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The One G-d and His relationship with mankind
#1
This may be an obvious question, but it's something I've been struggling with for awhile:

Does G-d actually love me?

I used to feel so close to Him, and I experienced Him consciously in every facet of my life. I rarely worried about anything, because I knew that whatever happened, He and His infinite love were behind it. I experienced indescribable inner transformation because of my connection to Him.

This was before I knew about Noachism and Judaism. Although some aspects of my life have been greatly enhanced by Torah's teachings, others teachings have proven to be a stumbling block in my relationship with G-d. Because I felt close to Him before *without* the medium of Torah, and it seems that a person can only be close to Him *through* Torah, was I just attaching to kelippah that made me feel good? Or was I truly connected to Him? The thought that it was anything other than G-d Himself is truthfully devastating to me.

I also struggle with statements that either outright say or imply that G-d hates some people(s) and loves others. I can't see what the point of human beings is if most humans are not Jews or righteous gentiles, and the concept seems to be that G-d therefore does not love them. What happens to everyone else?

Thank you for your time.
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#2
Thank you for your question to the forum!

greengirl47 Wrote:Does G-d actually love me?
I used to feel so close to Him, and I experienced Him consciously in every facet of my life. I rarely worried about anything, because I knew that whatever happened, He and His infinite love were behind it. I experienced indescribable inner transformation because of my connection to Him.

Because we are limited human beings, we can only really have conceptions about our infinite G-d that are based on analogies to human terms. In the analogy, we envision a wise, understanding, kind and merciful king, who rules over his subjects in his kingdom with individual attention and care. Of course the king has love for his loyal subjects who look to him and approach him with love. The objects of the analogy, G-d and yourself, should be obvious.

greengirl47 Wrote:This was before I knew about Noachism and Judaism.

As the King's loving subject, of course you would not wish to do anything that would displease the King, and if you did, you would humbly ask for His forgiveness. Therefore, if you found out that the King had issued a few basic commandments for His subjects to live by, for their very own good and with rewards as only the King can bestow, of course you would want to learn all the details and fulfill these wishes of your King to the best of your ability. That is what Noahidism is about. Learning that there is such a thing, through which you can come even closer than you imagined before, should be an uplifting new dimension in your relationship with G-d.

And now, you can understand that you also aren't limited to connecting to G-d with just your own very limited understanding. He was so kind as to condense His infinite wisdom into a human-intelligible context, His Torah, and through this you can not only have a love for Him, but also a true understanding of Him at whatever level you are presently at. By applying yourself to understand Him better through Torah (and at the same time understand yourself better through Torah), you can come to an even deeper and more meaningful love for Him.

This is predicated on the fact that through Noahidism as it is ideally meant to be, you connect directly to G-d, and not through any levels or beings that you might imagine to be necessary intermediaries or partners with Him, G-d forbid.

greengirl47 Wrote:Although some aspects of my life have been greatly enhanced by Torah's teachings, others teachings have proven to be a stumbling block in my relationship with G-d. Because I felt close to Him before *without* the medium of Torah, and it seems that a person can only be close to Him *through* Torah

That is not correct. A person could know very little about Torah, and be close to G-d. And a person could know a great deal of Torah, and be far from G-d.

However, a person is a finite creation, and inherently limited. Therefore, the desire of the faithful should be to develop not just "closeness," but an *attachment* to G-dliness that will also be *eternal.* The "medium" (as you expressed it) for accomplishing this eternality is through fulfillment of G-d's desire for you to please observe the eternal precepts that He presents to you (as presents) in His eternal Torah.

greengirl47 Wrote:was I just attaching to kelippah that made me feel good? Or was I truly connected to Him? The thought that it was anything other than G-d Himself is truthfully devastating to me.

Assume that you were experiencing good feelings about being close to the One True G-d, Who is the G-d of Israel and the Giver of the Torah of Moses. But are those good feelings all you want from G-d, or are you also concerned about what it is that G-d wants from you? By putting yourself(ness) aside a bit, and making room in your life for serving G-d as He desires - through the Noahide Code - you will develop a more personal *relationship* with G-d.

greengirl47 Wrote:I also struggle with statements that either outright say or imply that G-d hates some people(s) and loves others.

If you claim that G-d could not hate, then you are putting a limitation on G-d, which is impossible, because G-d is not limited. And what would G-d consider to hate, if not the evil actions of those who tenaciously persist in hating Him and purposefully rebelling against Him, as long as they choose to continue in that way, and teach their children and their children's children to do the same? But it is a general principle that G-d hates the sin, and not the sinner, because when a sinner repents sincerely to G-d, he will be forgiven and accepted. And G-d loves it when such people repent and accept Him as He is (because He is not going to change).

greengirl47 Wrote:I can't see what the point of human beings is if most humans are not Jews or righteous gentiles,

Human beings were created to be an eternal and righteous race, created in the Divine image, on an eternal world that will be a place for Him to be openly revealed, more so than He was in the Garden of Eden. What you see now, that there has been a period of time in which not all Gentiles have been righteous yet, is a brief and temporary state of affairs, and part of the preparation that is necessary to set the stage for the eternal Messianic Era.

greengirl47 Wrote:and the concept seems to be that G-d therefore does not love them. What happens to everyone else?

“For then I shall turn to the peoples a pure tongue that all shall call upon the Name of G-d to serve Him with one consent.” (Zephaniah 3:9)

"All will form a single band to carry out the will of G-d, blessed be He." (From the Rosh Hashanah liturgy)

"The earth will be as filled with knowledge of G-d as water covering the sea bed." (Isaiah 11:9)

“G-d shall be King over the entire earth; in that day G-d shall be One and His Name One.” (Zechariah 14:9)

The Messiah, who will be descended from King David and King Solomon, will inspire people of all nations to turn to G-d in righteousness through their Torah commandments, as these prophetic verses promise. But the true reward for an individual is that which is earned by one's own faith and actions, by inspiring one's self to move in this direction, before the Messiah makes his appearance speedily in our days.

greengirl47 Wrote:Thank you for your time.

You're welcome!
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#3
In Genesis, it says "Let us create man in Our image." This is a stumbling block for many people. How do you rectify this. The words "let us," and "Our" seem to denote more than one G-d. I don't think that He is talking to Himself, so is He talking to angels, or are there other G-d's? I believe in One G-d, but I often wonder if this is one of the first mis-translations of the original texts.

Another question is why cannot a gentile rest on the 7th day of rest to dedicate that day to G-d?

And my last question for now. Many times I have read and heard that G-d is everywhere and doesn't have a body, so how is it that some of the prophets of G-d spoke to Him face to face, or ate with Him or walked with Him. If He is everywhere, then why would He ask or call out to Adam, "where are you?", when Adam was hiding because of his nudity, or ask Cain "where is your brother Abel?" If He is spirit and everywhere these questions would not be needed because He would already know the answer. And how would someone wrestle with the L-rd if he was not a physical being?

I am not trying to refute the writings, but I really want to know the answers to these questions.

Thank you for your time.
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#4
1) The Oral Torah explains the simple meaning of this verse as follows: "And G-d said [to the ministering angels who He had created on the second day of creation], "Let us make man."
When Moses the faithful scribe wrote down the Torah and came to this verse, which is in the plural and could be thought to imply (G-d forbid) that there is more than one creator, he said "Sovereign of the Universe! Why do you thus furnish a pretext for the heretics to maintain that there is a plurality of the Divinities?" G-d replied, "whomever wishes to err [regarding idolatrous ideas] will err... Instead let them learn from their Creator Who created all, yet when He came to create man He [humbly] took council with the ministering angels." G-d provided His answer to the heretics in the very next verse (Genesis 1:27): And G-d created [SINGULAR verb] man..."

2) Gentiles may rest and/or set aside time on the Seventh day for serving G-d, but not in the unique way that Jews are commanded. The sanctification of the Seventh day as a Sabbath of restraint from 39 specific activities and their derivatives was given only to the Jews, so a Gentile who copies this is stealing an inheritance that is not his.

3) One of the Thirteen Fundamental Principles of the Jews' Torah faith is that G-d has no form or body. Our Sages explained that every time a bodily part or act is mentioned regarding G-d in the Torah, it is an allegory for spiritual concepts, but written in the language of man.

The author of the holy Tanya, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, was imprisoned by the Czar of Russia under false accusations. During his imprisonment, one of the Ministers of the Czar asked him to explain the verse where G-d asked Adam, "Where are you?" The Rabbi explained that G-d knew where Adam was, and it was a rhetorical question asking Adam, "And now that you disobeyed Me, at what level are you in this world? Where are you holding in your spiritual path?", and that at all times, G-d is asking this question to every person. By asking this question, G-d gave Adam an opportunity to sieze the moment and repent for his error, and be forgiven. But instead Adam acted ungraciously, and tried to put the blame onto G-d for giving him Hava as his wife (who he had previuosly yearned for from G-d).

4) Likewise, G-d also knew where Abel's body was hidden, but He asked Cain to see if Cain would have remorse and confess. Cain should have answered, "You G-d are all-knowing, You know that I killed him [and I regret my act]." But Cain showed no remorse and did not repent, and he did not ask for any forgiveness until he was faced with G-d's pronouncement of his punishment.

5) Jacob did not wrestle with G-d, but rather with Esau's guardian angel. Angels are given physical forms when G-d requires them to go on missions in a human form. When an angel is on a mission from G-d, the Torah calls that angel by one of the names of G-d [Elokim], because the Divine power channeled through that Name is being invested in that angel.

On a cosmic level, this struggle between Jacob and Esau's angel is ongoing until the descendants of Esau become spiritually refined in preparation for the Messianic Era.
See our web page: https://asknoah.org/essay/elevating-creation
Rabbi Yitz
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#5
Hi,

Good stuff. Thanks a lot for sharing everything..!!
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#6
greengirl47 Wrote:I also struggle with statements that either outright say or imply that G-d hates some people(s) and loves others.

Can this be posted:

G-d in His essence does not have feelings and is not bound by any such limitation. We can not refer to Him at all with any descriptive statement.
So when it says that He 'hates' (which of course is an English translation, and not an actual Torah term) this simply informs us, in a terse mathematical manner, that 'this is the opposite of My will. This is the opposite of what I created the world for.'

The very phrase 'G-d can hate' seems to be a treatment of Him in human terms.
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#7
The discussion at hand is not about G-d in His Essence, about which we (as created beings) cannot have any intellectual understanding at all. Rather, the discussion is about G-d as He Himself chooses to limit Himself to be concerned about, and to interact with, and to impart wisdom to, the human beings He has created upon this physical world that He chooses to desire.

It would not be known to us that we could refer to Him at all with any particular descriptive statements, except that He Himself revealed to us through His prophets of the Hebrew Bible that certain descriptive statements about Him are correctly allowed to be made, with the understanding that the prophet is speaking about exceedingly spiritually lofty concepts, within a garment of human terms, so that a conception of the subject can be attained through abstraction from the human analogy.

This is one of the points that Rambam (Maimonides) explains in his work, "The Guide of the Perplexed." See there, Part I, Chapter 36, in the English translation by Shlomo Pines (ISBN 9780226502304):

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchR...0226502304

Quoting from the text:
"Know that if you consider the whole of the Torah and all the books of the prophets, you will find that the expressions, 'wrath,' 'anger,' and 'jealousy,' are exclusively used with reference to idolatry. You will also find that the expressions, 'enemy of G-d' or 'adversary' or 'hater' [of G-d], are exclusively used to designate an idolater... Now the books of the prophets only make this strong assertion [of G-d's hatred] because it concerns a false opinion attaching to Him, may He be exalted; I refer to idolatrous worship... for the reason that [idolaters'] infidelity bears upon a prerogative reserved to G-d alone, may He be exalted - ... the prerogative of being worshiped and magnified. This is ordained [by G-d] in order that G-d's existence may be firmly established in the belief of the multitude. Now the idolaters thought that this prerogative belonged to that which was other than G-d, and this led to the disappearance of the belief in His existence, may He be exalted, from among the multitude... What then should be the state of him whose infidelity [instead] bears upon His Essence, may He be exalted, and consists in believing Him to be different from what He really is? I mean to say that he does not believe that He exists; or believes that there are two gods, or that He is a body, [etc.]... Such a man is indubitably more blameworthy than a worshiper of idols who regards the latter as intermediaries or as having the power to do good or ill...."
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#8
I have read that any bible portion that begins with "Hear Oh Israel...." is specifically directed towards the Jewish people. If that is the case, what is the signifigance of this phrase in Deuteronomy 6:4 ("Hear, Oh Israel: the Lord our G-d, the Lord is one.")? Isn't it a command for all mankind to believe in the unity and oneness of G-d?

-Finch-
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#9
Although this verse expresses one of the positive ("to do") commandments to Jews specifically (that Jewish men must recite these words everyday, in the morning and in the evening), the call is universal. The call "Hear O Israel," that the True G-d is One, is appropriate to all mankind. Indeed, Rashi [in the name of the Talmud's Sages] explains this verse by citing the Hebrew Bible's prophecy that in the future Messianic Era [may it come speedily in our days!], the whole world will recognize that there is only the One G-d. In other words, the simple traditional meaning of the verse is: Hear, O Israel, that the True G-d you have realized through His revelation at Mt. Sinai (and through His redeeming you miraculously from slavery in Egypt) is One G-d; know that in the future Messianic Era, He will be recognized by all mankind as One G-d, as implied by the prophecy Zephania 3:9: "Then I will turn the hearts of all nations to call clearly in the Name of G-d," and Zecharia 14:9: "Then on that day [in the Messianic Era] G-d will be One, and His Name will be One [in the recognition of all humanity]."

There is an additional point here. A Jewish Commandment (a Mitzvah) [eternally commanded to the Jewish people] in the Torah, even though it is not given to Gentiles, does not mean that it is entirely unrelated to the Gentiles. Many commandments specifically given to the Jews are incorporated in the 7 Universal Noahide commandments. In the case in point, the general [negative, i.e. "do not"] Noahide commandment not to worship idols includes many details, including positive aspects, such as believing in the One G-d, praying (only) to Him, and meditating about Him and His attributes and His Truth, in order to bring every person to awe and love of Him. Therefore, although the verse "Hear O Israel" should not be seen as an explicit commandment to Gentiles, it indeed expresses a very important aspect of their Divine service - for every person to contemplate from this verse and others in the Torah, G-d's greatness and Unity.

The same point goes the other way. Although G-d commanded all mankind in a set of Divine Laws for Gentiles, still most of the 7 Laws for Gentiles are thematically also directed in the Torah to Jews, to enhance their Jewish commandments and obligations, but usually G-d has brought more detailed obligations on the Jews. In this case, this verse "Hear O Israel" is an opening to the following verses of Jewish commandments: "And you shall love G-d with all your heart, and all your soul and all your might, etc." The details that follow there are added dimensions of this recognition that G-d commanded to Jews, to deepen their belief into an especially demanding love for G-d, including constant preparedness to love G-d more than one's own self and one's own life, and to translate this belief and love not only into a Jew sacrificing his or her life to sanctify the Name of G-d when the extraordinary situation demands this, but also into the special mitzvah activities and sanctified way of life on a continuous daily basis that G-d commanded there for the Jews (studying Torah orally, Jewish education for the children, tefillin, mezuzah, etc).
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#10
I believe that G-d's love for us is fair. We should consider trials/chastisement as blessings for us to grow. Does He esteem not the righteous, but punish the wicked?
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