{"id":61984,"date":"2019-08-28T14:09:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T11:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=61984"},"modified":"2023-03-22T21:50:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T19:50:22","slug":"does-god-dwell-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/does-god-dwell-on-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Does God Dwell On Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[798,854,838,778],"acf":{"old_id":"61984","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33992,"related_cahpter":"295","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"When the Infinite meets the finite, all is metaphor and religion is poetry","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s one of the pivotal moments in Jewish history, the development of the monarchy, and of Jewish thought. After seven years of constructing the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, King Solomon and the entire nation gather to dedicate this new building. Standing in prayer before the people, Solomon lifts up his voice and his arms, and proclaimed a revolution that continues to percolate in religious life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He has depleted the nation\u2019s treasury to build this beautiful, artistic, inspiring edifice. He has conscripted much of the nation\u2019s working adults and involved a fair number of foreign laborers in the effort too. Raised on stories of a Tent of Meeting and a Tabernacle in which God and Moses would commune face to face, I would imagine that most people gathered for this auspicious launch would expect the new Temple to be the locus for God\u2019s dwelling among humanity. But Solomon rejects that idea as a violation of the ethos of monotheism. He confronts it head on:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWill God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built?\u201d In this pronouncement, Solomon makes clear that the God of monotheism is not simply further on the spectrum than any other creature, God is literally off the charts. Not bigger \u2026 incomparable. Not smarter \u2026 incomparable. God isn\u2019t merely better, more, greater. Such categories are actually a demotion and simply don\u2019t apply to the divine, any more than the concept \u201cnorth\u201d applies north of the North Pole. The category simply fails.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And with that bold move, Solomon forces the Jewish people to grapple with the necessity for metaphor. If God can\u2019t dwell on earth (or in the heavens), then all talk of God is metaphoric, pointing toward a truth that is beyond verbal description. Language as asymptote \u2013 the words approach but never reach what they seek to portray.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">God beyond the literal turns all religion into poetry. Rambam is building on King Solomon\u2019s insight when he points out that this same insight means that God can\u2019t \u201cdo\u201d or \u201ccommand\u201d or \u201cspeak\u201d in any way comparable to what humans do when they act in those ways. The words point beyond themselves. They are literally false when applied to God, yet indicate something profound and elusive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So why build that House? Because, says Solomon, wherever the descendants of those Israelites wander, they can turn their focus, their hearts, their mindfulness to that site, and direct their prayers to that place as a way of linking themselves with the prayers of their ancestors, with their co-religionists around the world, with those whose history and destiny they share.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":61985,"id":61985,"title":"1kings8-presence","filename":"1kings8-presence.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings8-presence.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/does-god-dwell-on-earth\/1kings8-presence\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"1kings8-presence","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":61984,"date":"2019-08-28 11:09:13","modified":"2019-08-28 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