Feminine...

[messianicmama]

In Kabbalah the Shekinah is viewed as a facet of Gd. It, is actually viewed as a she- the feminine side of Gd. When Gd made mankind in hiss image it was make and female. Kabbalistic believe that the make/female duality is found in the godhead. It's a foreign concept in mainstream christianity, what do you think?

[messianicmama]

Really? No takers? C'mon! You know you want to talk about this!

[alon]

Mar 30, 2013 21:35:31 GMT -8 messianicmama said:

Really? No takers? C'mon! You know you want to talk about this!

LOL, give it time!

As I understand traditional Jewish thought (and I agree) Adam was created with both male and female qualities. Mankind in Adam was created in the image of God, and all the good qualities of both male and female reside in Him. When God took a rib from Adam, he also took the qualities and attributes we know as being feminine from him.

There is no Hebrew term for neutral gender, just as in English. So we refer to God as "He", just as He did in His Word, out of respect. In the "Godhead" (you aren't going to like this, but you did ask, lol) we have the perfect picture of a family. The Father and son are obvious, but we also have a picture of the mother- nurturing, healing, giving us intuition, etc.- in the Ruach HaChodesh. The head of the household is the father, and so He is the head of our family as believers.

I don't know of this being anywhere in mainstream Christianity, but that doesn't mean it isn't. Really what is important is that we do know about it. More than that, what does it tell us? So back to your court; what does this tell us?

Dan C

[messianicmama]

It's interesting. I do believe that, logically, if we are collectively created in his image, there must be a feminine component somewhere. I know that Avi Ben Mordecai sees the spirit as the feminine side. I can see that, especially since the term used ruach is feminine, as is pneuma is Greek. Anyway, I think it's something to ponder. It doesn't change my faith or application any either way, but I think it's interesting. Also Judaism had thus idea that women are more atuned spiritually, and that would fit if the spirit is feminine. I don't know. I'm not looking to get all new agey here, but I do that that some women have felt marginalized by the way the church has painted Gd- an old white man with a nasty temper and little emotion. I think if more women felt that we were made in the image of Gd too, and that we were an essential component in humanity being the image of God, and if we felt there was a side of Gd that shared our emotions and our spirituality or whatever, it might make a difference.

[alon]

My opinion, and another thing that launched me into the search for my Jewish roots, is that when "The Church" removed Judaism from the "New Testament" faith, they did all of us an enormous disservice. The painting God as an angry white man didn't only effect women. I hated God for a long time. Absolutely hated with a vengeance. I heard a God of love preached, but seldom shown.

If women are marginalized, then how are young men to learn how to respect their wives? To minister to their needs? When this happens, divorce rates in the church rise. Family happiness and unity is destroyed. So is our witness, as we are no better than the secular world.

The family either operates as the Creator intended it, or it becomes dysfunctional. Same with the church. I keep telling my Christian friends when they complain and wonder why attendance is down, divorce is up, kids are rebelling and lying, even stealing- the reason is we've taught them in church, in the home and by example to do just that.

Displacement theology teaches prejudice and intolerance, not just for Jews but for anyone who is different or thinks differently. Marginalization of women teaches it is ok to take advantage of others in business or personal dealings. An angry God teaches anger is more than just OK, it is the way to be. When we lost our Jewish roots, we lost our focus, our template, and our collective soul.

Dan (see what you started?) C

[Yedidyah]

Mar 31, 2013 14:34:33 GMT -8 alon said:

My opinion, and another thing that launched me into the search for my Jewish roots, is that when "The Church" removed Judaism from the "New Testament" faith, they did all of us an enormous disservice. The painting God as an angry white man didn't only effect women. I hated God for a long time. Absolutely hated with a vengeance. I heard a God of love preached, but seldom shown.

If women are marginalized, then how are young men to learn how to respect their wives? To minister to their needs? When this happens, divorce rates in the church rise. Family happiness and unity is destroyed. So is our witness, as we are no better than the secular world.

The family either operates as the Creator intended it, or it becomes dysfunctional. Same with the church. I keep telling my Christian friends when they complain and wonder why attendance is down, divorce is up, kids are rebelling and lying, even stealing- the reason is we've taught them in church, in the home and by example to do just that.

Displacement theology teaches prejudice and intolerance, not just for Jews but for anyone who is different or thinks differently. Marginalization of women teaches it is ok to take advantage of others in business or personal dealings. An angry God teaches anger is more than just OK, it is the way to be. When we lost our Jewish roots, we lost our focus, our template, and our collective soul.

Dan (see what you started?) C

You explained that well Dan

[messianicmama]

Bumping this...

[alon]

Well, I'll see your bump, and raise you a comment:

Aaron Fruh in “The Forgotten Blessing” on pgs. 29 & 30 enumerates some of the emotions and behaviors of victims of an abusive childhood:

• sense of unworthiness
  
• sense of worthlessness
  
• conditioning to expect abuse later in life
  
• defilement of identity
  
• 
  
• feeling infected, defective
  
• anger
  
• fear of emotion
  
• fear of losing control
  
• difficulty saying “no”
  
• fear of trying
  
• fear of failing
  
• depression
  
• compulsive sin or addiction
  
• procrastination
  
• isolation
  
• difficulty making close friends
  
• avoidance of need or dependence
  
• difficulty asking for help
  
• feeling of being tolerated rather than chosen
  
• restlessness
  
• compulsively drawn to schemes
  

On pges. 34 & 35 we find “Developing intimate relationships later in life is difficult if a person was not nurtured and loved at a young age.” He says they:

• feel no pull to form intimate relationships
  
• take little pleasure in being close to or with others
  
• have few, if any friends
  
• are distant
  
• have bonds to family
  
• have no intact emotional bond to anyone
  
• are self-absorbed and aloof
  

Sounds pretty soulless, doesn't it? But when "the church" forgot that God has all the attributes we see as feminine as well as the masculine, when men were told they had only the male attributes and should develop those and repress anything nurturing; when things feminine were relegated to lesser status and importance, then our families suffered. And so did we.

Dan (old white man with a nasty temper and little emotion) C

[leyna]

I haven't studied it, but I don't agree with it at all. The whole thing of "created in the image of God" simply means that He created us to have His attributes. To say that the Ruach is female would be to say that a female impregnated Miryam.....??

[alon]

Apr 13, 2013 17:20:42 GMT -8 leyna said:

... To say that the Ruach is female would be to say that a female impregnated Miryam.....??

Not at all. I agree we are talking about attributes, and an infinite God who exists in the spiritual realm but can interact with us in the physical. Because the term Ruach is feminine doesn't mean that God is actually female, any more than calling God He means He is male.

Miryam's pregnancy was supernatural. Just as God created the first Adam, forming him with His "hands," and breathing life into him by His Ruach, so the second Adam (Yeshua) was supernaturally formed. So no, I don't see any impropriety there.

All that is being implied is One God with all the attributes He put into mankind residing in Himself. As He separated those attributes when He created Havalah from Adam's rib, so He separates the functions of the Godhead in the picture He gave us in the family.

Dan C

[messianicmama]

I would encourage you to study things before deciding if you agree or not. I think we've all Bev fed certain beliefs in traditional christianity and I think we have a duty to research everything we claim to believe. I'm only exploring different concepts. I don't fathom the magnitude of our complex Elohim. In my research I have been confronted with certain teachings that suggests that the feminine qualities we see in humanity stem from qualities in Gd. I do wonder how it all works together. I like exploring concepts that might leaf to a greater understanding of Gd!

[alon]

From a different perspective: John Eldrege in his book "Wild at Heart" says on pge. 16 "Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women, ... God doesn't have a body, so the uniqueness can't be physical. Gender must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places deep within us ... there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God's heart." So he is saying the same thing (only a bit more eloquently than I did), that God has the characteristics of both because men and women have the characteristics of both. We are both made in the spiritual image of God.

He goes on to say (pge 24) of Jesus, "is Jesus more like Mother Theresa or William Wallace? ... it depends. If you're a leper, an outcast ... if all you have ever longed for is just one kind word, then Christ is the incarnation of tender mercy. ... On the other hand, if you're a Pharisee ... watch out. On more than one occasion Jesus "picks a fight" with those notoriouse hypocrites." ... "Does Jesus tiptoe around the issue next time so as not to "rock the boat" (the preference of so many of our leaders today)? Does he drop the subject so as to "preserve church unity"? Nope. He walks right into it, he baits them, he picks a fight." So our physical picture of the Father, Jesus, demonstrated strength in both compassion and in conflict.

One last observation- as a man, should I feel like it is wrong because I will be a part of the "Bride of Christ"? Absolutely not! We can take an analogy too far, getting messages from it that are clearly out of line with the rest of scripture. The familial picture of the Godhead is clearly spiritual in nature, as our picture of the Godhead in marriage here is clearly a physical picture of a spiritual reality.

Dan C

(And I know about Paul and probably even Yeshua being Pharisees, and His name isn't "Christ." Cut the guy some slack, as he is after all still mainstream.)

[messianicmama]

That's good. I like it. I definitely don't think it's as "human" as man and woman when it comes to the nature of Gd. I think it's worth exploring though. And it's interesting to think about. If Gd has all of the characteristics (in their righteous form) of humanity he can summon just the right response to any situation. Whereas in my marriage there are times when I step in and deal with a situation that my husband isn't handling well and vice versa. Hmm. Maybe this is post of what mashes marriage special. We gain all the wisdom, talents and gifts of our spouse which enable us to move easier through life. Or something.