Religions are Like Languages

To me, religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say or say as well in another; and the more languages you learn, the more nuanced your understanding of life becomes. Judaism is my mother tongue, yet in matters of the spirit I strive to be multi-lingual. In the end, however, the deepest language of the soul is silence.Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Source: http://www.rabbirami.com/Accessed: 2017-01-30

What particularly struck me here is "the more languages you learn, the more nuanced your understanding of life becomes." That really hits the nail on the head! For years now I've been working on hybridity and its relation to religion and spirituality ... and to life itself. Here, Shapiro says it very eloquently: Learn as many languages you can. For me, that means in practice: try to get to know as many different worlds / religious worlds as you can ... even to the point when you can claim to a certain extent that you know these worlds somehow as an insider. You are going to be tremendously enriched by that! That has been my personal experience in my life journey so far.

Is 'Why' an Important (Ultimate) Question?

I'm reading Rami Shapiro's Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent now. In the part in which he deals with the question "Why," he provocatively asks: Is 'Why' even a relevant question?
He answers by saying that, in a profound sense, 'why' is not relevant, nay, it could even be a dangerous distraction. He uses the story of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures to comment on that. When Job demands to know the 'why' of his suffering, God seems to indicate that this question is irrelevant because life is chaotic and wild while, at the same time, also oftentimes beautiful and grand. One can just stand in front of the great mystery and live it to the full with radical acceptance. ...

The God Beyond Naming

For some time now, I've been deeply interested in the theme of idolatry and how it has reared its head in the Bible and in Christian/religious history. Here is a quote from Rabbi Rami Shapiro that speaks to this theme.

"What I am saying is that all theologies and ideologies are of human origin. The gods produced in these systems are gods that can be named and not the Eternal God beyond naming. This doesn't mean there is no God, only that whatever this God may be, it cannot be named, owned, or monopolized by any group to sanction its own ends and excuse whatever means it uses to achieve those ends."
Rami Shapiro
Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent, 2013, p. 182