As I offered in yesterday's post, Ha Yamin ("the right hand"), G-d longs to be with us. He chose to fulfill that desire (and His plan for our redemption) by manifesting Himself physically, in our dimension and in our form. Today, I'd like to expand on that idea and show that His appearing in the form of a man in the Brit Chadasha, was not an isolated instance. There are a great many who are unable to accept the idea of G-d taking the form of a man, namely Yeshua of Nazareth, because of their understanding that G-d is simply unable to do so. Can you blame them? G-d has no body, right? Even if He did, in Exodus 33:20, G-d tells Moshe that he couldn't see Him and live. What's going on here exactly? Let's look at some occurrences of G-d revealing Himself to men in the Tanakh and see what we find. I don't intend this to be exhaustive, but there are just a few passages I'd like to point out. We'll start with Avraham, as his seems a fitting beginning, only here, he is still Avram for a moment.
"When Avram was ninety-nine years old, the L-RD appeared to him and said, "I AM G-d Almighty, walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between Me and you and multiply you greatly." (Genesis 17:1-2)
So here we have G-d appearing to Avraham, but it doesn't exactly say how and it certainly doesn't say that He appeared as a man. Let's look at the very next chapter, though, Genesis 18. Here Avraham, having held up his end of their recent agreement (from Genesis 17), is visited by three men, but the text tells us that the L-RD came to visit. How can this be? It says that G-d sat with Avraham, ate and revealed Yitzak's coming birth, as well as an imminent nearby judgment He was about to carry out. All the while, Avraham refers to Him as L-RD, but He is very obviously a man. There's our first textual anomaly. Their discussion fills the chapter and once they've finished, the L-RD remains with Avraham while two of the men, or mal'akim, (messengers) depart for Sodom. As an aside, Genesis 19 shows that these "men" aren't mere men at all, but "angels" (with the power to blind men) sent by G-d to execute judgment on the city. We find a curious phrase in verse 24, "Then the L-RD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah fire and sulfur from the L-RD out of heaven." Strange, the "L-RD rained... from the L-RD"? Let's look a bit further. We'll jump ahead to a strange event in the life of Yakov, Avraham's grandson, whose name is also about to be changed, but by whom?
"And Yakov was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day." (Genesis 32:24)
What an incredible event! Could this "man" that wrestled Yakov all night actually have been G-d Himself? The passage goes on to say that the "man" changes Yakov's name to Yisrael (because he "has wrestled with G-d and man, and has prevailed"). Yakov then calls the place Peniel because he "has seen G-d face to face and lived". While the identity of this nocturnal wrestler is clear to us, He appeared as a mere man to Yakov. Very interesting. We now have our second textual anomaly.
Just these few scriptures from the Tanakh are enough to challenge commonly held ideas concerning the physical attributes of G-d. I wonder why there are so many differing viewpoints in Judaism concerning G-d's ability to manifest Himself to us. As we dig deeper, we find G-d's interactions with Moshe to be even more peculiar. We'll look at those next.
Leilah tov, readers.
By necessity, the Bible must use anthropomorphisms to describe God, but that doesn't mean God has arms, a face, a back, and so forth. When God "walked" with Noah or "appeared" to Abram, in all likelihood He didn't do so literally.
ReplyDeleteRambam (Maimonides) believes we cannot know God as He is but only by His effects or the results of His actions in our universe. Some believe that the Shekhinah or the Divine Presence, is a manifestation of those "effects" of God but that God as He is (Ayn Sof), cannot be experienced by human beings. The various mystic traditions believe it is possible for a person to transcend our reality and go into the different heavenly realms to encounter more of God. Paul himself alluded to being taken up to "the third heaven" (2 Corinthians 12:2) and both Ezekiel and John, the writer of the Book of Revelation, can be considered to have had such mystic encounters.
I say all this to explain that trying to understand God's "face" or "back" may be a futile effort, at least for most of us. The third of Rambam's 13 principles of faith is the "belief in G-d's non-corporeality, nor that He will be affected by any physical occurrences, such as movement, or rest, or dwelling".
It is enough to know that God exists and that He is One, a unique unity. We seek Him all our lives and by our seeking and our doing His will, we find Him in our every breath.
Thanks so much, James. For those of us who aren't philosophers, the plain reading of scripture is probably enough to see that G-d is able to appear any way He likes. If we approach these truths as children (not in ignorance, but in humble faith), can we really walk away from the account of Yakov wrestling with a man all night (that couldn't seem to get the upper hand and finally knocked Yakov's leg out of socket) and think that he was actually struggling with the spiritual essence of G-d? Why is this not even hinted at in the text? I mean, did the presence of G-d eat meat in Avraham's tent? There is nothing in Genesis 18 (for example) to indicate that G-d appeared as anything but a normal man. There was no light, smoke, or sound of rushing water filling the tent. Further, neither Avraham or Sarah were the least bit fearful of their heavenly visitor - even going so far as to laugh (both of them) at His prophecy of Yitzak's birth. Apparently, Sarah was so comfortable that she was even able to lie directly to His face (denying that she laughed).
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect to Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, aka the Great Eagle, he was a truly great thinker, but he wasn't present at the time of the Patriarchs. He wasn't with Avraham in the tent, Yakov in the field, or Moshe in the cleft of the rock. While his teachings have been studied and revered by countless people for centuries, he didn't contribute a single word to G-d's written Torah, which is the text I'm referring to in this post and the sure foundation of our faith. Rabbi ben Maimon had many controversial ideas and even more detractors. He was a proponent of Apophatic Theology, which seeks to express the understanding of G-d's attributes through negative statements. For example, He taught that we shouldn't say that G-d exists, only that He isn't non-existent. We shouldn't say that G-d is all knowing, but that He is ignorant of nothing. Surprisingly, he even taught contrary to the Shema by saying that we shouldn't say that G-d is One, but rather that there is no multiplicity in His being. For all his depth and detail, he seemed to prefer to err on the side of ambiguity when it came to the manifestation of G-d and was completely unable to understand the possibility of G-d in our dimension - while other great Jewish thinkers could. These ideas highlight the notion of differing views in Judaism to which I referred in my post. Ultimately, for all his celebrated teachings, Maimonides did not accept the hyperstatic union of G-d exhibited in Messiah Yeshua - a mysterious unity, to be sure, but one you and I know to be completely acceptable.
some great information. ive never heard of the apophatic understanding before now. very strange. looks like ill have to read up on the Rambam some more. thx
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