GOD* came about after I saw someone refer in like manner to the current president (at this writing, in early December 2019) and some sports figures. Although it’s meant to indicate someone whose office or standing is shot through with controversy (hence requiring a footnote for fuller understanding), its Divine usage is meant to express that the simple monosyllable “God” likewise requires a footnote — the word doesn’t adequately convey the depth and breadth of What one is attempting to express. (It just doesn’t, that’s all.) Continue reading “365 Names: God*”
Category: Torah
The Text(s), the tribe, the learning, the being. (With a bit of random spirituality mixed in.)
Minute Mitzvah: Play Nice
Today: Don’t shame anyone.
Explanation: When you make someone feel painfully self-conscious, you destroy a little piece of the world — and not only for them. Your own soul / psyche / personality suffers as well. In today’s hyperpartisan social climate, the temptation exists to make others hurt as much as they want to hurt you; but that’s a trapdoor without a bottom.
Exercise: Ask yourself: “Do I really want to be That Guy?” Tone down the snark, online and off. And act according to your ideals.
On the Other Hand…
My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”
— John Dominic Crossan
365 Names: “God”
“GOD” (quotation marks deliberate) is a more concise statement of Intent than “that-which-some-call-God” or even “that-which-passes-for-God.” (Or even The Metaphorager’s own working definition.) The shorter, the sweeter.
Once upon a time, in 2011 in fact, The Metaphorager aspired each day to feature a different name for that-which-passes-for-God. Some were creative, others traditional, each unique; so we’re going to attempt that project again (though not every day) until we run out of the names we’ve collected so far. If you want to see your favorite here, but haven’t, send it along with the subject line “365 Names” and let us know whether or not you want to be credited.
365 Names: “The Unseen Seer”
THE UNSEEN SEER Google this, and you’ll find a bunch of links describing a Dungeons & Dragons character class. But I recently saw this Name in an (unremembered, alas) online Torah publication, and I like it because of the image it provokes: a Presence invisible yet omniscient; an Observer which uses our eyes, but lives just outside our own perception; a Witness to all that transpires. Spooky-but-cool, isn’t it? Continue reading “365 Names: “The Unseen Seer””
Ol’ Thinkypants’ Advice For Those Purporting To Know What G?d Wants (Or, Especially, Hates)
“OH, MAAAN — DON’T FALL INTO that trap.”
A Universe Full Of “Learn Here” Stickers
There was a time when every brief saying one heard was regarded as a ‘Torah’ (teaching, guidance), and everything one saw was perceived as an instruction in his Avoda (worship, service) and conduct.”
–Daily Hayom Yom newsletter
365 Names: “Love”
LOVE is defined here in its Divine sense as “That which attracts and unifies.” Similar in principle to the Great Magnet, but different in its connotation of intimacy. The Greeks have specified this Name’s essential qualities as “eros,” or sexuality, and “agape,” a more selfless emotion and one better suited for our analytic purposes. (The latter sense is Christian in origin, but why should we let only one religion have all the fun?) Continue reading “365 Names: “Love””
In the Presence of the Mystery
LET’S ASSUME FOR THE MOMENT that the Chanukah story is true (or at least as true as any myth or legend) …
Basking in the glow of three candles a little while ago, it occurred to me that to the Maccabees, the oil-miracle’s second night was the most exciting.
They had already used up the one cruse of oil (or so they thought). When the flame didn’t go out as expected, however, they knew something strange and/or miraculous was afoot.
With the Temple menorah still alight by the eighth day, they might have become used to the miracle; taken it for granted even.
But that second night — that must have been the best.
365 Names: “G-d”
G-D is a bit of linguistic trickery. Because traditional Judaism teaches that the name of G?d (see what I did there?) is not to be erased, “G-d” is a way to write that Name without really writing it: on a Hebrew school blackboard, say, or a Xeroxed handout, or a computer screen, or any transient or otherwise ephemeral medium. Of course, as Rabbi Larry Kushner points out, “‘God’ is not God’s name” — thus, erasing “God” should pose no theological problem. Some habits, though, are hard to break. (So what’s with the question mark? See here, o seeker after Divine nomenclature.) Continue reading “365 Names: “G-d””
365 Names: Flow
FLOW is preferred to The Flow, since “the” suggests separateness — “Thingness,” if you will — and as Flow cannot be reliably distinguished from that-which-flows, said usage would upset “the” carefully built phenomenological apple-cart. (And we certainly can’t have that.) Just another attempt at naming the Nameless…without naming it, of course. Continue reading “365 Names: Flow”
Temple of the Holy Reruns
HAVE YOU EVER SAT IN a theater after the movie ended so you can see it again? Then you’ll understand Simchat Torah.
Simchat Torah, or “Rejoicing of (the) Teaching,” will be celebrated by the worldwide Jewish community beginning tonight through tomorrow. It marks the end of the yearly Torah-reading cycle and the beginning of a new one. We’ve been doing this for at least (best guess here) 2,569 years; when we reach the last words of Deuteronomy (“Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses … [with] all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel”) we immediately rewind to “In the beginning of G?d’s creating heaven and earth…” To paraphrase a line from Guys and Dolls, among other things Judaism can be called the oldest established permanent floating book club on Earth. Continue reading “Temple of the Holy Reruns”