I have loved “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations” ever since I found it as a kid. Bartlett’s felt like a whirlwind tour of great literature, tiny snippets of huge works that I would someday read at greater length. I’m pleased that Bartlett’s isn’t entirely obsolete. Its online incarnation lives at www.bartleby.com/quotations/.

The Jewish prayer book is rich with familiar quotations from this week’s Torah portion, Va-et’kha’nan, Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11. The Ten Commandments (Deut. 5:6-18), that quintessential declaration of Jewish monotheism, known as Sh’ma Yisrael (Deut. 6:4) and the commandment to love the LORD known as V’ahavta, (Deut. 6:5-9), even the wise child of the Passover Haggadah (Deut. 6:20-25) all appear here. 

But there’s something else here, too: A certain spirit infuses the whole portion. This spiritual perspective runs throughout the entire book of Deuteronomy and demands attention. 

Modern scholars of the Bible call that spirit the “Deuteronomistic Theology.” Most of us know it well, even if not by that fancy title. Deuteronomistic Theology is the belief in God as a cosmic algorithm. So: let “you” = u, let obedience to the Torah = > 0, set disobedience = < 0, and finally let “good” = G. Thus, if u > 0, then G; but if u < 0 then (-G). 

In other words, Deuteronomy proclaims, “if you obey God’s laws in the Torah then good things will happen to you and your descendants; but if you do not, then not-so-good things will happen.” 

Such promises and warnings abound in every chapter of this portion. Notice why God refuses to let Moses enter the Promised Land in Chapter 3. Then take a look at Deut. 4:25-31, 4:40, 5:25-30, 6:1-3, 6:10-19, 6:24-25, and all of chapter 7, especially its ringing conclusion at 7:9-11. 

Personally, I have a very hard time accepting such a mechanical understanding of God’s will. In fact, I find such blunt theology unsatisfying. Dare I say untrue? Perhaps many of you feel a similar inner struggle when reading such words.

Bad things really do happen to good people. Stringent observance of Torah law is no guarantee of good health or good fortune. We pursue justice but it eludes us anyway. While the righteous suffer, the wicked often flourish. So many people have no use for Judaism or any religion. I suspect texts like these have something to do with their repulsion. Evangelists Jerry Falwell’s and Pat Robertson’s famous exchange on “the 700 Club” TV show on September 13, 2001 holding groups with a liberal political agenda responsible for the attacks of September 11 of that year was, I think, deeply influenced by such Deuteronomistic theology. So are some of the statements of the so-called Westboro Baptist Church blaming the victims of various unspeakable acts of violence and natural disasters for public policies that they claim violate Biblical precept with regard to homosexuality. I doubt these modern applications of Deuteronomistic Theology won over very many skeptics. Besides, if that cosmic algorithm really worked, one would have to be pretty foolish not to obey!

So I am intrigued by Deuteronomy 5:3. “The LORD did not make this Covenant with our fathers, but with us! We! These! Here! Today! All of us! Living!” (I’m grateful to Prof. Richard Elliott Friedman for the urgency of this translation.)

Would we want to accept this cove nant, if we were given the chance to do it all over again? Knowing the sad truth that one can scrupulously obey the Torah’s teachings and still suffer terrible misfortune or disobey and yet prosper, would we who are living today still accept this covenant?

As for me, the reason I’ve done my best to shoulder the burden of the Torah’s commandments has little to do with Deuteronomistic Theology. This verse is more like the spirit that motivates me: “If you seek the LORD your God from there, you’ll find Him; when you inquire of Him with all your heart and all your soul. …the LORD, your God, has done for you in Egypt before your eyes. You have been shown in order to know that the LORD is God; there is none other than God.” (Deut. 4:29-35)

Now, in the same spirit, here’s a familiar quotation that speaks on how to accept a religious covenant that assumes a just and merciful God in a world with so much injustice and such suffering:

“And you shall know today and store it in your heart that the LORD is God in the skies above and on the earth below. There isn’t another.” Deut. 4: 39, better known as the ending clause of the Aleinu, a/k/a the Adoration, usually sung “ein od, ein od!” and often translated as “there is none else.” 

But one could also read it as “there is nothing else.”

Now that is a mystical theology, finding God in everything, everywhere, every time. Good or bad, extraordinary or mundane, there is nothing but God – even if God is not immediately apparent.

When I visit a patient or a family member in the hospital, sometimes on an intensive care unit, in the emergency department or in hospice, I don’t ask myself who broke which Biblical law in order to deserve such punishment. Instead I ask, “Where’s God?” Or, “God, where are You?”) When I ask the question this way, G!d is everywhere – in the bustling energy of the paramedics, doctors and nurses, in the grief and concern of the family members and friends sitting anxiously in the waiting room hoping for news, sometimes in lengthy and painful recovery. God is present in the universal nature of sickness and in the incredible diversity of the hospital’s staff and of its patients. No, I don’t tell family members that a sudden death or catastrophic injury is God’s will. I let them tell me where God is. So often, they do. When I look at this broken world this way, God has never been closer or more present.