Last week, the New York Times featured an article about recently-translated cuneiform tablets from ancient Babylonia, circa 1900 to 1600 BCE. The tablets describe celestial events as omens foretelling plague, defeat in war, crop failure and other disasters. Andrew George, an Assyriologist, is quoted as saying “The reading of omens was how the Babylonians made sense of the world.”
Isn’t making sense of the world what we have tried to do since the dawn of humankind? The multitude of different world religions reflect ways cultures have communicated with their deities and tried to explain how the world works.
In the past few centuries, we have turned to science to help us make sense of the physical world, and psychology to help us understand how humans behave. But we are not so different from our Babylonian ancestors. We might have more answers to how the physical world works, and we might see much farther into time and space, but we have the same need to create meaning and purpose in our lives.
People are also reading…
That need for meaning and purpose explains why Judaism is as old as the Babylonian tablets. From the beginning, our texts and teachings have offered guidance on how to live a meaningful, moral life. For 3½ millennia, we have turned to holidays, rituals, laws about how to live in community, and how to address the Divine, to make sense of our existence beyond omens or scientific explanations.
The tablets are relics from the past. Judaism continues as a living guide for how to live in the world because it addresses timeless human needs.
Tucson faith leaders, we would like to include your original sermon or scriptures of encouragement. Sermons must be written by the person submitting them, not borrowed from another source or writer. If you are a faith leader from any religion or denomination, please contact Sara Brown at sbbrown@tucson.com.
If you walk into Robert’s Western World on Sunday morning and sit on one of the barstools of this iconic Nashville honky-tonk, you won't be able to drink any alcohol and you’ll listen to Christian music. For nearly two decades, has known this as “The Gospel Hour.”
Rabbi Helen Cohn