The Rabbis at Messages, a weekly television program in Ontario, discuss complex, intricate and subtle Biblical concepts for about a half each week. The episode (which is several years old) is repeated again during the week, which I tune in to since I invariably miss some of the difficult concepts the first time around.
Here are the notes I took during an episode with Rabbi Immanuel Schochet this past week (after two viewings!):
- God is not affected (changed) by our good deeds
- God is not affected (changed) by our sin
- God does not need us except as recipients for his benevolence
- When we sin, we block up the channels for receiving God's benevolence, so that the blessing of God cannot come down to us
- By sinning, we have disabled ourselves from receiving God's blessings
- It isn't God that changed, it is us (by sinning), and the consequent (apparent) change we think we perceive in God, which is manifested to us through the loss in his blessings
- Through sin, it appears to us as though God is gone
- Our sinning affects not only us, but the world around us, by removing God's blessings, or by blocking the channels for those blessings, to the world
- The mitzvah are made to refine the world - to show the world contains Godliness in it
- We use terms like "God is angry" or "God is pleased" to help us understand him withing the limitations of our experiences
- The Torah speaks the language of man (so that man can understand the message of God)
- But, we use terminology rooted in God (our understanding of God is nonetheless based on the understanding he provides us of himself)
- God is aloof, transcendent, beyond
- God is God
Rabbi Immanuel Schochet
(August 27, 1935 - July 27, 2013)
Addendum: Kristor who writes at the Orthosphere makes similar observations in his post No Way Out - Only In.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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