At the end of his great book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking wrote one of the most well-known sentences of modern times. "If only we could discover a complete theory of the forces governing the Universe, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason, for then we would know the mind of God".  Professor Hawking is an outstanding scientist. Even he might admit however, that he is not the world's greatest theologian.
I recently heard a much deeper remark from a mother with young children. "Ever since I've become a parent", she said, "I find  I can relate to God much better. Now I know what it's like to create something you can't control!" What a wonderful insight, and how true.
Most people know that the Hebrew Bible opens with the most famous account of creation ever written, "In the beginning God created …" Even today, across the distance of 3,000 years, it is a passage of unrivalled power, always provided of course, that we remember that it is a poem, carefully constructed as such, and not a scientific theory.
What we do not often notice, in fact I cannot recall anyone writing about it, is that the entire account of the creation of the Universe takes a mere 34 verses. From then on the Bible turns its attention to mankind. This is odd, indeed stunning.
The ancient world of the myth was deeply  absorbed by cosmology, and the question of how the universe came into being. It fascinated the Mesopotamians,  who  wrote colourful  creation  myths in  which  Marduk,  the young  god, slew Ti'amat, goddess  of  the sea, and  laid the foundations of the sky and Earth on the remains of her divided body. Today's scientific cosmologies are less dramatic, but no less remote from everyday life.
The  Bible,  by  contrast,  whisks through creation in just over a single chapter and then turns to Adam, Eve, Cain, Able, loneliness, relationship, the human situation. This tells us of one very interesting fact. The Bible is not man's book about God. It is God's book about mankind.
Which brings me back  to  the  young  mother  who  was  so gloriously right. The  Bible does not  call God the great scientist. It calls him "father." Isaiah even says, in the name of God, "Like one whom his mother comforts, so shall I comfort you." God is a parent, and we come closest to God when we become parents. The miracle of creation from the point of view of faith is not about quantum mechanics. It is about bringing new life into the world.
It is hard to be a parent. So most of us find, and so God found. We have to be there constantly when children are young, yet we  also  have  to  make  space  for  them, as they grow older. From time to time they rebel. That is part of the process of self-discovery, but it hurts.
We have to give them guidance but we also have to empower them to make mistakes. Our children are in our image, but they are also different from us, and we have to give them room to write their own story. That is how the Bible describes God's relationship to humanity.
Today's world values success, achievement, work, careers, but it has also, more than any other culture in the past 2000 years, devalued parenthood. That is wrong. Being a parent is the biggest challenge most of us ever face: stressful at times, but uniquely rewarding. It is also the closest we will ever get to the mind of God.

Rabbi Professor J Sacks