God. Don’t know where
that word comes from.
HaShem means the Name.
We use this appellation to describe God as the unmentionable. The other, more familiar names of God, are
exclusively reserved for prayer. All
told, there are some seventy names for God.
And those are just the Hebrew ones!
Some are in the feminine form, others are masculine. There are no neutral words in Hebrew. Every word has a gender.
God is a rabbi, sage, healer, and creator…. God is even called “A Man of War.” Look
closely at the few names mentioned for God; they are all specific and limiting.
Every word describing God must be inaccurate.
God is more than a “name”. God is beyond a rabbi: Not just a healer, God
is all things. In fact, words get in the
way. They may stand as forces which
prevent us from entering the Palace.
On the Holy Days we saw how references to God were almost
exclusively as a melekh, a king. Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur are events when
we imagine God as a king on a throne.
What does a king do? He judges. The image is austere and forbidding.
As a child, the vision of God sitting on a throne, pensively
gazing out at His subjects, was the most natural picture to conjure up when
thinking about God. It makes sense. After all, children are used to authority
figures telling what to do and mysteriously knowing their most secret
places. ‘God must be like that too’,
they consider. We do the same in a more
worldly fashion. At times of seething
anger God becomes the “Avenger’ or “man of War”. During moments of intense pain God id the
“Healer of Broken Hearts.”
In other words, we name to name God. We are inner directed to find words that sum
up our needy feelings. That is why when
Moshe rabbenu asks God by which name he should call Him, God responds, “I am
that I am”. Nothing else is needed. I guess God knew that as quickly as word
would spread of God’s existence there would be an infinite number of names
attached to His Presence (that’s another one).
We need associations that make us feel as if God were comprised of
attributes which directly answer our needs.
That is why the Rambam called any name that we apply to God
a metaphor. It simply must stand for
something else. God is too great to be
limited by a pint-sized word. Any
attempt to label God is absurd.
I lived for several years in London. During the first months of living there I
discovered how often my English was misunderstood. Even something as simple as holding up two
fingers for the ‘peace’ sign invited some rather painful responses. Someone once called the United States and
Great Britain as “two countries divided by the same language.” Only shared experiences yields
understanding. In fact, I find it
amazing that we understand as much a s we do.
I suspect that most of what we understand from others derives from a
visceral comprehension. That is, we only
understand what touches us emotionally.
The cadence, voice fluctuations, emotional vibes all frame our understanding
of the spoken word. The wors themselves
are inadequate at best; at worst, they lie.
All this is to say that often what gets in the way of the
pray-er is the wall of words which has mounted between us and God. We do not quite get it. What do the words of this Psalm have to do
with me? What if my metaphor for God does
not work here? Then it is time to do one
of the most difficult things any religious person can ever do: daven. Not just mouth the words. Not jut fulfil the mitzvah of prayer. Daven.
While most Jews have sung and recited the words of the siddur with some
frequency few of us have risen to the level of really speaking to God about
matters of the heart.
It does not matter what we call God. Language obfuscates, it confuses, and makes
the art of davenning a little too facile.
What God wants is for someone to speak with Him. Consider all the Hasidic tales, which are
about prayers not being strong enough to enter the portals of heaven. That is because they lack the soul, neshama, necessary to give them
flight. Odder yet, is that is precisely
what the soul demands as well. It yearns
to speak the deepest thoughts that lurk within.
“The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in
truth.” Truth emanates from the heart.
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