stardust
Does the God of the Old T. Suffer?
Posted on: 06/03/2010 06:57
Dare I ask such a question on the WC? Yes I will because I often read on the WC how Jesus suffers with us when we suffer. So then for those who believe in the Trinity, FatherSon and Holy Spirit , isn't it possible that the monster God everyone talks about on the WC, the Father also suffers? I know a lot of people on the WC believe God as portrayed in the Old T. never existed. However, for the purposes of the topic that's beside the point. O.K.?
What do you think? Does this article make any sense to you? I came across it on a link.
Quote:
Where was God on 9/11/2001?
Crying along with us. How do we know God cries or suffers? Because man, who was made in His image, cries and suffers.
Why does mankind suffer? Is it divine payback for our sins as the Torah teaches? The Kabbala gives a much different answer. Mankind suffers because God suffers. It is not mankind that suffers but God. The suffering we feel is not our suffering but God's suffering experience through us as if it were our own. Therefore, the Kabbala teaches, before we can liberate ourselves from suffering, we most first liberate God from His suffering.
The Zohar teaches that we know God suffers because mankind suffers. Genesis 1:27 says that "God created man in the image of Himself, in the image of God He created him." Therefore, as the Ba'al Shem Tov , the then-leftist reform founder of the now-rightist orthodox Chassidic movement said, "Man is a part of God, and the want that is in the part is in the whole, and the whole suffers the same want as the part." We can infer that God suffers because we know that mankind suffers.
"From what does God suffer?" the rabbis ask. God suffers from His exile from Himself. He suffers the separation in His Name--the "YH" divided from the "VH"-- that took place when He created the world. He suffers to return to the Unity--the wholeness in Himself-- that was shattered when He created the world. Therefore God suffers and man is commissioned to redeem Him from His suffering by returning Him to His former state of unity. This is what the Kabbalists say we mean when we say in the Aleinu adoration prayer "On that day God shall be One and His name One"(Psalm 22:29).
The rabbis then ask "How can we liberate God from His suffering? How can we return Him to Himself?" The answer is that we must be watchful and alert all the time for God. As King David wrote "at dawn I hold myself in readiness for You" (Psalm 5:3). We need to listen for God's voice "I am
listening. What is God saying?"(Psalm 85:8). Then we must speak the words that we hear God tell us and follow them.
To quote the Ba'al Shem Tov again "When I fix my thoughts on the creator, I let my mouth speak what
it will, for the words are bound by higher roots. The Holy sparks that fell from Himself when God built and destroyed worlds, man shall raise and purify back to their source: All things of this world desire with all their might to draw near man in order that the sparks of Holiness that are in them should be raised by Him back to their source. And who with good strength of his spirit is able to raise the Holy spark from stone to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to speaking being? Man leads it to freedom, and no setting free of captives is greater than this. It is as when a king's son is rescued from captivity and brought to his father.
it will, for the words are bound by higher roots. The Holy sparks that fell from Himself when God built and destroyed worlds, man shall raise and purify back to their source: All things of this world desire with all their might to draw near man in order that the sparks of Holiness that are in them should be raised by Him back to their source. And who with good strength of his spirit is able to raise the Holy spark from stone to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to speaking being? Man leads it to freedom, and no setting free of captives is greater than this. It is as when a king's son is rescued from captivity and brought to his father.
Then you will release God from His suffering and He , in turn, will 'fill your mouths with laughter and your lips with song'(Psalm 126:2)." This is the Kabbalistic concept of Tikun Olam, repair of the world, which is a credo of the modern Jewish movements.
"Nowhere is this enantiodromia--this conflagration between good and evil-- more clearly seen than in the constant interplay of the two opposing Sephirot (ten manifestations of God), Chesed (good) and Gevurah (evil)--which individually constitute the Right and the Left sides--light and darkness, the yin and yang--of the Tree of the Ten Sephirot," writes Rabbi Yakov Ha Kohain. It is out of this balancing act that this Tree is born.
The idea of a suffering God is not only part of Christian theology. It is part and parcel of Judaism as well. Jewish philosophy believes that God, the our Divine Father, suffers in Heaven.
He suffers not because we sin, but because of His separation from Himself. His former Unity has been shattered. His Holy Queen, the Sheckinah, has fallen and She yearns to be lifted up and returned to Her King. This is why in Pirkei Avot one reads so many references to the ways one can bring back the Sheckinah, i.e. studying Torah with another, discussing Torah while three or more eat together, etc.
For Tikun Olam to be done, for God to "know" and repair Himself, He first must be known by man. But for man to know himself, he first must know God as well. The Torah shows us how God perfects man in increments.
God perfects man in order that man may perfect Him, in Zohar terms. This is what Karl Jung meant when he wrote,"God must become man precisely because He has done man a wrong through Job. He, the guardian of justice, knows that every wrong must be expiated and Wisdom knows that moral law is above even God. Because His creature has surpassed Him, God must regenerate Himself."
According to the Kabbalah, God went from being whole to fragmentary during the act of creation. His "face" was shattered. He needs man as His partner to end His suffering and do the Tikun (repair). Judaism has placed responsibility on us, as people, to fix our globe, and not think that doing ritual or not doing ritual determines if good or evil things to occur.
Until God is repaired and no longer suffers, man will have its 9/11s, man will cry and suffer, and God will cry and suffer with us.
Shalom, Rabbi Arthur Segal Hilton Head Island,SC Bluffton, SC Jewish Renewal Jewish Spiritual Renewal
http://www.zimbio.com/The+Torah/articles/168/RABBI+ARTHUR+SEGAL+GOD+9+11+JEWISH+RENEWAL
Comments
unsafe
Posted on: 06/03/2010 07:07
stardust
Great topic ---it will be interesting to see what people say.
Blessings
stardust
Posted on: 06/03/2010 07:21
unsafe
Well...the topic is different isn't it ? Since Father God in the Old T. isn't too popular on the WC I put the link on the topic "The God of the Bible" also although it doesn't answer the question in that OP I suppose. I'm not sure if I'll get responses or favorable ones in any case !
Gray Owl
Posted on: 06/03/2010 07:22
The God of the OT is a warrior.
A true warrior knows that his enemy is not external, but within himself.
When God became self-aware as Father, He had to struggle with Who He Was, through pain, and growing. He learned how to process His own pain and transform it into something beautiful. He discovered through the illusions of Himself, and the pain in the dissonance with His true self, that He was Love. He discovered Himself.
So He takes all our pain, suffers, but knows how to process it into beautiful meaning. The wars and brutality of the OT cannot be understood without understanding the original wisdom of the warrior. This has been almost lost. We get stuck in the pain of our self-discovery within Creation and civilization, unable to transform it into something beautiful.
Jesus' story is simply another version of the true warrior. The masculine. Facing one's own death of self-meaning to realize who one truly is, despite the influences around you trying to convince you otherwise, to corrupt you, and not go through the passage of pain to wisdom, but stay in the pain birth canal, never getting to new life.
Self-realization in humans merely reflects what God-the-Father went through on His own journey to self-realization.
We create our own meaning. We must struggle with the illusion and pain we created, creating our own meaning, and grow through it to know our true selves.
stardust
Posted on: 06/03/2010 07:23
Gray Owl : quote
"So He takes all our pain, suffers, but knows how to process it into beautiful meaning. "
I'll buy that .....
airclean33
Posted on: 06/03/2010 10:00
Hi- Stardust- I believe God suffers with us . I as a parent know what is is like to see your children hurt , and how you feel.As I am shore those who have children know God is are parent and loves us more than man cane love.I am shore some of the things man has done has hurt God.There is a day coming when god will not let a tear come from are eyes.I think that day is when God touches us and gives his Love to us. Thats one of the reasones I'm a Christian. Not because I am right all the time in the will of God . But ones an a wile I am , An God Smiles.I would rather that than tears. Have a Great day Stardust. airclean33. P-S I look forward to a World with no tears.
stardust
Posted on: 06/03/2010 10:28
airclean33
Thanks. A good day to you too. God bless.
Panentheism
Posted on: 06/03/2010 11:12
Suffering is not the divine payback and in the OT God suffers - feels the pain of the people. The quote says it all and is christian tradition as well.
stardust
Posted on: 06/03/2010 14:54
Pan
Thanks for your opinion.