Why do we Live?

Today our discussion began with an interesting question from Ezekiel.  

Ezekiel: Rabbi, I want to ask you a question. About a year ago I asked the same question to a rabbi I happened to meet. It made him so angry that he even called me a child of Satan for daring to ask such a question. I hope you will not get angry at me. Here is my question: Why do we live?

  Rabbi answered with a smile on his face.

Rabbi: Well, I am happy that you have asked me such an important question. Why we live is the most important and fundamental question about human existence. Although everybody seeks to know its answer, nobody knows the exact answer. People have asked this question since they began to think and talk because it is impossible to live our life without some sort of answer to this question.  

Before seeking an answer to this very interesting question, let us clarify the question itself. Let me rephrase your question: For what purpose do the human beings exist? I believe this is what you meant. Now let us expand the scope of this question. The human beings exist in the world as a part of the world breathing air, drinking water, and eating food. So we may also ask the question: For what purpose does the world exist? These two questions are related.  Each of them implies the other.

The answers given to this question are not necessarily the same in various cultures and traditions. The answers given by our forefathers have come down to us in the form of songs, stories, and proverbs. We are fortunate to have them in written form in our Holy Scriptures. It witnesses how they faced the challenge of existence, and how they answered the basic questions related to it.  Their answer to the question "why we live" can be found in the Hymn of Creation in the first chapter of Genesis, the first book of our Holy Scriptures.

Ezekiel: In the Hymn of Creation we read how God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh day. How does it answer the question “why we live”?

Rabbi:  Well, let us see if we can find the answer there. Our primary means of living is farming. We work on our farms six days a week, and rest in the weekends. Our ancestors who wrote this hymn of creation were also farmers. Therefore, it was easy for them to imagine the world as a large farm, and God as its farmer.  Plants, animals, birds, human beings, and everything else belong to this large farm. Like a typical Hebrew farmer, God was pictured as working on his farm for six days and resting on the seventh day.  When God, the farmer, arrives, the earth is void and without form.  He gives order and form, and converts it into a beautiful farm.

A farm exists for its farmer; hence, the world with everything in it belongs to God, its owner. Being a part of the world, human beings also belong to God. Thus according to our forefathers, we exist for God.

Ezekiel: I understand. But, can you say why God wants us to exist?

Rabbi: I wish I knew the answer. God alone knows the answer to your question. Nobody except God knows why the world exists.  Hence, we have to be satisfied with the knowledge that we live for some purpose that only our creator knows. Anyway, there is no doubt that God wants the world to exist, and it has to be a healthy existence. God is not happy with a chaotic and disorderly world; what God wants is an orderly and beautiful world. In the creation hymn, we repeatedly read that God was very happy to see his beautiful creation.  

Ezekiel: So what you suggest is that we need to live an orderly and beautiful life though we don't know its purpose. How can a sensible person do something without knowing the purpose of doing it?  

Rabbi: Well, you have stated bluntly the very basic irony of our existence. Our ancestors faced this problem of senselessness by believing that someone else knows why we exist though we don't.  

Ezekiel: Are you implying that the existence of God is just a matter of belief?

Rabbi: Not at all. God is not a part of the world; therefore, we can’t think or speak about God in the same way we do about everything else in the world. However, we believe that God exists.  That belief depends on another belief-- the belief that our existence has purpose and meaning. These two beliefs, that God exists and that our life has purpose, go together; one can't exist without the other. Therefore, that we exist is sufficient proof for us to believe that God exists. We will discuss this in more detail some other time.

Ezekiel: I understand what you mean. Though I don't know why I live, I choose to live because I believe that someone up there knows the reason. So my problem is not the lack of purpose, but the lack of knowledge of it. I simply need to trust God just as a child trusts his/her parents.  

Rabbi: You have used the best analogy. We are as ignorant as little children regarding the purpose of our existence. The best possible solution I can think of is to believe that although we are ignorant of it, our creator is not.  

It was a very interesting discussion.  


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