(Someone asked about last week’s article)

Is G-d Really All? – The Argument

    The subject of Hashem being all, including the lowest of lows of creation, has been an ongoing argument amongst the scholars of mysticism from the earliest days. There are many opinions and many shades of opinions on this subject. The argument has become quite heated at times causing Jews to distance themselves from each other and even worse. So to ask me to resolve this fierce argument in one short letter with exact quotes and sources (and with my very short memory for exact quotes and sources) is asking not only for the sea to part, but for it to be put back together again.

    If you like, here are a couple of places to look, but most likely they will not be enough to resolve the argument.  Bli neder, in the future there will be a more thorough treatment of the subject sent out.

    To understand the subject and not just the argument, please read the posts entitled “Idolatry,” “There Is Only One Infinite,” and “What Am I?” The subject of “Ain od” (“There is no other” {than God}) begins there. In those postings the reader is led up, step by step to the conclusion that G-d is actually all.

    When you misquote the discussion by writing that the argument is that “everything is G-d” you do a disservice to the discussion. To say everything is G-d is simple pantheism, which no one in this discussion is claiming. To say that G-d is all, is not the same as saying everything is G-d. Again, reread those posts and see why.

    To begin with, look at Rashi on Deuteronomy 5:7. He comments there on G-d’s commandment that “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Rashi’s first explanation is that “before Me” means “In any place where I am, i.e. and that is the entire universe.” Rashi there states that G-d is everywhere at all times. Think deeply on the practical result of G-d being everywhere.

    Now look at Shaarei Kedusha (Chaim Vital) Third book, Chapter 1. “In all the five worlds (from Adom Kadmon to this physical world) every detail into the smallest possible detail that exists, you do not have even the smallest creation that is not comprised of the four letters of G-d’s Name which includes the Ten sefirot and this is to tell you that everything was created from the power of the Emanator, and there is nothing besides Him.

   Certainly, all sides of this argument know these sources, yet they still maintain different opinions. As we well know, this is an ongoing argument. But here are two places that perhaps you did not look at that show you that the teaching of literal “Ain Od” is widely based.

    To add an interesting facet, regarding this subject, Rav Dessler (a stalwart of the Ashkenazim) wrote that the Gra and the Baal Tanya (founder of Chabad Chassidus) were in fact saying the same thing. The Lubavicher Rebbe (The Chabad Rebbe) however, came along and said, “No, they were not.”

   So the argument stands. Stay tuned until Eliyahu comes and gives what will be the universally accepted answer.

Be well

Gutman 

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