God
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Introduction
While God of course is ever present in the the traditional prayers of the siddur, there are two main constructions worth delineating:
1. God in the formula of a blessing - the "baruch ata adonai" phrasing. For more on this, visit that section.
2. God in the context of a sentence - as in you shall "love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might" from the first paragraph of the Shema. For more on this, visit that section.
In both cases, the goal is the same - to find a more humanistic, non-supernatural way of re-interpreting what "God" is.
Let's look again at the statement on the opening page of this Wiki. Does God need human prayer? Or sacrifices? Many commentaries say no. Rather, the real reason for prayer is to reflect the praise being given to God back on the person praying, to make that person a better human being.
If we take out the middleman, so to speak, here's a reading that seems to make sense.
God is "the power within us to do good and to change the world."
In context: in the formula of a blessing - Let us bless/we will acknowledge the power within us to do good and change the world.
In a sentence - "and you will love the power within you to do good and to change the world."
Using this phrasing, the entire prayer service can be seen as a meditation towards human betterment.
Note also that Y-H-W-H can also be translated as "I will be who I will be." That too is an exhortation to be the best that we can be (to achieve the goals described above or otherwise).
The Jewish Context
Any meditations on reinterpreting God as a means towards human betterment naturally have a universal appeal. But the siddur is a Jewish text and we cannot forget the Jewish nature of what we are saying.
But what does that mean? It is difficult to say that the Jewish God is superior to any other God/human manifestations (and by extension that the Jewish people are somehow "better" than all other people). Similarly, the idea of chosenness, if God is removed from the rationale, becomes contentious.
And yet, the siddur is not written as a universal prayerbook. It is the "playbook" for how the Jewish people strive to improve themselves and better the world. Does that mean we have a lock on ethical behavior? Certainly not. But if we choose (there's that chosenness again) to engage with Jewish tradition and to not disregard Jewish prayer as wholly antiquated, but seek to find those ethical truths that guide our lives, then the siddur is a unique and supremely valuable aspect to Jewish life. That may be the ultimate goal of SiddurWiki.
Two Variations on God
God comes off in much of Jewish literature as schizophrenic - sometimes warlike, sometimes peaceful. Sometimes the message is God created the world in peace, other times it an admonition to kill your enemies.
Robert Wright describes in his book "The Evolution of God" two deities coming together in Jewish texts: one known as "El" or "El Shadai" and the other known as Y-H-W-H. The two have very different personalities. El (probably originally a Canaanite God) is the being who created everything while Y-H-W-H is a warrior God. It is the latter who is cited as executing revenge on the Israelites' enemies.
Over time, the more peaceful nature of El has been integrated into the personality of Y-H-W-H and, Wright points out, the Jewish philosopher Philo did much to reinterpret the meaning of the text - while nevertheless fully believing in the Jewish God.
The interplay between these two perhaps even non-Jewish original conceptions of God can be difficult for modern non-supernatural Jews trying to make sense of some of the more difficult passages in the siddur, where God is eminently vengeful. It is tempting to simply strike those passages out. Yet we must related to both sides of God's personality if we are to relate to the siddur as it is currently delivered. Examples will be used throughout SiddurWiki.
God as Social Network
Many people try to define God in a non-supernatural way as the connectedness between all people and creatures on the planet. These days, we connect more and more via the Internet and, in particular, social networks. We use social networks to connect to our past (old friends from high school) and the future (what we're planning to do, events we intend to attend). Is it too presumptuous then to view the concept of God as the first social network?
See also the section on the Shema for a re-interpretation that stresses both the diversity and unity of all things.
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