God in the Age of Twitter

need to ask answerable ones about ourselves. “God will not be asked about what God does, but you will be asked about what you do,” the Qur’an reminds us. Questions of who, what, where, how, or why, as they relate to God, we are instructed, are best left to God. Rather, our task is to observe God’s timeless names and attributes as they unfold in the world and cultivate the light, that Divine light, once it has been ignited in our hearts, in order to align ourselves with those perfect names as best we can. The tasks of observation and spiritual cultivation are timeless ones, and they have yielded consistent results to the faithful for as long as we have been able to record their fruits. However, they are tasks that require humans to gracefully accept the limitations of our knowledge; they require humility and oftentimes a change of perspective. When we find within ourselves the ability to undertake these tasks, we ignite a light that can grow to illuminate every level of our being and reveal to us insights some may deem intellectually inaccessible. I M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 57 Wendy Zierler, a professor at HUC-JIR, New York, is the author of And Rachel Stole the Idols: The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Women's Writing (2004) and is currently writing a book on film and Jewish theology, based on a course co-taught with theologian Eugene Borowitz. I n the 1998 film The Truman Show, Truman Burbank— whoseverynameyokesthehumanaspirationfortruthwith the fictions or mistruths of Hollywood (Burbank, California )—takes a ship to the edge of his film set, Seahaven. Then he climbs a set of stairs (as if to heaven) and exits this world through a dark door leading to who knows where. Truman’s journey of discovery reveals the sham nature of his media-generated reality and its would-be god, Christof. Notably, Christof demonstrates much of what Judeo-Christian tradition has long taught about God: he is a Creator; with his ubiquitous, providential camera-eyes, he is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. In accordance with the cosmology of Genesis, he cues the sun and brings forth the rain; like God in the book of Jonah, he summons a storm on the sea to force his way upon his recalcitrant messenger . At times he is a punitive ruler; at others, he is paternal, stroking the image of Truman on the screen, as a father would a son. The final bow that Truman takes at the end of the film stands not for obeisance but for rebellion against the norms and assumptions that Christof has conditioned him to uphold. A modernist, Freudian reading of Truman’s exit at the film’s end might suggest that Truman has been cured of his religious neurosis and is now ready to live a healthy life, free of the pseudo-God. An existentialist reading suggests that he has learned to reject the media-staged meanings previously made for him and is now ready to make meaning of his own. But is there really any way to find ultimate meaning outside of words, signs, symbols, and images—that is, outside the realm ofhuman-languagemedia?Asafilmthatisallabouttheneedto distrust the film medium, The Truman Show indicates, in frank terms,theextenttowhichwecannot,andperhapsoughtnot,attempttofleethesuperstructureofwords ,images,narration,and representation that governs our sense of selfhood and freedom. A post-secular, religious reading of the film—like that which I attempt to do with my rabbinical students in a course entitled “Reel Theology”—entails both a rejection of Christoflike idols and an affirmation of what God really is. Arthur Green’s ecological rethinking of God and tradition refers to God as Being, as the life force that dwells within the universe. From my textcentered , covenant-centered Jewish vantage point, I maintain a belief that central to the uncovering of God in our lives is a recognition of thesacrednessofwords,andourgodlyindwelling within language, for it is our ability to communicate , create, and relate in words and signs, both to each other and to God, that...