{"id":110,"date":"2006-10-05T19:11:20","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T19:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/summametaphysica.com\/ge\/90010-contraction-of-divine-consciousness\/90011-building-blocks\/90011c-multiple-levels-of-the-divine\/"},"modified":"2018-04-23T20:28:38","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T20:28:38","slug":"90011c-multiple-levels-of-the-divine","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/ge\/90010-contraction-of-divine-consciousness\/90011-building-blocks\/90011c-multiple-levels-of-the-divine\/","title":{"rendered":"900.11c Multiple levels of the Divine (pps.119-121)"},"content":{"rendered":"

hard cover page 119<\/p>\n

900.11c Multiple Levels of the Divine<\/p>\n

Thus man must seek his potential; potential demands freedom; intellectual attainment demands greater freedom; freedom demands greater privacy and independence; greater privacy and independence demand Divine contraction. Potentially God’s consciousness is present throughout real-time and outof-time. However, in the greater cosmic interest, the potentially infinite real-time consciousness of the Deity is contracted.<\/p>\n

Over time, God manifests and contracts His various potentialities to different degrees, to different ends, in different dimensions-all beyond mortal comprehension or perception, in spite of the fact that the general principle is within our comprehension.<\/p>\n

“And [if] they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” and the reply came to him, EHEYEH-ASHER-EHEYEH <\/em>[I-WILL-BE-THAT-WHICH-I-WILL-BE].
\n-Exodus 3:14<\/p>\n

The words “YHVH is His name” are added, then, to teach that. . . a God manifest in history manifests Himself differently according to the exigencies of the historical moment.
\n-Fackenheim488<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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488 <\/sup>Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History, p. 21.<\/p>\n

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As an infinite entity, God has infinite levels and possible permutations of manifesting His consciousness-and conse-quently of intervening with man. In turn, for man to be truly free and to be in a position to fulfill his great potential, there comes a point where a full manifestation of Divine consciousness in the here-and-now cannot be maintained on a steady basis.<\/p>\n

The acceptance of El Moleh Rachamim<\/em> and Divine omnipotence as tenets of Jewish theology forces us to address the here-and-now aspect of God’s omniscience. For, notwithstanding the need for man’s freedom, God’s mercifulness should force His hand.<\/p>\n

It is indeed emotionally abhorrent to imagine a noninterven-ing God of Israel watching His children being used for medical experiments sans anesthesia in the factories of death. In the wake of Auschwitz it is difficult enough to maintain a belief in a nonintervening Deity \u00c3 la Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover. It is pressing beyond credible limits to posit an active intervening God during the period.489<\/sup> We reject, as a basis for a Jewish theological structure, a God who operates in a Kafkaesque moral theater. We are forced almost inexorably to address at least the here-and-now aspect of God’s omniscience.<\/p>\n

Thus, an omnipotent Deity can indeed have foreknowledge, and here-and-now omniscience. It is, however, due to the Divine exigencies of the cosmos and the Divine plan for it that God contracts God’s consciousness.<\/p>\n

Our explication of contraction of here-and-now Divine consciousness as a form of Hester should not be viewed as simply an onloff state. Rather it should be viewed as a range or spectrum. ranging from a high level of real-time conscious state to a totally non-real-time conscious state, with infinite multidimensional variations in between.<\/p>\n

Norman Lamm points out that in between the two extremes in the relationship between God and Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u201don the one hand, complete severance of the dialogue between God and Israel<\/p>\n

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489 <\/sup>See Paul A. Schilpp and Maurice Friedman, eds. The Philosophy of Martin Buber,<\/em> p. 32, as cited in Schulweis, Evil and the Morality of God<\/em>, p. 25. Buber goes on to explain that there is nothing astonishing in the fact that an observant Jew, “when he has to choose between [a merciful, caring] God and the [sometimes seemingly severe] Bible, chooses God: The God whom he believes, Him in whom he can believe.”<\/p>\n

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hard cover page 121<\/p>\n

(classic Hester Panim<\/em>), and on the other hand, resumption of the dialogue (Nesiat Panim<\/em>)-there are intermediate levels indicated by the Talmud.490<\/sup> Thus, depending on the level of Hester<\/em>, human prayer or entreaty has commensurate possibilities of penetrating the veils of Divine consciousness (elaborated on below).<\/p>\n

The connection between ascent in knowledge and the dynamics of freedom\/potential is embedded in the Garden of Eden tale and is not a twentieth-century invention. The concept of every action having a reaction also has applicability on a cosmic level. Ascents in one realm lead to descents in other realms. Thus, when viewed from the above perspectives, one can develop a fair case for positing that ascents in knowledge, on the part of man, lead to an effective quasi-descent, or contraction, in an aspect of knowledge (here-and-now) on the part of the infinite Divine. Man is, after all, a partner with the Divine in creation.<\/p>\n

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490 <\/sup>N. Lamm, in “The Religious Meaning of the Six Day War,” Tradition<\/em> 10, no. 1 (Summer 1968): 7-8. “Between these two poles there are, according to the Sages of the Talmud, two intermediate states. In the lower state, there is no relationship. Nonetheless, God does preserve Israel; His ‘hand is stretched forth’ to protect us from oblivion. Other than mere survival, there is no real redemptive meaning to the vicissitudes of our history. But the second state, penultimate to nesiat panim<\/em>, is that of ‘in a dream I address him.’ ”<\/p>\n

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hard cover page 119 900.11c Multiple Levels of the Divine Thus man must seek his potential; potential demands freedom; intellectual attainment demands greater freedom; freedom demands greater privacy and independence; greater privacy and independence demand Divine contraction. Potentially God’s consciousness is present throughout real-time and outof-time. 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