Can We Know What God Wants from Us? He wants us to take From Him!

Andrea Hodos asks a telling question at the beginning of her take on Parashat Terumah ("Jewish Journal" February 24 -- March 1):

"As human beings, can we know precisely what God wants from us?

The Bible contains the answer in many places. But first, God puts aside man's presumption to offer the Almighty anything of his own:

"Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

"I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.

"I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.

"For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

"I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

"If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

"Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" (Psalm 50: 7-13)

What can we offer God, really? It all belongs to Him, does it not? Would it not be silly, presumptive ignorance on the part of men to offer to God something that is already His, as if it were our own? Even the Psalmist elsewhere disputes such following with gladness:

"Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." (Psalm 100:3)

He made us, He owns us, He provides for us. In fact, even our grasping Patriarch defined his trust in the Lord based on what He would do for him:

"And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,

"So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God:

"And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." (Genesis 28: 20-22)

For Jacob, later Israel, a life of grabbing and scheming came to naught. The pledge for him was a God would care for his needs, not a God who demanded something from him first.

Not convinced of God's original and originating generous nature? Consider the Lord's one-sided deal with Abram, later Abraham:

"Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 12:1-3)

God asked Abram to follow him, and He would do all the blessing. He would guarantee his way, his future, and his substance. All Abram had to do was leave his family.

For the record, this was not a great feat, perhaps, for Rabbinical commentaries charge that Abram had denounced his family for idol worship. Besides, Abram's father Terah was heading for Canaan, presumably at the behest of the Lord, yet he chose to linger in Ur:

"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

"And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran." (Genesis 11: 31-32)