Judaism, perhaps more than any other religion, is a system rooted in language. Word–play is among our deepest spiritual practices. While some contemplative systems speak of ending thought, Judaism seeks to deconstruct thought by subjecting it to endless gaming. Earlier I mentioned the Gematria game where we read Hebrew letters as numbers, and Hebrew words as numeric sums. Another of our games involves playing with the letters themselves. My favorite example of this game is Ain/Ani.   Ain, the divine... Read more

One way to look at the relationship between El and YHVH is that of figure/ground. You know these images: a graphic that looks like a goblet one moment and then two people looking at one another the next (to use but one example). It all depends on how your brain is processing the information you get from the graphic. What you see—goblet or people—is figure, what you don’t see is ground. El is what you see; YHVH is what you... Read more

YHVH is the second name of God introduced in Torah. Because we Jews are forbidden from pronouncing this Name, our rabbis created a euphemism we can pronounce: Adonai, Lord. With this they made YHVH in their own image. Where YHVH is a verb, Adonai is a noun. Where YHVH is not gendered, Adonai is masculine. Where YHVH is nonhierarchical, Adonai is the top of a hierarchy. Where YHVH is imageless, Adonai is the image of the rabbis themselves. While it... Read more

“In the beginning Elohim (God) created sky and earth,” (Genesis 1:1). The beginning as Torah understands it was less than 6000 years ago (I am writing this book in the Jewish calendar year 5774). The beginning as I understand it was 13.8 billion years ago. The creation of the earth was a little over 4.5 billion years ago. So Torah is a bit off here. But it doesn’t matter. Why? Because Torah isn’t a science book, Torah is a storybook.... Read more

My understanding of God mirrors that of the first century rabbi Saul of Tarsus: God is that “in which we live, and move, and have our being,” (Acts 18:28). It may be odd to quote Rabbi Saul, better known as St. Paul, in a book on Judaism, but on this point he is spot on. I am a panentheist (pan/all en/is in theos/God). I believe that God, if the word is to have value for me at all, is Ultimate... Read more

We Jews have many Gods. This is because we have many readings of our story. There are Jews who’s God is obsessed with Land, and who are themselves similarly obsessed. There are Jews who’s God is obsessed with women’s modesty, and who are themselves similarly obsessed. There are Jews who’s God is all about mitzvot/commandments, and so they, too, are all about keeping the mitzvot and commandments. There are many Gods worshipped by Jews. But for most Jews, all these... Read more

Remember, the only God we know is the God of story, whether it be our story or some other story. In all cases the God of story supports and sanctions the story in which that God appears. And because the things these Gods support and sanction become the determining factors in the way billions of human beings live their lives, Gods matter. But in the case of Torah, God isn’t a finished character. As we grow, God grows. That is... Read more

STORY MATTERS If we can say nothing about God that is not a reflection of our own story—personal, tribal, etc.—why speak about God at all? I suspect the answer is this: speaking of God for many of us is the way we speak of meaning making. I know that is true of me. My theological narrative is constructed out of the stories, both religious and scientific, that give my life meaning. Story is the way we humans make sense out... Read more

When talking about God, something I shouldn’t do and yet cannot help doing, we have to make a distinction between God as an ontological reality—God as God actually is if there is such a thing as God at all—and God as a narrative construct: the God of our story. Let me make this clear: Torah’s God is a character in a story whose purpose is to sanction the worldview of the Jews who tell that story. This doesn’t mean there... Read more

Today we Jews are dying, and have been for a long time. Our enemies kill us, often millions of us, but never all of us. Only we can do that, and we are. We are killing ourselves by failing to tell our children our story, and failing to teach our children how to misread our story in order to retell it fresh for themselves and their children. We are no longer raising generations of storytellers. We have become simulacra, replicas... Read more