Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Mishkan and G-d's Immanence

These ideas are incomplete thoughts, please help me develop them further. Thanks.
The Mishkan is a replacement of Hashem's revealed presence throughout the Jewish camp (as a result of the sin of the golden calf).
If G-d is immanent (Memaleh) (everywhere), why is there a need for a Mishkan?
So simply, the explanation as we all know it, is that we need to reveal G-d's presence in this world. And for that we need a Mishkan. And this applies to Olum (Beis Hamikdosh), Shanah (Shabbos) and Nefesh (Yidden) that each category has its "leader" that infuses the rest with their holiness or revealed state of G-dliness.
And I was thinking about this concept through the lens of pantheism and panentheism. And I felt it gave some extra clarity.
(Now like every time we use any term, it should truly be defined, because there are always different understandings of terms. So for the purpose of this conversation, let me define pantheism as the belief that all is God and that God is not anything more than that. And all is defined as nature. This is attributed to Spinoza.
And panentheism as that that G-d is in all (nature) though he is not confined by it but he is more than that as well. In other osios perhaps, G-d is not just memaleh (immanent) but sovev (transcendent) as well.)
Spinoza wasn't frum, he was put in cherem, but there are letters that say that he rejected in part the idea that G-d wasn't greater than nature as well as part of nature. So the question would be what was wrong in what he believed?
Well for one, Moses Mendelsohn was a supporter of his ideas, so that's not a good sign.
An idea came to me on types of potential relationships between Hashem and the world.
So starting again from the question that if the whole world is G-dly, why do we need a specific location?
How do we make everything holy? Is it by giving autonomy to everything (empowering and calling everything God) or is it by subjugating everything to a higher power? In other words by the idea of pantheism, all is God, we are in a certain way creating a moral equivalency, how can one behaviour be more right than another, since everything is God?
 But the Jewish way that G-d is in everything and gives everything directives how to be properly utilized, therefore creates a paradigm on how everything can become truly, in a revealed state, G-dly.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Infinity

I love the word infinity. Somehow it captures the imagination and evokes images of a beautiful night sky extending endlessly.

You can imagine my disappointment when I, a lover of the Hebrew language, realized that Hebrew does not have a positive word for infinity. Instead the Hebrew uses the negative term of “Bli-Gevul” - without limit.

I mean, could a language as powerful as Hebrew not offer a positive and direct word? Especially that Biblical Hebrew is in the business of describing an infinite G-d so the lack of a positive term to describe the infinity of G-d so essential to it's couture is striking.

It finally occurred to me.

The language is teaching us something. It's saying that we cannot grasp infinity. Sure we can coin a word, but the word cannot help us understand something so foreign to our experience.

“It is impossible for a finite being to know the infinite creator”, argues Maimonides, the best we can do is have “negative knowledge”, meaning we can no what he is not, but we'll never have direct knowledge of what he is.

By using the term “Bli-Gevul” - without limit – Hebrew is reminding us to be humble and acknowledge the limit of our understanding. We must remember that while we try to describe G-d, ultimately we can only know him indirectly – knowing what he is not, but we can never know what he is.

Thank you Hebrew for the philosophic idea embedded in your choice of words.