In Judaism , God has been conceived in a variety of ways. Traditionally, Judaism holds that Yahweh —that is, the god of Abraham , Isaac and Jacob , and the national god of the Israelites —delivered them from slavery in Egypt , and gave them the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah . Jews traditionally believe in a monotheistic conception of God (" God is one "), characterized by both transcendence (independence from, and separation from, the material universe) and immanence (active involvement in the material universe).
37-2556: (Redirected from Congregation Emanu-El ) Emanu-El (also spelled Emanuel ) (Hebrew: עִמָּנוּאֵל imanuél , " God [is] with us", from עִמָּנוּ imánu , "with us" + אֵל el , "God"), or Temple Emanuel , may refer to the following Jewish synagogues : Australia [ edit ] Emanuel Synagogue (Sydney, New South Wales) Canada [ edit ] Congregation Emanu-El (Victoria, British Columbia) Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom (Westmount, Quebec) Temple Emanu-El (Toronto, Ontario) South Africa [ edit ] Beit Emanuel, Johannesburg United States [ edit ] Alabama [ edit ] Temple Emanu-El (Birmingham, Alabama) Arizona [ edit ] Temple Emanu-El (Tucson) Temple Emanuel of Tempe California [ edit ] Congregation Emanu-El (San Francisco) Temple Emanuel (Beverly Hills, California) Colorado [ edit ] Temple Emanuel (Denver) Temple Emanuel (Pueblo, Colorado) Florida [ edit ] Temple Emanu-El (Palm Beach, Florida) Temple Emanu-El (Miami Beach, Florida) Hawaii [ edit ] Temple Emanu-El (Honolulu) Iowa [ edit ] Temple Emanuel (Davenport, Iowa) Maryland [ edit ] Temple Emanuel (Kensington, Maryland) Massachusetts [ edit ] Temple Emanuel Sinai (Worcester, Massachusetts) Michigan [ edit ] Temple Emanuel (Grand Rapids, Michigan) Missouri [ edit ] Temple Emanuel (Creve Coeur, Missouri) Montana [ edit ] Temple Emanu-El (Helena, Montana) New Jersey [ edit ] Congregation Kol Ami , formerly Temple Emanuel (Cherry Hill) Temple Emanu-El of West Essex New York [ edit ] Temple Emanu-El (Long Beach, New York) Congregation Emanu-El of New York Temple Emanu-El (Staten Island, New York) North Carolina [ edit ] Congregation Emanuel (Statesville, North Carolina) Ohio [ edit ] Temple Emanu El (Orange Village, Ohio) Texas [ edit ] Temple Emanuel (Beaumont, Texas) Temple Emanu-El (Dallas) Wisconsin [ edit ] Congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun See also [ edit ] Emanuel (disambiguation) Emmanuel (disambiguation) Immanuel (disambiguation) All pages with titles containing Emanu-El [REDACTED] Topics referred to by
74-571: A personal god , meaning that humans can have a relationship with God and vice versa. Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon wrote that "God as conceived by Judaism is not only the First Cause, the Creative Power, and the World Reason, but also the living and loving Father of Men. He is not only cosmic but also personal....Jewish monotheism thinks of God in terms of definite character or personality, while pantheism
111-577: A God who is present, involved, near, intimate, and concerned for and vulnerable to what happens in this world. Modern Jewish thinkers claim that there is an "alternate stream of tradition exemplified by ... Maimonides", who, along with several other Jewish philosophers, rejected the idea of a personal God. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Americans who identify as Jewish by religion are twice as likely to favor ideas of God as "an impersonal force" over
148-577: A tool to relate to the infinite, although it should not be confused with the real thing. Congregation Kol Ami Congregation Kol Ami (formerly Temple Emanuel ) is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 1101 Springdale Road, in Cherry Hill , Camden County , New Jersey , in the United States. The congregation was founded in 1950 on the western side of Cherry Hill, and moved in 1992 to Cherry Hill's east side. Its first rabbi
185-440: A total of 618 dreidels. In 2022, Congregation M'kor Shalom and Temple Emanuel merged into one synagogue, Congregation Kol Ami. Temple Emanuel's building was selected as the synagogue for the merged congregation. The congregation acquired 9 acres (3.6 ha) of land on the east side of Cherry Hill (at the intersection of Springdale and Kresson Roads) in 1989, and began construction of a new synagogue building there. In 1992,
222-497: A variety of locations. In 1959, when membership reached approximately 300, the congregation broke ground on its first permanent synagogue building in Delaware Township, on Cherry Hill's west side. Jerome P. David joined as assistant rabbi in 1974. Yarrish retired in 1975; following his retirement he worked as a stockbroker . He was succeeded as senior rabbi by Edwin N. Soslow, a role he filled until his death in 1987. Soslow
259-544: Is corporeal or anthropomorphic , views that Jewish sages sometimes rejected; rather, "personality" refers not to physicality, but to "inner essence, psychical, rational, and moral". However, other traditional Jewish texts, for example, the Shi'ur Qomah of the Heichalot literature , describe the measurements of limbs and body parts of God. Jews believe that "God can be experienced" but also that "God cannot be understood", because "God
296-465: Is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath" (Deut. 4.39) Maimonides infers from this verse that the Holy One is omnipresent and therefore incorporeal, for a corporeal being is incapable of being in two places simultaneously. "To whom will ye liken me, that I should be equal?" (Isa. 40,25) Maimonides infers from this verse that, "had He been corporeal, He would be like other bodies". Although God
333-526: Is a place to which forgetting and oblivion pertain. Why? Because concerning all the sefirot, one can search out their reality from the depth of supernal wisdom. From there it is possible to understand one thing from another. However, concerning Ein Sof, there is no aspect anywhere to search or probe; nothing can be known of it, for it is hidden and concealed in the mystery of absolute nothingness. In modern articulations of traditional Judaism, God has been speculated to be
370-425: Is between them came into existence only from the truth of His being." Jews often describe God as omniscient, although some prominent medieval Jewish philosophers held that God does not have complete foreknowledge of human acts. Gersonides , for example, argued that God knows the choices open to each individual, but that God does not know the choices that an individual will make. Abraham ibn Daud believed that God
407-703: Is content with a view of God as impersonal." This is shown in the Jewish liturgy , such as in the Adon Olam hymn , which includes a "confident affirmation" that "He is my God, my living God...Who hears and answers." Edward Kessler writes that Hebrew Bible "portrays an encounter with a God who cares passionately and who addresses humanity in the quiet moments of its existence." British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that God "is not distant in time or detached, but passionately engaged and present". The "predicate "personal" as applied to God" does not necessarily mean that God
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#1732851583322444-430: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages God (Judaism) God is conceived as unique and perfect, free from all faults, deficiencies, and defects, and further held to be omnipotent , omnipresent , omniscient , and completely infinite in all of his attributes, who has no partner or equal, being the sole creator of everything in existence. In Judaism, God
481-579: Is little which can be known about the Godhead, other than its existence, and even this can only be asserted equivocally. How then can a relation be represented between God and what is other than God when there is no notion comprising in any respect both of the two, inasmuch as existence is, in our opinion, affirmed of God, may God be exalted, and of what is other than God merely by way of absolute equivocation. There is, in truth, no relation in any respect between God and any of God's creatures. In Kabbalistic thought,
518-428: Is never portrayed in any image . The Torah specifically forbade ascribing partners to share his singular sovereignty, as he is considered to be the absolute one without a second, indivisible, and incomparable being, who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to him. Thus, God is unlike anything in or of the world as to be beyond all forms of human thought and expression. The names of God used most often in
555-483: Is referred to in the Tanakh with masculine imagery and grammatical forms, traditional Jewish philosophy does not attribute gender to God . Although Jewish aggadic literature and Jewish mysticism do on occasion refer to God using gendered language, for poetic or other reasons, this language was never understood by Jews to imply that God is gender-specific. Some modern Jewish thinkers take care to articulate God outside of
592-417: Is to know what must be done, so it does not make sense to speak of God as what God is, but rather what God commands. For Mordecai Kaplan , the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism , God is not a person, but rather a force within the universe that is experienced; in fact, anytime something worthwhile is experienced, that is God. God is the sum of all natural processes that allow people to be self-fulfilling,
629-459: Is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable being who is the creator deity —the cause and preserver of all existence. Maimonides affirmed Avicenna 's conception of God as the Supreme Being, both omnipresent and incorporeal , necessarily existing for the creation of the universe while rejecting Aristotle's conception of God as the unmoved mover , along with several of
666-464: Is utterly unlike humankind" (as shown in God's response to Moses when Moses asked for God's name: " I Am that I Am "). Anthropomorphic statements about God "are understood as linguistic metaphors, otherwise it would be impossible to talk about God at all". According to some speculations in traditional Judaism, people's actions do not have the ability to affect God positively or negatively. The Book of Job in
703-590: The Hebrew Bible are the Tetragrammaton ( Hebrew : יהוה , romanized : YHWH ) and Elohim . Other names of God in traditional Judaism include Adonai, El-Elyon , El Shaddai , and Shekhinah . According to the rationalistic Jewish theology articulated by the Medieval Jewish philosopher and jurist Moses Maimonides , which later came to dominate much of official and traditional Jewish thought, God
740-669: The Hebrew Bible is the Tetragrammaton ( Hebrew : יהוה , romanized : YHWH ). Jews traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem , literally "the Name". In prayer, the Tetragrammaton is substituted with the pronunciation Adonai , meaning "My Lord". This is referred to primarily in the Torah: " Hear O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One " ( Deuteronomy 6:4 ). Current scholarly consensus generally reconstructs
777-475: The Hebrew Bible states: "Gaze at the heavens and see, and view the skies, which are higher than you. If you sinned, how do you harm God, and if your transgressions are many, what do you do to God? If you are righteous, what do you give God? Or what does God take from your hand? Your wickedness [affects] a person like yourself, and your righteousness a child of humanity." However, a corpus of traditional Kabbalistic texts describe theurgic practices that manipulate
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#1732851583322814-412: The eternal , omnipotent , and omniscient creator of the universe , as well as the source for one's standards of morality , guiding humanity through ethical principles . Maimonides describes God in this fashion: "The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a Primary Being who brought into being all existence. All the beings of the heavens, the earth, and what
851-435: The gender binary , a concept seen as not applicable to God. Kabbalistic tradition holds that emanations from the divine consist of ten aspects , called sefirot . The Torah ascribes some human features to God, however, other Jewish religious works describe God as formless and otherworldly. Judaism is aniconic , meaning it lacks material, physical representations of both the natural and supernatural worlds. Furthermore,
888-503: The founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, views God as a process. To aid in this transition in language, he uses the term "godding", which encapsulates God as a process, as the process that the universe is doing, has been doing, and will continue to do. This term means that God is emerging, growing, adapting, and evolving with creation. Despite this, conventional God-language is still useful in nurturing spiritual experiences and can be
925-484: The idea that "God is a person with whom people can have a relationship". Modern Jewish thinkers who have rejected the idea of a personal God have sometimes affirmed that God is nature, the ethical ideal, or a force or process in the world. Baruch Spinoza offers a pantheist view of God. In his thought, God is everything and everything is God. Thus, there can be conceived no substance but God. In this model, one can speak of God and nature interchangeably. Although Spinoza
962-440: The latter's views such as denial of God as creator and affirmation of the eternity of the world . Traditional interpretations of Judaism generally emphasize that God is personal yet also transcendent and able to intervene in the world, while some modern interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is an impersonal force or ideal rather than a supernatural being concerned with the universe. The name of God used most often in
999-399: The name's original pronunciation as " Yahweh ". In the traditional interpretations of Judaism, God is always referred to with masculine grammatical articles only. In Judaism, Godhead refers to the aspect or substratum of God that lies behind God's actions or properties (i.e., it is the essence of God). In the philosophy of Maimonides and other Jewish-rationalistic philosophers, there
1036-494: The power that makes for salvation. Thus, Kaplan's God is abstract, not carnate, and intangible. In this model, God exists within this universe; for Kaplan, there is nothing supernatural or otherworldly. One loves this God by seeking out truth and goodness. Kaplan does not view God as a person but acknowledges that using personal God-language can help people feel connected to their heritage and can act as "an affirmation that life has value". Likewise, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi ,
1073-499: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about synagogues with the same or similar names. If an internal link referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended airport article, if one exists. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emanu-El&oldid=1254552427 " Category : Synagogue disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Articles containing Hebrew-language text Short description
1110-424: The supernal realms, and Practical Kabbalah (Hebrew: קבלה מעשית) texts instruct adepts in the use of white magic . A notion that God is in need of human beings has been propounded by Abraham Joshua Heschel . Because God is in search of people, God is accessible and available through time and place to whoever seeks God, leading to a spiritual intensity for the individual as well. This accessibility leads to
1147-609: The term "Godhead" usually refers to the concept of Ein Sof (אין סוף), which is the aspect of God that lies beyond the emanations ( sephirot ). They are considered to be a dynamic and organic unity whose nature depends on humanity. The "knowability" of the Godhead in Kabbalistic thought is no better than what is conceived by rationalist thinkers. As Jacobs (1973) puts it, "Of God as God is in Godself—Ein Sof—nothing can be said at all, and no thought can reach there". Ein Sof
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1184-465: The world. This is because God is "One", unique and unlike anything else. One loves and worships God through living ethically and obeying His moral law: "love of God is love of morality." Similarly, for Emmanuel Levinas , God is ethics, so one is brought closer to God when justice is rendered to the Other. This means that one experiences the presence of God through one's relation to other people. To know God
1221-420: The worship of idols is strictly forbidden. The traditional view, elaborated by figures such as Maimonides , reckons that God is wholly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to envision, resulting in an historical tradition of "divine incorporeality". As such, attempting to describe God's "appearance" in practical terms is considered disrespectful, and possibly heretical. Most of classical Judaism views God as
1258-550: Was Herbert M. Yarrish, who served from 1956 to 1975. As of 2022 , the senior rabbi is Jennifer L. Frenkel and the cantors are Rhoda J. Harrison and Neil Schnitzer. Temple Emanuel was established in 1950 as Cherry Hill's first Reform Jewish congregation. They hired their first full-time rabbi , Herbert M. Yarrish, in 1956. Yarrish was a graduate of Harvard University , who had received a master's degree in Hebrew letters from Hebrew Union College in 1949. The members initially met in
1295-469: Was excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, Spinoza's concept of God was revived by later Jews, especially Israeli secular Zionists. Hermann Cohen rejected Spinoza's idea that God can be found in nature, but agreed that God was not a personal being. Rather, he saw God as an ideal, an archetype of morality. Not only can God not be identified with nature, but God is also incomparable to anything in
1332-506: Was not omniscient or omnipotent with respect to human action. Jews often describe God as omnipotent, and see that idea as rooted in the Hebrew Bible. Some modern Jewish theologians have argued that God is not omnipotent, however, and have found many biblical and classical sources to support this view. The traditional view is that God has the power to intervene in the world. "That the Lord, He
1369-524: Was succeeded as senior rabbi by Jerome P. David. The congregation moved to its current building in east Cherry Hill in 1992. In 2005, Temple Emanuel broke the world record for dreidel spinning, with 541 dreidels spun simultaneously for at least ten seconds. There were 578 participants, succeeding the previous record of 535 people by the University of Maryland Hillel in 1999. In 2010, members of Yeshiva University broke Temple Emanuel's record, by spinning
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