Many Lamps
Photo by Mike Labrum
The lamps are different,
but the light is the same.¹
— Rumi
Accept the Truth
from whatever source it comes.²
— Old adage, cited by Maimonides
in his Introduction to Tractate Avos
On these pages you’ll find light shining from many lamps, and as such you’ll see a variety of terms that refer to God, G-d, and Gd. For example:
Totality
The One
The Eternal
The Eternal One
One without a Second
Divinity
The Divine
Hashem
Adonai
Allah
I AM
Being
Mind
Spirit
Soul
Principle
Life
Truth
Love
Consciousness
Pure Consciousness
The God-idea
to name a few!
In her book, The Path of Blessing, Rabbi Macia Prager tells of “A noble thinker [who] once challenged Martin Buber” regarding the use of the word ‘God’:
What you mean by the name of God
is something beyond
all human grasp and comprehension,
but in speaking about it you have
lowered it to human conceptualization.
What word in human speech
is so misused, so defiled,
so desecrated as this!
All the innocent blood
that has been shed for it
has robbed it of its radiance.
All the injustice that it has been used
to cover has effaced its features.
When I hear the highest called ‘God,’
it sometimes seems almost blasphemous.³
Unfortunately the word 'God' has been associated
with the supernatural, instead of the natural—
and with a supreme Being, instead of all Being…⁴
— Margaret Laird
For many of us, the word God conjures up an image of an old man with a beard, seated on a throne in the sky. Although this image may have served well in Biblical times, it more than hints at time, space, separation, journey, and gender. These objections are resolved when we know God as divine consciousness:
‘Consciousness’ is a [non-religious]
scientific way
of referring to Totality,
One without a Second,
which from a religious point of view
we refer to as God.⁵
— Steve Sufian
We can begin to know God
by unlearning what we think about God.
One of the kabbalistic names
for the Infinite is Nishayon, “forgetting.”
One knows God through unknowing,
through shedding inadequate conceptions,
just as a sculptor cuts away everything
that obscures the clarity of the hidden form.
God is not somewhere else
hidden from us,
God is right here, hidden from us.⁶
— Daniel C. Matt
Waves of the Ocean
1] Rumi, One One One, http://notdarkyet-commentary.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-lamps-are-different-but-light-is.html • 08.23.21
[2] Malka Touger, A Partner In The Dynamic Of Creation: Womanhood in the Teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson / An Overview, http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books/partner-in-the-dynamic-of-creation/02.htm#t2 07.31.2001 • See also https://schechter.edu/what-maimonides-means-to-me/#:~:text=Synthesis%20of%20Torah%20and%20secular,the%20Sages%20of%20Montpellier%20(ed. 01.08.2025 AX 1853
[3] Marcia Prager, The Path of Blessing, (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998), p. 79-80
[4] Margaret Laird, What is the Idea?, (Institute of Metaphysical Science, 1953), p. 9 AX 7527
[5] Steve Sufian, Torah and Vedic Scholar, Commentary on Parashat Devarim, Congregation Beth Shalom Newsletter, Fairfield, IA • 07.23.20 AX 6003
[6] Daniel C. Matt, God and the Big Bang, (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1996), p. 171
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