God is
From as far back as I can remember, God has been real for me. I don’t know where that comes from. My family wasn’t religious. We never discussed religion or God. I haven’t always seen eye to eye with God of course. We’ve had our differences and fallings out. I’ve turned my back at times. But I’ve never actually walked away, and I don’t remember ever doubting God’s reality. For me, it’s not a question of ‘belief’. That’s mostly an intellectual activity, and what I’m talking about is something much broader and deeper than that. It’s the ground from which the rest of my life unfolds. God just is. And time and again I’ve had to return to the question of what, on earth, to do about that. The fact that God is is, for me, challenging, mysterious, profoundly reassuring, and reason to be extremely grateful.
You are all there is – why can’t I see you?
I use the word ‘God’ a lot, and I’m okay with that. But I can’t put into words what God is, because I simply don’t know. Given that I can’t even imagine God, how could I possibly say anything about God? Any attempt of mine to define or describe God would inevitably be reductive. I would end up presenting God as a phenomenon or thing, what Martin Buber would have called an ‘It’. Constructing some kind of ‘profile’ of God would create a straw man that could all too easily be picked apart, distracting from what’s more important. Talking about God is not a way to get closer to God. The only way to do that is to talk to, and be in I-You relationship with, God.
What does that mean? How can we do I-You relationship with God? Actually, how could we possibly not do that? After all, God “enlivens all things” (Neh. 9:6),[1] God “surrounds and fills all worlds” (Zohar III:225a),[2] “there is no place devoid of God” (Tikkunei Zohar 91b),[3] and ultimately, “there is none other than God” (Deut. 4:35).[4] How could we possibly not notice God? Lurianic kabbalah answers this with the metaphor of tzimtzum, God’s contraction and withdrawal in order to make room for the created universe, and us. I love that poetic image of Divine compassion in action. But, a natural consequence of tzimtzum is that God becomes partially ‘hidden’, even invisible. As God said to Moses, “You shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen. (Ex. 33:23)”
(Re)Turning (t’shuvah)
And yet, we should not confuse hiddenness with absence. Just as my truth is that God is real, it is also true for me that there is no place where God is not. If, on some occasion, I can’t consciously experience or perceive God, it might be because I’ve chosen to look the other way, or not to look at all, because I’m not yet ready to see, or it’s not my place to see this time. And just as God, through tzimtzum, has made room for me, I can reciprocate, and make room for God, which is, I feel, a way of ‘seeing’ God. God also “spoke with Moses face to face, as a man does with his friend” (Ex. 33:11). And I like to think that Moses was always ready to give time and space for God, as a friend. For me, this intimacy between God and Moses was not a vertical, hierarchical relationship, but a horizontal one of reciprocal ‘in-to-me-see’. My I-You relationship with God includes talking to God—I tell God stuff. It also includes listening to God (more on that later).
Making room for God. For me, that is key. “Where does God dwell?” the Kotzker Rebbe[5] was asked. “Wherever you let God in”, he replied. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in ‘Man’s Quest for God’ (1954, p.62) that “to pray … means to bring God back into the world.” I agree. But I don’t read that as any suggestion that God ever turns away from us. It is we who turn away from God. Praying is one of many ways of doing t’shuvah, re-turning towards God, and bringing God back into our personal world of awareness, commitment, and action. When I need to, I remind myself, “God is here also”—and that very thought makes it so. At other times, I don’t need to remind myself at all, but simply turn internally towards God, and make space. At such times, I might address God silently, or I might not. Non-verbal connection is sometimes more direct. It depends on what feels right at the time.
Affirming connection
As for so many people, darkness, confusion, threat, struggle, or pain have entered and dominated my life at times. Sometimes it has felt like God has completely disconnected. And yet, we’re always connected to God. How could we not be? But it has made a positive difference whenever I’ve consciously affirmed my connection to God. It’s made a positive difference to place myself, and the situation I was in, in front of God. Whenever I do this, something changes. I see the situation and myself differently. And the situation itself is different, in a good way, in ways I can’t easily describe or explain. Difficulty becomes more bearable, new insights present themselves, compassion and patience deepen, new positive possibilities and resources emerge.
I speak intimately with God, peh el peh (lit. ‘mouth to mouth’, Num. 12:8); I use ‘you’ a lot. That’s not chutzpah. Why would any of us talk to or pray to God unless we thought God might listen? I aspire to look for the face of God in all faces, all creation, and all situations. Can we see God panim el panim (‘face to face’, Ex. 33:11)? Yes, if we’re willing to see God everywhere, through what we might call ‘Shiviti practice’: “I place God before me at all times. God is at my right hand; I shall never be shaken. So my heart rejoices, my whole being exults, and my body rests secure.” (Ps 16:8-9)[6] All this can be true for me when I manage to connect to God.
But none of these supplementary benefits should be a reason for deciding to connect to God. That would be to relate to God as an ‘It’, an object of use. And I would no longer be in I-You relationship with God. There’s nothing worse than that. I connect consciously to God as much as I can, however I can, whenever I remember to, simply because it makes absolutely no good sense not to do so.
Listening
Sh’ma yisrael YHVH eloheinu YHVH echad. That’s a powerful statement. “Listen, you straight-to-God-connecting person,[7] the God of compassion[8] is God, and God is everything[9]!” Is this an invitation? A piece of advice? Perhaps both. Fortunately, I don’t hear it as a command. (I have an aversion to anyone telling me what to do.) Listening out for God, with my whole being (heart, mind, soul and body), has saved me again and again. It makes life better. Although, as I wrote earlier, it’s not necessarily the reason we should do it, it certainly doesn’t do any harm! Attending to, and responding with hineini / “Here I am!” to what can be experienced and discerned, here and now, from God, is to stand at Sinai, and open, day after day, from moment to moment, to the ongoing gift of revelation. Wherever and whenever we are, we can stand at Sinai.
Walking between worlds, serving in this world
Our spiritual ancestors and prophets had visions, dreams, and encounters with God. They also prayed to God, walked with God, received advice and mentoring from God, argued and negotiated with God, and shared leadership and decision-making with God. They walked between other worlds and this world. And we can too. To say otherwise would be to dismiss the stories of our tradition as irrelevant to our lives. Through meditation, prayer, Torah study, and other means, it is possible to travel to other states and ‘worlds’ to receive guidance and insight. At the same time, our business is here.
We have two beautiful morning blessings that honour God for returning our soul to us: Modeh ani,[10] and Elohai n’shamah.[11] Our wakefulness is restored. And with that comes the opportunity for avodah, service—to be “deployed by God”, as my Rebbe Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (zk”l) was fond of saying. As a reset, I sometimes like to return to those two blessings at other times of the day – when I ‘wake up’ and return myself to awareness of God, after having ‘fallen asleep’ by letting my attention stray from God. We move back and forth between the worlds of lesser awareness and greater attunement to God.
I raised the question earlier about what ‘on earth’ to do about the fact that God is. If we feel called to serve God at all, I’m sure it’s to serve God while we’re here, on earth. And I find myself attending to God, regularly and frequently, in order to discern what I’m being called to do, in this moment, on this earth, for this world, on God’s behalf.
It makes no difference whether or not a clear or easy answer emerges, because there’s nothing else that deserves the same kind of focus and care. It’s tempting, of course. I’m distracted all day by things that shout for my attention that don’t seem to have anything to do with serving God, but still definitely need to be dealt with. What’s the solution? “I will bless YHVH always.” (Ps. 34:1) If I do everything, always for God, then I don’t have to choose between serving God or doing something else. After all, if there are times when I’m not serving God, then who, what or where am I serving? That’s a world I certainly don’t want to travel to.
And yet I do. Again and again.
Thank God for t’shuvah – for the opportunity to return to God as many times as we need to, and start again. This is the practice. How ever far we stray, there is always a way back to God. And God will always return to us as we return to God (Deut. 30:3). There’s a lovely Mediaeval mashal (parable) about that:[12]
A prince quarrelled with his father the king, and not long after, left the kingdom. Was the son banished, or did he leave of his own free will? We’ll never know. After some years, the sorrowing king sent his ministers to ask his son to come home. But the young man was too hurt to return. The king sent the ministers out again with a new message: “My child, return as far as you can, and I will come the rest of the way to meet you.”
God is my only refuge
The writer of the Shiviti verses I quoted earlier said: “God is at my right hand; I shall never be shaken. So my heart rejoices, my whole being exults, and my body rests secure.” (Ps 16:8-9) Seeking God in all things, keeping my attention on God, and staying in I-You relationship with God all increase the likelihood of experiencing God as my helper, rock, refuge, shield, and champion (Ps. 18:2, Ps. 46:2-3 – the metaphors abound).
But sometimes, less is more. The 15th century piyyut (poem) Adon Olam has been part of my life for many years. I’m still moved by its last four words, a powerful and reassuring mantra: Adonai li v’lo ira – “God is with me, I will not fear.” This is true for me whenever I say it. Sometimes I change it to, “You are with me, I will not fear.”
So why do I keep forgetting this? My relationship with God is not straightforward. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’m human, and God is so much more. The Sh’ma reminds me that God is compassion, and God is all there is. But despite my intimate exchanges with God, I often collapse back into smallness in the face of God’s enormity and incomprehensibility. (I don’t think my overactive brain helps.) My relationship with God seems always to have proceeded through variations of ‘two steps forward, one step back’. I think the general movement has been forwards, but it’s been very slow progress.
No matter how stuck I get, how narrow or cut off I am, there is always a way to reach God:
“From my narrow place, I called out to YH [yud-heh, contracted version of the 4-letter God-name]. YH responded with expansiveness. YHVH [the expansive 4- letter named God of compassion] is with me, I have no fear; what can anyone do to me?” (Ps. 118:5-6)
One step back, two steps forward. God waits, ready to welcome me whenever I’m willing to show up again.
What if God isn’t?
A wise and wonderful soul in my Oxford community, Steve Rayner (z”l), said once that though he couldn’t prove that God is, it made a difference to him to live ‘as if’ God is. I recommend that wholeheartedly as one possible worthwhile approach. Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing all this time? After all, how could I know one way or the other?
God, you are
After I’d finished writing this, I realised I could substitute every mention of ‘God’ with the word ‘you’. Wow! It then reads as a direct love letter to God, an I-You encounter. Try it. It takes only a few minor grammatical adjustments, which you can probably do in your head as you read it. I think it will give a far better sense of what I’ve been trying to say, and avoid the pitfalls of talking about God in the third person, which, despite my good intentions, has left me presenting God as an ‘It’.
Here’s the start of the letter:
“From as far back as I can remember, you have been real for me. I don’t know where that comes from. My family wasn’t religious. We never discussed religion or you. I haven’t always seen eye to eye with you of course. We’ve had our differences and fallings out. I’ve turned my back at times. But I’ve never actually walked away, and I don’t remember ever doubting Your reality. For me, it’s not a question of ‘belief’. That’s mostly an intellectual activity, and what I’m talking about is something much broader and deeper than that. It’s the ground from which the rest of my life unfolds. You just are. And time and again I’ve had to return to the question of what, on earth, to do about that. The fact that you are is, for me, challenging, mysterious, profoundly reassuring, and reason to be extremely grateful.”
© Alexander Massey 8 May 2025 – All rights reserved
NOTE: This has been reproduced, by permission, in Rabbi Menachem Creditor’s edited book At The Mountain: an anthology of Jewish reflections on God, commandedness, and spirituality, alongside contributors such as Sarah Tuttle-Singer (Times of Israel Media Editor), William Liss-Levinson (on the Jewish Book Council board, & Chair of the Academy for Jewish Religion Board), Peter Himmelman (writer, musician, who performed with his father-in-law Bob Dylan), Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer (Director of Virtual Content and Programs for Ritualwell), Wendy Kalman (Director of Education and Advocacy Resources for Hadassah The Women’s Zionist Organization of America), Rabbi Joseph B. Meszler (distinguished author for Jewish Lights).
Footnotes
[1] atah m’chayeh et-kulam
[2] memaleh kol almin u’sovev kol almin
[3] leit atar panui mineha
[4] ein od milvado
[5] Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, 1787–1859
[6] Shiviti YHVH l’negdi tamid …
[7] Yisrael can be read as yashar el – ‘straight’ and ‘God’.
[8] In kabbalah, the Tetragrammaton (4 letter name of God) is traditionally associated with the attribute of compassion.
[9] If God is echad / One, then God is everything.
[10] “I thank You, living and eternal Sovereign, for giving me back my soul in mercy. Great is Your faithfulness.”
[11] “My God, the soul You have given me is pure. … As long as the soul is within me, I will thank You.”
[12] Pesikta Rabbati 184