Religion & Beliefs
What Is God?
By Andrew Goldstein / January 16, 2009
If someone were to come up to me and ask the question "Do you believe in G-d," I think I would say, "What’s G-d?" To that response, the confused random questioner would ask me while staring down at my tzitzis, up at my yarmulke and into my deceptive Jewish eyes, "Aren’t you religious?" To that I’d reply, "Am I?" Pardon my seeming ethnocentrism or somewhat limited knowledge of other religions and art but Christianity and Michelangelo have messed up the original Jewish conception of G-d. Here’s how it goes. Now if this person were to ask me about G-d, I’d say, "Do I believe in a giant smiling and angry bearded man in the sky pointing fingers to create a man or waving his arms around? No I don’t believe in that." Then that random questioner would probably walk away.
You are correct if you thought I believe in G-d. I believe in that oneness that I’ve come to understand as being everything that we can and cannot comprehend. The oneness that Jews proclaim twice a day, Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokainu Hashem Echad, Hear O Israel; the Lord is our G-d, The Lord is one. G-d is the infinite oneness of everything that is all that is, was and will be. That’s right G-d, the infinite Hashem. Am I preaching? Maybe a little, but I feel I need to. And how does this "fairytale like idea" fit into reality. Please, just let me explain before thinking of me as a weak individual who gives into "organized religion" because I can’t cope with "real life" and need to comfort myself with the one of the great "opium[s] of the people."
Everything in life contains both revealed and unrevealed oneness. For example, ask most people in the world what would be the ultimate goal for this planet and I can almost guarantee you that they will most likely reply love and/or peace. Why? Think about it. Oh that’s right, oneness. How nice would it be if we all loved each other peacefully? Think about Woodstock (not 1994, and definitely not 1999 with Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit, G-d help us all.) Think of two people coming together and sharing a connection. Look around and you’ll see numerous people walking and talking in pairs or even more, connecting, discussing; sharing thoughts and ideas. The only reason why we don’t see this is or might not usually notice it is because we’re so used to it. Or how about sex which is the ultimate expression of oneness; two bodies, coming together in beautiful synchronicity (hopefully). Each individual expressing each other’s connection and yearning for the other. And when that synchronistic sex is not just a one night stand or a four month sex-based relationship but an actual long term love, the oneness is arguably one of the most beautiful things there can be.
Other examples of oneness include the one sperm it takes to create a child and the one cell that is foundation for your whole being; each minute structure containing all of you, your past as well as future generations to come. Look around and see the oneness of the sky, the grass, the sand, and the oceans. Nothing’s really split apart but all are connected together within earth. And all of earth connected in all of time and space and beyond. And everything is within G-d. There really isn’t anything that is separate from anything! Think of G-d as being the source of everything. Stop! Don’t picture a man with a beard; this will ruin the contemplation process.
This is me following the Torah commandments to love and know G-d, which really means to love everything because all we know is an emanation of G-d from the highest to lowest of that oneness. Think about Stevie Wonder’s album Songs in the Key of Life. Songs of the Key of Life isn’t really Stevie Wonder. Songs in the Key of Life is a reflection of the inner being of Stevie Wonder. And that is only a minute degree of who Stevie Wonder actually was in 1976 that is only a reflection of who he really is. Who is Stevie Wonder really? Ask Stevie, his wife or Berry Gordy. This is just in the same way that the Universe or the Earth are both emanations of G-d and G-d is within those creations. However those creations not actually G-d himself. A Kabbalistic example would be to think of yourself with your brain literally being on top of your body. The brain emanates thoughts down to the hand onto paper, to the loins and to all other facets of your body which in enable you to create and to function as a human. Everything is an emanation of giving from above to below. Why do you think the Ten Commandments are split up five and five? Five for humans relating to G-d, five for humans relating to humans. You can’t do one without the other because of this incredible connectivity. And what happens when a relationship breaks apart, when someone is brutally murdered, or even something as simple as one dollar, these all break that oneness. These all create boundaries and breakaway from that goal that we all want which, as corny as it sounds, is ultimately true love and peace. Why do you think the Beatles are the most popular band on the planet? Paul McCartney sang about love, John Lennon preached peace, and George Harrison was all about spirit. I’d say Ringo was some sort of an English heartbeat.           Â
I’m not asking you to eat herring or dance around with beards. All I ask is that you rid your perception of a man in the sky once and for all and meditate on everything, which is all a reflection of the oneness of G-d. Contemplate that this is not an abstract Aristotelian G-d but a G-d that is involved in everything because He is in everything, emanating from the highest to the lowest, the lowest is that being here on earth. Maybe then that random man will come back and ask me, "Do you believe in oneness?" And I’d say, as a Hall and Oates song plays softly in the background, "Yes stranger… I do."
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Get off this site!
And to both of you…again my point is not to argue, to fight, to prove who is right or wrong as you both seem to be pushing for. My main point of the entire article was just a few observations I observed and conclusions I came up with based on what I have learned. Again, I am not a scholar or an expert as you both seem to be, I am merely giving out something I felt could be useful, could be something to think about.
Also I consulted a Rabbi about your argument. Although you have your doubts in kabbalah, the point of doing mitvos is, as you said to serve G-d. Through this serving we ARE CONNECTING. Just in the same way if I serve my mother, I may do the action but I may not connect with her necessarily. The connecting aspect is through the action as well as how the action is done.
1. Point out where I said NO BELIEF is required? What I did say was there are many people who might do the mitzvos, serve Hashem but not believe in him or have doubts. What has happened is that the mitvos have become very mundane and repetitive to those who have grown up with it that it becomes almost like brushing their teeth. The belief or the understanding of G-d that I’m discussing is by first being aware of the oneness then to realize there is a concious force behind it all and controlling.
 pantheism
are equivalent to G-d (the sum total of all that is was and shall be).
Sagan, Einstein, Spinoza, Hinduism. universe = g-d
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1. You said
 “being a man of tzitzit you should know thatJudaism in all its forms does NOT require us to BELIEVE, but only to SERVE.Strictly speaking a Jew who thinks (or believes) that there is no G-d, butstill PERFORMS all the obligations of mitzvoth…..”
Then you also said
“Judaism is NOT areligion in primitive sense because NO BELIEF if (is??) required”
 I could notdisagree with you more. To quote the Rambam in his introduction to his MishnahTorah- “The foundation of all foundations and the PILLAR OF ALL WISDOM is toknow that there is a creator who created the universe….”
In the ChofetzChaims Sefer Hamitzvos he mentions belief in Hashem and understanding his onenes asthe FIRST TWO mitzvot for a reason.
The Rambam alsowrites elsewhere that the torah must use anthropomorphic language to describeGod. There are several passages, ( I can elaborate) which point to aperspective close to  Panentheism. Thisconception of God would be impossible to completely grasp.
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2. “they haveclosed after we insulted the Land with our unholy return there.”
 Are you opposed tothe modern state of Israel?  It is truly aMiracle.Â
Andrew,
1. As a Jew, you need to understand the difference between a thought and a spoken or published word.Â
2. I never said that logic is the only path to G-d, but it is the only path to intellegent discussion. Applying the Christian logic that because G-d exists one needs to be aware of Him and therefore BELIEVE in Him is non-Jewish IMHO.
3. Judaism is NOT a religion in primitive sense because NO BELIEF if required. It can be seen as a religion by implication, not declaration. What I mean is an observer could say: "This man praises G-d and performs Mitzvot, ergo he believes in that very G-d". But that is NOT necceserily true, obviously. Same the other way around, a man can BELIEVE in G-d and do nothing about it.Â
4. Cabbala is not a subject which I am prepared to discuss with anyone. Recently some desperate Rabbis started to dissiminate the knowledge around just to keep young generation amused and some even turned it into a gainful enterprise. My disgust with that is immesuarable. Even if there were certain gates (I doubt it very much) which were open at some time in history with cabbalistic keys, they have closed after we insulted the Land with our unholy return there.
5. And finally my main point in the context of this discussion: any verb applied to man’s relationship to G-d in context of Judaism except SERVE is an abomination. Because it implies UNDERSTANDING one way or another. Your urge to "CONNECT" to G-d implies that too. You may not see it that way, and that is why I urge you to renew your studies of math and logic.Â
I agree with you 100% However, I have found, not to sound as though I am mocking you or anyone else, but explaining logic to someone or even to myself for that matter doesnt help me CONNECT to G-d. I have found through Chassidus that Judaism is about going out and connecting with G-d through Love and mitvos, through meditating in the woods. What got me into Judaism in the first place was the Kabbalistic concepts. I always conceived of something higher but never knew how deep I could actually look into that power until I learned some of these kabbalistic concepts with a Rabbi. From there I have built upon doing more mitzvos and growing in my Judaism. SO my point is that although you say that feeling G-d or understadning G-d through not mere logic is Not Jewish, I’d have to disagree. Blind faith is not Jewish, however belief as being a first step through observation and contemplation for the simple, uneducated man ultimatly leads to greater understadning, hopefully, and knowing of G-d rather than an abstract intellectual excercise.
Whine all you like, but Judaism without G-d is like a house without a foundation. It stands only until there is a challenge, and then it falls.
I agree with Alex that that G-d is not a man, or even like a man in the way galaxies are sort of like uranium atoms, but bigger, more complex, and with greater variation. Â Â
There was a time, 100 years ago, when there had never been a society with official atheism, which claims to stand for people, and atheists could claim moral superiority to their violent religious counterparts. But the history of Communism has swept that away.
I am not here trying to prove my point. I have things to do, but I see no evidence that Jewish atheists are likely to remain in the group, in-marry, or raise their children inside of Judaism. Nor can I imagine why they would, even after attending several Reconstructionist synogogues.
Oh, I see… That is deep… :)
BTW_1 that is why we need logic and math, because we do not see G-d, as well as many other things like … atoms, for instance. But nevertheless we know that they ARE. So, may be you shouldn’t have dropped math and logic in college or at lreast not be so childishly proud of that.
 BTW_2, being a man of tzitzit you should know that Judaism in all its forms does NOT require us to BELIEVE, but only to SERVE. Strictly speaking a Jew who thinks (or believes) that there is no G-d, but still PERFORMS all the obligations of mitzvot, even if in his heart he thinks its all bullshit, is no differenmt than the one who BELIEVES and does it and much better than the one who BELIEVE but NOT PERFORM the duties. So the mere factor of BELIEF is irrelevant! Of course if the purpose is to RECRUIT young Jews into your synagoge or religious organization or movement or Israeli Army or just shame people into sqeezing some financial support for your political cause, then its RELEVANT.
In Christianity, its the opposite, if you do not believe in the symbol of faith (That G-d so loved the Earth that he gave His only Son….) you cannot even call yourself a Christian, let alone a good one, no matter how close you follow Jesus’es principles. You absolutely have to believe! Â
In a way your desire to prove to others the existance of Almighty, however naive and touchy it may be, is a very non-Jewsih thing at its core (re-read the above)
the original title was actually "I dont see any giant men in the sky"
One has to be prepared to be taken seriously when one is to publish his views on serious matters on public forums. One can share his emotional experience with religion on any level, but when one attempts to answer a question "What is God?" and offers one’s ideas on the subject, one has to be prepared to raise to the seriousness of it.
That i,s if one respect his readers, himself and his Creator.
Again, the subject demands respectful and serious approach. You would not want your surgeon to tell you that he did not study medicine because it was "confusing" and that he learned his skills playing "Operation Room" game set. The matters of spirituality are nor less important and should be taken very seriously, despite the less obvious and tragic effect of ignorance and superficialty.Â
Andrew, that’s enough snark outta YOU! ;-)
Who would have thought such a personal bit of writing, which is posted as a blog, not an article, would attract such snarky retorts?Â
The writing does not appear to be a thesis, the writer does not claim to have a PhD in theology, it’s clearly a personal writing. So, I have to ask those who got nasty, do you really think everyone in the world has to agree with you? That there is no other way to think but just your way?
And, on that note, nice essay, Andrew.Â
The point I was trying to convey was not whther or not it is probable or possible if G-d exists. The point (which I hope was clear but might not have been) was to express what I have come to understand as being G-d. But not through mathmatical logic (which I dropped in college due to extreme confusion) which I think you are trying to show as possible or probable. Again, I am in no way any scholar and do not proclaim to be an expert in any sort of field of thought, I was merely trying to express my observations and understanding through conversations I’ve had with both religious jews and athiests or former religious Jews who are now athiests, or for that matter athiests who became religious Jews. Maybe you should expand on your point in a new article. I wish the best to you!
This is what happens when literary skills are honed against very little substantive knowledge. The author does not care that whole libraries are written on the subject over millenia, every aspect of its terminology is already precisely defined and possible outcomes are numbered, labelled and given a name. Here he comes like an ignorant child who discovered that combined number of two apples and another two apples equals the same of the oranges and immediately decides to bring this wisom to the world.
Ok, I will add my meager 2 cents….. The proof of the existance of G-d is at least possible in principle. Imagine that tomorrow the heavens open and everyone will see what everyone agree to be a G-d. Now the non-existance of G-d cannot be proven in principal (as a negatives) and that means that G-d is a possibility. Now how we go about estimating the reality of a possibility? By estimating its probability. That act of estimation is a BELIEF, because is based on personal judgement, but because of the above, its probability by definition has to be greater than 0. And here everyone is different because such estimate (or BELIEF) depends on personal experience, education and many other factors. A question posed by a person who estimates such probabity to be, say, X(1) > 0, to another person on the subject can only make sense if all he/she is interested in is what probability X(2) which has to also be greater than 0 such person assign to the possibility in question and WHY. Such discussion would constitute an intellegtent discussion about the BELIEF in G-d.
BTW, if a person answers that he or she does not "believe in G-d" he or she
effectively states that the probability is zero and therefore such thing (existance of G-d) is IMPOSSIBLE, which we already proven to be wrong and we can safely call such person simply
ignorant of logic and math.
Everything else is just demagoguery.
Jesusy.com (a subsidiary of Jewcy Media Conglomerate Corporation Unlimited) has not fully launched yet. I have subsequently blocked GodsServant’s account for breach of our NDA. Until Jesusy launches, please visit its partner website, http://www.goycy.com. Thank you.
Also, GodsServant was spamming the site.
I think he thought it said Jesusy
Um…you DID notice the TITLE of the website, right?
I’ll pass
This website and all of the discussions don’t matter as much as this….Is Jesus Christ your personal lord and savior and are you willing to accept his gift of eternal life in heaven because, Jesus paid it all on the Cross and washed your sins away. Read John 3:16 and please, consider this generous gift from GOD, don’t put off something that has to do with eternity….either Heaven or Hell. God bless all.
"Serial Killer Cephalopods"…Hey! That’s a great name for a band!
Yes, I’ve heard Judaism described as an Orthopraxy (conformity in actions) rather than an Orthodoxy (conformity of belief). I’ve met plenty of atheists, agnostics and deists across the whole spectrum of Judaism.Â
Its interesting but since moving to a religious community I’ve discovered that even if you follow all of the laws of Judaism, it doens’t necessarily you mean you believe in G-d
This is my favourite comment thread in the history of forever. By the seventh comment we’re already on serial killer cephalopods.
YES!! And yes, Jewish life is like being on shrooms, many good and bad trips, the point is to just keep digging deeper and figure out more of why we are here
well ok, in that case, of course.The point I was specifically trying to make was even in the Beatles own personal lives, specifically Lennon and Harrison they became known almost entirely for the causes they were involved with. Lennon with his world wide peace campaign and Harrison’s immersion in Hinduism. They, at least in my opinion, even despite their enormous fame, seem to have stayed very true to themselves while Michael Jackson and other big stars havn’t seem to have contributed as much of their personal lives beyond their music fame. (I’m sure there are examples, but the Beatles outweigh pretty much everyone completley, to this day)
Take it up with Dick Clark, bro. Yes, there was a lot of cool music in the 60s…but not too much was on the public’s horizon in 1964! It was pretty much Motown (not too socially acceptable for whites at the time), Elvis (pretty much done by then) & the Beatles. The Kinks & Stones broke through in 65 if I’m not mistaken.
It’s always amusing when religious folk abandon the God found in the Bible for a more "mature" version that they basically made up. Shorter Andrew Goldstein: Â "God" means whatever the hell I say it means, and that’s what you should think, too.Â
And by the way, does "Maxwell’s Silver Hammer" prove that the Beatles were serial killers? Does "Octopus’ Garden" prove they were cephalopods?
Also, A LOT of great music was happening in the 60′s, come on… you might hate religion but how can you possibly not mention that the 60′s was the American renaissance of music
I think Abbey Road proved the Beatles decided to be peaceful, loving and religious serial killer cephalopods
"Why do you think the Beatles are the most popular band on the planet?"
I guess because they basically invented the modern rock band model. Dick Clark even said that they were entirely a phenomenon of the times, and nothing like Beatlemania can ever happen again. He went on to say that even though, for example, "Thriller" was incredibly popular, there were a lot of people who didn’t like it. The Beatles, on the other hand, were pretty much the only thing going on. Many people (myself included) see their Ed Sullivan appearance as the beginning of "The Sixties".
As for this article being a parody, I don’t get that vibe at all. I think he honestly believes this dreck.Â
The ultimate goal for this planet is to orbit the sun in an elliptical orbit until the sun explodes and consumes it.
Don’t you see that this is a parody of the classic rabbinic method of answering unasked rhetorical questions?
Of course you do.
"Think about Stevie Wonder’s album Songs in the Key
of Life. Songs of the Key of Life isn’t really Stevie
Wonder."
" For example, ask most people in the world what would be the ultimate
goal for this planet and I can almost guarantee you that they will most likely
reply love and/or peace."
"Why do you think the Ten Commandments are split up five and five?"
"Why do you think the Beatles are the most popular band on the planet?"
Not to be snarky, but if the person can see your tzitzit and your kippah, and they know what they signify, why would they ask you if you believe in God in the first place?
Is being religious like being on mushrooms all the time? Is that what I’ve been missing out on?
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