Where is God? Have you ever stopped to truly consider that question? It seems simple, almost childlike. But the deeper you delve, the more mysterious it becomes.
The mystics of our tradition have wrestled with this for centuries. And, surprisingly, one answer keeps surfacing: No one knows.
Think about that for a moment. No one. Not even the highest-ranking angels, those beings who dwell closest to the Divine Throne itself, know where God is truly hidden. Even the heavenly creatures tasked with carrying that very Throne are in the dark, so to speak. Why? Because, as it says in Psalms (18:12), God "made darkness His screen."
It’s a powerful image, isn't it? God deliberately shrouding Himself in darkness and cloud. As we find in Midrash Rabbah and other sources, God has essentially made Himself inaccessible.
But why? What does it mean that God is hidden?
Some interpretations are startlingly intimate. Some suggest that the verse "You hid Your face" (Ps. 30:8) implies that God is even hidden from Himself. Think of it like trying to locate your own soul within your body. You know it's there, it's integral to who you are, but can you pinpoint its exact location?
This idea of a hidden God is deeply explored in Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. In Kabbalistic thought, God's hiddenness is directly linked to the concept of Ein Sof (אין סוף), which literally means "endless." Ein Sof represents the infinite, unknowable aspect of God, the aspect that exists beyond and above the realm of the sefirot—the emanations through which God manifests in the world.
The Zohar, the foundational text of Kabbalah, puts it plainly: "Ein Sof does not abide being known" (Zohar 3:26b). It's a radical statement, suggesting that there's an essential part of God that will forever remain beyond our grasp.
There are more unusual, and perhaps troubling, explanations too. Masekhet Hekhalot 3 offers a rather strange reason for God's self-imposed hiddenness: to prevent the ministering angels from being "nourished by the splendor of the Shekhinah," the Divine Presence, or by the splendor of God's throne, glory, or kingship. In this view, God is deliberately withholding His glory from the angels, maintaining an exclusive and inaccessible realm. This aligns with the Kabbalistic understanding of Ein Sof, where God's ultimate nature must remain unknown and unapproachable.
Is this a dark myth, a reflection of God's absence? Or is it a profound metaphor for the inherent mystery of the Divine? Perhaps it's both.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1811), a prominent Hasidic leader, offers yet another perspective. In his Likutei Moharan, he interprets "You hid Your face" (Ps. 30:8) as a commentary on the Jewish experience of exile. He suggests that during times of exile, it feels as though God has turned His back on us. Our prayers and requests are born from this sense of abandonment, from a deep longing for God to turn His face back towards us, as expressed in the verse "Turn to me" (Ps. 86:16).
So, where is God hidden? Perhaps the answer isn't a location, but a state of being. A reminder that the Divine is both present and ultimately unknowable, a mystery that invites us to seek, to question, and to deepen our relationship with the Source of all being. Maybe the hiding is part of the revelation itself.