A World Marinating in God


Springboards for Reflection
on Process and Kabbalah
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 from Cosmic Rose Engraving from Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae by Heinrich Khunrath (1595). Wikimedia Commons, CC-PD

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Is the universe marinating in God? Rabbi Bradley Artson thinks so, and I do, too. So do the Kabbalists. Rabbi Artson offers a talk on Kabbalah and the Big Bang on this page, suggesting that the marination began some fifteen billion years ago and has continued ever since. Even we, you and I, are part of the marination, not in the sense that we are merely puppets of divine agency, but that our own agency is inspired and animated by the divine marinator.

Is the marination part of how the holy spirit is at work in the world? The medieval Kabbalists thought so.  At least this is how Adam Afterman explains things in a talk at Harvard. Adamson is chair of the department of Jewish philosophy and Talmud at Tel Aviv University and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His talk is called "The rise of the holy spirit in Kabbalah."

Can non-Jewish folks like me learn from Rabbi Artson, Adam Afterman, and Kabbalistic traditions themselves? Surely so. On this page you'll find my own interpretation of aspects of Kabbalah from a Whitehead-influenced point of view. I offer a Whiteheadian understanding of Ein Sof, the divine Crown, the Sephirot, and the all important idea of divine energy. I'm sure many of you can offer better interpretations, but I'm just trying to get the ball rolling on further dialogue between process and Kabbalah.

Amid our learning, can we affirm along with Rabbi Artson that the God in whom we marinate is all-loving, and all-luring, but not all-powerful? Let Rabbi Artson's essay God is Becoming: Consolation in the Face of Tragedy, found on this page, be your own springboard for reflection.

- Jay McDaniel, Oct. 29, 2021
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​A World Marinating in the Divine

​Kabbalah and the Big Bang
Rabbi Bradley Artson

​Excerpt from the God of Becoming and Relationship

"This book offers the tools to relate to the world anew: not as the bumping together of solid substances in absolute space and time, but as a world of shimmering particles of energy that interact constantly and eternally. Every creature is a resilient pattern of interlocking energy, each in a developing process of becoming. Because becoming is concrete and real, and being is only a logical abstraction, the distillation of becoming in pure thought, Process Thought focuses on becoming as the central mode of every creature, of all creation, and indeed of the Creator as well. The universe is recognized as a series of interacting, recurrent energy patterns, but not one that endlessly loops in the same repetitive patterns. Instead, the surprising miracle of our universe is that it seems to generate novelty with each new moment of continuing creation. New stars, new galaxies, and new elements combine and create new possibilities. At least once, a galaxy with sufficient stability and diversity produced at least one solar system with at least one planet on which the slow and gradual evolution of self-conscious life could—and did—emerge. In such a worldview, God is not outside the system as some unchanging, eternal abstraction. Rather, God permeates every aspect of becoming, indeed grounds all becoming by inviting us and every level of reality to fulfill our own optimal possibilities. The future remains open, through God’s lure, to our own decisions of how or what we will choose next. God, then, uses a persistent, persuasive power, working in each of us (and all creation at every level) to nudge us toward the best possible outcome. But God’s power is not coercive and not all-powerful. God cannot break the rules or unilaterally dictate our choices. Having created and then partnered with this particular cosmos, God is vulnerable to the choices that each of us makes freely as co-creators.

Artson, DHL, Rabbi Bradley Shavit. God of Becoming and Relationship: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology (Kindle Locations 145-147). Turner Publishing Company. Kindle Edition. 

​See also Jewish and Process: Interview with Rabbi Bradley Artson

Central beliefs in Kabbalah
from Safed website
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​"Welcome to the web-site of the ancient city of Safed (also spelled Safed, Zefat, Tsfat, Zfat, Safad, Safes, Safet, Tzfat, etc.). A rather small town located in Northern Israel, 900 meters (2952 feet) above sea level in the mountains of the Upper Galilee, it commands magnificent views east to the Golan, north to the Hermon and Lebanon, west to Mt. Meron and the Amud Valley, and south to Tiberias and the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).For a long time Safed has been a well kept secret, even to most Israelis. However, according to the great mystics of the past, Safed is to play an important role in the final redemption. The Meam Loez, in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, says that the Messiah will come from Safed on his way to Jerusalem. The Ari HaKodesh said that until the Third Temple is built, the Shechinah (God's Manifest Presence) rests above Safed."

But isn't God Omnipotent?
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Merrimack Valley Havurah
​ Traditional Egalitarian Torah Study
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Process theology views God as the creator and guiding principle of the cosmos. Like Hasidic Kabbalah (panentheism) the cosmos is viewed as, to use analogy, the body of God. “As the human mind is something more than the human body, the Divine is not simply equal to the sum of the ingredients of the universe.” Where process theology differs from classical theism is in its tenet that God is not omnipotent. Rather, God is said to be in process with the universe. “God is affected by the elements of the universe, living the joys and sorrows of every created entity, yet God is not overcome by this multitude of feeling.
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We often see such ideas in Kabbalah. For instance, the Piaseczner Rebbe says:

“A Jew who is experiencing suffering thinks that only they are suffering. They assume that both their own suffering and the suffering of the Jewish people do not involve God, Chas VaShalom. However, the verse says “In all of their suffering, God suffered” (Yeshayahu 63:9). And in the Gemara it is written “When a person is suffering, what does the Divine presence say? My head hurts, my arms hurt” (Chagiga 15b). In addition, it is written in the holy books that when a Jew suffers, God experiences more suffering then a person does. And since God is without limit and cannot be grasped, it is possible that when the Jewish people suffer, God’s suffering is without limit.”

God’s vision of the perfection of the created universe remains as an eternal vision of hope. God gently persuades all entities towards this perfection by providing each of them with a glimpse of the divine vision of a better future. And yet all entities retain the freedom to depart from that vision. God acts in the world through persuasion, not coercion; through inspiration and the creation of possibility, not by miracles.

– Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczner Rebbe, Aish Kodesh p. 236

God is Becoming
Consolation in the Face of Tragedy

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

see also God Almighty? No Way!
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It started with the belief that we perceive the world as a collection of things-mostly static, isolated objects that interact but remain separate.  Being is the core of that ontology.  I believe that science joins faith to demonstrate that this perception is a distortion.

The core of reality is not being (which is an intellectual abstraction) but becoming, which is the key characteristic of all, including God.  The universe is a welter of endless change, as we and all around us reach the present as the result of the choices we have made, the “choices” creation has made, and the God-infused lure toward innovation, creativity, and righteousness that is always inviting us toward goodness.  Process thinker Charles Hartshorne referred to that not as “ontology” but as “hyathology,” from God’s dynamic name revealed to Moshe: I am becoming what I am becoming (ehyeh asher ehyeh).

I believe that God, in choosing to create, created us really.  That means that our independence is not illusory or ephemeral.  We, along with all creation, have real agency; and the choices we make are truly untrammeled, unprogrammed, and unforeseen by God.  God is vulnerable to surprise and disappointment, just as we are. The universe unfolds according to inner logic; the laws of physics operate and God cannot/does not suspend them based on moral standards.  As Rabbi Harold Kushner says, asking the universe to treat you better because you are moral is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.  I believe that God did irrevocable tzimtzum (withdrawal), creating the reality of our own autonomy and agency along with all creation.

I believe that people misunderstand the nature of divine “power” as coercive, as omnipotence, which I regard as a philosophical mistake, a religious disaster, and a source of emotional and ethical torment.  Thinking of God as having all the power leaves us rightly feeling betrayed and abandoned (“was I not good enough for God to intervene?”).  It leaves theologians in the positions of Job’s friends – discounting our core ethical knowledge in an attempt to defend the indefensible.  We do know good and evil:  God infuses us with that awareness.  And someone dying young, someone struggling with special needs, illness, or poverty is indefensible, especially if God is omnipotent.  Hiding behind “it’s a mystery,” or “we can’t understand,” or “it’s all for the best” is, in my opinion, worse than unsatisfying, because it requires either blaming the victim or denying our ethical compass.

I don’t think we have to abandon a conviction of a loving God.  But I invite us to grow past an almighty one.  If God has truly ceded to creation the ability to make choices, then God didn’t kill the innocent, didn’t allocate disability, didn’t impose poverty.  Looking for God in special effects causes us to mistake theater or science fiction for life.  God is found not in the suspension of nature’s laws, but in the intrusion of novelty and surprise from within fixed law, in the abiding nature of hope, and in the transforming power of love (a power that is persuasive, not coercive).

When my beloved student was struggling with what became a terminal illness, I saw God being very busy throughout his struggle – in moments of laughter and song, in the strength of the relating that bound us all as a community and kept my student feeling connected through his very last minutes, in the determination to be there with and for his family throughout and beyond the ordeal.  I never expected God to guarantee an outcome or suspend the natural.  I did expect to find God in the steady constant lure toward good choices and responsibility.  And that God did not disappoint.  

One last thought: if God is the ultimate exemplar of process, of the focus on becoming rather than being, then God absorbs and is affected by all that happens, by all our choices, by the ways that nature proceeds. Our sorrows are not lost – they permanently become part of the divine.  Our joys and our lives are not forgotten, they are eternally and objectively real in the divine mind.  In that way, I can affirm that my student’s life is not ended, although he is no longer visible to our eyes. He, too, is a process, and the process never ends.           

In the face of loss and grief, I offer the affirmation that our love and prayers and heart connect us to each other and to creation – that feeling the beauty around us, smelling its scents, touching the earth and sky, connecting to others, working for justice, these are encounters with all and the All, and they offer the relationship and connection that is life’s true consolation.

The Nameless and the Named:
​God, Ein-Sof, and Divine Energy

a process interpretation

Many non-Jewish process theologians are inspired by the work of Rabbi Bradley Artson.  His God of Becomiing and Relationship functions as an introduction to process theology for any and all.  They - we - will also appreciate the way he adds wisdom from rabbinics, Talmudic studies, the Zohar, and Kabbalah traditions to his own version of Jewish process theology.  We will be aware of others within and outside Judaism are are interested in Kabbalah, and we will want to see how we ourselves might understand it.  Influenced by Rabbi Artson's work and others, I offer one response.

​Many non-Jewish process theologians will find themselves in sympathy with the Chassidic scholar Schneur Zalman Liadi as described above: God is all that exists and all that exists is part of the divine whole.  We will put it this way: God is the living unity of the universe, with feelings and aims of its own, and yet all things are part of what makes up this unity.  The hills and rivers, trees and stars are part of what God feels and thus part of God even as they also have power that transcends God, just as God has power that transcends them.   Reality as a whole includes God and the universe and God is the living whole of the universe.

​We will also appreciate the general idea of Ein Sof: that there is, even beyond the personal God, a vast emptiness itself beyond any particular formal descriptions of "this" and "that" from which all things, including the personal God, emerge.  Our name for this is creativity but other names will suffice as well.   Ultimately it is nameless, beyond all names and forms.   It is "not this" and "not that" even as it is also expressed in every "this" and "that."

We will likewise appreciate the idea that the personal God is the crown of this creativity and the idea that the spirit of this God - the holy spirit as described in Kabbalah - is everwhere in different ways.   For us as for Kabbalists, this spirit is not merely an idea in the head; it is energy that can be part of the mind and body.  As we see things, the word "energy" and the word "feeling" are synonymous.  Energy is feeling; feeling is energy; and God has feelings (energies) that can be felt and embodied by humans.   We are likewise open to the idea that this spirit has (at least) ten ways of expressing itself in the universe: ten sephirot.

And certainly we would appreciate the symbol of the tree of life in Kabbalistic  traditions.  We would welcome the fact that has many different meanings for Kabbalists.  It is a symbol of (1) the ascent of the soul to God, (2) the descent of God to the soul, (3) the stages of cosmic creation, and (4) a model for reality as a whole.  And what is so interesting to many is that it can be read in such a detailed way with each sephirot having multiple meanings.  All of this, for us in the process world, will be beautiful, and we will add these multiple meanings are to be expected, since the very image of the tree is, in our words a "lure" for feeling and understanding.

In these ways, we in the world of open and relational theology, at least as we are informed by process theology, would be grateful to Judaism and to the Kabbalistic traditiion in Judaism, be with Jewish or otherwise.   Kabbalah is a gift to Judaism, to be sure, and also, in its special way, a gift to the world.  

​- Jay McDaniel, 10/29/2021

Cleaving to God, Union with God, and
​Becoming a Limb of God on earth

a process interpretation

​A process interpretation

How might a process theologian appreciate these three themes?  Here is one way:

Let the godhead be the creative abyss of which all things are manifestations: Ein-Sof.  Whitehead calls it creativity.  Let God name the primordial manifestation of this creativity, giving it character.  God is the Crown.  And let the holy spirit be how this Crown becomes a felt presence, an energy or breathing, that "descends" into the world.  It is the lure of God within each human heart and within creation as a whole, as explained by Rabbi Artson above. Let this lure be fresh possibilities for wisdom, compassion, and creativity and also divine feelings and desires that these possibilities be actualized.  When we feel the holy spirit, then, we feel God's feelings.  We are en-felt by the Holy One. 

​Imagine the possibility, then, that a person might en-felt or “embodied” by the spirit with such intensity and intimacy that she is “at one” with God. As Adam Afterman puts it, he or she is "incorporated into the godhead."  The incorporation begins with "cleaving" to the godhead as informed by divine love.  The cleaving is deeply practical.  It lies in following the Jewish way of life with sincerity and intensity: the performance of commandments, a daily study of Torah, and various techniques of purification.  As the person is purified by these means, he or she becomes a vessel, a throne, through which the divine dwells in the world. 

​In effect the person becomes a limb of the godhead, spreading divine energy to the world.  This, I believe, is how a process theologian might understand and appreciate Kaballah as explained by Adam Afterman.

What might a limb of God actually do on earth? He or she can work with others to help build compassionate communities where people live with respect and care for one another and the larger community of life.  After all, as the Kabbalistic traditions makes clear with its emphasis on corporate (not just individual) embodiment on Shabbat, communities, too, can partake of divine marination.
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- Jay McDaniel, 10/28/2021

Cleaving of the soul to the godhead​

"For the kabbalists, the initial cleaving of the soul to the godhead leads to a fundamental receptivity of the human to the overflow of God’s divine essence, the holy spirit, which flows through the godhead from the Infinite (Ein-Sof), or the supreme source in the godhead, the Crown of God (sefirah of Keter), through the different gradations of the godhead, to the sub-divine realm, and into the human.' 

Union with the godhead and divine energies

"By enveloping the human, God dwells in the human in a form of mystical integration and fusion. When a kabbalist states that one has received ru’aḥ ha-qodesh, it does not mean, like Maimonides, that he has simply been 'inspired' or experienced an intuition. Rather, it means that the divine essence and being has dwelled inside that man in a form of mystical fusion."

Becoming a limb of God on earth

What begins with the cleaving of the human soul with the godhead is completed with the indwelling of the godhead through the holy spirit in the human body. This embodiment of the divine in the human sanctifies and transforms the human into an organ or limb of the godhead, a divine and holy vessel—a “throne” or “chariot” for the dwelling of the divine.

​- The three passages above are from Adam Afterman, chair of the department of Jewish philosophy and Talmud at Tel Aviv University and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.  He has written an excellent book on Kabbalah and delivered a talk on "The Rise of the Holy Spirit in Kabbalah" that is readily accessible to all interested readers and listeners.  See below.

The Rise of the Holy Spirit in Kabbalah
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excerpts from a lecture delivered at Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity Bulletin, 2018
​https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/the-rise-of-the-holy-spirit-in-kabbalah/

ru’aḥ ha-qodesh

AN IMPORTANT YET UNDERSTUDIED element in Kabbalah, or medieval Jewish mysticism, is the mystical understanding of the Hebrew term ru’aḥ ha-qodesh, most commonly translated as “the holy spirit.” In the Jewish tradition, “ru’aḥ ha-qodesh” makes its first appearances in the Hebrew Bible in Psalms 51:13 and Isaiah 63:11-10 and becomes increasingly prevalent in classical rabbinic literature. However, it is within medieval and early modern Jewish literature, both philosophical and mystical, that the term “holy spirit” is elevated to prominence, as it becomes key for denoting the intimate communion between humanity and God, especially on the Sabbath.

- Adam Afterman

Descent of the spirit, Return to Origins​

The rise of the holy spirit’s status in Judaism is heavily indebted to the dramatic revolution of Jewish thought in the medieval era. The absorption of the surrounding Muslim and Christian cultures and of Neoplatonic, Neo-Aristotelian, and hermetic traditions led to new interpretations of the biblical and rabbinical traditions. The emergence of medieval Jewish philosophical and spiritual traditions included the development of a key idea absorbed from those three external traditions: metaphysical and spiritual overflow that originates in the metaphysical realm and descends into the human realm. Subsequently, this “new” overflow was identified with the biblical and rabbinic “holy spirit.”

Many Jewish medieval thinkers thought of this overflow not as the direct word of God nor of his essence or being, but rather as a created metaphysical or spiritual “energy” that facilitates lower levels of inspiration and sub-prophetic experiences.

​At the same time, within the work of these same thinkers, we find the development of the opposite dynamic: the possibility of the return of the human soul or mind to its origin—that is, to the metaphysical realms and its reintegration. Both dynamics were correlated with two key Hebrew terms: the integration of the human into the metaphysical realms was associated with the biblical term devequt (cleaving), and that then led to the receiving of the overflow associated with the ru’aḥ ha-qodesh (holy spirit).

- Adam Afterman

The human becomes a limb of the godhead, a divine and holy vessel

What begins with the cleaving of the human soul with the godhead is completed with the indwelling of the godhead through the holy spirit in the human body. This embodiment of the divine in the human sanctifies and transforms the human into an organ or limb of the godhead, a divine and holy vessel—a “throne” or “chariot” for the dwelling of the divine.

​​- Adam Afterman

Mystical union with God

With the emergence of Kabbalah at the end of the twelfth century, ru’aḥ ha-qodesh was no longer tied to the aforementioned metaphysical overflow, but rather to the divine overflow; that is, the kabbalists articulated a theory of a godhead conceived of as a body of divine energy radiating or emanating its essence “down” into the created worlds and the human realm. This overflow is imagined in terms of radiation or reflection of divine light and of the spirit overflowing from the divine to the world and ultimately to humanity.2 Here, we find these two rabbinic notions: While the spirit reaches the human and affects him, the spirit does so with the full capacity of God’s being; the effect is not merely the transmission of an idea or message, but rather the embodiment in the person and the fulfillment of the ultimate goal of the mystical life of the kabbalist, his fusion with God’s being. 

What is novel is the idea that by sending his holy spirit to human beings, God not only transmits his word, message, or ideas but his being and holiness as well. By enveloping the human, God dwells in the human in a form of mystical integration and fusion. When a kabbalist states that one has received ru’aḥ ha-qodesh, it does not mean, like Maimonides, that he has simply been “inspired” or experienced an intuition. Rather, it means that the divine essence and being has dwelled inside that man in a form of mystical fusion.
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Understood in terms of mystical union and embodiment, this medieval conception of the holy spirit led to an enrichment of the mystical path developed by the kabbalists. The central claim was that through the holy spirit, God ontologically dwells within him, sanctifying him. Through and by the fusion of the holy spirit in the human body, the human gradually assimilates into the divine. This mystical fusion takes place within all human faculties, including the body.

​- Adam Afterman

​A Helpful Resource for Understanding the Origins of Kabbalah

In "And They Shall Be One Flesh: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism", Adam Afterman offers for the first time an extensive study of mystical union and embodiment in Judaism.

​Afterman argues that Philo was the first to articulate the notion of unio mystica in Judaism and in monotheism and is the source of the henōsis mysticism in the later Neoplatonic tradition.

The study provides a detailed analysis of the Jewish medieval trends that developed different forms of mystical union and mystical embodiment through the Holy Spirit.

​The book argues that the development of unitive mysticism in Judaism is the fruit of substantial moments of openness, not only to Greek and Arab philosophy but also to Islam and Christianity"

​- from the publisher

​Adam Afterman, chair of the department of Jewish philosophy and Talmud at Tel Aviv University and as a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, discusses the rise of the “holy spirit” in medieval Judaism. Afterman spoke at the Center for the Study of World Religions on October 2, 2017.