God includes the world; he is, in fact, the totality of world parts, which are indifferently causes and effects. Now AR [absolute perfection in some respects, relative perfection in all others] is equally far from either of these doctrines; thanks to its two-aspect view of God, it is able consistently to embrace all that is positive in either deism or pandeism. AR means that God is, in one aspect of himself, the integral totality of all ordinary causes and effects, but that in another aspect, his essence (which is A), he is conceivable in abstraction from any one or any group of particular, contingent beings (though not from the requirement and the power always to provide himself with some particulars or other, sufficient to constitute in their integrated totality the R aspect of himself at the given moment).

Just as AR is the whole positive content of perfection, so CW, or the conception of the Creator-and-the-Whole-of-what-he-has-created as constituting one life, the super-whole which in its everlasting essence is uncreated (and does not necessitate just the parts which the whole has) but in its de facto concreteness is created – this panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations. Thus ARCW, or absolute-relative panentheism, is the one doctrine that really states the whole of what all theists, if not all atheists as well, are implicitly talking about.”

Charles Hartshorne, Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (1964).

Oh, and I would guess that there’s no escaping the fact that our ancestors were, uh, primitive.

As for the gratuitous digs, go for it all you like. It just makes you look foolish when you can’t address my questions and comments.

I still don’t know what to tell my son about atoms and God.

Shabbat shalom.

None of these passages are ever interpreted as G-d being limited or fully comprehendable in physical form or physical manifestations.

All the quoted classical interpretations of “kavod” translate one intangible quality into another. Indeed, even the descriptions of the “halo” relate to light – which as physicists now know, does not exactly follow the rules of matter. So even the manifestation of “G-d’s presence” that is described here is distinguished by its “immaterial” nature.

In the Sinaitic revelation that I quoted, there is similarly a description of the mountain being on fire – but Moses is careful to stress that the “presence of G-d” was a voice, and not any of the other manifestations.

Anyway, the word kevod means presence, not glory. That was clear to me from reading the verse in Hebrew and I’m surprised you don’t read it the same way. Even if you wish to define kevod as “honor,” what could Ezekiel possibly mean when he says that the honor of God is departing?

Nonetheless, the meaning is presence. Now don’t rely on my telling you, allow Google to help me present an apparently noted biblical scholar with a penchant for ancient languages to inform you:

Prof. Avigdor Hurovitz
Department of Bible and the Ancient Near East
Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheba
The two parashot of Vayakhel and Pekudei conclude the lengthy and detailed description of constructing and erecting the Tabernacle, a description extending over the readings of the past five weeks. The function of the Tabernacle was stated in the beginning of Parashat Terumah: “And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” (Ex. 25:8).

The meaning of this “dwelling” has been a subject of controversy. One the one hand Onkelos, for example, rendered it as “Let them make a sanctuary before Me, and I shall cause my Presence to dwell among them.” Saadiah Gaon understood it similarly: “Let them make Me … a sanctuary; I shall cause my Glory to be among them.” Likewise Abarbanel, who explains somewhat more at length: “Let them make Me a sanctuary, a holy place, in such a way that my Presence be felt among them the way I appeared before their eyes at Mount Sinai as the Glory of the Lord, a consuming fire and a cloud encompassing it.” On the other hand, Rashi said, “Let them make to the glory of My Name a place of holiness.” Ibn Ezra was even more explicit: “It was called a Sanctuary because it was the dwelling place of the Holy Name.”

This controversy goes back to the Torah itself and to the books of the Prophets and Writings. We have seen various attempts to reconcile the conflicting approaches, and the controversy and compromises proposed to reconcile these differing opinions have had a bearing on the perception of the synagogue to our own day.

The way in which the Lord will dwell among the Israelites is specified in this week’s reading: “The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence (kevod) of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud had settled upon it and the Presence of the Lord filled the Tabernacle” (Ex. 40:34-35). The identical description is given of the Temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem, as we read in the haftarah (according to the Ashkenazi custom): “When the priests came out of the sanctuary-for the cloud had filled the House of the Lord and the priests were not able to remain and perform the service because of the cloud, for the Presence of the Lord filled the House of the Lord” (I Kings 8:10-11).

The Lord removing His Presence from the Temple on the eve of its destruction is foreseen and described by the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 11 of his book; and His return to the Temple that would be built in the future is described in the great prophetic vision at the end of the book (Ezek. 43:2, 9). There, as in this week’s reading, the Lord promises: “I will dwell among them forever” (Ezek. 43:9). Zechariah shares Ezekiel’s opinion and says that in the rebuilt city of Jerusalem the Lord “will be a wall of fire all around it, and … glory (kavod) inside it” (Zech. 2:9).

Until the Presence of the Lord entered the new Tabernacle, the Lord’s presence dwelled on Mount Sinai (Ex. 24:16), and before the Israelites reached Sinai, the Lord occasionally appeared to them in the wilderness in a cloud (Ex. 15:10). Also when the Tabernacle was at Shiloh the Glory of the Lord was in it; and when the Ark was taken, the Glory departed with it, as the wife of Phinehas, daughter-in-law of Eli, said: “The glory has departed from Israel”-referring to the capture of the Ark of G-d” (I Sam. 4:21-22) [as Yehudah Kiel rightly interprets, in Da'at Mikra, I Sam., loc. sit.].

Thus we see that the Glory of the Lord is present in every sanctuary, and when the Glory of the Lord is in the sanctuary, the Lord dwells in it. But what is kevod ha-shem, alternately rendered as the Presence or the Glory of the Lord? From all the scriptural passages we have seen, the Glory of the Lord is something visible, brightly illuminating such that one cannot look directly at it, and hence it is enveloped in cloud. Regarding the theophany on Mount Sinai, it is written: “Now the Presence of the Lord appeared in the sight of the Israelites as a consuming fire on the top of the mountain” (Ex. 24:17). Elsewhere, Moses seeks to behold the Glory of the Lord, but the Lord cautions him, “man may not see Me and live”; nevertheless, when Moses is in a cleft of the rock, shielded by the hand of the Lord, the Lord shows Moses His back, as it were, but not His face (Ex. 33:18-23). What the Lord would not let Moses see, Ezekiel was so bold as to describe; and it was none other than the semblance of a human form seated on a throne, enveloped in gleaming light, at the sight of which Ezekiel flung himself down on his face (Ezek. 1:26-28).

From these passages we may deduce that “glory” is not an abstract notion as in modern speech; rather, it denotes something quite tangible. The “glory” is the gleaming halo that envelopes the Lord, as it were, and emanates from Him. This divine halo-which would astound all who saw it, causing them to fall off their feet-sometimes referred to as hod and hadar (magnificence), and even geut (grandeur) and oz (might), was itself enveloped in a cloud.

In striking contrast to all these texts, when Moses describes the theophany at Mount Sinai in Deuteronomy, he only mentions the glory of the Lord once, and that is in passing as he recounts the people’s response: “you… said, ‘The Lord our G-d has just shown us His majestic Presence (et kevodo ve-et godlo), and we have heard His voice out of the fire’”(Deut. 5:21). Elsewhere he mentions the Lord’s abode as being in heaven (Deut. 26:15); the Lord’s presence in the sanctuary is limited to His name dwelling in the place He shall choose when the Israelites come to inherit the promised land (Deut. 12:5, 11; 14:23; 16:2).

Here is the full Bar Ilan relevant discussion of that parsha of the week discussion.

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Oh, and Exodus 20 is very clear that I’m correct about the physical presence of God. Here is verse 17:

וַיַּעֲמֹד הָעָם, מֵרָחֹק; וּמֹשֶׁה נִגַּשׁ אֶל-הָעֲרָפֶל, אֲשֶׁר-שָׁם הָאֱלֹהִים.

And the people stood afar off; but Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

So, that said, I don’t know why you are quoting the Old Testament at me as if you were reading from a textbook: I never said I was speaking for Christians or Jews. If I don’t agree with you on which parts of the Bible to accept as literal truth, I believe that can be understood as a matter of faith, and not (as you said) a “deep misunderstanding of…science”.

I don’t know “The Truth”. I am trying to understand things better by using my ability to reason combined with my intuitive recognition of the divine. I seek revelatory experiences that bring me closer to the true wisdom exemplified by the sayings and example of first and foremost, out 5 Books of Moses. The fact that I see resonances of that wisdom in Taoism, Buddhism, and Islam (to name some of the more dominant traditions) may be disturbing to a traditional Jew, but that doesn’t concern me. Call me a heretic: I am totally comfortable with that.

The reason for my change in thinking is that I have started to become uncomfortable w/ my constant complaining about this or that issue as we have discussed here. That is, I see too much politics’ in many of these problems, and not spirituality, and I gather that I am far from alone. So I can’t continue this way. So I am not ashamed or embarrassed to admit that I am still on the search. I have to admit that full frumkeit is leaving me very empty and unfullfilled.

Could you be more specific? I understand my beliefs might be unconventional, but I don’t think I have said anything factual (re: the nature of the physical universe) that is controversial.

Are you questioning the facts behind my cosmological model, or just my personal interpretation of “the meaning of things”? If the former: please correct my factual error(s). If the latter: thanks for your opinion.

There’s not much to say – and I’ve already repeated it several times on this thread: Religions rejects any attempt to relate God to any physical cause or object, such as atoms.

I don’t see where your argument is. I have previously said that God is the source of physical reality, atoms included. He is not made “out” of them, but vice versa. He is “sub/pre” physical: it is our experience of physical events that cause us to come to any understanding of the universe, so our understanding of things is “meta/post” physical.

The physical universe is the name we give to the barrier between our egos and the essential “reality” of divine nature. The ultimate goal of post-Enlightenment science is not to “know the Truth”, but to attempt to improve models and theories in order to explain experimental evidence. And experimental evidence requires conscious observers.

What physical science cannot explain is the source of consciousness that causes the observation to happen in the first place. Welcome to metaphysics.

Could you kindly parse the meaning of the word “kavod” in the Ezekiel passage you quote – it’s mistranslated as “glory”.

Is glory – or honor, the more typical translation – a material, physical thing?

You are invited as well to examine the use of the root “shochen” throughout the Bible – except for one instance I can think of offhand, it is never used to imply physical dwelling.

Also check out Deuteronomy 4:12-16
And you can double back to Exodus chapter 20 for G-d’s original take on the same sentiment.

And if you want a little something from the prophets, check out 1st Kings 19:11-12 – which not coincidentally, comes directly after a particularly showy and famous bit of physical miracle-working, and winds up again at Sinai – the mother of all earthly/physical revelations.

Ve-hamayvin Yavin.

For example, I wonder what Ezekiel was thinking in in ch. 11, verses 22 and 23? That poor sod must have been just as stupid as yours truly and without the magnificent knowledge you possess. I wonder whether he also read while mouthing the words.

For that matter, what could the author of the Torah, and you would believe that to be God himself I presume, have been thinking when he wrote Exodus 25, verse 8: “build me a (sanctuary) so that I may dwell in their midst?” You can find the Hebrew here.

I do wonder whether the author of that verse was thinking, “Ha, I’ve already shown them a cloud, a pillar of fire, splitting of the sea, ten plagues, but g-sh darn it, I should also make them build me a tabernacle and eventually a temple so that I could continue to keep that veil of physical presence among them.”

Face it, the entire idea of God’s physical presence being immaterial is stuff made up much much later in our traditions. Originally, the Israelites thought and believed that God was present among them.

Now, dear Ben David, you don’t have to agree since we are treading on the issue of faith here. However, as a courtesy, allow me to suggest that the next time you can’t answer a question (#117), don’t reveal the paucity of your argument so clearly. Or better yet, answer the question.