To these perennial questions, I offer some answers — not to close a conversation but to broaden one. I do not claim to know anything you don’t know, but if I can help you remember what you already do know, I am blessed.

We are Jewish and my daughter plays on a Catholic-sponsored soccer team. I’m uncomfortable with her praying to Jesus before each game and practice. I told herto say “cheeses” instead of Jesus. Is this okay?
No. Imagine a Catholic mom telling her daughter to say “a donut” every time her Jewish-sponsored team mentions Adonai (Lord) in their prayers. Wouldn’t this offend you? If your daughter’s participation in the prayers is troubling, ask that she be exempt. My own preference, however, is for her to say the prayer properly. Learning to pray as others do can only enrich her religious literacy and perhaps deepen her spirituality as well. It might also provide you and your daughter an opportunity to explore what religion and spirituality mean to you both.

I’m a Jew, but I have a hard time believing that God cares about what I eat. How do you deal with kosher?
When Jews say that God cares about what we eat, we are saying that eating and consuming in general are moral issues. Kashrut — kosher — means “fit,” and keeping kosher means rooting your life in justice, compassion, and humility (Micah 6:8). When I apply the principle of kashrut to my diet, I eat low on the food chain, minimizing animal suffering by eating vegetarian and maximizing the food available to others by not using precious grain as cattle feed. When I apply the principle of kashrut to other purchases — clothes, cars, electronics, etc. — I align my consuming with the highest ethical and environmental standard I can muster. I try to buy from manufacturers who respect both their workers and the planet and to limit my purchases to items with the least negative impact on the environment — natural, social, political, and psychological. I am not perfect in my practice, but just making the effort is valuable. Kosher is one of the greatest gifts of Judaism to the world. I only wish more people took it seriously.

My son was baptized a Christian, but he has converted to Hinduism. How can I save his soul and bring him back to Jesus?
Your concern for your son is rooted in love, but your desire to “bring him back” is rooted in fear. Love is expansive, embracing, and welcoming. Love makes room for the other, as Jesus so clearly shows. Fear is restrictive, isolating, and rejecting, and leaves no room for the other. Engage your son from love; make room for him as he is. He may “come back” or he may not, but in either case, if you rest in love you will find that, in fact, he never left.

Why do Hindus worship cows?
They don’t. To mistake reverence for the cow for worship of the cow is like mistaking a Christian’s reverence for the cross for the worship of wood, or an American’s saluting of the U.S. flag as a pledge of loyalty to cloth. The cow, like the cross and the American flag, are symbols that point to values beyond the symbol itself. In India, the cow is a symbol of life, nurturance, and abundance. The cow is revered because these values are revered.

I feel called by God to teach the revelation he has given me. How do I gather a following?
Simply live your truth. If your call is genuine, if it leads people into more and more inclusive circles of respect, compassion, justice, freedom, and peace, then people will find you. If your primary concern is with getting followers, I doubt it is God who is calling you at all.

I have been terrified of hell since I was a kid. I love Jesus as my Lord and Savior, but I cannot shake this debilitating fear of going hell. Can you help me?
If you truly love Jesus, hell is simply another place for you to minister to those in need of him. Jesus told his apostles to go to the “lost sheep” (Matthew 10:6), and who could be more lost than those in hell? Wherever God sends you, embrace those you find there with love, and know that in doing so you are expanding the kingdom of heaven.

I pray to God every morning that his will be done; yet I am miserable most of the time. Why doesn’t God answer my prayer?
Maybe God wants you to be miserable. Think of Job, who says, “Should we accept only good from God and not suffering as well?” (Job 2:10). Think of Jesus in Gethsemane, asking God to remove the cup of death that awaits him, only to realize that God’s will is for him to die on the cross (Matthew 26:39). It is hubris to think that God’s will for you is all about love, light, and luxury. God’s will is what is happening right now. Ecclesiastes says there is “a time for everything under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). This just may be your time for misery. Don’t fight it; befriend it, and wait for it to pass. Everything does.

My fiancée is Catholic and wants me to convert to her faith. I go to Mass with her, but I find the very idea of the Eucharist appalling. Isn’t eating the body and blood of Jesus like cannibalism? What am I missing?
When you were a baby and first discovered your toes, what did you do? You put them in your mouth. The mouth is one of our most intimate ways of knowing the world, and taking the body and blood of Christ into our mouths is one of the most intimate ways of knowing God as manifest in Christ. Think of the intimacy you feel when kissing your fiancée on the mouth. Now multiply that a thousandfold. You may not be ready for this level of divine intimacy, but you should long for it rather than be appalled by it.

My sister prays to a wooden icon of Jesus. She says it’s very comforting, but I think it’s idolatry. I want to steal it and smash it, like God says we are to smash the idols of other people. Any suggestions?
First, be glad that your sister has found a means of cultivating comfort. Second, do not steal the icon, make fun of it, or attack your sister for using it. Icons aren’t idols, and she isn’t praying to the icon; rather, she’s using the icon as a doorway into the mind of Christ. By having a visual focus, she is able to slip beneath her mental distractions and tap into the healing and potentially transformative presence of Christ. Open your mind; don’t seek to close your sister’s.

I have devoted the past years to perfecting myself through various spiritual paths, but I am no closer to my goal now than when I started. How can I reach perfection?
The very idea of perfection makes me nervous, and the idea of a human being imagining she or he is perfect terrifies me. The people I trust most are the broken, imperfect sort. Compassion arises not from perfection but from imperfection; not from standing above the fray but from learning to navigate it with love for self and others. It is only when I see that you and I are each broken and flawed that I can begin to have compassion for us both.

Rami Shapiro’s most recent book is The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness. Email your questions to him at rabbirami@SpiritualityHealth.com.