When children first learn of God, they often think of God as a person–someone who created the world, who performs miracles, who hears prayer. As children grow older and expand their intellectual and spiritual horizons, their concept of God changes and they ask probing questions about the nature of God: What is God?–An infinite force? A spiritual creation of humanity?

Other questions are asked, some centering on whether there can be a God in the face of all of the tragedy that people suffer–unspeakable horrors such as the Holocaust where five million innocent Jewish women and men and one million innocent Jewish children were slaughtered like animals by the Nazis, simply because they were Jews.

Many modern Jews do not spend much time talking about God, yet often have deeply felt spiritual needs. Judaism allows and, indeed, encourages, freedom of thought. There is no specific credo, but a thoughtful Jew grapples with questions of spirituality and God. The study of differing Jewish perspectives of God can be intellectually stimulating, emotionally rewarding, and spiritually fulfilling.

For instance, some may identify with the philosophy of Mordecai Kaplan, who wrote that a belief in God is an affirmation that there are reliable forces and processes in life that can contribute to self-improvement and thereby enable man and woman "to achieve salvation":

To believe in God means to take for granted that it is man’s (and woman’s) destiny to rise above the brute and to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society. It matters very little how we conceive God, as long as we so believe in God that belief in God makes a tremendous difference in our lives.

Others may find great personal meaning in the perspective of Milton Steinberg, who wrote:

The entire universe, as I see it, is the outward manifestation of Mind-Energy, of Spirit, or to use the older and better word, of God. God is then the essential Being of all beings, though all beings in their totality do not exhaust Him.

Steinberg urged that:

…like all other propositions, that of the existence of God not completely provable. It remains the conclusion of an act of faith.

Two related areas that can also be explored concern Jewish concepts of immortality and questions relating to the concept of a messianic age. The Prophet Ezekiel spoke of God "going to open your graves and lift you out of the graves, 0 My people, and bring you to the land of Israel" (Ezek. 37:11-12). More than 2,000 years ago, the Pharisees and Sadducees debated whether there would be resurrection, a debate that had an obvious impact in the development of Christianity. Today, there are many Orthodox Jews as well as some Conservative and Reform Jews who believe in resurrection. However, most Jews do not believe in an afterlife in the traditional sense.

Those who do not believe in traditional immortality can consider such other options as biological immortality achieved through children and their descendants, intellectual immortality achieved through influencing others, creative immortality achieved through work and artistic endeavor, and, of course, spiritual immortality achieved through "mitzvot"–good deeds. Some Jewish scholars speak of the immortality of the soul and affirm that after death, something of every human being remains forever. Rabbi Alexander Schindler, the former president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, speaks of immortality "in the memory of those who knew us, loved us, and were influenced by our lives" and "the immortality of the human deed." The Talmud teaches that "we live in deeds, not years"; Pirke Avot (a book of daily ethical guidance) affirms that "this world is like a vestibule before the world to come," yet declares in the same passage "Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than the whole life in the world to come."

Related to questions of immortality is the concept of a messianic age, which has been a part of Judaism since biblical times. Traditional Judaism looked forward to the time when God would send a Messiah who would redeem the people of Israel and all humanity, ushering in a messianic age of universal peace. Among the reasons Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah is that the messianic age did not come into being. In Judaism, the emphasis is on seeking to attain the messianic age as a result of the collective efforts of human beings, rather than through the figure of a Messiah. Modern philosophy emphasizes the responsibility of all people to work together to help achieve a Messianic Age for all humanity. Exploring spiritual issues may yield complex, rather than simple answers. Even those who have not yet found satisfactory answers to spiritual questions or discovered a meaningful concept of God can take heart in knowing that Judaism freely allows and encourages a personal search for God, a search for spiritual meaning in life, with no single belief absolute in its authority. It is quest that is part of Jewish tradition, a link in a chain that goes back 4,000 years. Undertaking this quest can result in great intellectual challenge and emotional rewards.

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