Traces of God: Seeing God in Torah, History and Everyday Life

Traces of God: Seeing God in Torah, History and Everyday Life

by Neil Gillman
Traces of God: Seeing God in Torah, History and Everyday Life

Traces of God: Seeing God in Torah, History and Everyday Life

by Neil Gillman

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Overview

A Probing and Powerful Look at the Role You Play in Shaping Your Relationship with God

“No matter how hard we look, the God of Israel cannot be seen. Looking is not seeing, and seeing God is not like seeing an apple. It is much more like making a medical diagnosis on the basis of looking at a complex set of symptoms. Each of the symptoms is a dot. We can look at the dots and still miss the pattern.”
—from Part I

The Torah is replete with references to hearing God but precious few references to seeing God. Seeing is complicated. What we look for and see are traces of God’s presence in the world and in history, but not God. In order to identify those traces as reflections of divine presence, we need to re-examine how we see, what we see, and how we interpret that information.

In this challenging and inspiring look at the dynamics of the religious experience, award-winning author and theologian Neil Gillman guides you into a new way of seeing the complex patterns in the Bible, history, and everyday experiences and helps you interpret what those patterns mean to you and your relationship with God.

Examining faith and doubt, revelation and law, suffering and redemption, Gillman candidly deconstructs familiar biblical moments in order to help you develop and refine your own spiritual vision, so that you are able to discern the presence of God in unanticipated ways.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781580232494
Publisher: TURNER PUB CO
Publication date: 02/01/2006
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 2.36(w) x 3.54(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Neil Gillman, rabbi and PhD, is professor of Jewish philosophy at The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where he has served as chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy and dean of the Rabbinical School. He is author of Believing and Its Tensions: A Personal Conversation about God, Torah, Suffering and Death in Jewish Thought; The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a Publishers Weekly "Best Book of the Year"; The Way Into Encountering God in Judaism; The Jewish Approach to God: A Brief Introduction for Christians; Traces of God: Seeing God in Torah, History and Everyday Life (all Jewish Lights) and Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew, winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

Table of Contents


Introduction xi Part I Seeing God Connecting the Dots 3 Faith in a Silent God 7 Perceiving God's Presence 10 God's When and Where 14 God, Hidden and Revealed 17 Discerning the Hand of God 20 The Value of Atheism 23 The Mystery of the Red Cow 26 Holy Tension 30 Abraham's Faith and Doubt 33 Looking and Seeing 36 The Holiness of Yom HaAtzma'ut 39 Mundane Miracles 43 Remembering to Remember 46 Remember and Forget 49 Part II Images of God The Divine Wrath 55 Testing God 59 The Rebuke 63 Unshakable Covenant 66 Symbol or Idol 69 Face to Face with God 72 The God of Jonah 75 Arguing with God 78 Schoenberg's Midrash on the Golden Calf 81 Two Solitudes 84 God Is Moved 87 El Elyon 91 An Emotional Roller Coaster 94 The Ambiguities of a Metaphor 97 A Single Sacred Spot 100 When Liturgy Is Problematic 104 Selective Memories 108 Part III Revelation and Law Narrative and Law 113 Sinai Was a Moment 116 Boundaries 119 Aggadah and Halachah 122 The Best Interest of Judaism Clause 126 In the Presence of a King 130 The Fanatic 134 Cosmos and Chaos 138 Moments of Darkness 141 A Written Record 144 Part IV Suffering, Death, and Redemption The Challenge of Job 149 Suffering and Redemption 152 Private and Public 155 From Redemption to Reality 159 Confronting Death and Resurrection 163 Confronting Chaos 167 Ultimate Vulnerability 171 Separations 175 Death Is Over 179 Redeeming God 183 From Cosmos to Chaos to Cosmos 186 We Are Hagar 190 The Prophet and the Person 193 Redemption and Destruction 196 The Dread of Time 199 Jacob Lives 202 Interim Eschatologies 205 A Drama of Life and Death 209 Suggestions for Further Reading 213 Index of Torah Readings 215
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