Jewish mysticism
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in 1 ...
elohim
''Elohim'' (: ), the plural of (), is a Hebrew word meaning "gods". Although the word is plural, in the Hebrew Bible it usually takes a singular verb and refers to a single deity, particularly (but not always) the God of Israel. At other times ...
'' were male and female, and humans were made in their image.
Again, the verb ''vayomer'' (he said) is masculine; it is never ''vatomer'', the feminine of the same verb form. The personal name of God, ''YHWH'', is presented in
Exodus 3 03 may refer to:
__NOTOC__ Dates
The years 1803, 1903, or 2003
Music
* ''03'' (Twelve album), 2007
* ''03'' (Son of Dave album), 2008
* ''03'' (Urban Zakapa album), 2013
Other uses
* 03 numbers, a non-geographic telephone number range in the ...
as if the ''Y'' (Hebrew ''yod'') is the masculine subjective prefix to the verb ''to be''.
In
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
89:26 God is referred to as Father.
"He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation."
In
Isaiah
Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named.
Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...
62:5, God is compared to the bridegroom, and his people to the bride.
*"For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
rejoice over thee."
In
Isaiah
Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named.
Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...
63:16, God is directly addressed and called "our Father".
* "Thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name." (ASV)
To God, according to Judaism, is attributed the fatherly role of protector. He is called the Father of the poor, of the orphan and the widow, their guarantor of justice. He is also called the Father of the king, as the teacher and helper over the judge of Israel.
Some literary approaches to the Tanakh have argued that parallels between Biblical stories and earlier Sumerian,
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
and
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ite creation myths show a matriarchal substratum that has been overlaid by a patriarchal approach. "In the Bible, the earth is the feminine complement of God: the two combined to form man, who articulates their relationship, for example, in sacrifice."
Rabbinical views
Kabbalistic
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
Judaism often relates to various "aspects" of God (cf.
Sephirot
Sefirot (; he, סְפִירוֹת, translit=Səfīrōt, Tiberian: '), meaning '' emanations'', are the 10 attributes/emanations in Kabbalah, through which Ein Sof (The Infinite) reveals itself and continuously creates both the physical realm and ...
). As Rabbi
Aryeh Kaplan
Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan ( he, אריה משה אליהו קפלן; October 23, 1934 – January 28, 1983) was an American Orthodox rabbi, author, and translator, best known for his Living Torah edition of the Torah. He became well known as ...
puts it, " ery name and every description that we may give to God can only apply to His relationship to His creation" Although God is not generally regarded as gendered in Judaism,
Benjamin Blech
Benjamin Blech (born 1933) is an American Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox rabbi. He is a Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University where he has taught since 1966, and was the rabbi of National Council of Young Israel, Young Israel of Oceanside, New York ...
writes that God has both masculine and feminine aspects.
In addition, God's "presence" (''
Shekhinah
Shekhinah, also spelled Shechinah ( Hebrew: שְׁכִינָה ''Šəḵīnā'', Tiberian: ''Šăḵīnā'') is the English transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning "dwelling" or "settling" and denotes the presence of God, as it were, in a pla ...
'') is a grammatically feminine word, and is often employed as a feminine aspect of God.
Many traditional rabbinic commentators, however, such as
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
, view any such beliefs as verging on ''
avodah zarah
''Avodah Zarah'' (Hebrew: , or "foreign worship", meaning " idolatry" or "strange service") is the name of a tractate of the Talmud, located in ''Nezikin'', the fourth Order of the Talmud dealing with damages. The main topic of the tractate is ...
'' (idolatry). Secondary male sexual characteristics are attributed to God in some ''piyuttim'' (religious poems). These include a description of the beard of God in ''Shir Hakavod'' (''The Hymn of Glory''), and similar poetic imagery in the
meforshim
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...
'' (rabbinic commentators) hold that these descriptions, like all physical descriptions of God, are metaphorical or symbolic.
Philo
Philo refers to God as Father in several passages:
"...discovering the nature of the one God, who is alone everlasting, and the father of everything else..."Yonge, Public Domain
Philo – A Treatise Concerning the World (1)
"...by whose intervention they might obtain a reconciliation with the Father. First of all, the merciful, and gentle, and compassionate nature of him who is invoked, who would always rather have mercy than punishment. In the second place, the holiness of all the founders of the nation, because they, with souls emancipated from the body, exhibiting a genuine and sincere obedience to the Ruler of all things, are not accustomed to offer up ineffectual prayers on behalf of their sons and daughters, since the Father has given to them, as a reward, that they shall be heard in their prayers."
Philo – On Rewards And Punishments (166)
God as transcending gender
Many Jewish thinkers have rejected the notion that God can be anthropomorphized. Under this assumption, one cannot qualify God in terms of gender. Although egalitarian practices didn't emerge until much later, genderless concepts of God began to develop as early on as the mid-17th century. In his time,
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, b ...
was a highly controversial figure in the Jewish community of Amsterdam due to the perception of his views as heretical. Instead of the classic literal vision of God as depicted by Jewish Religious text, Spinoza envisioned God as a presence that encompassed the entire universe and beyond, a view commonly known as
panentheism
Panentheism ("all in God", from the Greek language, Greek grc, πᾶν, pân, all, label=none, grc, ἐν, en, in, label=none and grc, Θεός, Theós, God, label=none) is the belief that the Divinity, divine intersects every part of Univers ...
. In his ''Theological-Political Treatise'' Spinoza states, "Some imagine God in the likeness of man, consisting of mind and body, and subject to passions. But it is clear from what has already been proved how far they stray from the true knowledge of God. These I dismiss, for all who have given any consideration to the divine nature deny that God is Corporeal". Spinoza's seemingly heretical views for his time period opened the door for differing thoughts about the nature of God in relation to gender, even though Spinoza was excommunicated from his community for these views in 1656.
Other thinkers who also thought of God as transcending gender include:
*
Hermann Cohen
Hermann Cohen (4 July 1842 – 4 April 1918) was a German Jewish philosophy, philosopher, one of the founders of the University of Marburg, Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish ph ...
, who viewed God as the "ultimate archetype of morality."
*
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
, who viewed God in an "I:Thou" relationship with human beings.
*
Mordecai Kaplan
Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (born Mottel Kaplan; June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983), was a Lithuanian-born American rabbi, writer, Jewish educator, professor, theologian, philosopher, activist, and religious leader who founded the Reconstructionist ...
, who viewed God as part of a natural process.
** Similarly,
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (28 August 1924 – 3 July 2014), commonly called "Reb Zalman" (full Hebrew name: ), was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement and an innovator in ecumenical dialogue.
Early life
Born Meshullam Za ...
viewed God in this same way, yet also viewed God as an experience.
Jewish feminism
Feminist views in Judaism often retain the traditional view that God does not have any sex but does have a gender which is male, but experiment with the use of feminine language and symbolism for God.
God/dess in Judaism
Some Jewish thinkers address issues of gendered language and imagery directly. Rabbi Jill Hammer challenges the features of traditional Jewish conceptions of God by creating a relatable deity, a Goddess, for those who cannot relate to “God.” The Goddess is nondual, panentheist, and earthbound. Hammer describes the Goddess as both a person and in an impersonal form of nature. While she privileges the imagelessness that allows for a God beyond gender, she honors all framings and diverse experiences and visualizations of the Goddess. Julia Watts-Belser also discusses God/dess’ gender. Like Hammer, Watts-Belser celebrates diversity of experiences and conceptions of God, stating that “''She'' was none of that and all of it,” demonstrating also panentheist notions. Watts-Belser visualizes a “trans God/dess…characterized by fluidity, a shifting nature that refuses to resolve itself into a single manifestation or gender expression.” This God/dess would allow the Jewish tradition to reclaim the female divinity it was denied rather than replace God with Goddess. In order to do so, she wants to utilize the Shekhinah, God’s feminine side. She concludes that God is ultimately beyond gender since gender is a social construction and therefore insignificant. However, because gender does matter so much in our society, God’s gender does and should matter to us.Julia Watts-Belser, “Transing God/dess: Notes from the Borderlands,” in ''Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community'', ed. Noach Dzmura (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2010), 239.