God is Everything and More

RABBI  DR  HARRIS  BOR

I recently stepped inside a classic elevator in a nineteenth-century grand hotel. The cabin was polished mahogany, lined with intricate marquetry like an old library. The liveried attendant pulled the heavy brass lever and energetically exclaimed, “Going up!”

For some reason, this nuanced announcement made me ponder how I originally inherited my understanding of God from my father. He would say that “God is everything and more.” That made him a kind of panentheist, believing that the divine pervades the universe but also extends beyond it. Perhaps my father was even a Hasid of sorts, which in Hebrew means “pious” or “devout.”  I suspect I am a panentheist too, because the idea immediately resonated and has never really left me.

As we ascended past the second floor, I asked myself: how would I “pitch” God to someone?

Let’s start with “everything.” Of course, every thing exists (or it wouldn’t be a thing), yet no thing exists in isolation. Everything is connected in some way and can only be understood in context. Take my existence. Without my parents, and their parents, the people of whom they are a part, the land they lived upon, the air they breathed, the myriads of contingencies that gave rise to their meeting, I would not be here. The same goes for the atoms, molecules, cells and tissues of which I am composed. I am made from stardust, encoded by DNA, and sculpted by evolution. I depend upon the history of the world, the implosions of stars, the entire universe.

I’m also intelligible only through such vastness. To understand me, you would need to understand the culture I inhabit, the personal and collective histories of which I’m a part, the source of the ideas that permeate my soul, not only my biology and psychology, but those of all beings. Nothing we encounter sits outside this web of being.

The mahogany walls of the elevator rattled slightly as we juddered past the third floor, while my contemplation climbed higher into the abstract.

I thought, however expansive the term “everything” may be, it doesn’t quite cut it. “Everything” points to something further afield, a mystery, the “more” outside our grasp. This is the point at which language breaks down, and we are left with awe.

The two terms, in my father’s expression, together capture the situation beautifully: “everything” is the world in its totality (immanence); “more” is that which lies beyond (transcendence).

I’m happy to call that combination God, for it is no empty slogan but a call to action. Immanence denotes connection, the network linking each of us by invisible threads, oneness. Your happiness is my happiness. Your life is my life. Transcendence denotes relationship, a presence beyond ourselves, challenging us to search for the face of the other in their uniqueness. Love combines these two perspectives.

The bell rang and the doors opened onto a panoramic vista. The distinction between immanence and transcendence—everything and more—seemed to dissolve as I stepped into the radiant sunlight.