When I tell people I don’t believe in a guy in the sky but rather I believe in Ultimate Reality they complain that “reality” sounds too impersonal. “What happened to the personal God?” they ask.
But the Ultimate Reality, Y/H/V/H, Hashem, is the context, source and essence of you and me and therefore, surely no less personal than you and me. In fact, Hashem is infinitely more personal.
People think that reality is dead empty space, but reality is conscious, alive, and loving. Therefore, we cannot speak of reality in an impersonal way. We can’t ask, for example, “What is reality?” We must ask, “Who is reality? Who is the source of all consciousness? Who is the soul of all life? Who is the essence of love? Who accommodates everything we see in this world?” The answer is Hashem.
This is expressed by Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who was a great Kabbalist living in the sixteenth century, “Hashem is found in all things. All things are found in Hashem. There is nothing devoid of Hashem’s Divinity. Everything is in Hashem. Hashem is in everything, beyond everything.”
It’s essential to note that this is not Pantheism but rather Panentheism. Pantheism teaches that God is all and all is God. God minus the universe equals nothing. But Pan-en-theism teaches that all is included within Hashem. If the universe would cease to be, Hashem wouldn’t be diminished at all. We exist within Hashem. But we are not Hashem. There is nothing devoid of Hashem. Everything is within Hashem, Hashem is present within everything, but Hashem is beyond and infinitely greater than everything.
Some ask “Where is Hashem?” I ask, “Where is He not?”
