{"id":60664,"date":"2021-04-16T09:41:04","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T15:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=60664"},"modified":"2021-04-16T09:41:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T15:41:04","slug":"off-the-pulpit-the-great-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/off-the-pulpit-the-great-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Pulpit: The Great Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RABBI DAVID WOLPE<\/p>\n

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Judaism declared even to an uncomprehending world that the greatest reality was intangible. Nothing produced by human hands could begin to adequately represent the Creator of the universe. God was literally no-thing, and any object was a betrayal of that reality.<\/p>\n

We may be amused at Pompey\u2019s surprise but things have not changed that much. We too are enchanted by the tangible and give most of our lives to contemplating that which we can measure or acquire. Yet again and again Judaism wrenches us out of the mire of material, and back into the space that the Roman soldier saw. You cannot touch transcendence. The God of Israel remains beyond depiction and beyond comprehension. How astonishing that one small tribe of people was able to recognize that truth thousands of years ago and stubbornly hold onto it in a hostile and unenlightened world, until it became part of the legacy of humanity.<\/p>\n

(Rabbi David Wolpe is the senior rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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