Dear Norman, I just read your article, "God is Alive," in Jewish Life, March–April 1966. I found it so provocative that I’ve been compelled to write to you about it. Frankly, I am troubled by the easy moral of the last section – the eternal consequence of your theological argument. I am troubled by the certainty of “As we will be to Him, so will He be to us!” (my italics). Hester Panim is no punishment that God gives (p. 18), but the hiddenness is so hidden that we do not know it is hidden (p. 19). Therefore, nothing on earth – no incident of national or individual occurrence – is testimony of His being “hidden,” or of His turning His face to us. It is conceivable, then, that existential pain, suffering, and death has as much a witness of us as happy events are. The horrid implication is that deviation from Torah law causes “hidden-ness,” and conformity will cause the land to bring forth fruit (the Shema) seems not to be historically or individually inevitable (to our finite vision). Vide Job and Kohelet, Poland, Russia, and Germany. Reward and punishment is not an issue. If that is so, why should one heed your call to do Mitzvoth and to worship God? Because, your article seems to imply, communion with the living God is its own reward. This, however, places on God a limitation: He has chosen to wait for our acts before He will make His own move! He concomitantly limits His own omnipotence by permitting Himself communion only with the good and prayerful. But can one be so certain about a convert if one is good and prayerful, He will commune? Is that a limit? Dare He not choose to hide Himself for His own inscrutable purpose? And all that is left in such a dreadful instance is the guilt of one’s own extravagant “sin” – he has not performed the requisite acts of ethics or has not prayed hard enough. This was the rebutted position of Job’s comforters. Further, do you guarantee that His purposes do not include “aliveness” for the wicked (Hitler’s visions may have led t…