Weeping God of the Jewish Talmud

The Oral Torah or Talmud echoed the Written Torah in preserving the anthropomorphic (manlike) and corporeal (bodily) depictions of God contained in the latter. The rabbinic authorities, with rare exception, emboldened the corporealism (presenting God in bodily/material terms) of the Written Torah and made it so graphic that the Talmudic God became nothing short of a complete human being with excessive human limitations.

Some efforts have been made by rabbis such as Rabbi Simon b. Judah, Rabbi Judah b. Ilai, Rabbi Joshua b. Levi and Rabbi Zeira (the student of Hisda of Huna) to remove or mitigate biblical anthropomorphism from rabbinic literature but they have been part of a tiny minority. Some of these Rabbis have placed particles such as “as it were” or “as though it were possible” before anthropomorphic biblical expressions to mitigate their intensity. Many actions, appearances, and attributes, repugnant to the concept of a transcendent and absolute Deity, were ascribed to intermediary beings and angels. In these circumstances, observes Jacob B. Agus: “their legal training came to the aid of the sages. Accustomed to weigh the full significance of each word in the Torah, they applied the same method to the Scriptural verses which imply the Lord’s presence with men. The verb shochon, “to dwell,” was thus turned into a noun, shechinah, “presence,” implying that an emanation from the Supreme Being or a special effulgence of divine radiance was made to dwell in certain places...”

Such interpretations had their own peculiar difficulties and problems. They made the intermediary beings such as angels look like God with divine attributes, qualities, and actions leading to a sense of incarnation (God appearing in the body of material/bodily entities), divine multiplicity, and a sort of division within Godhead. The terms, observes S. Schechter “which were accepted in order to weaken or nullify anthropomorphic expressions were afterwards hypostatized and invested with a semi-independent existence, or personified as the creatures of God. This will explain the fact that, along with the allegorizing tendency, there is also a marked tendency in the opposite direction, insisting on the literal sense of the world of the Bible, and even exaggerating the corporeal terms.”

The rabbinic mind faced two choices in describing God, i.e. personification (hypostatization, meaning presenting an abstract, spiritual being in material and bodily terms) or anthropomorphism and corporealism. They seem to have opted for the second option. As a result, the “God of rabbinic Judaism”, notes R. M. Seltzer “was as anthropomorphic as the God of the Bible, but in different ways. He studies Torah, he dresses in a prayer shawl; he prays to himself... Qualified by “as it were,” the human qualities that the rabbis identify as godly lead them to depict a fatherly deity, intimate and personal, loving without compromising his ethical rigor, a God who weeps when he must punish.”

The following Talmudic passages substantiate the points made. God prays: “R. Johanan says in the name of R. Jose: How do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, says prayers? Because it says: Even them will I bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. It is not said, ‘their prayer’, but ‘My prayer’; hence [you learn] that the Holy One, blessed be He, says prayers. What does He pray? — R. Zutra b. Tobi said in the name of Rab: ‘May it be My will that My mercy may suppress My anger, and that My mercy may prevail over My [other] attributes, so that I may deal with My children in the attribute of mercy and, on their behalf, stop short of the limit of strict justice’.”

Some Rabbis are regarded as spiritually so elevated that God seeks their blessings: “It was taught: R. Ishmael b. Elisha says: I once entered into the innermost part [of the Sanctuary] to offer incense and saw Akathriel Jah, the Lord of Hosts, seated upon a high and exalted throne. He said to me: Ishmael, My son, bless Me! I replied: May it be Thy will that Thy mercy may suppress Thy anger and Thy mercy may prevail over Thy other attributes, so that Thou mayest deal with Thy children according to the attribute of mercy and mayest, on their behalf, stop short of the limit of strict justice! And He nodded to me with His head.”

Talmudic passages such as these met with vehement opposition and ridicule from non-Jewish writers and were dubbed as blasphemous. Both the Geonic era (539–1038 CE) and post-Geonic era rabbis responded to such attacks by interpreting Akathriel Jah as an angel or the Light of Glory. Arthur Marmorstein notes that such an effort would not have succeeded anyway as the “ancient readers saw in this name God Himself. Besides, the older as well as the younger Haggadah preserved numerous traces of a religious conception in which God is spoken of or imagined as a visible figure. Rabbis in the Middle Ages still adhered to such a presentation of religious teaching. The Midrash depicts the Hebrews as seeing God as a warrior or as a learned scribe. The Hebrews on the Red Sea were able to point at God with their fingers, ‘They beheld His image as a man is able to look his friend in the face.’”

God wears traditional Tefillin (a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah.), “I will take away My hand, and thou shalt see My back. R. Hama b. Bizana said in the name of R. Simon the Pious: This teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed Moses the knot of the tefillin.” God follows a fixed day schedule and sports with Leviathan: “Yet Rab Judah said in the name of Rab: ‘The day consists of twelve hours; during the first three hours the Holy One, blessed be He, is occupying Himself with the Torah, during the second three He sits in judgment on the whole world, and when He sees that the world is so guilty as to deserve destruction, He transfers Himself from the seat of Justice to the seat of Mercy; during the third quarter, He is feeding the whole world, from the horned buffalo to the brood of vermin; during the fourth quarter He is sporting with the leviathan, as it is said, There is leviathan, whom Thou hast formed to sport therewith’? Said R. Nahman b. Isaac: Yes, He sports with

His creatures, but does not laugh at His creatures…” God also has a fixed night schedule and he listens to songs: “And what does He do by night? — If you like you may say, the kind of thing He does by day; or it may be said that He rides a light cherub, and floats in eighteen thousand worlds; for it is said, the chariots of God are myriads, even thousands shinan… He sits and listens to the song of the Hayyoth, as it is said, By the day the Lord will command His loving kindness and in the night His song shall be with me.”

According to certain other rabbis, God has some extra work to do at night: “R. Eliezer says: The night has three watches, and at each watch, the Holy One, blessed be He, sits and roars like a lion. For it is written: The Lord does roar from on high, and raise His voice from His holy habitation; ‘roaring He doth roar’ because of his fold. R. Isaac b. Samuel says in the name of Rab: The night has three watches, and at each watch, the Holy One, blessed be He, sits and roars like a lion and says: Woe to the children, on account of whose sins I destroyed My house and burnt My temple and exiled them among the nations of the world.”

R. Jose observed: “I was once traveling on the road, and I entered into one of the ruins of Jerusalem in order to pray. Elijah of blessed memory appeared and waited for me at the door… He said to me…My son, what sound did you hear in this ruin? I replied: I heard a divine voice, cooing like a dove, and saying: Woe to the children, on account of whose sins I destroyed My house and burnt My temple and exiled them among the nations of the world! And he said to me: By your life and by your head! Not in this moment alone does it so exclaim, but thrice each day does it exclaim thus! And more than that, whenever the Israelites go into the synagogues and schoolhouses and respond: ‘May His great name be blessed!’ the Holy One, blessed be He, shakes His head and says: Happy is the king who is thus praised in this house! Woe to the father who had to banish his children, and woe to the children who had to be banished from the table of their father!”

The rabbinic sages project a myth of repeated divine lamentations over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the dispersal of the Israelites: “R. Kattina said…When the Holy One, blessed be He, calls to mind His children, who are plunged in suffering among the nations of the world, He lets fall two tears into the ocean, and the sound is heard from one end of the world to the other, and that is the rumbling…R. Kattina, for his own part, said: [God] clasps His hands, as it says: I will also smite my hands together, and I will satisfy my fury. R. Nathan said: [God] emits a sigh, as it is said: I will satisfy my fury upon them and I will be eased. And the Rabbis said: He treads upon the firmament, as it says: He giveth a noise as they that tread grapes against all the inhabitants of the earth. R. Aha b. Jacob says: He presses his feet together beneath the throne of glory, as it says: Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.”

God weeps over the destiny of Israel and the destruction of His temple in secret chambers: “But if ye will not hear it, My soul shall weep in secret for the pride. R. Samuel b. Inia said in the name of Rab: The Holy One, blessed be He, has a place and its name is ‘Secret’… But is there any weeping in the presence of the Holy One, blessed be He? For behold R. Papa said: There is no grief in the Presence of the Holy One blessed be He; for it is said: Honour and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are His sanctuary! There is no contradiction; the one case [refers to] the inner chambers, the other case [refers to] the outer chambers. But behold it is written: And in that day did the Lord, the God of Hosts, call to weeping and to lamentation, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth! The destruction of the Temple is different, for even the angels of peace wept [over it]; for it is said: Behold for their altar they cried without; the angels of peace wept bitterly.”

God daily weeps over three failures: “And mine eye shall drop tears and tears, and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive. R. Eleazar said: Wherefore these three [expressions of] ‘tears’? One for the first Temple, and one for the second Temple, and one for Israel, who have become exiled from their place.” It also stated: “Our Rabbis taught: Over three the Holy One, blessed be He, weeps every day: over him who is able to occupy himself with [the study of] the Torah and does not; and over him who is unable to occupy himself with [the study of] the Torah and does; and over a leader who domineers over the community.”

Rabbinical recognition of the blasphemous nature of these daring statements concerning God is evidenced from their own confessions that “if Scripture did not speak thus, the tongue that says this should be cut to ribbons.” Nevertheless, they have continued to repeat the myth of divine sorrow, pain, and lamentation as if this were an integral part of the scriptural portrayal of God: “‘My eye, My eye flows with tears’ (Lamentations 1:16). R. Levi said: (This verse may be) compared to a doctor whose eye ailed him. He said, ‘Let my (good) eye weep for my (bad) eye’. Similarly, Israel is called the eye of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said, ‘For all men’s eyes will turn to the Lord, along with (like) the tribes of Israel’ (literally, ‘For to the Lord is the eye of man, and all the tribes of Israel’) (Zechariah 9:1). The Holy One, blessed be He, said, as it were (kivyakhol), ‘Let My eye weep for My eye’.”

Commenting on this vividly anthropomorphic interpretation of a scriptural passage, Michael Fishbane notes that: “God is the speaker of the verse, and His lament is over one of His eyes which has been damaged—this being the people of Israel. Indeed, instead of the biblical lament marking the absence of God from the nation, it now underscores His active presence, expressed through tears and lamentation. For R. Levi, therefore, the wound of the people is construed as a wound for God Himself, since Israel is mythically transformed into part of the corpus dei—‘for the Lord has a human eye’. The qualification kivyakhol at the end does not undermine this point, but rather fixes attention on the fact that this mythopoeic teaching has been derived from Scripture. Through such theology, the borders between history and myth collapse.”

R. Ishmael ascends to heaven and sees God crying: “At that moment…the Omnipresent would cry, and five rivers of tears flowed from its fingers into the Great Sea, making the whole earthquake; as it is written, “The foundations of the earth will shudder; the earth will be rent in ruin; the earth will split asunder; the earth will bend and buckle; the earth will totter and tilt” (Isaiah 24:18–20)—five times, corresponding to the five fingers of the great right arm.”

Finally, God himself comes to appease Jerusalem and is judged through fire. According to Fishbane: “Perhaps with such extraordinary judgements in mind, recriminations could be made which take ancient rabbinic theology to the brink. Thus the Palestinian Amora R. Reuben (a contemporary of R. Isaac Nappaha) transmitted a statement of R. Hanina bar Hama, with all due caution but with no doubt about the point: ‘If Scripture did not say so, one could not say this—“For yhwh is judged through fire” (Isaiah 66:16); (note that) Scripture does not say “(yhwh) judges (shophet)” but “is judged (nishpat)”—not more and not less. A more complete inversion of the theme of God’s salvific judgment than this portrayal of divine punishment and purgation is hard to find.”

The rabbinic God is an absolutely corporeal deity with countless human limitations, and the rabbinic theological conception of God in no way or form resembles the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and independent God of monotheistic transcendental theology. Rather, evidence would appear to suggest that the rabbinic concept of God is a reflection of Judaic religious and political aspirations, with God’s destiny being paired off with Judaic destiny: He suffers with their suffering and laments their failures.

This lamenting and weeping deity can hardly be said to be the Omnipotent God of the universe: “R. Aba said to R. Nahman b. Isaac: Since the day of the destruction of the temple, there is no laughter for the Holy One, blessed be He. Whence do we know that there is not? Shall we say from the verse, And on that day did the Lord, the God of Hosts, call to weeping and lamentation? But this refers to that day and no more. Shall we then say, from this verse: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember thee? But this, too, excludes forgetfulness, but not laughter. Hence, [it is known] from the verse, I have long time held my peace, I have been still, and refrained myself, now will I cry. What then does God do in the fourth quarter? He sits and instructs the school children, as it is said, Whom shall one teach knowledge, and whom shall one make to understand the message? Them that are weaned from the milk. Who instructed them theretofore? If you like, you may say Metatron, or it may be said that God did this as well as other things.”

God is frequently depicted as crying. For example, He requests Jeremiah to summon an embassy of Patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to console Him: ‘for they know how to cry’. Soon a procession of lamentation and mourning moved towards the Temple—a cortege involving Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. And when the Holy One, blessed be He, saw them (approach), at once, “On that day, YHWH, God of hosts, summoned to crying and lamenting, to tonsuring and girding with sackcloth” (Isaiah 22: 12); and if Scripture did not say so, it would be forbidden to say it. And they went crying from one gate to another, like a person “whose dead (relative) lies before him”; and the Holy One, blessed be He, was lamenting and saying, “Woe to the king who was successful in his youth (shebe- qatnuto hitzliah), but who, in his old age (be-ziqnuto), was not successful”.”

These portrayals and assertions of God’s supposed historical failures, weaknesses, and personal lamenting are nothing short of blasphemy. The powerful sovereign of the universe is depicted as a helpless king unable to protect His children, defend His sanctuary, establish His services, etc., and lament openly due to His broken pride. He weeps in inner chambers and needs human patriarchal consolation in private to avoid other nations’ mockery. These utterly physical anthropomorphisms and realistic corporeal manifestations of God are not the result of human or language limitations but rather truly reflect the authors’ understanding of the deity. A. E. Suffrin rightly observes that “When we turn to the Rabbinic writings from about the 3rd cent. A.D. onwards, however, we meet with gross anthropomorphisms... It not only wrote human history as it ought or ought not to have happened, but explored the seven heavens and revealed the Deity.” He further remarks that: “Putting together the passages from the Talmud and Midrashim, we find in plain prose that on the highest heaven is the throne of Glory, on the back of which is engraved the image of Jacob... Metatron is close to the deity... Behind the throne stands Sandalphon, whose height is a distance of a walk of 500 years, and who binds chaplets for the Deity...God is occupied with studying 24 books of the Bible by day, and the six sedarim of the Mishna by night... There are schools in heaven after the Rabbinic model, where Rabbis in their order discuss the Halakha, and God studies with them... Every day He promulgates a new Halakha... He wears phylacteries... of which Moses saw the knot... At the Exodus from Egypt every servant girl saw God bodily and could point Him out with her finger. When God descended on Sinai, He was wrapped in the Rabbinic tallith... He has His own synagogue. He prays to Himself that His mercy should overcome His wrath... He weeps daily over Jerusalem... The last three hours of the day He sports with Leviathan...”

This perhaps explains the reason why Gedaliahu Stroumsa argues that the corporeal nature of biblical expressions “was widely recognized by rabbinic thinkers, and that in antiquity, God not only had “human feelings, but also a body of gigantic or cosmic dimensions.”

See details in my book "Concept of God in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic Traditions", chapter 2