Psalm 145 declares, “You open Your hands
and willingly satiate all living beings!”
Does God literally have “hands”?
The Medieval Jewish philosophers would say
that the Psalmist is expressing himself allegorically; that God behaves with
His creatures “as if” He has hands.
The Kabbalists would say that God “having
hands” is not meant as a description of God. Rather, it’s intended in a
possessive sense, such as when we say, “His world”. In other words, as God
possesses the world, so He possesses a spiritual level called, “Hands”. They
are not hands in the sense that we know of (even if they are the spiritual
source of our own hands). When God opens His “hands”, humanity bathed in
blessings.
These two views do not contradict. In fact,
they are entirely complementary.
The philosophers were referring to the
essence of God. Regarding this level, nothing descriptive can be said about whom He is. Every possible description of this sort is merely an allegorical “as
if”.
On the other hand, the Kabbalists are not
describing God Himself. In fact, they never do. In their coded system of
metaphor they are offering a description of a spiritual level, which can as
rightfully be considered a “possession” of God.
An interesting surprise emerges. Usually,
one would expect the Kabbalists, who are mystics, to be the ones discussing the
higher levels of reality. It turns out
that in this case it was the philosophers were talking on a higher level; as
the Kabbalists were referring to a spiritual level, while the philosophers were
referring to God’s core essence.
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