THE LIGHT OF ETERNAL MIND is how Moses (Charlton Heston) described G?d to Zipporah (Yvonne DeCarlo) and Joshua (John Derek) after seeing the Burning Bush in Cecil B. DeMille’s at-times unintentionally amusing but classic The Ten Commandments. It’s a potent descriptor not taught in Sunday School (my childhood one, anyway) but perhaps ought to have been — G?d as endless, boundaryless consciousness: omniscient, non-dual, mystical, essential. The screenwriters could have taken a more anthropomorphic route and had Moses say “All-Father,” “King of Kings,” “Eternal Our God” or the like. But instead, they went for the genderless, formless Mystery. Well played, C. B. Well played. Continue reading “365 Names of God: “The Light of Eternal Mind””
Tag: There’s a God in My Soup
Religious experience, or at least the experience of religion.
Truth v. Lies
SOME TIME AGO, I HAD a Facebook encounter with a dear friend who’s something of an Evangelical Atheist. It all started when another dear friend posted the following “meme” to my “wall:”
OMNISM: THE BELIEF THAT NO RELIGION IS THE ONLY TRUTH, BUT THAT TRUTHS ARE FOUND IN THEM ALL.
To which my atheist friend replied:
Alas, some lies, too. And little explanation of how to sift one from the other.
365 Names of God: Goddess
GODDESS IS USUALLY THE NAME invoked by people who see the word “God” — and especially Its biblical avatar — as male-gendered and wrathful. “Goddess” is sometimes also characterized as the Nurturer, the Comforter, the Creatrix, the Great Mother; the One in whom one can find solace, inspiration and joy. (It should also be mentioned that Wiccans and neo-pagans often posit both a God and a Goddess to describe what they see as an essentially binary universe, and one that they feel is ill-served by only one deity.) For those seeking a friendlier, gentler god-concept, though, Goddess is hard to beat. Just don’t make Her mad. Continue reading “365 Names of God: Goddess”
Life’s Little Soundtrack
365 Names of God: “The Divine”
THE DIVINE This Name tends to be used in circles where the word “God” might cause people discomfort for one reason or another. I’ve mostly seen it in New Age contexts as a non-anthropomorphic gambit to refer to an intentionless force similar to Tao, and have used it myself if I think my co-conversationalist has bad associations with “God.” But I long for a world where “God” can automatically mean “that-which-some-people-call-God,” with no dangerous baggage. (Open your suitcase, please.)
My Favorite Jewish Joke
OKAY MOSES,” SAID GOD. “HERE’S another commandment: Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean, don’t eat meat and milk together?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should have separate dishes for meat and dairy?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should wait a few hours after eating meat before we eat dairy?”
“Moses,” said God,”do whatever the hell you want.”
365 Names of God: “The Mystery”
THE MYSTERY is what I decided in 2010 to use instead of the word “God,” since it then encapsulated everything-I-knew-I-didn’t-know-about-G?d (including why I spell it with a question mark). It’s just too big, you know? And mysterious. And incomprehensible. And opaque to understanding. And paradoxical. And … and … and … well, you get the idea. (Or should that be “Idea?”) Continue reading “365 Names of God: “The Mystery””
365 Names of God: Not-Two
NOT-TWO One of our living-room Torah participants laid this Name on me a while ago. As a fierce non-dualist myself (meaning that I see the Universe as one whole Being rather than an assembly of parts), I instantly took to it. She explained that it differs somewhat from the idea of “attaining” Oneness in that it encourages such unification from the position of apparent duality; “not-two” starts from where the perceiver begins — the “universe of ‘the,'” or apparent separation — rather than where he or she wants to wind up (and in fact actually “is” all along). Our correspondent added that she got it from one or more Buddhist teachers, although at this remove I don’t remember who said it or what sect they were from. Use it in good health. Continue reading “365 Names of God: Not-Two”
Why I Love: Torah Study
IT’S THE ENDLESS INTELLECTUAL PUZZLE. It’s that Hebrew writing closely resembles Klingonese (well, it does; come to think of it, so does some of the sentiment). It’s belonging to the 3,000-year-old Permanent Floating Book Club. It’s the spectra, vagaries and levels of meaning. It’s the idea of “seventy faces of Torah,” meaning that each word (even letter!) can be looked at in multiple ways. It’s engaging with the minds of long-dead people who live on in your study. It’s the level playing field (“Only a little is all anyone knows of Torah,” quoth the greybeard rabbi). It’s seeing how far the Sages can stretch a metaphor. Continue reading “Why I Love: Torah Study”
PS:
So: We’re at CVS just now, about an hour after I wrote “And On, And On,”, waiting our turn at the pharmacy, when this woman sits down next to me and says, “I’m very sorry about what happened in Pittsburgh.” (This, after she circled around where we were sitting in what I had assumed was a somewhat suspicious manner.)
We talked a few minutes about what happened and why; she asked me about the Sonoma Jewish community, told me her feelings about the current White House occupant, and couldn’t have been nicer or more compassionate.
Sometimes, it pays to wear a yarmulke. Continue reading “PS:”
365 Names of God: King
KING A translation of the Hebrew word “melech” (מלך), this Name has fallen out of favor in Liberal Judaism circles due to two factors: 1) It’s male-gendered, and thus anthro/patriomorphic (and conceptually inaccurate); and 2) as people who live in a democratic republic, we’ve lost touch of what being a king entails: his word is law, he submits to no one, and he wields the power of life and death over his subjects. Since the word “melech” is present in all classical Jewish blessings and in many prayers, some Liberal siddurim (prayerbooks) substitute “Sovereign,” others “Source.” As my first philosophy professor was wont to say, “You pays your money, you takes your choice.” Continue reading “365 Names of God: King”
365 Names: Tao
TAO Coined in the Tao Teh Ching by Chinese sage Lao Tzu c. 7th century BCE, this Name is best known from the book’s opening line, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” (In other words, if you can name It, then what you’ve named isn’t It.) I like it because it accents the inherent unknowability of that-which-some-people-call-G?d. Slight drawback: Lao Tzu wasn’t a Deist; i. e., his vision of TWSPCG wasn’t of a conscious Being so much as a natural force. Still, I’ve put it here both for completeness’ sake as well as that it’s one of the cornerstones of my personal theology. YMMV. Continue reading “365 Names: Tao”