Joseph Brown responds to “The False Binary of Theism vs. Atheism”
To the Editors:
Adena Philips begins “The False Binary of Theism vs. Atheism” with a perfectly respectable complaint against the reductionism with which discussions of theology are typically started — namely, against the question, “Do you believe in G-d?” It is true that Hashem as He is depicted in Torah is a mysterious character. He is said in Exodus to have a face, back, and hand. And yet in Psalm 115, we’re entreated to a mockery of the Levant’s false idols, whose clay and wooden sensory organs are merely cosmetic. The true G-d, of course, has no form.
There is much room to ponder the nature and essence of G-d. Philips does not do much of this. Instead, having pried open some of the Torah’s more puzzling esotericisms, she proceeds to denounce the uselessness of gatekeeping in Jewish thought. It may be that, as she relates to us, a significant portion of American Jews profess belief in a “higher power.” And it could certainly be said they believe in a god, or something like a god. Our most hardcore secularists often assert the existence of rights to this or that good, demonstrating some belief in the transcendental. Man is a spiritual animal.
So what is the issue? Even the most dogmatic among us can acknowledge the existence of non-halakhic beliefs among Jews, and especially among American Jews. But here Philips offers a glimpse of the point at which she has been hinting throughout the piece:
“The God of my Jewish upbringing lives for me in the warmth of a Shabbat table . . . . She also appears in the ecstasy of the dance floor . . . . As my conception of God has evolved throughout my journey with Jewish spirituality, I’ve come to see it as a mirror — a projection of my own inner state, constellation of beliefs, and learning at a given point in time.”
Of course! He is the mirror. The god of the void — literally an image of ourselves, no more and no less than the reflective capacity of water. Thousands of years of Jewish history, replete with the mindless and interminable debates of silly sages, just to arrive in precisely the same theological territory as, uh, Unitarian Universalism. Quite the trip!
Maybe American Jews are drifting away from Hashem as He is depicted in Torah. So perhaps there is a reason we ask, “Do you believe in G-d?” At the very least, it provides good polling data.
I appreciate Joseph Brown’s charged response to my article, but I must clarify: I didn’t refer to God itself as a mirror, but rather my evolving conception of God. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one, and I am grateful to Joseph Brown for prompting me to further refine it. God itself is an unchanging essence that transcends time and is beyond the limitations of human understanding. It is our individual and communal conceptions of God that mutate as we move through our human experiences of joy, suffering, expansion, and contraction, and as filtered through our earthly limitations.
Jewish tradition is rich with metaphors that illustrate the relationship between the human and God, acknowledging both divine essence and earthly projections or transference. Genesis’ assertion that humans were created “in the image of God” is an expression of this reflective relationship.
Beyond the metaphor of the mirror, there are many others. For example, the lens. Joseph Brown and I, through our respective experiences of the divine, embody the Kabbalistic “Aspaklaria”–the subjective lens of each person’s vantage point of divine truth. These lenses, tinted and clouded by each of our unique vantage points, merge into a kaleidoscope of divine radiance. This, in its totality, is YHVH, the non-temporal and unutterable Name–the literal “Hashem”–that Joseph Brown invokes. The ungraspable eternal essence of all that was, is, and will be. God’s introduction to Moses as “I Am That I Am” or “I Will Be What I Will Be” underscores this imminent yet paradoxically transcendent presence.
In their exposition of Genesis, the Kabbalists teach that when the or ha-ganuz (the Hidden Light) fractured during creation, each of us received a piece of it, suggesting that within every person, there is a spark of that divine light. It seems to me that our tradition beckons each of us to examine and nurture our own piece of the or ha-ganuz so that we may contribute to the holy work of revealing the Divine, jointly assembling a cosmic puzzle – each piece essential to the whole.
My invitation to Joseph Brown, and to you, readers, is to look in your own mirror or examine your lens, and consider what your conception of God reveals about your own spiritual desires and fears, and your own perception of what is needed in our community right now. Which of God’s many names do you relate most to right now, and why? The hyphenation in Joseph Brown’s “G-d”, for example, represents to me a vigilance in creating distanced reverence for the divine. It is a heedful extension of the prohibition on uttering God’s most sacred name to even writing a tertiary referential word in translation. While I honor the respectful restraint this practice embodies, it is anathema to my desire for divine intimacy, for devekut. If we keep distancing ourselves from the divine, how far will our descendants be from the makor hayim (source of life)? Will their hyphens consume the consonants along with the vowels?
Further, and importantly, I encourage Joseph Brown and all readers to ask: What’s at stake for you in this dialogue about divinity? How certain are you, truly, of your beliefs, and how important is it to you to be right? What might you lose if proven wrong? What might you gain? If there is a fear underlying your attachment to a particular belief, what does that fear aim to protect? What is the precious aspect — be it identity, tradition, or something else — at the core of your held beliefs?
In effect, what does each of us need to be true in order for us to move through the world as we do?
Exploring this topic, as opposed to shutting it down, deepens the spiritual dialogue we’re all part of, and enriches our personal and communal lives. It was exactly this kind of conversation I sought to provoke, and I am gratified that it has done just that. Also, I am grateful that the article found its way to my old friend and colleague, Steven Bayme, prompting him to contend with his own evolving conception of God, and to write a deeply personal, moving, and thoughtful letter about an understanding of God that allows for both reverence and doubt, beauty and pain. My thanks to this readership for the continued dialogue,
Adena Philips