Thursday, August 9, 2012

Chapter 6: How G-d's Hand Evolved into a Pot Handle

...to strip away from these ideas their physicality...that everything that the Kabbalists spoke of and associated aspects of G-dliness with physical images such as Head, Hands, and Feet...these are all metaphoric and allegorical as it is written "For you did not see any likeness"(Deut. 4:15)but rather they are G-dly forces that were described thus [with physical images] since they are the source of the source for the existence of these physical images as written in the Shaloh (authored by Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (1560-1630 ACE))...

In order to have a relationship with G-d, and pray to Him, I must somehow be able to relate to Him on my terms, on human terms. This is the source of all the physical images associated with G-d throughout the Bible. The challenge is finding the correct way to relate to all this imagery without transgressing the warning "For you did not see any likeness" or even more serious "Accursed is the man who will make a graven or molten image...and emplace it in secret"(Deut. 27:15). The world tends to understand the physical imagery of G-d in the Bible as a metaphor for something deeper. Therefore, when I read about G-d's Hand (as in Ex. 13:3,9,14,16) I obviously understand it doesn't mean a hand like mine.

The Shaloh, renowned medieval kabbalist, explained that when the Torah speaks of G-d's hand  it means really G-d's hand.  G-d's hand is not a physical hand - it is a spiritual force in the upper worlds. This spiritual force or concept descends down to the physical world and here it becomes exemplified in the human hand, which was created in its image.  So my understanding of G-d's hand can't begin with the human hand, rather I must explore this concept as it is in the upper worlds.
For instance, if I want to better understand the human hand, it is not helpful to understand better the hands of a clock even though they are also hands. If I want to understand the human foot it doesn't help me so much to study the foot of a centipede or of a snail. It is much like looking at a caricature of a person and assume that this is the blueprint his parents used in forming him. A caricature requires taking the person and reducing him from three dimensions to two dimensions, de-emphasizing certain features or lines, enlarging certain features beyond their natural proportions. Our world is a caricature, or sketch of forces and concepts that descended from above, and share the same names with their distant root forces up above.