Body of G-d
We find in Berachot 6a:
"R' Abin the son of
Rav Ada said in the name of R' Isaac: How do we know that the holy One, blessed
be He, puts on tefillin? For it is said, 'G-d swore on his right hand, on his
strong arm…' 'On his strong arm,' this is tefillin…What is written in the
Master of the Universe's tefillin? He said, 'And what one nation on Earth is
like Your people Israel?'…And in the other sections what is there? 'Who is a
great nation?' 'Happy are you, O Israel,' 'Or has G-d assayed to go,' 'And to
make you high' are all written in His tefillin. (All of these verses are
written in one compartment on His arm--Rashi)
G-d, who has not the form
of a body and has no body, and about whom the concepts of a body cannot be
said, may He be blessed, has a head and a left arm upon which to place
tefillin? On the other hand, before us we have a clear and explicit gemara, not
a parable and not a euphemism. Not only do Chazal accept (as obvious) that the
Holy One, blessed be He, puts on tefillin, they determine which verses are
written in each and every compartment in the tefillin on G-d's arm! Even the
Rishonim do not disagree with this at all.
If someone would now come
to religious people and say that G-d has a body, an arm, a head, a face, anger
and desires -- not only would he be called an apostate, he'd be called crazy.
It is as though it has always been accepted and known to us that G-d cannot be
spoken of in terms of a body and this is what our Sages OBM held, learned, and
have always taught.
It this so? Let us open
books and check.
Many gemaras and aggadic
midrashim, and even verses of the Torah and words of the prophets imply that
G-d has a body, a head, an arm (upon which the Holy One, blessed be He, places
tefillin) and He has fingers, palms, a face, a back, ("And I will take
away My hand, and you see My back parts, but My face shall not be seen,"
Exodus 33:23). He has legs ("The earth is My footstool," Isaiah
66:1). And He, may He be blessed, sometimes gets angry and is appeased and
sometimes gets furious and punishes. There are many more such anthropomorphisms
concerning G-d -- statements which attribute human qualities to Him.
A wise student will
certainly say that these all are nothing but parable, imagery, and metaphor,
that "the Torah spoke in human language" and that the intention
certainly was not that G-d really has human qualities, but all these statements
are secrets and hints, covert and concealed. That is what our generation
believes, but what did previous generations think? Did they also think as we
do?
We will bring some
statements by our great rabbis who thought that G-d indeed does have a physical
body.
Maimonides, in The Laws of
Repentance 3:7, wrote: "Five
are called apostates…one who says there is one G-d to the world, but He has
body and image." The Ra'avad criticized him, "And why is this called
apostasy? Some of those greater than he [Maimonides] believed this, based on
what they saw in the Scriptures, and even more on what they saw in the Aggadah,
which distorts one's mind." This is the Ra'avad's testimony that Torah
scholars greater than Maimonides thought that G-d has body and image (that He
can be grasped by the senses). About Maimonides it is said, "From Moses to
Moses there arose none like Moses" and who is "greater" than he?
The Tannaim and Amoraim. Indeed, as we have seen, the Mishnah and Gemara
reflect their belief in the physical nature of G-d, while Maimonides tried long
and hard to refute these beliefs in his book "A Guide to the
Perplexed" (see there). Certainly he would not have tried so hard and
given so many explanations were the anthropomorphic concepts not so deeply
rooted in the words of Chazal and the Gemara.
Thus testified R' Yedayah the son of Abraham, who lived in
13th century France (as brought in the Rashba's responsa, part one, paragraph
418): "It is very well known that belief in material aspects [of G-d]
spread in the early generations throughout almost all the Diaspora from the
very day of the exile." In the will attributed to Maimonides )Igros Kushta, 277, p. 15), it is
written about the Jews of France: "They speak despisingly of the Creator,
blessed be He, in their books, and use anthropomorphic descriptions concerning
the Creator, blessed be He, time and again."
Moreover, Maimonides admitted that
he really forced the Scripture to make it match his viewpoint -- his opposition
to anthropomorphic conceptualizations of G-d. He wrote in "A Guide to the
Perplexed," part two, chapter 25: "The Scriptures do not show that
the world is created ex nihilo any more than they show that G-d has a physical
nature. But the gates of interpretation are not closed before us…and it would
be possible to interpret them [the verses speaking of the world created ex
nihilo] as we have done when we rejected the physical nature [of G-d]…when we
interpreted the Scriptures in a way denying G-d's physical nature."
This you should know -- all
those whom Maimonides called apostates have explicit verses to support them!
Maimonides has neither verses nor Gemara to back him up on this issue; not only
is it not explicit in the Torah, repeated in the Prophets, and said a third
time in the Writings, but the Scriptures show exactly the opposite, as the
Ra'avad pointed out.
The Gemara in Avodah Zarah 46a: "'You shall not make before me' (Exodus
20:19) --you shall not make images of the servants who serve before Me in the
Heavens. Abaye said, 'The Torah only forbade the Four Faces [ox, man, lion,
eagle]…All faces are permitted aside from the face of man [and we learn this
from the exegesis] 'You shall not make before me' -- you shall not make Me [My
image]…'You shall not make before me' -- do not make image of the servants who
serve before Me in the Heavens, such as the Ophanim, the Seraphim, the holy
animals, and the Heavenly host. Abaye said, 'The Torah forbade only [making
images of] those who serve on the upper level'." According to the Gemara,
there are physical forms to those who serve the Holy One, blessed be He, and
even G-d Himself has a form. What is His form? The form of Man. (Perhaps they
determined this based on the verse, 'For in the image of G-d made He man,"
Genesis 9:6.) Therefore they specifically forbade the image of Man, as they
said, "'You shall not make before me' -- you shall not make Me."
And thus ruled the Shulchan
Aruch (Yoreh Deah, paragraph 141, section 4): "It if is forbidden to draw
the images [of those who are] on the level of the Shechinah, such as the
Four Faces [ox, man, lion and eagle; see the note of the Shach that Ezekiel
turned the ox into a cherub, as Reish Lakish said in Hagigah 13b] and also the
forms of the Sepharim and Ophanim and the Heavenly host, and also the form of
Man." (It would be interesting to ask: According to the Shulchan Aruch,
what form do the Heavenly hosts have?) The Tosfot on Avodah Zarah 43a, s.v. lo
ta'asun iti, wrote: "This is puzzling, for the face of Man by itself
is forbidden, so why did they have to forbid the forms of those who serve in
the Heavens? [The Tosfot understood that those who serve in the Heavens
resemble Man, and explained:] it should be said that certainly there is, above,
neither angel nor Seraph nor Ophan with an actual human form, as is said in
Hagiga 15a, 'they have no…back.'." That is, the angels have human form,
but no backs. (?)
But these laws again
contradict the Gemara in Yevamot 49b: "Menashe killed Isaiah… He said to
him: your teacher Moses said, 'No man can see Me and live' (Exodus 23), and you
said, 'And I saw G-d sitting on a high and extolled chair…' (Isaiah 6:1)? [And
Chazal explained:] All the prophets looked through an aspaklaria [glass, and some say a mirror] which is not
clear, but Moses our teacher looked through an aspaklaria which is
clear." Rashi explained: "[All the prophets] thought they were
seeing, but they did not see, while Moses looked through a clear aspaklaria
and knew that he was not seeing His face." So we see all the Sages
agreeing that Moses and the prophets all saw a physical G-d who has a form. The
Sages merely discussed the quality with which they saw Him and which parts of
Him they saw. We should say, incidentally, that according to this Gemara there
was no need to forbid the forms of ox, lion, and eagle, for the prophets only
saw these forms because they looked through unclean glass…
Come and see that not only
to G-d and the angels do the Rishonim grant physicality. Nachmanides
anthropomorphized even Heaven and Hell. This is what he wrote in the book Torat
HaAdam, Shaar HaGmul, section 121: "Here are some of the places where they
[Chazal] spoke of Gehenna [Hell], and of the sorrow and punishment of those who
go there, in the Talmud and in the midrashim, and they measured its shape.
These things and the like should not be considered a parable or a puzzle, for
they named its place and measured its length and width."
In section 123 he wrote,
"Paradise is found in this world, in one of the places on earth. This is a
fundamental of the Torah and its interpretation by the Sages. Paradise is a
place on earth from whence four rivers originate; one of them is the Euphrates
which surrounds the land of Israel. Whatever is written explicitly in the story
of Creation is all true. The Scripture should not be taken out of its literal
context, and people acquainted with measurements will say that the garden of
Eden is just below the equator, so that the day will not be prolonged or
shortened. In the ancient Greek medical books and in the book of Asaf the Jew
it is said that Asclepius, a Macedonian wise man, and 40 learned magicians went
through the land and past India, east towards Eden to find medicinal trees and
the Tree of Life to make themselves greater than all other wise men on earth.
But when they came to that place, the glint of the turning sword burned them
all; not a single one of them escaped…All of this is true and well-known, even
to this day, for many who traveled from this land eastwards have seen from afar
the glint of the turning sword." In short, Paradise is "beyond
India" (that is, in China), and therefore that country is called, to this
very day, "the Communist Paradise"…
We have already learned that the Heavenly hosts have no backs (but they
do have wings, see below). And we also learn about the heavenly angels that
they do not understand the Aramaic language! It is brought in Tractate Shabbat
12b: "R' Judah said: a person should never ask for his needs in Aramaic,
and R' Yochanan said: anyone who asks for his needs in Aramaic is not heeded by
the heavenly angels, for the heavenly angels do not understand Aramaic."
The Tosfot on Shabbat 12b, s.v. she'ein malachei, asked: "And we wonder
at this, for they even know the thoughts in men's hearts, but the Aramaic
language they do not know?" But the Rosh, on the second chapter of
Berachot, section two, answered the Tosfot's question: "They know and
recognize the thoughts in men's hearts, but they find this language improper to
heed." According to the Rosh the angels do understand Aramaic, they merely
find it improper. Aside from the question of what is improper in the Aramaic
language (after all, there are Aramaic words in the Pentateuch and the Holy
Writ) the Rosh also ignored an explicit gemara (Sotah 36a): "Don't the
heavenly angels know Aramaic? Yet the Tannaim said: Yochanan the High Priest
heard a Heavenly Voice from the Holy of Holies saying [in Aramaic], 'They have
won -- the lads who went forth to battle to [the city of] Antioch'…."
Since the voice the High Priest heard spoke in Aramaic, it follows that the
angels not only understand Aramaic, they even speak it. So they explained,
"It was Gabriel, as it is said: Gabriel came and taught him [Joseph -- see
Sotah 36b] seventy languages." From this it is clear that unlike the
opinion of the Rosh, that the angels do understand Aramaic but find it
improper, the opposite is true: Aramaic is not improper (for it is spoken in
the Holy of Holies) but Gabriel is the only angel who understands Aramaic,
since he knows seventy languages.
One way or another, 1500
more years of deep Torah study had passed, and the Mishnah Berurah came and
ruled, in Orach Chaim 101:4, "An individual who asks for his needs may ask
in any language he chooses aside from Aramaic. Therefore if one prays in his
home he may not say any of the Yakum Purkan prayers." Indeed, the Mishnah
Berurah ruled well. Gabriel may be busy and who of all the other angels would
understand the Yakum Purkan?
A man must honor angels
even if they don't speak Aramaic. Thus the Gemara says in Brachot 60b:
"When one enters the bathroom he should say [to the angels who accompany
him] 'Please, holy honored ones, servants on High, leave me until I go in and
do what I will and I will come to you.' Abaye said: a man should not say thus,
lest they leave him. He should say, 'Watch me, watch me, help me, help me, wait
for me until I go in and come out, for this is the way of man.'"
We have spoken of angels;
we have not yet spoken of demons. Nachmanides wrote on Leviticus 17:7:
"There was also created an object out of two essences -- fire and air
-- which was given a body that could not
be sensed by one of the senses… It is a spiritual body; it can fly easily in
fire and air…Therefore our rabbis said in Chagiga 16a, 'Six things have been
said of demons; in three they are like the heavenly angels and in three they
are like men. In three they are like the heavenly angels: they have wings as
angels, and fly as angels do, and know the future as angels do…In three they
are like men: they eat and drink as men do, they reproduce as men do, and they
die as men do.'"
Chazal's faith in demons was so great that they even said in Tractate
Megillah 3a: "Rabbi Joshua the son of Levi said: a man is forbidden to
greet his fellow at night lest he be a demon." Thus, too, ruled the
Shulchan Aruch in Even HaEzer, paragraph 17, section 10: "If they heard a
voice saying that a certain person died and they went and did not find there a
man [who could say it], they should allow his wife to remarry [as a widow]. But
if they heard this voice in a field or in a ruined place, she may not be
allowed to remarry based on that voice, for fear that it was a demon."
Maimonides, who rejected
anthropomorphism and fought so hard against it, and who even called all the
adherents of anthropomorphic views heretics and apostates -- what did he say of
the anthropomorphization of angels? In "A Guide to the Perplexed,"
part two, chapter six, he wrote: "The intent in those sayings is not what
the fools believed, that He speaks or thinks or asks council and advice of
others…for the powers are all angels. But how very bad and harmful is the
blindness of stupidity! Behold, were you to go and tell to one of those who
think themselves the sages of Israel that an angel would enter a woman's belly
and make there the fetus -- he would find it good and accept it, seeing in it a
sign of G-d's greater power and His wisdom. Such a man would also believe that
an angel has a body of fire which burns, that his skin is as a third of the
whole world, and all this would seem possible to him in G-d's laws. But were
you to tell that man that G-d put in sperm a power which creates and forms
these characteristics and limbs, and this power can be described as an angel,
or that the conduct of all the forms is determined by the Active Intellect,
which is the angel whom the Sages described as the minister of the world -- he
would always flee such notions…But our Sages OBM had already clarified to those
who are wise that each of the powers of the body has an angel, all the more so
do the other powers, which are scattered in the world…And they also had
explained to those who understand that the power of imagination may also be
called an angel, and the mind -- a cherub. This is very acceptable to those who
understand and very disgusting to fools."
So, "cherub" and "angel" are just names that men of
reason give to various qualities of creatures, the power of the mind, and the
creative wisdom. All these are internal
powers (within nature and man) and not separate entities. These words of
Maimonides are wonderful and make sense to any person of reason. But even so,
how does Maimonides explain the explicit words of the Talmud, such as the statement
that angels do not understand Aramaic or the matter of the bathroom? When
Maimonides says "those who think themselves the sages of Israel" does
he mean some of Chazal and Nachmanides? Or does he mean the Tosfot, who said on
Tractate Niddah 16b, "The angel appointed over pregnancies -- but over
birth no angel is appointed, as it says at the start of Taanit [p. 2a], 'Three
keys are held by the Holy One, blessed be He: of life, of rains, and of the
resurrection of the dead"? If angels are expressions of internal forces
which act in man and in nature, what is the point of saying what the Tosfot
said? And even though Maimonides said several times about himself that the
gates of commentary are not sealed (and that he can explain the
anthropomorphisms of G-d found in the Scriptures), but our view is as that of
Ibn Ezra on Daniel 1:1 -- "How
is it possible in a human language that a man would speak one word and mean
another? One who supposes so would be considered a madman." We are forced
to say what is so very clear from the words of Ra'avad's critique: many of the
Sages, the Tannaim, the Amoraim, and the Rishonim held anthropomorphistic views
and believed that G-d and His angels, demons, Paradise, and Hell all had actual
physical forms and a specified place in the world of our senses. In his fight
against the anthropomorphic concepts of G-d Maimonides did not tread a
well-trod path, but came out against the opinion of many of the best of Jewish
sages. Maimonides's fight against those views was not easy, for the Scriptures
are full of anthropomorphic descriptions of G-d and His servants, and it seems
clear that the authors and readers did indeed believe in their physical nature.
Maimonides himself admits that to block the opening he even distorted the text in
the name of reason.
And do not think, student
who seeks knowledge, that the victory of Maimonides's opinion was easy or
immediate. Many years after his death the rabbis of Ashkenaz still fought his
opinions, his books were banned and burned, and his view of G-d as
non-corporeal was angrily dismissed. These viewpoints, which today are accepted
by all (the 13 Principles of Maimonides are indeed the principles of faith to
any believing Jew) were not accepted at all, even hundreds of years after his
death. Note the words of the GRA (Yoreh Deah 179, subsection 13) who comes out
strongly against Maimonides for denying the physical reality of demons,
incantations, and witchcraft, as he wrote, "All his [Maimonides's] successors disagreed with him, for
many incantations were given in the Gemara, but he followed the way of
philosophy. Therefore he wrote that witchcraft and magic names and incantations
and ghosts and amulets are all false, but they have already struck him over the
head, for we have found many incidents in the Gemara of magical names and
witchery…Philosophy mislead him, and he used it to interpret the words of the
Gemara allegorically and to deprive them of their simple meaning, G-d forbid."
We have cited the GRA's words in what we wrote on the portion of Bamidbar, see there. And
what would the GRA say about Maimonides's dismissal of anthropomorphisms
concerning G-d? Would he also claim that these matters stand as in their plain
meaning (in the Scriptures and in Gemara) and that it was only philosophy
which, G-d forbid, misled Maimonides to say that G-d has no body nor physical
form? Delve deeply into this matter.
Finally, on the issue of
anthropomorphism philosophy won, and thus now believes anyone who follows the
Torah and the commandments. Well did the author of Chovot HaLevavot write in
Shaar HaYichud, chapter four: "Anything one wishes to know, when one
doubts its existence, one first has to ask if it exists or not. When it has been
proven to exist, one must investigate what it is and how it is and why, but
about the Creator no man is allowed to ask anything aside from whether He is
one." This is as the author of Kzot HaChoshen wrote in his introduction,
"What can human intellect understand in the Torah of G-d?"
But it seems as though we
can't do without anthropomorphizing the Heavens. After anthropomorphism was
rejected by most religious people, the philosophy of Kabbalah began to spread
in public. The Kabbalists were faced with a problem: How could they speak of
G-d, Who cannot be contemplated at all through any viewpoint or understanding?
What could they say about Him? They could not go without saying anything about
G-d, for then they could not write about all their discoveries and
imaginations. They played a cute trick -- they said that the Creator of the
world created 10 sfirot and the Kabbalists merely speak of these, not,
G-d forbid, of the infinite G-d. Even when they speak of the sfirot they
do not, Heaven forfend, speak of a physical presence, but only of the most
secret things. As the Ben Ish Chai wrote in his responsa Rav Poalim, part one,
paragraph one: "Know that the most high G-d, He who inspired and created
and formed and made everything, is infinite, and about Him it was said in
Ptichat Eliyahu (may he be recalled for good), 'The Master of the universe is
one, unique, and cannot be contemplated. He is one, most high, the most secret
of secret, there is no way of contemplating Him'…You should also know, that
when we call the ten sfirot "sfirot" and
"lights" we do not mean to consider them lights such as we see with
our eyes, but because our minds are short-sighted and stuck in the material…and
all the worlds and the holy sfirot above have no image or physical
likeness at all, and there is none who can know how they stand and what their
order is…For, after all, no human intelligence can know, understand, or
contemplate them at all." Well did he write. Here you have the paradox: No
human intellect can know, understand, or contemplate, yet they fill entire
books with those things which no mind in the world can know, understand, or
contemplate… We say to those Kabbalists who have some inner honesty: If you do
not understand what you say and cannot contemplate what you write, stop
speaking of it. Why go into what is G-d's area?
As our teacher, Prof.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz OBM, has said: "Whatever can be said of G-d has no
relevance to Him."
Words of True Knowledge
