Understanding the world’s great religions and spiritual traditions is not an academic pursuit. It is a participatory sport! True study of the Way lies not in answering the great questions, but in asking them. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Yet after many years of meditation and Zen practice, I have become less interested in the questions: Who is God?, Where is God?”, or Why doesn’t God…?. The question that I have grown to ask and appreciate is: What is God? And how can I live my life in this way?
A Great Holiday for Children
Purim is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the miraculous reversal of fortune and failed near genocide of the Jewish communities in Ancient Persia at the hands of Haman, the Empire’s second in command only to King Ahasuerus.
As the story is told in the Book of Esther – or Megillat Esther – King Ahasuerus reigned over much of the known world from India to Ethiopia and one day decided to throw a party to show off his many riches of his kingdom.
On the seventh day, the King ordered his wife Vashti to come before his court to show off her beauty wearing only her crown, but Vashti did the unthinkable. She refused, which angered and displeased the King. Vashti was soon banished, and the King’s advisors suggested that all of the most beautiful maidens be brought before King Ahasuerus so that he may be pleased.
One of these young women was Esther. Esther was orphaned and raised by her uncle, Mordecai, and came from a family that was exiled during the Babylonian exile and destruction of Judea. Esther was very beautiful and pleased the King very much, and was made Queen instead of Vashti.
It came to pass that one of the King’s advisors, Haman, was promoted to the King’s right hand. He enjoyed the position and power very much and demanded that all bow down low to him. Yet one person, Mordecai, refused to bow down, as he was a Jew and told this to Haman. This enraged Haman, so he vowed to destroy all of the Jews in the Empire.
Mordecai was different, and Haman pointed out to King Ahasuerus that there are a people called the Jews who are spread out across the Kingdom and are different from others. Haman conspired to hang Mordecai and to destroy the Jews, and Ahasuerus agreed.
Mordecai sent messengers to Queen Esther pleading with her to speak with the King on behalf of the Jews and to save her people. She was afraid but was encouraged to face the King and intervene on the Jews’ behalf.
King Ahasuerus was pleased by Queen Esther and in a wondrous turn of events reversed course, decided to save the Jews, hang Haman instead of Mordecai, and place Mordecai in his place as second in command. In this position, Mordecai saved the Jews from impending destruction and issued an order allowing every people their own language and writing.
The holiday of Purim celebrates the sparing of the Jews from certain destruction and is celebrated by marking the reversal of what is assumed to be fated by turning things around and all upside down. The perverse is made upright. Customs include wearing masks and costumes, drinking large amounts of alcohol, having parties, and otherwise enjoying the joys and gifts of life.
With all of the costumes and fanfare, one may easily think of Purim as just a children’s holiday. There is even a very popular Jewish song with the opening line describing Purim as a great holiday for children. Yet, Purim is no children’s holiday! If it’s not a holiday for children, then what is it, and why do we celebrate it?
The Book of Esther is only one of two books in the Hebrew Bible that does not mention God (the other is the Song of Songs). Not even once! But was God absent? And why?
A Guide for the Perplexed
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been studying about Maimonides (see this previous post), reading books, listening to talks and podcasts, and otherwise trying to immerse myself in this man’s world, ideas, writings, and approach to God and life’s biggest questions.
Maimonides is arguably the greatest Jewish philosopher and equally revered as a jurist and codifier of halachah – or Jewish law. He was heavily influenced by neo-Platonic and Aristotelean philosophy as invigorated by medieval Islam and in many ways made it his life’s project to reconcile Judaism with reason, viewing Judaism, God, prayer and religious law in rational terms.
As a related aside, one may think that observant or Orthodox Jews read and interpret the Bible only in literal or fundamentalist terms, though this is hardly the case. Heavily influenced by both the legends and Midrash enveloped around the Bible by the ancient Rabbis in the Talmudic times (following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE) and Maimonidean philosophy and interpretation of Jewish law, historical Jewry and contemporary Orthodox Jews read the Hebrew Bible at both face value and in allegorical or metaphorical terms.
For example, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks – the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and one of the most influential contemporary public voices of Orthodox Jewry and world Jewry at large – wrote a book called The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, deepening Maimonides’ influence and project of seeing religion and science as collaborative partners, both imbued by the Divine.
Maimonides himself offered an amplification of the Genesis creation stories in advance of the Theory of Evolution, seeing each day of God’s creation not as twenty-four clock hours, but as periods of extended eras in history.
In his writings, Maimonides expands on the Platonic separation of the material and spiritual worlds and the Aristotelean idea of the Divine as pure intellect. He conceptualizes God in abstract terms and speaks to the impossibility of naming or knowing God and the essential irrationality of speaking about God in material or anthropomorphic terms. Maimonides’ God is beyond description and can only be described in rational terms through negative theology, or what God is not.
It is perhaps ironic that one of the greatest gifts Maimonides gifted future generations is the permission and telescopic vision to read the Bible – and all sacred literature – as metaphorical or allegorical, and true in a way beyond empirical facts. If there is no possible way to describe God, then all human attempts to do so must be taken as metaphor. Though this is in no way less true.
Especially as a psychologist, I have come to see that psychological “facts” – our very embodied, phenomenological truth – is just as “true” as scientific “fact”, albeit non-empirical and unnecessary to prove. This is how I read the Hebrew Bible! And this is how I read Zen, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and all sacred literature and texts!
While perhaps not his intent, Maimonides provides our post-modern 21st century world with a true treasure to redeem, if we wish. Religion or God does not have to be proven by science to be true or even meaningful or helpful. Yet, the experience of God is very real and am embodiment of our very truth, our very Torah and wisdom.
Back to Back Transmission
As powerful and influential as Maimonides’ ideas are, I can’t help think in my limited understanding of Maimonides’ work that in seeing God as an unknowable, disinterested, and unrelatable divinity, he neglects the sheer radical Biblical worldview of an imminent God who cares and loves us deeply.
We not only need a God that is beyond our understanding, we also need a God and Divinity that is palpable and omnipresent. It is not enough to read about God, write about God, or pray to an otherworldly God. God Herself requires that we taste not of the fruit of the Tree of Life and Death in the Garden of Eden or any other Paradise, but that we taste, live, breathe, and digest the very living experience of the Divine here, in our own life.
(While beyond the scope of this blog post, perhaps this living experience of the Divine lies at the heart of the Holy Eucharist in the Christian tradition?)
In this week’s Parashah – or weekly lectionary reading in the Jewish tradition – it tells that “God spoke to Moses face to face as a man would speak with his friend or neighbor” (Exodus 33:11). Yet when Moses later pleads with God to see God’s honor [face], God only passes Her goodness by Moses’ face (Exodus 33:18-19). Moses desires very strongly to see God face to face, but God does not always do so. Instead, God shows Moses his back. Moses’ desire to see the Divine is earnest and real, yet as the Bible teaches, no one can see the face of the Divine without dying (Exodus 33:20).
When not taken literally, this speaks to the truth that wherever and whenever you meet the Divine, we are changed. There is a part of our self – our overidentification with “me” – that must drop away. This powerful moment for Moses, is equally as powerful for the Divine, and for all of world Jewry and spiritual practitioners of all faiths and traditions. This moment, this moment is not only a back to back transmission, it is always a face to face transmission, as well.
One and Many
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, there is the notion of what is called the absolute and the relative (described in a neat chart here). These are somewhat difficult concepts to explain, though in the Zen tradition, there are always two co-occurring aspects to existence, or the very truth and experience of our life.
On the one hand, we are all essentially one or unified; yet, this is not exclusively true. This fundamental truth that we are all part of something universal is called the absolute and is also sometimes referred to as emptiness, nothingness, and equality.
On the other hand, we are all fundamentally different and unique; yet, this too is not exclusively true. This fundamental truth that we are all innate, unique, and different is called the relative and is also referred to as the phenomenal world, the world of form, and difference.
There are two chants said daily in Zen Buddhist temples that particularly speak to the dance between the absolute and relative, the Heart Sutra and the Harmony of Difference and Equality.
In the Heart Sutra, the foundational text in all of Mahayana (East Asian) Buddhism, it is said:
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form;
Form is exactly emptiness,
Emptiness exactly form.
(translated by the Sanbo Kyodan Society North American Sangha)
Similarly, the 8th century Zen (Chan) Master, Shitou Xiqian, wrote in his Harmony of Difference and Equality (called the Sandokai in Japanese):
Within light there is darkness, but do not try to understand that darkness;
Within darkness there is light, but do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before, and the foot behind in walking.
Each thing has its own intrinsic value and is related to everything else in function and position.
(translated by the Sanbo Kyodan Society North American Sangha)
From a comparative theological perspective, the absolute and relative can be described in Western theological terms as the transcendent and immanent aspects of God. Similar to the Mind Only School in Mahayana Buddhism, Maimonides emphasizes the absolute and otherworldly, transcendent God; whereas, the Hebrew Bible itself emphasizes the relative and immanent God that walks in the Garden of Eden “in the winds of the day” only to see Adam and Eve hide from the “face of the Divine” (Genesis 3:8).
Haman and Mordecai
Like a Hegelian dialectic, the absolute and relative – the transcendent God and immanent God – are deeply intertwined. They are distinct, yet one cannot exist without the other. Where they meet is in our very life, only this life, right here and now, moment by moment, breath upon breath.
In the Purim story and Book of Esther, the villainous character of Haman is angered that Mordecai won’t bow down to him and in a fit of rage goes to King Ahasuerus and speaks out against those “Jews” who are different from us and who speak their separate language.
The villain in this story is the one who creates a vilified “other” to be eradicated and sees only difference in the face of creation. The heroes in the story are the ones who “stand for their life” (Esther 8: 11) and allow for freedom and difference. Neither our essential similarity nor difference can ever be destroyed!
Still, I caution you – and myself – not to make Mordecai and Esther only good and Haman only bad. We are both Mordecai and Haman! We are all Haman and Mordecai!
What is God?
In the Zen tradition, there are many koan – or sacred teaching stories – where a student or travelling monk asks the Zen Master, “What is Buddha?” Such a strange question! Not “who” is Buddha, but “what” is Buddha?
Zen Master Tozan answers, “Three pounds of fabric!” (The Gateless Gate, Case 18; Blue Cliff Record, Case 12).
Zen Master Unmon answers, “A dried piece of shit!” (The Gateless Gate, Case 21).
Zen Master Baso answers, “Mind is Buddha!” (The Gateless Gate, Case 30).
At another time, Zen Master Baso answers, “No mind, no Buddha!” (The Gateless Gate, Case 33).
Three pounds of fabric! A dried piece of shit! Mind is Buddha! No mind, no Buddha!
So, I ask you, “What is God?”
Absence of God
My Zen teacher, Fr. Greg Mayers Roshi, gave a talk recently on the absence of God (other talks can be found here). Fr. Greg Roshi is an unusual and extraordinary teacher for many reasons. Besides being a mensch and a kind and gracious teacher, He is both an ordained Catholic priest and sanctioned Zen Master (Roshi) in the Sanbo Zen lineage and Zen school.
In his talk, Fr. Greg spoke about the personal struggle we often face with the absence of God:
It is so subtle. It doesn’t sound right when you say it, but it’s true. The absence is sure evidence of the reality. This doesn’t sound right. How can absence be evidence of anything?
What I am particularly struggling with is the absence of God which most people take as an indicator of some displeasure on God’s part or some indictment against oneself. But that is not the case. That is not the case! It is just the reverse.
The thoughts, the images, the ideas, the theologies, the philosophies, the poetry, the sacred writings – some of which have inspired us or fired us – have also misled us, and they cannot help as much as they peel away the coverings over God. They do that while painting the reality, so we can’t really see it. We see it through other colors.
If you are lucky enough to feel the depth of your being, the empty abyss of God’s absence, you are in fact beyond your imagination sitting at the foot of the Holy of Holies. It is by the absence, the nothingness, that we know God. That’s a very strange thing because that’s not the way we know things … or been taught in this society.
I don’t want to mislead you. The dark abyss of God’s absence feels like the dark abyss of God’s absence! It does not feel sweet and warm and secure and comforting. It is the dark abyss of God’s absence. But God cannot be absent from the absence. Only present.
[A]s a teacher, I look for pain as an indicator of depth of practice. I look for the despair as an indicator of the depth of practice. It is only when we fall – or probably pushed – [i]nto the dark abyss of God’s absence that we begin to taste something of what freedom is, free of God. That sounds heretical, but [e]very God that you are bound to is of your own creation, and you must be free of that. God does not bind you.
The name of God is no where to be found in the Purim story or Book of Esther. But is God absent? Or present? Where do you find the Divine?
What is God? I don’t know! We must never know!
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Adam Fogel
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