God is Everywhere

After finishing my reading of Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander I was captivated by his struggle with God- and with himself. There is a relentless tug-of-war in his conscience, sometimes dealing with how his actions at a particular time will affect God's judgement, other times how this book can cause death to his child. But no matter what, it is always a quarrel with God- sometimes quite literally: "I know it's stealing, but come on, they're not going to miss it. No, I don't think that's a facile rationalization, I think it's a reality of the retail environment. It's fucking Macy's- the largest department store in the world, says so right on the door. What do You want me to do, ask my mother for money? You know my mother, You know what my asking her for money does to her. Does that sound facile to You? We're talking real human pain here. You want me to ask her for money? Fine. I'm going to walk out of this store right now with all these clothes stuffed in my backpack. If You want me to ask her, just make the alarm go of, and next time I'll ask her. Go ahead. Let's see. Here I go" (page 161). Auslander went on these tangents quite often, adding intensity to his relationship, and mainly his arguments, with God. However, this can also be seen as an internal conflict, as Auslander is really rambling on about what he thinks is wrong, what he thinks must be done, what he thinks are the reasons for his actions. And by doing this, the author is able to liberate himself from the harboured hate and anger he has towards God.

A thought which this memoir brought up is what is more powerful, the beliefs imposed on an individual, or ones own thoughts and views. Although Shalom Auslander defied God, and reached a level of immense disordinance in his religion, he was ultimately confined by the barrier that restrained him his entire life: his fear of God. This essentially told me that it's not whether something is imposed on me or whether I believe it for myself, but it is what I learned first and how it affects others in society. This was particularly evident in the concluding word of the memoir, a simple, "Sorry" (page 310). He was actually so afraid of God, so fearful of "God's Department of Ironic Punishmentation" (page 9), so fearful of God's unforgiving nature, so fearful of God's ability to simply kill off his unborn son, and simply so fearful of God's all-knowing presence that he apologized (just in case). It's difficult to understand why Shalom continued believing, with a hatred so deep, but he did; and, whether you believe in God or not, there's no denying that "God was here, God was there, God was everywhere" (page 8) for Shalom Auslander.


Tug-of-war, noun: a contest in which two teams pull at opposite ends of a rope until one drags the other over a central line. (in context, a struggle)

God's Department of Punishmentation: I can only define this with an actual quotation from the memoir.
"I imagine there is a tall black building in downtown heaven- lots of steel and concrete, very corporate, with a piazza for smokers out front and a cafeteria on the third floor- a building that is the universal headquarters for God's Department of Ironic Punishmentation, the place where they work out just [the] kind of hilarious twist. This is where writers go when they die- the novelists, the poets, the sitcom writers, the stand-up comedians- to a steel desk and a hard chair in a cubicle in the DIP, where every human story needs its own original ending, but where every ending is satisfyingly the same: horrible" (page 9).

Facile, adj: appearing neat and comprehensive only by ignoring the complexity of an issue; superficial.

Quarrel, noun: an angry argument or disagreement.