WORSE than Slamming the Door on Converts

The worst sin in the world is not killing. It is not rape. Nor child abuse. Nor anything else you see mentioned in the news. Those things can for the survivors be outlasted and with the strength of the human heart be surmounted.

The worst sin in the world is destroying hope. Without a belief however irrational it may seem that life will continue and even improve, their is no motivation any longer for action. Actions turn to other motivations. Darker ones. Hopeless ones. All the world tumbles down to Hell.

We see it every day. We see the other sins. Those are the after effects of denying hope.

The first hope is that our creator loves us too. We want to be accepted and loved, just the way we are, by that which made us. It's as strong a drive in our hearts as wanting our mother and father when we are in peril. Stronger than sex, more powerful than hunger, we want G-d to love us too.

I say too because we have an inherent sense that G-d loves, and someone else. We see our cup as half empty and think that everyone else has something going for them just a little more than we. We think G-d loves everyone else. Some of us take up clothing, books, and scrolls imbued by the trust of our fellows and spread that message. Even then, those spreading the message wonder. Come to think of it, when was the last time you told your Rabbi that G-d loved him or her? Who comforts the men and women of the faith when they need it?

Now, ever more, with this happening we are reminded of in the title linked article, as well as this other one I may have mentioned thanks to Rejewvinator, we are seeing in Judaism a terrible slide in the direction that Christianity has already slid: taking away the hope, slamming the door on the idea... that G-d loves you.

You're not a Jew by their standards... then what are you? Just a human being?

There's nothing "just a" about you. Remember that this entire world began with G-d waking up one day before time was even time and noticing His own existence and commenting, "I am."

Don't let go of that hope. You are. You are, and He loves you too. And that is something even He can't take away from you.

Let not the schism be.