Two Kinds of People - Adopted from Wilshire Boulevard Temples HHD Machzor

Why in our prayers, do we say:  “Our God and the God of our people?”

Martin Buber responded to this question by saying:
    Because there are two kinds of people who believe in God.  One believe because he has taken over the faith of his parents, and his faith is strong.  The other has arrived at faith through thinking and studying.
    The difference between them is this:  The advantage of this first is that, no matter what arguments may be brought against it, the person’s faith cannot be shaken.  It is firm because it was taken over from parents.  But there is one daly in it.  Such faith derives only form the command of a person.  It was acquired without study and personal exploration.  The advantage of the second kinds of faith is that God is discovered through much thinking and is the outcome of one’s own exploration.  But here, too, there is a flaw:  It is easy to shake such faith by refuting it through evidence. 
    But the person who unites both kinds of faith is invincible.  So we say, “our God with reference to our studies and personal struggle with belief, and “God of our people “ with an eye to tradition.
   
    Isaiah’s words call to mind the reality of our life that may be found lacking.  Isaiah, as is common in the prophets, questions our actions as insincere, inauthentic and disingenuous.  Ultimately, the Haftarah on this Day of Atonement questions our priorities, our beliefs and they way we go about our lives.  It asks us, as Isaiah did in his generation, whether we are focused on what matters.  When we balance our own studies, struggles, beliefs and self with that of our people, our tradition and sense of community - we are focused, we, as Buber said, become people of invincible faith.