CAN ONE UNIFY THE GOD OF MONOTHEISM?

CAN ONE UNIFY THE GOD OF MONOTHEISM?

A long-standing irony of the daily Sefirah count is the L’Shem Yichud prayer which many communities recite prior to counting. This prayer specifies that, through the performance of a positive biblical commandment, The Holy One, Blessed be He is being “unified”. This is somewhat puzzling. Pretty much the only legal authority who considers counting the Omer to be a biblical commandment nowadays is Rambam. Yet it is hard to imagine Rambam embracing the notion of a God who requires unification. He wrote in his opening chapter of Mishneh Torah:

“This God is one. He is not two or more, but one, unified in a manner which [surpasses] any unity that is found in the world; i.e., He is not one in the manner of a general category which includes many individual entities, nor one in the way that the body is divided into different portions and dimensions. Rather, He is unified, and there exists no unity similar to His in this world.

If there were many gods, they would have body and form, because like entities are separated from each other only through the circumstances associated with body and form.

Were the Creator to have body and form, He would have limitation and definition, because it is impossible for a body not to be limited. And any entity which itself is limited and defined [possesses] only limited and defined power.”

Such a principle was not an invention of Rambam – it was expressed even more powerfully approximately a century earlier in the Chovot HaLevavot, which considered God’s absolute unity to be a foundational pillar of monotheistic faith – a pillar which distinguishes it from polytheism.

This is not to suggest, of course, that all of those who recite the L’Shem Yichud prayer would be thought of by Rambam as polytheists. Judaism Reclaimed, which devotes several chapters to this complex matter, notes how the system and texts of Kabbalah are, in Gershom Scholem’s words, “symbols” and “images of a spiritual mode of existence…the Divine Being Himself cannot be expressed”. Several prominent kabbalistic works take great pains to point out, for example, that

“… there can be no change in God and no division within Him which would justify the assertion that He is divided into parts in these ten Sefirot, for change and division is not to be found within Him … It can be compared to water which is divided into different variously coloured [translucent] vessels… the water, despite its natural lack of colour, will appear to bear the colour of the various vessels in which it is contained … [This change in appearance] is solely from the external perspective of the one viewing the vessels, not within the water itself. So too is the matter of the Sefirot … There is no change in the spreading Essence [ie God] except for in the view of the beholder …” [R. Moshe Cordovero, Pardes Rimonim 4:4]

But why is it that Rambam and Chovot Halevavot regard implications of division and form regarding God with so much more severity than their kabbalistic counterparts?

A key difference between Rambam and the Kabbalists in this regard appears to be that Rambam presents a binary system of absolute physicality and spirituality. There is no middle ground.

For Rambam and his binary system of physicality and meta-physicality, therefore, the concepts of substance, form, division and unity relate specifically to the limited physical realm. To apply such terms to God therefore would be to subject Him to the limitations of time, space, decay and all other laws of nature to which physicality necessarily submits. As quoted above from the chapter of Mishneh Torah:

"If the Creator were a physical body, He would have bounds and limits, for it is impossible for a physical body to be without limits".

Such a position is not consistent with monotheistic religion, which is premised on the principle that God acts freely and independently, transcending all the limitations that hold sway in the physical domain.

Within the kabbalistic system however, an incorrect belief in God’s physicality or disunity does not necessarily imply a limitation of His power. In contrast to the stark binary system of Rambam, in which all of existence falls neatly into either the physical or spiritual realm, Kabbalists introduce a complex and interconnected range of quasi-physical existence which occupies the vast middle ground separating absolute physicality from pure spirituality. Judaism Reclaimed shows how this distinction between Rambam and Kabbalists can be detected in their disputes over concepts such as angels, the nature of the soul, and afterlife punishment in Gehinnom. While for Rambam therefore, the use of terms which imply form, division and unity to God are tantamount to an assertion of His limited and fully-physical status, such a deduction is considerably less straightforward from the perspective of the Kabbalist.

Rambam goes further, considering that the God of Tanach is one who cannot be contained in human thought or terms – as King Solomon declared: “The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You, and surely not this Temple that I have built!". Any relationship with this God must be premised upon this foundational principle. Conceptualising God in physical terms, even if one recognises that His true Essence lies beyond them – is at best misleading and unhelpful. It does not truly relate to God in any way.

And what of those who follow the simple meaning of these kabbalistic prayers – unaware of the warnings of kabbalistic masters as to their symbolic meanings – and consider their actions and prayers to be somehow unifying disparate elements of God?

One fascinating teaching on this subject can be found in the writings of the Chazon Ish, who suggested that deeming such people to be heretics “applies specifically to one who has not analysed the matter or is of limited intelligence”. Nevertheless, “one who understands that all that we have received in our tradition concerning the true Creator cannot co-exist with physicality…he is a “min” for he is denying the core belief”. A stricter interpretation of Rambam’s position regarding accidental heretics is attributed, however, to Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, who is reported to have declared that even “an unfortunate heretic is nevertheless a heretic”.

Fiery words indeed!

More about Judaism Reclaimed: Philosophy and Theology in the Torah can be found at www.JudiasmReclaimed.com.