We met today for a service built around exploring images/metaphors/theologies of the Divine, launching from the opening of today’s parsha. Our liturgy put forward many different ideas and images, then in our torah discussion we learned just a bit about alternative images of divinity that have existed across Jewish history and live on in our liturgy and symbols. After learning, we talked about our own images, including the language or metaphors that block us.
We also formally introduced a new opening ritual this month. From now until some kind of more just resolution arises in Palestine and Israel, we’ll be beginning each month by reading together a line from 12th century poet Yehuda Halevi: my heart is in the east, and I am at the edge of the west לֵבִּי בְמִזְרָח וְאָנֹכִי בְּסוֹף מַעֲרָב
Our January liturgy can be downloaded here.
You can find some of today’s music on the Fringes Soundcloud Page, including:
What is God/Divinity for Us?
In our torah talk today we read aloud the poem “God is All” that is posted below. Our community then entered our own images into the chat, reading that communal body of ideas before opening up a discussion. Some of the ideas shared in chat included:
HaMakom – the place (within and without).
nothing
God is collective action. God is the willingness to try. God is the desire to come together. God is belonging. God is a wall that becomes a window. God is the dawning of understanding. God is remembering. God is learning.
the breath that breathes us all; we are not waves, God is not ocean, we are all water
Wind
A pulsing ball of energy within me connecting me to others – our source of strength
God is breath. God is everything – everyone and every more than human kin. God is the spring bud. God is the bloom. God is the rain. God is witness. God is the stars in the sky and the sand on the shores. God is the gates to heaven themselves, the heavens, and the pathways – terrestrial and unbound – to arrive. God is ripe fruit.
etz Chayim, G-d is one
God is wind
God is sunshine
I got nothing, I fail to understanding why we bother with god. All those things we recite, they are wondrous all on their own. Why do we need to hypothesize this myth,? Something to hide behind? Something to blame? Something to justify our doing what we would do of our own volition?
“[god is] spread on me like skin.” -Annie Dillard from earlier reading
god is water
God is the ocean; we are the wave
God is life, God is trees, God is nighttime, God is embrace, God is embodied
God is love.
God is softness: marshmallows, bark of sycamores, bed
“God is change” -Octavia Butler
I love the idea that all these ideas including the contradictions is Judaism. There is no one theology
Maybe god is the friends we made along the way
She is what lets me wake up. She powers my continuing. She eases rest. She will dissolve me at end. she connects me to all. She is there when i am most alone. .
I appreciate the God construct as a way for me to feel more awe, wonder, and compassion – but I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone.
God as connection, connectedness, among people and with the world. Which of course is a mixed bag…
I’m reminded of this from R’Zalman: “I don’t believe in the same god that you don’t believe in.”
