The Byzantine Civilization (vol. 2) - Feliks Koneczny
(click images to enlarge)
source: Theurgic Tendancies in Gnosticism and Iamblichus’s Conception of Theurgy by Birger A. Pearson, in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism edited by Richard T. Wallis & Jay Bregman(1992), pp. 257-9.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are never alone. We can be far, hostile; we can even say we are “without God.” But Jesus Christ’s Gospel reveals to us that God cannot be without us: He will never be a God “without man”; it is He who cannot be without us, and this is a great mystery! God cannot be God without man: this is a great mystery! And this certainty is the source of our hope, which we find kept in all the invocations of the Our Father, When we are in need of help, Jesus does not tell us to be resigned and to shut ourselves in ourselves, but to turn to the Father and to ask Him with trust. All our needs, the most evident and daily as food, health, work to that of being forgiven and sustained in temptations, are not the mirror of our solitude: instead, there is a Father who always looks at us with love, and who certainly does not abandon us.
Now I propose something to you: every one of us has so many problems, so many needs. Let us think, a bit, in silence, of these problems and these needs. We also think of the Father, of our Father, who cannot be without us, and who is looking at us at this moment. And all together, with trust and hope, we pray: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven . . .”
Thank you!
source: Zenit, GENERAL AUDIENCE: On God’s Fatherhood, the Source of Our Hope
source: Vatican, Francesco Udienza Generale, Piazza San Pietro Mercoledì, 7 giugno 2017
God is not only a power we depend on, He is a God who demands. Religion begins with the certainty that something is asked of us, that there are ends which are in need of us.
Unlike all other values, moral and religious ends evoke in us a sense of obligation. Thus religious living consists in serving ends that are in need of us. Man is a divine need, God is in need of man.
source: Heschel's Theology: Organized Excerpts; R. Hershel Matt, ed. taken from Abraham Heschel’s book, HUMAN BEING AND BEING HUMAN: Who pp. 106, 108, 111
You know always in your heart that you need God more than everything; but do you not know too that God needs you — in the fulness of His eternity needs you? How would man be, how would you be, if God did not need him, did not need you? You need God, in order to be — and God needs you, for the very meaning of your life.
source: I and Thou - Martin Buber (1957), p. 82
God needs us because He loves us,
God needs us to increase His power,
God needs us for His very existence, and
God needs us to take over from Him.
Let us explore these ideas, all rooted in Jewish mysticism: The Zohar contends that God has ten parts (sephirot, or emanations), which became disjointed. Our task is to help God become One again. This will usher in the messianic age.
It is clear that God loves Israel. But love implies need. ...
[...]
-Talmud: After we had already accepted the Torah with the words “naaseh ve-nishma” – We will do and we will listen [Ex. 24:7] – God held the mountain above our heads and threatened to dump it on us if we didn’t accept the Torah! [Av. Z. 2b, Shabbat 88a, based on Ex. 19:17] But we had already accepted it! The Maharal [16th -century Prague] explains: The Torah says that when a man forces himself on an unmarried woman, he has to pay a fine, he has to marry her (if she and her father agree), and he may never divorce her [Deut. 22:29] . So God was applying his own law: By forcing Himself on us, he guaranteed that he could never divorce us, that the covenant between us would never be cancelled!
[...]
-Love implies jealousy. So: “No idolatry”!
In Ten Commandments [and 5 times in Torah]:
I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. [Ex. 20:5]
In Ezekiel 16, God depicts Himself as Israel's lover, who spurned Him and prostituted itself by worshipping other gods. In Hosea, God depicts Himself as a faithful husband who keeps his covenant with Israel in spite of her prostitution.
So love implies need.
[...]
Hassidism reinforced the notion of God and man being partners in creation. 18th-century Hassidic Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonne said that the performance of mitzvot is essential in the divine plan. His 19th-century follower Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk said: “Why was man created? To perfect his soul? No. To lift up the heavens!”
Sifre Devarim, early Midrash from Talmudic days, says clearly: God is in need of us human beings. When we keep our part of the covenant, we not only affirm God's existence, we *allow* God's existence.
Rabbi Shim’on bar Yochai [the Rashbi, 1st-century mystic, possible author of Zohar] taught:
-It is written [in Exodus]: “This is my God and I will glorify Him” [Ex. 15:2]. This means: “When I acknowledge Him, He is glorified, but when I do not acknowledge Him, He is glorified only in name.”
-It is written [in Deuteronomy]: “Because I proclaim the name of the Lord, [ascribe greatness to our God].” [Deut. 32:3] [This means,] when I call His name, He is great, but when I don’t… [it is as if He is not great].
-It is written [in Isaiah], “You are my witnesses, said the Lord… and I am God” [Isaiah 43:10]. This means: “When you are My witnesses, I am God, but when you are not My witnesses, it is as if I am not God.”
-It is written [in Psalms], “Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You, my enthroned One in the heavens” [Ps. 123:1]. This means: “If it weren’t for me, it is as if You would not be sitting in the heavens.” [Sifre Devarim 34:6; Pesikta de Rav Kahane 12:6]
Thus, Bar Yochai seems to be saying that, if we do not bear witness to God, God vanishes into unreality. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls that passage “one of the most powerful statements found in rabbinic literature”. Heschel championed the view that God is in need of man [God in Search of Man; Man is not Alone], along with Israeli rabbi Pinchas Peli.
When we say the Shema, we call on Israel to witness God:
Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
When we write the Shema, two letters must be larger than the rest: The ‘ayin of Shema and the dalet of Echad. Together they make up the word ‘Ed, meaning witness.
The Yiddish poet Jacob Glatstein wrote:
Without Jews there is no Jewish God.
If we leave this world,
The light will go out in Your tent.
Since Abraham knew You in a cloud,
You have burned in every Jewish face,
You have glowed in every Jewish eye,
And we made You in our image.
[“Without Jews”; trans. Nathan Halper, A Treasury of Yiddish Poetry; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969]
[...]
Modern Hassidic Rabbi YY Jacobson writes:
The message here is too daring to be spoken clearly. Yet the Jewish mystics picked up on it and articulated it... We became, as it were, mentors to [God], showing Him how darkness can be transformed into light, how imperfection is the beginning of deeper perfection, and how destruction is the commencement of renovation. And this is the message of the third holiday, the festival of Sukkot, when we celebrate the renewed relationship between God and Israel forged on Yom Kippur following their estrangement. From sister we turn into mother. From partners with God, we became teachers to God... Yet here is the catch: To become a healthy mother, you first need to be a daughter and a sister. [http://theyeshiva.net/Article/View/12/Do-You-Know-How-To-Be-a-Mother]
Indeed, the Talmud declares that only living rabbis can interpret the Torah. In a famous episode where the rabbis disagree on a point of law, they hear God’s voice siding with one of the rabbis. But then they reject God’s point of view, saying that THEY, and not God, have the task of interpreting the Torah. The Talmud records that, at that time:
God laughed and declared, “My children have bested me! My children have bested me!” [Bava Metziah 59b]
Evidently, God approved of this “take-over” attitude!
Our tradition includes many hints that God needs us because He loves us, God needs us to increase His power, God needs us for His very existence, and God needs us to take over from Him.
“the memory of him [Jesus] who has made himself sin, who has made himself the devil, the serpent, for us; he has humbled himself to the point of complete annihilation.”— Francis’ homily, 4 April 2017 —
(English translation - NovusOrdoWire, Bergoglio blasphemes again: Jesus Christ “made Himself the Devil”!)
“come memoria di colui che si è fatto peccato, che si è fatto diavolo, serpente, per noi; si è abbassato fino ad annientarsi totalmente”
(Original Italian - News.va, Nel segno della croce (4 aprile 2017))