A good piece of advice from the business world can help all of us. It guides me in choosing what to teach during a sermon. The advice is: There are two rules for succeeding in business. The first is: Never tell them everything you know.

Now a question: If God wore tefillin, what would be written on the parchment inside? Our tefillin contains, among other words, the Shema, reminding us that God is One. But God doesn’t need a reminder of that.

By now, thinking I’m crazy, you’re probably wondering why I even suggest that God would wear tefillin. But this is exactly what is suggested in Rabbinic literature. First, look at the High Holy Day Supplement on page 19. You will need to trust my translation, because the translation on pages 21-22 does not accurately reflect this Hebrew phrase:

Kesher tefillin her’a l’anav

He showed the humble one the knot of His tefillin.

The humble one is Moses, and this line refers to the time when Moses requested to see God’s face, and God said all you can see is my back. With God facing away from him, Moses not only saw God’s back, but also the knot from the tefillin on the back of God’s head.

This is, anyway, the understanding of Rabbi Yehudah HaChasid of Regensburg (from the early 13th century), the author of Shir Hakavod.

But at least seven centuries earlier, the Babylonian Talmud (Berakhot 6a) expresses the same idea, including answering my opening question:

R. Nahman b. Isaac said to R. Hiyya b. Abin: What is written in the tefillin of the Lord of the Universe? — He replied to him: Who can be compared to Your people Israel, a unique nation upon the earth. (Chr. 17:21) For the benefit of those who are familiar with the Amidah for Shabbat Minchah, written in the tefillin of God is:

Umee k’amkha Yisrael goy echad ba’aretz

Our tefillin say: God is echad. God’s tefillin say: Israel is echad.

Again, like yesterday, I take you back to birkhot hashachar, the early morning blessings; to another berakhah whose wording has changed in most Conservative siddurim. The traditional liturgy says, Barukh she’lo asani ishah—intended for a man to declare joy at having the maximum number of mitzvot to observe. Instead, men and women say barukh she’asani b’tzalmo—I am grateful to be made in God’s image.

And we also return to the 3 B’s, for this is our daily affirmation of belief. The God in whom I believe—I wear tefillin to remember Him; He wears tefillin to remember Me. Quite an image!

If only it were so easy to believe. We are halted in our spiritual tracks, though, because most of us can’t truly sense that image in our minds, in our souls. For many, God is what we read about in the Torah, in the Machzor today, and in the siddur throughout the year. But face it, it’s hard to believe.

If that’s how you feel, I am sympathetic, but I’m not going to let you off the hook so easy. As I said yesterday, being a Jew, being yisrael, is a struggle. Finding God takes effort.

Some get to feel the closeness of God’s presence. In I Kings 18, the prophet Elijah gathers the Israelites, builds an altar, pours water over the sacrificial bull three times, and prays, “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God.” Fire descends from heaven and consumes everything, whereupon the people fling themselves on their faces and cry out, “The Lord alone is God! The Lord alone is God!”

JTS professor Neil Gillman, in his book, Traces of God, comments that he wishes he were granted what Elijah is—irrefutable proof of God’s existence. But he knows that Elijah’s story is an exception. Nonetheless, Dr. Gillman helps the rest of us, yisrael, in a successful struggle to discover the God who is sometimes/often hard to recognize.

Knock, knock. (Who’s there?) Nobody. (Nobody who?) . . . exactly. There’s something out there; sometimes it’s a voice that can’t be heard.

Regarding this Elijah story, Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim asks: What would Elijah have done if God had not answered his call? Fackenheim, answering his own question says with certainty: One thing is clear. Elijah would have continued to work for God, even in the face of God’s silence.

This comment reminds us of the recent stories about Mother Teresa, whose posthumously discovered letters describe a decades long crisis of faith, during which time she did not truly feel God’s presence. But what did she do? She continued to attend to the neediest of Calcutta. Even if you don’t feel God’s presence, it is still our duty to do God’s work.

A billboard contains a quotation from God, saying: Do you think I sit around and wonder if you exist?

Deuteronomy 4:3, in reminding us how to recognize God’s presence in our lives and in the world, says simply, Your eyes have seen what the Lord did. If you can’t see God, surely you can see the results of God’s work.

We look around at the world, the wonders of nature, continuing discovery in the science lab, the advancements in medicine, the miracle of our own bodies and those of our children, and how can we not see the hand of God at work?

Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, founding director of the National Jewish Outreach Program, in helping people to learn to believe God, uses a similar approach. Just look at history. Look at how many times the Jewish people were enslaved, persecuted, murdered, exiled. Time after time, what looked like utter destruction instead led to a new beginning. Annihilation was averted, not once, not twice, but over and over again throughout the centuries. How can this be explained? Rabbi Buchwald gives us two choices—God is looking out for us, or this has been a series of coincidences; hundreds of times in a row, coincidentally, the Jews have had the talent, or the luck, to escape extinction. Rabbi Buchwald says, if we truly look at our history, how can you not believe in God? Frankly it takes more effort to believe in coincidence.

How many times in our lives is God present, and we just fail to notice? Many of you know the story of the man who lives alone on an island. He receives a letter from the mainland—Get off the island, a violent storm is approaching. The man says to himself: If God wants me to leave the island, then God will tell me. Otherwise, I’m staying right here.

The rain begins to pour, the water level is rising. A boat appears, and a voice calls from the boat: Get off the island, climb aboard the boat, there’s going to be a flood. The man replies: If God wants me to get off the island, God will tell me.

The water is up to the man’s neck. A helicopter appears overhead. A rope ladder is lowered. A voice cries out: Climb up the ladder, come aboard the helicopter, it’s your last chance. The man replies: only God can tell me when it’s time to leave.

The man drowns. He dies and comes face to face with God. The man begins to cry out: Why didn’t you save me from drowning?

God replies—I sent you a letter, I sent you a boat, I sent you a helicopter. What more could I have done?

Therefore, it is in wisdom that our rabbis help us see God’s hand when others only see human success. So on Chanukah, and also Yom HaAtzmaut, we rise to say Hallel. Human fought victories, to bring freedom and independence to the Jews of Israel, are indeed marked by gratitude to God.

On a more personal level, my sudden incapacity three months ago helped open my eyes to the presence of God. I am humbled before you, because many of you have already learned these lessons under much more challenging circumstances than I, but nonetheless, let me tell you about my own self discovery during times of pain, adjusting to the temporary loss of mobility, and ultimately finding my way back to healing.

A few weeks ago at physical therapy, I watched as a young girl, a high school student, who must have had knee surgery, was being asked by the therapist to walk for the first time since her surgery, with only one crutch instead of two. I could see on the young woman’s face the look of despair and hopelessness as she desperately tried to get a reluctant leg to move.

My own experience came back to me. It wasn’t so long ago that I was told, “Try walking,” and I truly thought it was a crazy idea. I can’t do it.

Shortly after my surgery, I spoke with a young man I know who had the same injury as me—ruptured Achilles tendon—three months prior to mine. He told me he was about to resume jogging. I remember thinking how unbelievable that sounded.

Here I am myself, three months to the day after surgery, not quite ready to jog, but far beyond where I thought I would be at this time. God exists in the pain, in the masterful technique of the doctor who knows how to do the surgery. In God’s wisdom, our bodies are created in a way that so often, we miraculously recover from injury and surgery.

I found God in the patience I needed to endure, and in the hope that it would get better.

But for those who don’t get better, who live with pain and illness, God also is their source of inner strength, to put up the best fight they have, to not be defeated.

I read a painful story recently of a baby born with a rare form of blindness. He will never see. His parents reaction began with confusion and despair. But ultimately, they returned to loving their child, appreciating how beautiful he is, and most importantly, learning to patiently allow their son to learn how to cope with blindness at his own pace. The child finds his way around the house and the world, and is a constant source of joy and reminder of God’s blessing.

One more way we find the elusive God is found in a strange story concerning Abraham. Genesis 18 begins, “Then the Lord appeared to Abraham.” But in the next verse, Abraham sees only men, not God. He welcomes the strangers into his home, to be his guests. We might only see people, but when we reach out to help, we are recognizing the presence of God.

Yes, we can find God in nature, in history, in the faces of those we love, in our inner strength that we never realized we had. But remember the image of God wearing tefillin. It is not only we who seek God; God also seeks us.

A burglar, attempting to rob a home, hears a voice: God is watching you. God is watching you. The burglar then realizes that the voice is that of a parrot. He asks the parrot, “What is your name?” The parrot replies, “Saint Peter.” The burglar than asks, “What kind of a person would name a parrot Saint Peter?” The parrot replies: “The same person who names his Rottweiler, God!”

God, donned in tefillin, seeks out the people of Israel, unique among the nations. To live up to God’s high expectations means to be a people who believe in God’s presence, even when it is a challenge to do so, recognizing God’s role behind all our triumphs, God’s comforting hand during our hour of despair, and God’s holy image deep within ourselves and within the spirit of each of our fellow human beings.