It’s a Beautiful Day to Yell at God
Rosh Hashanah Morning 5787
September 12/13, 2026
Rabbi Alan Cook
Sinai Temple, Champaign, Illinois
Last fall, one of my Facebook friends shared a post that included this picture [that’s now appearing on the screens].
The drawing is simple, almost as though done by a child. Three figures face an enormous sun, their backs turned toward the viewer. The title reads, “It’s a Beautiful Day to Yell at God,” and the figures shout, “What the F…,” “Come Out! We Just Wanna Talk,” and “Face Us, You Coward.” I don’t know who the artist is, nor when exactly this piece was created, but the sentiments being expressed by the figures in the illustration certainly are echoed by many in contemporary society. We’re sad or scared or frustrated, and we want some explanations or reassurances from the Master of all creation. So we, too, might be inclined to yell.
In my first year of rabbinical school in Jerusalem, my teacher, Moshe Silberstein, introduced me to a way of thinking about Jewish prayer which he called “A.C.T.”—Audacious Covenant Theology.[2] He posited that if we truly believe that God is omniscient, omniscient, and omnipresent—or even if we take a slightly more limited view of God’s abilities—it is chutzpahdik to expect that God would hear and respond to our prayers. Yet we nevertheless continue to pray because we understand ourselves to be party to a covenantal, symbiotic relationship with God. In this worldview, we have the audacity to assert that God needs us just as much as humanity needs God.
In the pre-patriarchal texts of the Torah, God does not consult at all with humanity for feedback on any Divine undertakings. God punishes Cain without saying to Adam and Eve, “Your son just committed fratricide. What should the consequences be?” God tells Noah to build an ark in preparation for the destruction of humanity, but does not solicit feedback on this plan (and Noah, though righteous in his generation,[3] does not think to intervene). It is only when Abraham comes on the scene that God begins to interact with humanity in such a way that we feel comfortable to offer feedback. So Abraham intercedes on behalf of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.[4]
Abraham is the first recorded figure in the Torah to display the audacity to argue with God—like the individuals in our illustration, he dares to ask “WTF” (if you’re not familiar with that acronym, and can’t decipher it from context, ask a young person seated near you). Abraham asks, “HaShophet kol ha-aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat? Shall the judge of all the earth not behave justly?”[5] In taking the first tentative steps toward monotheism, in forging a new understanding of the world that placed a single, omnipotent God at its center, Abraham had come to anticipate that God would adhere to certain standards of fairness and justice. So when God appears to violate that understanding, Abraham feels compelled to raise questions.
Some have argued that Abraham does not go far enough. He stops advocating on behalf of the doomed cities when God agrees to spare them if ten righteous people can be found. Why not continue the negotiation to fully deter God from the planned destruction? And how could Abraham be so vociferous in advocating on behalf of the sinful denizens of a city he had never visited, yet fail to intervene during the events of our Torah portion today, the infamous “Binding of Isaac,” wherein his own child’s life is on the line?
As Rabbi Silberstein taught, we have the audacity to believe that we have the right to ask almost anything of God. But is it fair to anticipate that God will always (or even frequently) answer our queries in the affirmative?
In the 2003 film, Bruce Almighty,[6] the filmmakers give us a brief glimpse at God’s email inbox, meant to be a visual representation of the prayers being uttered at any given moment. We can see from the subject lines of the millions of emails that appear on the screen that the requests range from the simple—help me find my car keys before I’m late to this appointment, to the existential—help me survive my surgery, to the global—bring peace to our world. The quick Hollywood gag underscores a complexity of western theology, though: human civilization has developed our conception of God according to our own perceived needs. We’ve created what Rabbi Harold Kushner and others have referred to as a “three-legged stool.”[7] We envision a God Who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. But when something goes wrong in the world—whether something of global impact, or something that upsets our personal sense of wellbeing—it may feel as though one or more of the legs of this stool is unstable. At such moments, we may be inclined to shout at God.
In my imagination of how the “shouting at God” picture might unfold if it were a fully animated scene, and not just a still picture, here’s how I see it playing out: the three figures shout in the direction of the sun, believing that they’re really letting God have a piece of their mind. Maybe a crowd of a few dozen more join in, screaming at the top of their lungs like Howard Beale in Network, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”[8] In the midst of the cacophony, something like a hand taps one of the participants on the shoulder, and a voice says, “Hey, what are we yelling about?” The person being addressed stops and explains, “We’re shouting at God!” “Oh, OK,” the Being replies. And God sits right down amongst the crowd and starts shouting along with them.
You see, I don’t think that God enjoys when bad things happen to good people. I don’t think that God is happy when things go sideways—for a person, for a family, for a community, for a nation. I think God is just as frustrated and sad and angry and emotional as the rest of us. And God’s just happy—however enraged and unhinged we may be, however divorced from rational theology we may find ourselves in that moment—to see us standing up and shouting and giving a darn about the state of the world.
We are called upon l’taken olam b’malchut Shaddai[9]—to bring about the repair and perfection of the world so that it can someday function according to God’s original plan. In order to do that, we have to get our fingernails dirty. We have to be willing to intervene when we experience injustices. We have to be willing to shout.
“But why?” you may ask. Why, if God is truly omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, does God not have some magic laser beam to zap any miscreants the instant they set their designs on bringing harm and pain into this world? It’s tempting, perhaps, to imagine such a utopia wherein all of the pains that we have devised to inflict upon one another could no longer exist. But we’d also be forfeiting our free will. As nice as it might be to live in an idyllic setting, confident in the notion that no evil could ever encroach, I recognize that we’d quickly grow restless from the monotony. We’d have no urge toward competitiveness or industriousness, no incentives to ever accomplish anything.
A reading in Sha’arei Teshuvah, the previous iteration of the Reform movement’s machzor, posited:
If some messenger were to come to us with the offer that death should be overthrown, but with the one inseparable condition that birth should also cease; if the existing generation were given the chance to live forever, but on the clear understanding that never again would there be a child, or a youth, or first love, never again new persons with new hopes, new ideas, new achievements; ourselves for always and never any others—could the answer be in doubt?[10]
The price of humanity, the price of free will, is that there will be moments that make us sad, angry, frustrated, despondent. There will be moments when we shout at God.
At such moments, it may feel as though we’re shouting into the void. Why waste our breath yelling at the Divine, when it seems as though an answer is never forthcoming? Is it the case, as the illustration suggests, that God is too cowardly to face the questions and criticisms of a disgruntled humanity?
Personally, I don’t believe that the perceived lack of response, or the inaction on matters that we have deemed to be of the utmost importance, represent cowardice or indifference or powerlessness on the part of the Divine. Rather, I think we’re being called upon to engage with God in a powerful and relational way to try to rectify what is wrong in our world.
The Akedah narrative that we read this morning, the “Binding of Isaac” is a terrible and stark reminder of the expectation – dare I say, the requirement—that we interact with God. We are told directly in the first verses of the text: “HaElohim nisa et-Avraham, God tested Abraham.” This should have been a WTF moment. Abraham—who, as I’ve said, was ready to offer a challenge to God on other matters of justice—blindly snaps to obedience when God asks him to sacrifice his son. God must send an angel at the final possible moment to shake Abraham from his stupor and prevent him from harming Isaac. In a clear moment when Abraham’s parental instincts should have overridden his religious fervor, Abraham fails. While he has shown himself willing and capable of challenging God in other situations, here we see him proceeding unquestioningly with a task that we as readers readily understand to be unreasonable.
What are we to make of this?
Some of you have heard me mention in the past that Hebrew Union College teaches students in homiletics classes not to “preach against the text.” That is to say, we learn that we should not contradict the lessons of scripture. But this becomes challenging when the message is, on its surface, so disturbing that it seems to beg us to have a visceral response. It seems designed to provoke us to yell at Abraham, at God, at the world.
So maybe that’s exactly what we need to do—not to try to rationalize or justify Abraham’s actions, not to try to understand God’s rationale for issuing the awful command in the first place, but to simply acknowledge that sometimes stupefyingly maddening things happen in the world. And when they do, it’s OK to push back, to resist, to scream.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a 19th century German rabbi, traveled to Switzerland fairly late in life. According to legend, when he was asked why he would undertake the arduous journey at such an advanced age, he replied, “When I shall stand before God, the Eternal One will ask me with pride: ‘Did you see My Alps?’”[11] Hirsch was emphasizing the notion that God wants us to take notice of the beauty and wonder of creation. I think we can extrapolate from his example. It’s not that we need to drop everything and jet off to Geneva or Zurich—if you’ve had that experience, I do hope you enjoyed it, but we do have to recognize that that’s not an attainable goal for everyone. Rather, we should strive, wherever we are, to interact with the world and be moved or inspired by it in some way. And if that way involves screaming our heads off at the messiness of the universe, so be it. The only thing we’re not permitted to be, is indifferent.
That’s precisely the point of these Days of Awe. On Yom Kippur, our Haftarah will be drawn from the teachings of the prophet Isaiah. He exhorted the Jews of his time, “Cry with full throat, without restraint; raise your voice like a ram’s horn.”[12]
In his day, Isaiah wasn’t shouting at God, but at his fellow Israelites who he felt were going through the motions of false piety without actually taking actions to care for their neighbors or for the world around them. Like the figures in the illustration we’ve been contemplating, they cried out to God for help, intervention, and relief of the world’s troubles while failing to acknowledge that they held in their own hands many of the tools needed to mitigate or solve their problems.
Perhaps we would do well to contrast this to our patriarch Jacob several generations earlier. Jacob has spent much of his early life being somewhat of a heel (living up to the etymology of his given name). Having alienated his brother by tricking him out of his birthright, he is now on the run from Esau, who has threatened fratricide. All alone, he finds himself in the midst of the wilderness, where he falls asleep and has a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder. When he awakes, he proclaims, “Achein yesh Adonai bamakom ha-zeh va’anochi lo yadati—Surely God was in this place and I did not know!” The realization and reassurance that God is (and has been) with him gives him the wherewithal to carry on.
Here’s what I think we can learn from Jacob: we are not alone in this. There will be times when the world absolutely feels like a flaming garbage heap. We’ll scream and cry and rant and rave at one another, and at God. And that’s great, so long as it stirs us and spurs us to action.
We pray that we may always be part of the cure and never the disease; that we may always strive to do good and to be good, so that we keep far from doing evil or being evil; and that we may learn to think before acting and to process before reacting so that we might judge with truth, decide with balance, and interact with wisdom.[13]
[1] Condon, Sarah. “It’s a Beautiful Day to Yell at God.” Mockingbird. Published online October 23, 2025. Retrieved from https://mbird.com/suffering/its-a-beautiful-day-to-yell-at-god/?fbclid=IwY2xjawTCBMxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFodmVuVExYbGVjcjZTSGZWc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHulJDh9af3Og0IrM7LAoeg0M6W7bUcZs8ZNFLwZxS4byw_r-Gi_vVSbrnUT-_aem_iERvdeKPlzUcF-hc01cJmQ#comment-section July 13, 2026. Original source of image unknown.
[2] I am not certain whether he coined the term himself or adapted it from elsewhere.
[3] See Genesis 6:9
[4] See Genesis 18
[5] Genesis 18:25
[6] Shadyac, Tom, dir. Bruce Almighty. 2003; United States: Universal Pictures.
[7] For one source, see Kushner, Harold S. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. New York: Schocken Books, 1981.
[8] Network. Directed by Sidney Lumet, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / United Artists, 1976.
[9] See, for instance, the prayer Aleinu l’shabeach… in the traditional liturgy
[10] Stern, Chaim, ed. Gates of Repentance (New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1973). The meditation is adapted from the writings of Viscount Herbert Louis Samuel.
[11] Cited in Goldmann, A.J. “Excuse Me, Have You Seen My Alps?” The Forward June 24, 2009. Retrieved from https://forward.com/culture/108426/excuse-me-have-you-seen-my-alps/ August 24, 2026
[12] Isaiah 58:1
[13] Thank you to Rabbi Ray Zwerin for suggesting the wording of this beautiful prayer.
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