Witchvox Article

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Posted: May 20th. 2001
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Are The Gods Real? It has been said that throughout history humans have looked around themselves and wondered how did all this get here? The conclusion of society after society has always been the gods. Some societies saw one Great God over all encompassing good. Others saw many gods, sometimes peaceful, sometimes warring or conniving. Still others had only two, a good god and an evil one, a female and a male one. Today, there exists all forms of understanding of gods from the All Powerful, All Knowing, All Meddlesome, through the varieties of multiples all the way to the abstract energy force. As is known, there are many that now proclaim there is no god, never was and never will be.

However, I can only write what I believe. First, I must say yes, the gods are real. They are not physical, but they can be, they evolve over time but they are unchanging, they have a unified consciousness, yet they think individually, they are all energy AND they are all just a psychological crutch that we use.

Now you are saying, this writer is cracked, how can he agree with all the statements above at the same time? He has definitely lost it. Well, I won't disagree with you but I will try to explain myself.

Let's see, I could begin by playing with words, and your minds (o what fun that would be), but I will try to be brief, especially if I hope to get this published.

The Gods are what we need them to be. I believe in the ancient Gods of the Hebrews but I also accept the Esoteric (often call kabbalistic) understanding of God.

The Sages of the Hebrew people said this: "No one can know what God is, only what God is not, yet everyone can get to know God." The Sages viewed the world as being inside God, . all creation is just an aspect of the One. They viewed God as forming itself into three aspects, masculine, feminine and neutral, the first two being distinct and the third as both above the others and their unifying force. The masculine was seen to be surrounding and remote while the feminine was seen as dwelling here with us in the physical creation. (This concept can actually be seen in the modes of worship, in Ancient Israel there was one Temple for God and all had to go there if they wanted to worship Him; while virtually every house had an altar to the Goddess Asherah.)

The Sages go on to describe the Masculine/Feminine in many ways but they always so them as one whole being. They acknowledged that just as there were different ways of approaching (what we would probably call worshipping) the two "aspects" so too the two "aspects" have different ways of dealing with the world. Simply put, even though they are in essence one they have their own personalities and ways of thinking. The God, back then, seemed to love blood and meat but the Goddess loved trees, water and bread. Now, He prefers loads of prayers and She has added a nip of wine to her desires.

And that leads me to the next point, the evolving of the unchanging God. These famous and oft over-quoted Sages also say God doesn't change. Yet they would be the first to tell you that the approach to God and what God wants does change. As I understand it, the unchanging aspect is that the One doesn't change but the Masculine/Feminine/Neuter does. The MFN responds and evolves according to our needs. And that really sums up the dichotomy of my opening.

As people and societies change so do our Gods. Since all creation (according to the Hebrew understanding) is within and part of the One, God/dess has the ability to be physical when we need it, as well as spiritual, both or neither. The God and Goddess can be unified or quite against each other. If there is a need the two can become many or they can reunite into the One, in essence ceasing to exist. The Gods can be very real and very present when we need them and when we don't they can go away. They can also get very angry when we call on them for useless things or just nag them and ignore them when we just don't feel like being involved. They can have all the emotions we have because we are all from the same source but they can also master those emotions. Boiled down, we are all ONE (even if the modern leaders of my people don't want to recognize what are Sages knew to be true, oh well, that's patriarchy for you) and our Gods are really just like us, but because they are completely aware of the unity behind all existence they are also very different from us.

I would say our mantra sums it up nicely: "Sh'ma Yisra-el, YHVH (Yahavah or Yahweh) Eloheinu, YHVH Echad -- Hear Israel, the Eternal (Feminine or Neuter) is our God (Masculine), the Eternal (F or N) is ONE (singular and not comprised of parts)." This is the mystery of the Gods. (As an interesting note, the Biblical name YHVH, which stands for the masculine god's name is feminine.)

W. Dovid Zuk

ABOUT...

Location: , USA

Bio: W. Dovid Zuk is a practitioner of the Ancient Jewish Religion, when the God Yahavah and the Goddess Asherah were jointly worshipped. He has been studying the Pagan ways for nearly 20 years and Judaism for over 20. He studied Esoteric Judaism and Orthodox Judaism at the Rabbinical College of America's Yeshivas Tifferes Bochurim. He has been involved with the Lubavitch Chassidic community for approximately 10 years having lived in the Community's Central New York Location. Currently he resides in Amherst, Massachusetts, is an active member of SPIRALS, the local Pagan Community and is preparing to enter the noble field of teaching.

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