. Religion is gym for the soul. It can stretch and strengthen your spirit beyond prior limits. When you prepare with God, you are driven to new abilities. It's like being on Venice's Muscle Beach in1979, and your soul is training side-by-side with Arnold Schwartzenegger as he prepares for his ultimate Mr. Olympia title.