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God in Judaism

March 20, 2023

This article is about God as understood in Jewish theological discussion. For other uses, see God of Israel.

God in Judaism has been conceived in a variety of ways.[1] Traditionally, Judaism holds that Yahweh, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the national god of the Israelites, delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah.[2][3][4] Jews traditionally believe in a monotheistic conception of God (God is only one),[3][5][6] which is both transcendent (wholly independent of, and removed from, the material universe) and immanent (involved in the material universe).[3]

Hebrew name of God inscribed on the page of a Sephardic manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (1385)

God is conceived as unique and perfect, free from all faults, deficiencies, and defects, and further held to be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and completely infinite in all of his attributes, who has no partner or equal, being the sole creator of everything in existence.[3][7] In Judaism, God is never portrayed in any image.[8] The Torah specifically forbade ascribing partners to share his singular sovereignty, as he is considered to be the absolute one without a second, indivisible, and incomparable being, who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to him.[3][7] Thus, God is unlike anything in or of the world as to be beyond all forms of human thought and expression.[3][7] The names of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible are the Tetragrammaton (Hebrew: יהוה, romanized: YHWH) and Elohim.[3][9] Other names of God in traditional Judaism include El-Elyon, El Shaddai, and Shekhinah.[9]

According to the rationalistic Jewish theology articulated by the Medieval Jewish philosopher and jurist Moses Maimonides, which later came to dominate much of official and traditional Jewish thought, God is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the creator deity—the cause and preserver of all existence.[3][7] Maimonides affirmed Avicenna's conception of God as the Supreme Being, both omnipresent and incorporeal,[7] necessarily existing for the creation of the universe while rejecting Aristotle's conception of God as the unmoved mover, along with several of the latter's views such as denial of God as creator and affirmation of the eternity of the world.[7] Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal yet also transcendent and able to intervene in the world,[9] while some modern interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is an impersonal force or ideal rather than a supernatural being concerned with the universe.[1][3]

Names

Main article: Names of God in Judaism
Further information: Elohim, Yahweh, and Tetragrammaton
 
The Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference (840 BCE) to the Israelite god Yahweh.[10]

The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton (Hebrew: יהוה, romanized: YHWH).[9] Jews traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem, literally "the Name".[9] In prayer, the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the pronunciation Adonai, meaning "My Lord".[6] This is referred to primarily in the Torah: "Hear O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4).[6] The Tetragrammaton is not attested other than among the Israelites and seems not to have any plausible etymology.[11] Current scholarly consensus generally reconstructs the name's original pronunciation as "Yahweh".[12] In the traditional interpretations of Judaism, God is always referred to with masculine grammatical articles only.[13]

Godhead

Main article: Godhead in Judaism

In Judaism, Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God's actions or properties (i.e., it is the essence of God).

Rationalistic conception

Main article: Jewish theology

In the philosophy of Maimonides and other Jewish-rationalistic philosophers, there is little which can be known about the Godhead, other than its existence, and even this can only be asserted equivocally.

How then can a relation be represented between God and what is other than God when there is no notion comprising in any respect both of the two, inasmuch as existence is, in our opinion, affirmed of God, may God be exalted, and of what is other than God merely by way of absolute equivocation. There is, in truth, no relation in any respect between God and any of God's creatures.

— Maimonides, Moreh Nevuchim (Pines 1963)

Kabbalistic conception

Main article: Kabbalah

In Kabbalistic thought, the term "Godhead" usually refers to the concept of Ein Sof (אין סוף), which is the aspect of God that lies beyond the emanations (sephirot). The "knowability" of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better than what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs (1973) puts it, "Of God as God is in Godself—Ein Sof—nothing can be said at all, and no thought can reach there".

Ein Sof is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain. Why? Because concerning all the sefirot, one can search out their reality from the depth of supernal wisdom. From there it is possible to understand one thing from another. However, concerning Ein Sof, there is no aspect anywhere to search or probe; nothing can be known of it, for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of absolute nothingness.

— David ben Judah Hehasid, Matt (1990)

Properties which are attributed to God

In modern articulations of traditional Judaism, God has been speculated to be the eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient creator of the universe, as well as the source for one's standards of morality, guiding humanity through ethical principles.[3][4][7]

Creative

Maimonides describes God in this fashion: "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being who brought into being all existence. All the beings of the heavens, the earth, and what is between them came into existence only from the truth of His being."[14]

Omniscient

Jews often describe God as omniscient,[15] although some prominent medieval Jewish philosophers held that God does not have complete foreknowledge of human acts. Gersonides, for example, argued that God knows the choices open to each individual, but that God does not know the choices that an individual will make.[16] Abraham ibn Daud believed that God was not omniscient or omnipotent with respect to human action.[17]

Omnipotent

Jews often describe God as omnipotent, and see that idea as rooted in the Hebrew Bible.[15] Some modern Jewish theologians have argued that God is not omnipotent, however, and have found many biblical and classical sources to support this view.[18] The traditional view is that God has the power to intervene in the world.

Omnipresent

"That the Lord, He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath" (Deut. 4.39) Maimonides infers from this verse that the Holy One is omnipresent and therefore incorporeal, for a corporeal being is incapable of being in two places simultaneously.[19]

Incorporeal and non-gendered

"To whom will ye liken me, that I should be equal?" (Isa. 40,25) Maimonides infers from this verse that, "had He been corporeal, He would be like other bodies".[19]

Although God is referred to in the Tanakh with masculine imagery and grammatical forms, traditional Jewish philosophy does not attribute gender to God.[20] Although Jewish aggadic literature and Jewish mysticism do on occasion refer to God using gendered language, for poetic or other reasons, this language was never understood by Jews to imply that God is gender-specific.

Some modern Jewish thinkers take care to articulate God outside of the gender binary,[21] a concept seen as not applicable to God.

Kabbalistic tradition holds that emanations from the divine consist of ten aspects, called sefirot.

Unimaginable

The Torah ascribes some human features to God, however, other Jewish religious works describe God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is aniconic, meaning it lacks material, physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore, the worship of idols is strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as Maimonides, reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision, resulting in an historical tradition of "divine incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in practical terms is considered disrespectful, and possibly heretical.

Morally good

Conceptions of God

Personal

 
The mass revelation at Mount Horeb in an illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company, 1907

Most of classical Judaism views God as a personal god, meaning that humans can have a relationship with God and vice versa. Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon wrote that "God as conceived by Judaism is not only the First Cause, the Creative Power, and the World Reason, but also the living and loving Father of Men. He is not only cosmic but also personal....Jewish monotheism thinks of God in terms of definite character or personality, while pantheism is content with a view of God as impersonal." This is shown in the Jewish liturgy, such as in the Adon Olam hymn, which includes a "confident affirmation" that "He is my God, my living God...Who hears and answers."[22] Edward Kessler writes that Hebrew Bible "portrays an encounter with a God who cares passionately and who addresses humanity in the quiet moments of its existence."[23] British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that God "is not distant in time or detached, but passionately engaged and present".[23]

The "predicate "personal" as applied to God" does not necessarily mean that God is corporeal or anthropomorphic, views that Jewish sages sometimes rejected; rather, "personality" refers not to physicality, but to "inner essence, psychical, rational, and moral".[22] However, other traditional Jewish texts, for example, the Shi'ur Qomah of the Heichalot literature, describe the measurements of limbs and body parts of God.

Jews believe that "God can be experienced" but also that "God cannot be understood", because "God is utterly unlike humankind" (as shown in God's response to Moses when Moses asked for God's name: "I Am that I Am"). Anthropomorphic statements about God "are understood as linguistic metaphors, otherwise it would be impossible to talk about God at all".[23]

According to some speculations in traditional Judaism, people's actions do not have the ability to affect God positively or negatively.[citation needed] The Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible states: "Gaze at the heavens and see, and view the skies, which are higher than you. If you sinned, how do you harm God, and if your transgressions are many, what do you do to God? If you are righteous, what do you give God? Or what does God take from your hand? Your wickedness [affects] a person like yourself, and your righteousness a child of humanity." However, a corpus of traditional Kabbalistic texts describe theurgic practices that manipulate the supernal realms, and Practical Kabbalah (Hebrew: קבלה מעשית‬) texts instruct adepts in the use of white magic.[citation needed]

A notion that God is in need of human beings has been propounded by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Because God is in search of people, God is accessible and available through time and place to whoever seeks God, leading to a spiritual intensity for the individual as well. This accessibility leads to a God who is present, involved, near, intimate, and concerned for and vulnerable to what happens in this world.[24]

Non-personal

Although the dominant strain in Judaism is that God is personal, modern Jewish thinkers claim that there is an "alternate stream of tradition exemplified by ... Maimonides", who, along with several other Jewish philosophers, rejected the idea of a personal God.[23]

Modern Jewish thinkers who have rejected the idea of a personal God have sometimes affirmed that God is nature, the ethical ideal, or a force or process in the world.

Baruch Spinoza offers a pantheist view of God. In his thought, God is everything and everything is God. Thus, there can be conceived no substance but God.[25] In this model, one can speak of God and nature interchangeably. Although Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, Spinoza's concept of God was revived by later Jews, especially Israeli secular Zionists.[26]

Hermann Cohen rejected Spinoza's idea that God can be found in nature, but agreed that God was not a personal being. Rather, he saw God as an ideal, an archetype of morality.[27] Not only can God not be identified with nature, but God is also incomparable to anything in the world.[27] This is because God is "One", unique and unlike anything else.[27] One loves and worships God through living ethically and obeying His moral law: "love of God is love of morality."[27]

Similarly, for Emmanuel Levinas, God is ethics, so one is brought closer to God when justice is rendered to the Other. This means that one experiences the presence of God through one's relation to other people. To know God is to know what must be done, so it does not make sense to speak of God as what God is, but rather what God commands.[28]

For Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, God is not a person, but rather a force within the universe that is experienced; in fact, anytime something worthwhile is experienced, that is God.[29] God is the sum of all natural processes that allow people to be self-fulfilling, the power that makes for salvation.[30] Thus, Kaplan's God is abstract, not carnate, and intangible. It is important to note that, in this model, God exists within this universe; for Kaplan, there is nothing supernatural or otherworldly. One loves this God by seeking out truth and goodness. Kaplan does not view God as a person but acknowledges that using personal God-language can help people feel connected to their heritage and can act as "an affirmation that life has value".[31]

Likewise, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, views God as a process. To aid in this transition in language, he uses the term "godding", which encapsulates God as a process, as the process that the universe is doing, has been doing, and will continue to do.[32] This term means that God is emerging, growing, adapting, and evolving with creation. Despite this, conventional God-language is still useful in nurturing spiritual experiences and can be a tool to relate to the infinite, although it should not be confused with the real thing.[33]

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Americans who identify as Jewish by religion are twice as likely to favor ideas of God as "an impersonal force" over the idea that "God is a person with whom people can have a relationship".[34]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Tuling, Kari H. (2020). "PART 2: Does God Have a Personality—or Is God an Impersonal Force?". In Tuling, Kari H. (ed.). Thinking about God: Jewish Views. JPS Essential Judaism Series. Lincoln and Philadelphia: University of Nebraska Press/Jewish Publication Society. pp. 67–168. doi:10.2307/j.ctv13796z1.7. ISBN 978-0-8276-1848-0. LCCN 2019042781. S2CID 241520845.
  2. ^ Stahl, Michael J. (2021). "The "God of Israel" and the Politics of Divinity in Ancient Israel". The "God of Israel" in History and Tradition. Vetus Testamentum: Supplements. Vol. 187. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 52–144. doi:10.1163/9789004447721_003. ISBN 978-90-04-44772-1. S2CID 236752143.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Grossman, Maxine; Sommer, Benjamin D. (2011). "GOD". In Berlin, Adele (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (2nd ed.). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 294–297. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199730049.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-975927-9. LCCN 2010035774.
  4. ^ a b "Jewish Concepts: God". Jewish Virtual Library. American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). 2021 [2014]. from the original on 12 April 2017. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
  5. ^ Hayes, Christine (2012). "Understanding Biblical Monotheism". Introduction to the Bible. The Open Yale Courses Series. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 15–28. ISBN 978-0-300-18179-1. JSTOR j.ctt32bxpm.6.
  6. ^ a b c Moberly, R. W. L. (1990). ""Yahweh is One": The Translation of the Shema". In Emerton, J. A. (ed.). Studies in the Pentateuch. Vetus Testamentum: Supplements. Vol. 41. Leiden: Brill Publishers. pp. 209–215. doi:10.1163/9789004275645_012. ISBN 978-90-04-27564-5.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Lebens, Samuel (2022). "Is God a Person? Maimonidean and Neo-Maimonidean Perspectives". In Kittle, Simon; Gasser, Georg (eds.). The Divine Nature: Personal and A-Personal Perspectives (1st ed.). London and New York: Routledge. pp. 90–95. doi:10.4324/9781003111436. ISBN 978-0-367-61926-8. LCCN 2021038406. S2CID 245169096.
  8. ^ Leone, Massimo (Spring 2016). Asif, Agha (ed.). "Smashing Idols: A Paradoxical Semiotics" (PDF). Signs and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Semiosis Research Center at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. 4 (1): 30–56. doi:10.1086/684586. eISSN 2326-4497. hdl:2318/1561609. ISSN 2326-4489. S2CID 53408911. (PDF) from the original on 23 September 2017. Retrieved 20 October 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d e Ben-Sasson, Hillel (2018). "Conditional Presence: The Meaning of the Name YHWH in the Bible". Understanding YHWH: The Name of God in Biblical, Rabbinic, and Medieval Jewish Thought. Jewish Thought and Philosophy (1st ed.). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 25–63. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-32312-7_2. ISBN 978-3-030-32312-7. S2CID 213883058.
  10. ^ Lemaire, André (May–June 1994). (PDF). Biblical Archaeology Review. Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society. 20 (3). ISSN 0098-9444. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 March 2012.
  11. ^ Hoffman 2004, p. 236.
  12. ^ Botterweck, G. Johannes; Ringgren, Helmer, eds. (1986). Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Vol. 5. Translated by Green, David E. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans. p. 500. ISBN 0-8028-2329-7. from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  13. ^ Christiano, Kevin J.; Kivisto, Peter; Swatos, William H. Jr., eds. (2015) [2002]. "Excursus on the History of Religions". Sociology of Religion: Contemporary Developments (3rd ed.). Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press. pp. 254–255. doi:10.2307/3512222. ISBN 978-1-4422-1691-4. JSTOR 3512222. LCCN 2001035412. S2CID 154932078.
  14. ^ Mishneh Torah, book HaMadda', section Yesodei ha-Torah, chapter 1:1 (original Hebrew/English translation)
  15. ^ a b ""Jewish Beliefs about God" in C/JEEP Curriculum Guide American Jewish Committee" (PDF).
  16. ^ Jacobs, Louis (1990). God, Torah, Israel: traditionalism without fundamentalism. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press. ISBN 0-87820-052-5. OCLC 21039224.[page needed]
  17. ^ Guttmann, Julius (1964). Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig. New York City: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 150–151. OCLC 1497829.
  18. ^ Geoffrey Claussen, "God and Suffering in Heschel's Torah Min Ha-Shamayim". Conservative Judaism 61, no. 4 (2010), p. 17
  19. ^ a b Maimonides, Moses (1180). Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ma'adah: Yesodei haTorah. The Book of Knowledge: Foundations of the Torah Law. p. 1§ 8.
  20. ^ "G-d has no body, no genitalia; therefore, the very idea that G-d is male or female is patently absurd. We refer to G-d using masculine terms simply for convenience's sake, because Hebrew has no neutral gender; G-d is no more male than a table is." Judaism 101. "The fact that we always refer to God as "He" is also not meant to imply that the concept of sex or gender applies to God." Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, The Aryeh Kaplan Reader, Mesorah Publications (1983), p. 144
  21. ^ Julia Watts-Belser, "Transing God/dess: Notes from the Borderlands," in Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, ed. Noach Dzmura (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2010)
  22. ^ a b Samuel S. Cohon. What We Jews Believe (1931). Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
  23. ^ a b c d Edward Kessler, What Do Jews Believe?: The Customs and Culture of Modern Judaism (2007). Bloomsbury Publishing: pp. 42-44.
  24. ^ Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1955).
  25. ^ Benedictus de Spinoza, The Ethics; Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect; Selected Letters, trans. Samuel Shirley, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992), 40.
  26. ^ Daniel B. Schwartz, The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image (Princeton University Press, 2012), ch. 5.
  27. ^ a b c d Hermann Cohen, Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen, trans. Eva Jospe (New York,: Norton, 1971), 223.
  28. ^ Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, trans. Sean Hand (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 223.
  29. ^ Alan Levenson, An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thinkers: From Spinoza to Soloveitchik, 137.
  30. ^ Alan Levenson, An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thinkers: From Spinoza to Soloveitchik, 138.
  31. ^ Mordecai Menahem Kaplan, The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 29.
  32. ^ Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Joel Segel, Jewish with Feeling: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), 20.
  33. ^ Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Joel Segel, Jewish with Feeling: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), 8.
  34. ^ http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/05/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf 2017-04-17 at the Wayback Machine, p. 164

Bibliography

Further reading

March 20, 2023
judaism, this, article, about, understood, jewish, theological, discussion, other, uses, israel, been, conceived, variety, ways, traditionally, judaism, holds, that, yahweh, abraham, isaac, jacob, national, israelites, delivered, israelites, from, slavery, egy. This article is about God as understood in Jewish theological discussion For other uses see God of Israel God in Judaism has been conceived in a variety of ways 1 Traditionally Judaism holds that Yahweh the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the national god of the Israelites delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and gave them the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah 2 3 4 Jews traditionally believe in a monotheistic conception of God God is only one 3 5 6 which is both transcendent wholly independent of and removed from the material universe and immanent involved in the material universe 3 Hebrew name of God inscribed on the page of a Sephardic manuscript of the Hebrew Bible 1385 God is conceived as unique and perfect free from all faults deficiencies and defects and further held to be omnipotent omnipresent omniscient and completely infinite in all of his attributes who has no partner or equal being the sole creator of everything in existence 3 7 In Judaism God is never portrayed in any image 8 The Torah specifically forbade ascribing partners to share his singular sovereignty as he is considered to be the absolute one without a second indivisible and incomparable being who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to him 3 7 Thus God is unlike anything in or of the world as to be beyond all forms of human thought and expression 3 7 The names of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible are the Tetragrammaton Hebrew יהוה romanized YHWH and Elohim 3 9 Other names of God in traditional Judaism include El Elyon El Shaddai and Shekhinah 9 According to the rationalistic Jewish theology articulated by the Medieval Jewish philosopher and jurist Moses Maimonides which later came to dominate much of official and traditional Jewish thought God is understood as the absolute one indivisible and incomparable being who is the creator deity the cause and preserver of all existence 3 7 Maimonides affirmed Avicenna s conception of God as the Supreme Being both omnipresent and incorporeal 7 necessarily existing for the creation of the universe while rejecting Aristotle s conception of God as the unmoved mover along with several of the latter s views such as denial of God as creator and affirmation of the eternity of the world 7 Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal yet also transcendent and able to intervene in the world 9 while some modern interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is an impersonal force or ideal rather than a supernatural being concerned with the universe 1 3 Contents 1 Names 2 Godhead 2 1 Rationalistic conception 2 2 Kabbalistic conception 3 Properties which are attributed to God 3 1 Creative 3 2 Omniscient 3 3 Omnipotent 3 4 Omnipresent 3 5 Incorporeal and non gendered 3 6 Unimaginable 3 7 Morally good 4 Conceptions of God 4 1 Personal 4 2 Non personal 5 See also 6 References 7 Bibliography 8 Further readingNames EditMain article Names of God in Judaism Further information Elohim Yahweh and Tetragrammaton The Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference 840 BCE to the Israelite god Yahweh 10 The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton Hebrew יהוה romanized YHWH 9 Jews traditionally do not pronounce it and instead refer to God as HaShem literally the Name 9 In prayer the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the pronunciation Adonai meaning My Lord 6 This is referred to primarily in the Torah Hear O Israel the LORD is our God the LORD is One Deuteronomy 6 4 6 The Tetragrammaton is not attested other than among the Israelites and seems not to have any plausible etymology 11 Current scholarly consensus generally reconstructs the name s original pronunciation as Yahweh 12 In the traditional interpretations of Judaism God is always referred to with masculine grammatical articles only 13 Godhead EditMain article Godhead in Judaism In Judaism Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God s actions or properties i e it is the essence of God Rationalistic conception Edit Main article Jewish theology In the philosophy of Maimonides and other Jewish rationalistic philosophers there is little which can be known about the Godhead other than its existence and even this can only be asserted equivocally How then can a relation be represented between God and what is other than God when there is no notion comprising in any respect both of the two inasmuch as existence is in our opinion affirmed of God may God be exalted and of what is other than God merely by way of absolute equivocation There is in truth no relation in any respect between God and any of God s creatures Maimonides Moreh Nevuchim Pines 1963 Kabbalistic conception Edit Main article Kabbalah In Kabbalistic thought the term Godhead usually refers to the concept of Ein Sof אין סוף which is the aspect of God that lies beyond the emanations sephirot The knowability of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better than what is conceived by rationalist thinkers As Jacobs 1973 puts it Of God as God is in Godself Ein Sof nothing can be said at all and no thought can reach there Ein Sof is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain Why Because concerning all the sefirot one can search out their reality from the depth of supernal wisdom From there it is possible to understand one thing from another However concerning Ein Sof there is no aspect anywhere to search or probe nothing can be known of it for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of absolute nothingness David ben Judah Hehasid Matt 1990 Properties which are attributed to God EditThis section needs expansion You can help by adding to it April 2021 In modern articulations of traditional Judaism God has been speculated to be the eternal omnipotent and omniscient creator of the universe as well as the source for one s standards of morality guiding humanity through ethical principles 3 4 7 Creative Edit Maimonides describes God in this fashion The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being who brought into being all existence All the beings of the heavens the earth and what is between them came into existence only from the truth of His being 14 Omniscient Edit Jews often describe God as omniscient 15 although some prominent medieval Jewish philosophers held that God does not have complete foreknowledge of human acts Gersonides for example argued that God knows the choices open to each individual but that God does not know the choices that an individual will make 16 Abraham ibn Daud believed that God was not omniscient or omnipotent with respect to human action 17 Omnipotent Edit Jews often describe God as omnipotent and see that idea as rooted in the Hebrew Bible 15 Some modern Jewish theologians have argued that God is not omnipotent however and have found many biblical and classical sources to support this view 18 The traditional view is that God has the power to intervene in the world Omnipresent Edit That the Lord He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath Deut 4 39 Maimonides infers from this verse that the Holy One is omnipresent and therefore incorporeal for a corporeal being is incapable of being in two places simultaneously 19 This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it April 2021 Incorporeal and non gendered Edit To whom will ye liken me that I should be equal Isa 40 25 Maimonides infers from this verse that had He been corporeal He would be like other bodies 19 Although God is referred to in the Tanakh with masculine imagery and grammatical forms traditional Jewish philosophy does not attribute gender to God 20 Although Jewish aggadic literature and Jewish mysticism do on occasion refer to God using gendered language for poetic or other reasons this language was never understood by Jews to imply that God is gender specific Some modern Jewish thinkers take care to articulate God outside of the gender binary 21 a concept seen as not applicable to God Kabbalistic tradition holds that emanations from the divine consist of ten aspects called sefirot Unimaginable Edit The Torah ascribes some human features to God however other Jewish religious works describe God as formless and otherworldly Judaism is aniconic meaning it lacks material physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds Furthermore the worship of idols is strictly forbidden The traditional view elaborated by figures such as Maimonides reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision resulting in an historical tradition of divine incorporeality As such attempting to describe God s appearance in practical terms is considered disrespectful and possibly heretical Morally good Edit This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it April 2021 Conceptions of God EditPersonal Edit The mass revelation at Mount Horeb in an illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company 1907 Most of classical Judaism views God as a personal god meaning that humans can have a relationship with God and vice versa Rabbi Samuel S Cohon wrote that God as conceived by Judaism is not only the First Cause the Creative Power and the World Reason but also the living and loving Father of Men He is not only cosmic but also personal Jewish monotheism thinks of God in terms of definite character or personality while pantheism is content with a view of God as impersonal This is shown in the Jewish liturgy such as in the Adon Olam hymn which includes a confident affirmation that He is my God my living God Who hears and answers 22 Edward Kessler writes that Hebrew Bible portrays an encounter with a God who cares passionately and who addresses humanity in the quiet moments of its existence 23 British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that God is not distant in time or detached but passionately engaged and present 23 The predicate personal as applied to God does not necessarily mean that God is corporeal or anthropomorphic views that Jewish sages sometimes rejected rather personality refers not to physicality but to inner essence psychical rational and moral 22 However other traditional Jewish texts for example the Shi ur Qomah of the Heichalot literature describe the measurements of limbs and body parts of God Jews believe that God can be experienced but also that God cannot be understood because God is utterly unlike humankind as shown in God s response to Moses when Moses asked for God s name I Am that I Am Anthropomorphic statements about God are understood as linguistic metaphors otherwise it would be impossible to talk about God at all 23 According to some speculations in traditional Judaism people s actions do not have the ability to affect God positively or negatively citation needed The Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible states Gaze at the heavens and see and view the skies which are higher than you If you sinned how do you harm God and if your transgressions are many what do you do to God If you are righteous what do you give God Or what does God take from your hand Your wickedness affects a person like yourself and your righteousness a child of humanity However a corpus of traditional Kabbalistic texts describe theurgic practices that manipulate the supernal realms and Practical Kabbalah Hebrew קבלה מעשית texts instruct adepts in the use of white magic citation needed A notion that God is in need of human beings has been propounded by Abraham Joshua Heschel Because God is in search of people God is accessible and available through time and place to whoever seeks God leading to a spiritual intensity for the individual as well This accessibility leads to a God who is present involved near intimate and concerned for and vulnerable to what happens in this world 24 Non personal Edit Although the dominant strain in Judaism is that God is personal modern Jewish thinkers claim that there is an alternate stream of tradition exemplified by Maimonides who along with several other Jewish philosophers rejected the idea of a personal God 23 Modern Jewish thinkers who have rejected the idea of a personal God have sometimes affirmed that God is nature the ethical ideal or a force or process in the world Baruch Spinoza offers a pantheist view of God In his thought God is everything and everything is God Thus there can be conceived no substance but God 25 In this model one can speak of God and nature interchangeably Although Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam Spinoza s concept of God was revived by later Jews especially Israeli secular Zionists 26 Hermann Cohen rejected Spinoza s idea that God can be found in nature but agreed that God was not a personal being Rather he saw God as an ideal an archetype of morality 27 Not only can God not be identified with nature but God is also incomparable to anything in the world 27 This is because God is One unique and unlike anything else 27 One loves and worships God through living ethically and obeying His moral law love of God is love of morality 27 Similarly for Emmanuel Levinas God is ethics so one is brought closer to God when justice is rendered to the Other This means that one experiences the presence of God through one s relation to other people To know God is to know what must be done so it does not make sense to speak of God as what God is but rather what God commands 28 For Mordecai Kaplan the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism God is not a person but rather a force within the universe that is experienced in fact anytime something worthwhile is experienced that is God 29 God is the sum of all natural processes that allow people to be self fulfilling the power that makes for salvation 30 Thus Kaplan s God is abstract not carnate and intangible It is important to note that in this model God exists within this universe for Kaplan there is nothing supernatural or otherworldly One loves this God by seeking out truth and goodness Kaplan does not view God as a person but acknowledges that using personal God language can help people feel connected to their heritage and can act as an affirmation that life has value 31 Likewise Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement views God as a process To aid in this transition in language he uses the term godding which encapsulates God as a process as the process that the universe is doing has been doing and will continue to do 32 This term means that God is emerging growing adapting and evolving with creation Despite this conventional God language is still useful in nurturing spiritual experiences and can be a tool to relate to the infinite although it should not be confused with the real thing 33 According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life s 2008 U S Religious Landscape Survey Americans who identify as Jewish by religion are twice as likely to favor ideas of God as an impersonal force over the idea that God is a person with whom people can have a relationship 34 See also EditConceptions of God Ethical monotheism Existence of God God in Abrahamic religions God in the Bahaʼi Faith God in Christianity God in Islam God in Mormonism Jehovah s Witnesses beliefs God God fearer Holocaust theology Holy Spirit in Judaism Origins of Judaism Seven Laws of Noah Shituf Thirteen Attributes of Mercy Yahwism Portals Judaism ReligionReferences Edit a b Tuling Kari H 2020 PART 2 Does God Have a Personality or Is God an Impersonal Force In Tuling Kari H ed Thinking about God Jewish Views JPS Essential Judaism Series Lincoln and Philadelphia University of Nebraska Press Jewish Publication Society pp 67 168 doi 10 2307 j ctv13796z1 7 ISBN 978 0 8276 1848 0 LCCN 2019042781 S2CID 241520845 Stahl Michael J 2021 The God of Israel and the Politics of Divinity in Ancient Israel The God of Israel in History and Tradition Vetus Testamentum Supplements Vol 187 Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers pp 52 144 doi 10 1163 9789004447721 003 ISBN 978 90 04 44772 1 S2CID 236752143 a b c d e f g h i j Grossman Maxine Sommer Benjamin D 2011 GOD In Berlin Adele ed The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion 2nd ed Oxford and New York Oxford University Press pp 294 297 doi 10 1093 acref 9780199730049 001 0001 ISBN 978 0 19 975927 9 LCCN 2010035774 a b Jewish Concepts God Jewish Virtual Library American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise AICE 2021 2014 Archived from the original on 12 April 2017 Retrieved 23 October 2021 Hayes Christine 2012 Understanding Biblical Monotheism Introduction to the Bible The Open Yale Courses Series New Haven and London Yale University Press pp 15 28 ISBN 978 0 300 18179 1 JSTOR j ctt32bxpm 6 a b c Moberly R W L 1990 Yahweh is One The Translation of the Shema In Emerton J A ed Studies in the Pentateuch Vetus Testamentum Supplements Vol 41 Leiden Brill Publishers pp 209 215 doi 10 1163 9789004275645 012 ISBN 978 90 04 27564 5 a b c d e f g Lebens Samuel 2022 Is God a Person Maimonidean and Neo Maimonidean Perspectives In Kittle Simon Gasser Georg eds The Divine Nature Personal and A Personal Perspectives 1st ed London and New York Routledge pp 90 95 doi 10 4324 9781003111436 ISBN 978 0 367 61926 8 LCCN 2021038406 S2CID 245169096 Leone Massimo Spring 2016 Asif Agha ed Smashing Idols A Paradoxical Semiotics PDF Signs and Society Chicago University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Semiosis Research Center at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies 4 1 30 56 doi 10 1086 684586 eISSN 2326 4497 hdl 2318 1561609 ISSN 2326 4489 S2CID 53408911 Archived PDF from the original on 23 September 2017 Retrieved 20 October 2021 a b c d e Ben Sasson Hillel 2018 Conditional Presence The Meaning of the Name YHWH in the Bible Understanding YHWH The Name of God in Biblical Rabbinic and Medieval Jewish Thought Jewish Thought and Philosophy 1st ed Basingstoke and New York Palgrave Macmillan pp 25 63 doi 10 1007 978 3 030 32312 7 2 ISBN 978 3 030 32312 7 S2CID 213883058 Lemaire Andre May June 1994 House of David Restored in Moabite Inscription PDF Biblical Archaeology Review Washington D C Biblical Archaeology Society 20 3 ISSN 0098 9444 Archived from the original PDF on 31 March 2012 Hoffman 2004 p 236 sfn error no target CITEREFHoffman2004 help Botterweck G Johannes Ringgren Helmer eds 1986 Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Vol 5 Translated by Green David E Grand Rapids Michigan Wm B Eerdmans p 500 ISBN 0 8028 2329 7 Archived from the original on 23 January 2021 Retrieved 19 May 2020 Christiano Kevin J Kivisto Peter Swatos William H Jr eds 2015 2002 Excursus on the History of Religions Sociology of Religion Contemporary Developments 3rd ed Walnut Creek California AltaMira Press pp 254 255 doi 10 2307 3512222 ISBN 978 1 4422 1691 4 JSTOR 3512222 LCCN 2001035412 S2CID 154932078 Mishneh Torah book HaMadda section Yesodei ha Torah chapter 1 1 original Hebrew English translation a b Jewish Beliefs about God in C JEEP Curriculum Guide American Jewish Committee PDF Jacobs Louis 1990 God Torah Israel traditionalism without fundamentalism Cincinnati Hebrew Union College Press ISBN 0 87820 052 5 OCLC 21039224 page needed Guttmann Julius 1964 Philosophies of Judaism The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig New York City Holt Rinehart and Winston pp 150 151 OCLC 1497829 Geoffrey Claussen God and Suffering in Heschel s Torah Min Ha Shamayim Conservative Judaism 61 no 4 2010 p 17 a b Maimonides Moses 1180 Mishneh Torah Sefer Ma adah Yesodei haTorah The Book of Knowledge Foundations of the Torah Law p 1 8 G d has no body no genitalia therefore the very idea that G d is male or female is patently absurd We refer to G d using masculine terms simply for convenience s sake because Hebrew has no neutral gender G d is no more male than a table is Judaism 101 The fact that we always refer to God as He is also not meant to imply that the concept of sex or gender applies to God Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan The Aryeh Kaplan Reader Mesorah Publications 1983 p 144 Julia Watts Belser Transing God dess Notes from the Borderlands in Balancing on the Mechitza Transgender in Jewish Community ed Noach Dzmura Berkeley CA North Atlantic Books 2010 a b Samuel S Cohon What We Jews Believe 1931 Union of American Hebrew Congregations a b c d Edward Kessler What Do Jews Believe The Customs and Culture of Modern Judaism 2007 Bloomsbury Publishing pp 42 44 Abraham Joshua Heschel God in Search of Man A Philosophy of Judaism New York Farrar Straus amp Cudahy 1955 Benedictus de Spinoza The Ethics Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect Selected Letters trans Samuel Shirley 2nd ed Indianapolis Hackett 1992 40 Daniel B Schwartz The First Modern Jew Spinoza and the History of an Image Princeton University Press 2012 ch 5 a b c d Hermann Cohen Reason and Hope Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen trans Eva Jospe New York Norton 1971 223 Emmanuel Levinas Difficult Freedom Essays on Judaism trans Sean Hand Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1990 223 Alan Levenson An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thinkers From Spinoza to Soloveitchik 137 Alan Levenson An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thinkers From Spinoza to Soloveitchik 138 Mordecai Menahem Kaplan The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion Detroit Wayne State University Press 1994 29 Zalman Schachter Shalomi and Joel Segel Jewish with Feeling A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice New York Riverhead Books 2005 20 Zalman Schachter Shalomi and Joel Segel Jewish with Feeling A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice New York Riverhead Books 2005 8 http www pewforum org files 2013 05 report religious landscape study full pdf Archived 2017 04 17 at the Wayback Machine p 164Bibliography EditBetz Arnold Gottfried 2000 Monotheism In Freedman David Noel Myer Allen C eds Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible Grand Rapids Michigan Wm B Eerdmans pp 916 917 ISBN 978 90 5356 503 2 Day John 2002 Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Vol 265 Sheffield Sheffield Academic Press doi 10 2307 3217888 ISBN 978 0 567 53783 6 JSTOR 3217888 S2CID 161791734 Gruber Mayer I 2013 Israel In Spaeth Barbette Stanley ed The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions New York Cambridge University Press pp 76 94 doi 10 1017 CCO9781139047784 007 ISBN 978 0 521 11396 0 LCCN 2012049271 Moberly R W L 1990 Yahweh is One The Translation of the Shema In Emerton J A ed Studies in the Pentateuch Vetus Testamentum Supplements Vol 41 Leiden Brill Publishers pp 209 215 doi 10 1163 9789004275645 012 ISBN 978 90 04 27564 5 Niehr Herbert 1995 The Rise of YHWH in Judahite and Israelite Religion Methodological and Religio Historical Aspects In Edelman Diana Vikander ed The Triumph of Elohim From Yahwisms to Judaisms Leuven Peeters Publishers pp 45 72 ISBN 978 90 5356 503 2 OCLC 33819403 Smith Mark S 2000 El In Freedman David Noel Myer Allen C eds Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible Grand Rapids Michigan Wm B Eerdmans pp 384 386 ISBN 978 90 5356 503 2 Smith Mark S 2003 El Yahweh and the Original God of Israel and the Exodus The Origins of Biblical Monotheism Israel s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts Oxford Oxford University Press pp 133 148 doi 10 1093 019513480X 003 0008 ISBN 978 0 19 513480 3 Smith Mark S 2017 YHWH s Original Character Questions about an Unknown God In Van Oorschot Jurgen Witten Markus eds The Origins of Yahwism Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Vol 484 Berlin and Boston De Gruyter pp 23 44 doi 10 1515 9783110448221 002 ISBN 978 3 11 042538 3 S2CID 187378834 Van der Toorn Karel 1999 God I In Van der Toorn Karel Becking Bob Van der Horst Pieter W eds Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible 2nd ed Leiden Brill Publishers pp 352 365 doi 10 1163 2589 7802 DDDO DDDO Godi ISBN 978 90 04 11119 6 Van der Horst Pieter W 1999 God II In Van der Toorn Karel Becking Bob Van der Horst Pieter W eds Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible 2nd ed Leiden Brill Publishers pp 365 370 doi 10 1163 2589 7802 DDDO DDDO Godii ISBN 978 90 04 11119 6 Further reading EditAmzallag Nissim August 2018 Metallurgy the Forgotten Dimension of Ancient Yahwism The Bible and Interpretation University of Arizona Archived from the original on 26 July 2020 Retrieved 20 October 2021 Gaster Theodor H 26 November 2020 Biblical Judaism 20th 4th century BCE Encyclopaedia Britannica Edinburgh Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc Retrieved 20 October 2021 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title God in Judaism amp oldid 1145302872, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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