KosherTorah School for Biblical, Judaic & Spiritual Studies

God, an Introduction

by Ariel B Tzadok

Copyright © 2016 by Ariel Bar Tzadok. All rights reserved.

God.

Should we punctuate God with an exclamation mark (!), or with a question mark? God is, or is God? This is a much bigger question than most have ever imagined.

Most religions have done their best to humanize the concept of God. This humanization of God was done in order to enable the masses to understand what it means to have a relationship with an unseen, and untouchable entity. If it were not for the humanization of God, chances are that no human mind would be able to even come close to grasping the truth about what (and not who) God really is.

The majority of the world's population belongs to the Christian, and Muslim faiths. Both have the Jewish Bible as their spiritual parent. While Christian and Muslim beliefs took on lives of their own, nevertheless, they both began with the Biblical concept of a humanized God. God sees. God hears. God raises His mighty hand. God speaks. God does so many other things that makes God sound so incredibly human. Indeed, throughout the Bible, God is referred to as “He,” even though the first Biblical book, Genesis, refers to man being created in the Image of God, male and female.

Curiously, the Bible never again references the “female” Image of God. Only the male is referenced. Why? Why is God humanized? Curiously the Ten Commandments forbids making an image of God. The account of the giving of the Ten Commandments repeatedly reminds us that at Sinai, no one saw any kind of image of God. There was no image of the Divine seen, and no image of the Divine is allowed to be made. Nevertheless, by continuing to humanize God the Bible seems to at least imply that Divine really does have some kind of corporeal form. Why would the Bible perpetuate a belief, that God has an image, while at the same time, forbid such images? What's the big deal about images?

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