The Hidden God

The emperor said to Rabban Gamliel: I know what your God does and where He sits. Rabban Gamliel was strained and sighed. The emperor said to him: What is this? He said to him: I have one son in the cities of the sea, and I have longings for him. I want you to show him to me. The emperor said: Do I know where he is? He said to him: That which is on the earth you do not know, yet that which is in the heavens you do know? The emperor said to Rabban Gamliel: You say that wherever there are ten the Divine Presence rests; how many Divine Presences are there? Rabban Gamliel called the emperor's servant and struck him on the neck. He said to him: Why does the sun enter the house of the emperor? He said to him: The sun shines upon the whole world. Rabban Gamliel said: And if the sun, which is but one of a thousand thousand myriads of servants that are before the Holy One, blessed be He, shines upon the whole world, then the Divine Presence of the Holy One, blessed be He, how much more so.

אמר ליה קיסר לרבן גמליאל: ידענא אלהייכו מאי קא עביד והיכן יתיב. איתנגיד ואיתנח. אמר ליה: מאי האי? אמר ליה: בן אחד יש לי בכרכי הים ויש לי גיעגועים עליו. בעינא דמחוית ליה ניהלי. אמר: מי ידענא היכא ניהו? אמר ליה: דאיכא בארעא לא ידעת, דאיכא בשמיא ידעת? אמר ליה קיסר לרבן גמליאל: אמריתו כל בי עשרה שכינתא שריא, כמה שכינתא איכא? קרייה לשמעיה, מחא ביה באפתקא. אמר ליה: אמאי על שמשא בביתיה דקיסר? אמר ליה: שמשא אכולי עלמא ניחא. ומה שמשא דחד מן אלף אלפי ריבוא שמשי דקמי קודשא בריך הוא ניחא אכולי עלמא, שכינתא דקודשא בריך הוא על אחת כמה וכמה.

Commentary

This myth of a hidden God is based on the verse He that dwells in the secret place, the most high, in the shade of God He will linger (Ps. 91:1). Other verses that confirm this view of a hidden God are Psalm 30:8: You hid Your face, and Isaiah 64:6: For You have hidden Your face from us. This might be regarded as a dark myth about the absence of God, or it might be seen as a metaphor for the hidden nature of God: just as no person knows where his soul is located within himself, so too does no one know the place of God. The most profound development of a hidden God is found in kabbalah, where God's hiddenness is directly related to God as Ein Sof, which literally meaning "endless." This is the infinite God, the unknowable God, the God above the realm of the sefirot. The Zohar states, for example, that " Ein Sof does not abide being known" (Zohar 3:26b). Masekhet Hekhalot 3 offers a strange reason for God having hidden Himself: "So that the ministering angels cannot be nourished by the splendor of the Shekhinah, nor by the splendor of His throne, nor by the splendor of His glory, nor by the splendor of His kingship." In this view God is inaccessible to the angels and is determined to withhold his glory from them. This conclusion follows the kabbalistic concept of Ein Sof, where the ultimate nature of God must always remain unknown. In Likutei Moharan Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1811) interprets You hid Your face (Ps. 30:8) as meaning that God has turned his back on the Jewish people during the Exile: "In our Exile the face of God is hidden. All our prayers and requests are a result of God's having turned His back to us. We want Him to turn back His face, as it is said. Turn to me" (Ps. 86:16).

Themes

Original Sources

Biblical References

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