 NOVEMBER 19 • 2020 | 15

would argue for the concept 
of a limited God. An omnip-
otent and omniscient God, 
after all, would deserve to 
be blamed for all the nat-
ural and manmade evils 
that have ever befallen His 
creatures, including the 
Holocaust. The simple rea-
son is that, having foreseen 
such evils, He could have 
easily prevented or at least 
mitigated them. By histo-
ry’
s reckoning, then, a God 
whose powers are limitless 
would be a deity who not 
only can lead us beside the 
still waters but also know-
ingly steers us into the val-
ley of death’
s shadow where 
our enemies wait.
 A God who is limited in 
his powers, on the other 
hand, can be exonerated 
from such complicity. He is 
a God who kneels in anguish 
at Auschwitz, clothed in 
striped gray, a mute and 
helpless witness both to his 
creatures’
 immense crimes 
and their victims’
 boundless 
suffering. Our anguish is His 
anguish, too. 
To my mind, then, it is far 
easier to believe in such an 
imperfect God rather than 
argue obscenely, as some 
theologians have, that the 
infinite pain of countless 
victims is somehow excused 
by a capricious experiment 

in free will, or condoned 
by the insensate calculus of 
a higher good known only 
to Him. In the face of evil, 
a limited God, you see, can 
still stand for justice and 
mercy and demand those 
same virtues from us, all the 
more so because He des-
perately needs our help in 
righting the world’
s wrongs.
Thus I would propose to 
radically revise Psalm 23 
rather than retain the text 
ascribed to King David and 
long revered by tradition, 
for as a realist I find it dif-
ficult to naively exhibit a 
boundless faith in God’
s 
“goodness and mercy … all 
the days of my life” or main-
tain the certain hope that I 
shall one day and forever-
more “dwell in the house of 
the Lord.” 
Instead, I would com-
mend to modern readers 
a version of scripture 
addressed not to unthinking 
sheep but to thoughtful and 
courageous women and men 
willing to help their limited 
God by sharing, with their 
own limited powers, the 
burden of redeeming the 
world. 

Dr. Stephen Bertman is Professor 

Emeritus of Classical Studies at the 

University of Windsor. He is a resident 

of West Bloomfield and a member of 

Temple Israel.

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Hebrew Free Loan Board member Brett deMarrais
describes himself as marginally involved in the Jewish
community until he was recruited to join the Becker-
Marcus Mission to Israel. Brett says it was “totally life
changing. It really got my Judaism going.” 
At a post-Mission overview of Federation agencies,
HFL Executive Director David Contorer’s description
of the agency captured Brett’s attention.
“I’m a partner in a venture capital group, so the
aspect of the loan capital recycling and funding the
needs of the Jewish community interested me right
away,” Brett said. “What took it from interesting to
fascinating was the idea that you see the impact of
HFL for yourself. Usually, when you donate or you
serve on a Board, you don’t see the people on the other
end of the donation, you don’t meet the beneficiaries
of your gala dinner ticket, and you don’t know how
much good you’re doing. The directness of HFL
made me want to be part of it.”
Brett spoke with current Board members, met with
David Contorer, volunteered to be a small business
mentor, and put himself in line for a Board vacancy
because he felt HFL was his place.
“I’ve never done anything more meaningful,” Brett
said. “I have a deep sense of gratitude in my own life for
what I have, and how I can use that to do good for others.”
Brett said the agency’s mission moved him so much
that he and his wife established two funds, the Gil & Ellen
deMarrais Memorial Education Fund, and the Marilyn
Berman Memorial Fund, in honor of their late parents.
They also discovered his in-laws’ family connection to
HFL founding member Jacob Lasky. “I guess that means
it was meant to be that I’m part of such an amazing 
program,” Brett said. “I can see a lot of good outcomes
here. It’s very powerful.”

 

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