INDEPENDENT
I humbly refer the question to rabbis far older and more learned than I, beginning with the third-century Rabbi Yochanan. His response (in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Megillah 31a) begins, “In every circumstance where you will find mention of the greatness of the Holy Blessed One there you will find alongside it mention of Its humbleness.” The sage goes on to quote from Deuteronomy, from Isaiah and from Psalms, all of which juxtapose descriptions of God’s mighty powers with attributes such as “who advocates for the rights of the orphan and the widow, and loves the stranger, to gift him with bread and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:18) or “father to those who are orphaned and Who executes justice on behalf of widows (Psalms 68:6).
Another midrash has God speaking directly to us with the same message: “I operate as father and as mother. I act as father, as is written in Psalms 103:13— ‘Like a father has compassion on his children, so does Hawayah have compassion on those in awe of Him.’ I act as mother, as is written in Isaiah 66:13— ‘Like the comfort which one receives from his mother, so shall I comfort you.’ Thus do I operate as father and as mother” (Midrash Pesikta D’Rav Kahana 19:3).
Rabbi Gershon Winkler
Walking Stick Foundation
Golden, CO
HUMANIST
Is God merciful? Some Torah stories and rabbinical interpretations leave that impression. Is the biblical incarnation of God fiercely judgmental? Tales about Noah or Sodom and Gomorrah suggest that, too. Can this God be simultaneously loving, capricious and cruel? Abraham and Sarah might attest to love, but the Midianite women of Numbers 31 and Jephthah’s daughter might feel differently. Is God a “strongman”? If some of this describes a leader ruling by force and violence, then the answer can be yes.
But theology is not science; it’s an endeavor built entirely without reliance on external evidence. From the Bible’s strongman to the rabbis’ Source of Mercy, from the Kabbalistic Ein Sof to the mystical Shekhinah, and from Harold Kushner’s limited deity to Mordecai Kaplan’s “power that makes for salvation,” every description of God ever offered has been a human invention. If some find the idea of God as a strongman unappealing, they are free to reinterpret it—just as people always have.
Rabbi Jeffrey Falick
Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Metro Detroit
Farmington Hills, MI
RENEWAL
Certainly in some of our biblical texts, God is the gibbor milchamah, the war-king, the ultimate and all-mighty power. For a long while that image drowned out other, more tentative portrayals of God in the Bible. After all, a small nation trying to survive in a dangerous landscape doesn’t need a warm and fuzzy god. It needs a warrior god, giving life and dealing death: “Has any deity ventured to go and take one nation from the midst of another…by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and awesome power?” (Deuteronomy 4:34)
But our rabbis, having experienced the trauma of the loss of the Temple, realized that the earlier God-model was not working for them. God was no longer functioning as the super-Spider-Man who swooped in to rescue the Israelites from Egypt. In a not-famous-enough Talmudic text in Yoma (69b), the rabbis pondered the change in paradigm they were living through. After all, each of the adjectives that Moses had used to describe God—gadol, gibbor, nora (great, mighty, awesome)—seemed irrelevant when heathens could dance with impunity in God’s palace and destroy it.
So now what? The rabbis came to the notion that a different kind of strength was called for. God was holding back and allowing history to unfold, even if Israel was to be harmed by other nations. As with a parent refraining from intervening on a playground, the hardest thing of all is self-restraint. It’s the sign of ultimate strength.
Rabbi Gilah Langner
Congregation Kol Ami
Arlington, VA
RECONSTRUCTIONIST
If God is ultimately unknowable, far beyond human form or understanding, then let’s avoid anthropomorphizing. In imposing finite human characteristics upon the Infinite, we box God in. Such images are fine if held humbly but devastating when deemed truth. For starters: Since humans all bear the divine image (Genesis 1:27), divinity must be non-binary, neither male nor female. God is no man of any sort, much less a strongman. Sure, some early sources may depict God as a bossy ruler, but these tell us more about the authors’ time and less about the Timeless One. Richer metaphors abound: Better than praying to a Dictator, let’s embrace the Mystery, be nourished by Divine Water, seek strength from the Rock, align with the Unity.
And what is “strength,” anyway? Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) defines it as mastery over one’s impulses; in Avot d’Rebbe Natan, it’s turning an enemy into a friend. Hardly the moves of a blowhard politician! So-called “strongman” leadership that projects deceitful and insular machismo-strength is deeply un-Jewish—and un-Divine. Idolators worship the part in place of the whole, whereas the holy and just are devoted only toward Divine Oneness. Let’s affirm that true Godliness unifies, rather than divides.
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
Adat Shalom Reconstructionst
Congregation (emeritus) Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life
Bethesda, MD
REFORM
The Talmud teaches that God created the world with equal measures of din, judgment, and rachamim, compassion. To have more of one than the other leads to imbalance in how humans treat one another and the world. God too embodies this balance between din and rachamim.
When angry, God wants to enact harsh judgment. Yet there is always someone there to be a voice of compassion. Abraham negotiates when God wants to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, arguing that there are righteous individuals who would be innocent victims of God’s wrath (Genesis 18). We see God’s rachamim emerge when God listens and responds benevolently. So, while God is authoritarian at times, God is also open to changing course and, one might even say, to learning and growth.
In other moments, God models compassion in response to a human’s harsh judgment. Jonah wants God to destroy all of Nineveh for its inhabitants’ sinful behavior. God shows mercy and teaches Jonah how painful it would be for God to destroy the community (Jonah 4).
God’s embodiment of both din and rachamim provides a valuable lesson. If God can find balance between judgment and compassion, then surely so should we, as we strive to live our lives in the image of God.
Rabbi Dr. Laura Novak Winer
Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion
Fresno, CA
CONSERVATIVE
The three paragraphs of the Shema that are central to the morning and evening prayer services offer three different reasons for observing the mitzvot and practicing Judaism. In the first paragraph (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), love is the foundation: We are instructed to love God, to practice Judaism both publicly and privately, to speak of it throughout the day and to teach it to the next generation.
In contrast, the second paragraph (Deuteronomy 11:13-21) describes God as a strongman, one who holds his people to a strict code of conduct and whose subsequent blessing (or curse) is in our hands. Here, we learn that commandments come with consequences.
Lastly, the third paragraph (Numbers 15:37-41) reminds us of God bringing us out of Egypt. The practice of Judaism in this case derives from a sense of appreciation and obligation for that which God did for our people and the unique covenant we share.
Over the course of my life, each paragraph’s rationale has held its sway over me or has inspired my practice. God is the Ultimate One—Rule-Maker, Authoritarian, Sovereign—and yet has given us free will. Love, commitment, history and consequences all factor into God’s role and our own in determining the kind of life we experience. With all the names for God, “Strongman” is not one of them. But God is strong, and God has given each of us the strength to determine how we can live a life of mitzvot in order to create meaning and blessing for ourselves and our world.
Rabbi Amy S. Wallk
Temple Beth El
Springfield, MA
MODERN ORTHODOX
Absolute monarch is a dominant image of God in the Torah and much of the Bible. God tells Israel what to do and does most of the heavy lifting in biblical history. The Israelites’ task is to be loyal and obey orders. God will do the rest.
However, the rabbis taught us that God self-limits in history. The Lord asks the human partners in the covenant to step up and make judgments about what God wants us to do. God wants humans to take on more and more responsibility as we seek to realize the dream of a better world in reality. (The rabbinic era is the age of Torah Sheh B’Al Peh, the Oral Torah that interprets and expands the written scriptures.)
As for a parent, the hardest thing of all is self-restraint. It’s the sign of ultimate strength.
Ultimately, Judaism’s religious ideal is that humans mature in the course of history and become true partners in fulfilling the covenant. They should perform their religious and ethical behaviors for their own sake, acting out of a sense of freedom and common vision. Turning to a political strongman, surrendering our religious soul to a gadol, a Great Rabbi who answers all our questions and makes all of our decisions for us, is a retreat to dependency and childhood innocence. God should be understood and related to as a loving parent helping us to become responsible adults, not as a benevolent despot.
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg
J.J. Greenberg Institute for the
Advancement of Jewish Life/Hadar
Riverdale, NY
ORTHODOX
Jewish tradition speaks of attributes of G-d, which do not really give us a clear picture of G-d’s essence—something we cannot grasp—but only aspects of how He appears to us by His conduct. Those characteristics fall into two groups, that of chesed, kindness, and that of din, judgment. The Torah commands us to follow in G-d’s ways (the Catholic term is imitatio dei, but we had it first).
But the Talmud’s formulation of how we are to emulate the characteristics of G-d talks only about chesed. G-d is compassionate, giving, so we should be as well. There’s not a word about following G-d’s attribute of din. Jewish tradition is very clear on this. We don’t say “G-d wreaks vengeance against His enemies, so we should do that too.” Why not? Latter authorities give two linked reasons: We’re not constitutionally set up to do that, and when we do, we invariably get it wrong. There are plenty of attributes associated with G-d’s power—He’s a king, He sits in judgment, and if we forget this, the High Holy Days remind us—but those are not the characteristics we emulate. When people look for a strong authoritarian ruler, it’s not so much because they’re embarked on a holy mission of relating to G-d’s wrath and justice. They relate to authoritarianism because it’s easy to give up freedom and rational thought if you get riled up about a cause.
Early political theorists pointed lovingly to rabbinic literature and the Old Testament about the checks and balances against a leader. The strongest of leaders in Jewish tradition has lots and lots of limiting conditions. Montesquieu, move over! We invented the idea of a king who’s sandwiched between the Sanhedrin and the priesthood. The midrash says that when G-d chooses His leaders, He turns to shepherds. Why? Because their compassion toward animals will be mirrored in their compassion toward human beings.
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein
Cross-Currents
Los Angeles, CA /Jerusalem
SEPHARDIC
If we take the definition of “strongman” as “one who leads or controls by force of will and character or by military methods,” a superficial reading of the Tanach might lead one to the conclusion that God is a strongman. There are plenty of threats, curses and intimidating prophecies directed at those who refuse to walk in God’s ways. God also seems to state it very clearly: “For me are B’nai Yisrael slaves! They are my slaves, whom I took out of Egypt!” (Leviticus 25:55).
However, as early as the third century CE, Rabbi Yohanan explained that the biblical emphasis on God’s might is meant to instill in us the importance of caring for others. In Rabbi Yohanan’s words (Talmud Bavli, Megillah 31a): “Wherever you find the might of God, you also find His simplicity. It is written in the Torah, in the Prophets, in the Writings. In the Torah: ‘For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords,’ and immediately afterward: ‘He executes the judgment of the fatherless and widow’ (Deuteronomy 10:17-18). In the Prophets: ‘For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is sacred,’ and immediately afterward: ‘I revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones’ (Isaiah 57:15). In the Writings: ‘Extol Him Who rides upon the clouds,’ and immediately afterward: ‘A father of the fatherless, and a judge of widows’ (Psalms 68:5-6).” Modern thinkers concur that the concept of an omnipotent, omnipresent God is essential for maintaining a just society.
Rabbi Haim Ovadia
Torah VeAhava
Potomac, MD
CHABAD
If G‑d wanted to be a strongman, you would expect Him to make His presence ubiquitous. His face should be everywhere. Perhaps some media appearances. At least a billboard or two. As things stand, you can’t find Him these days without a lot of searching. Often, He seems to be intentionally hiding. And His PR claims He doesn’t even have a face that we can see. Indeed, the Talmud affirms that “G‑d does not deal tyrannically with His creations.” (Avodah Zarah 3a).
On the other hand, when we are in distress, we certainly want a mighty hand to save us and a strongman behind us who knows where He’s going. But I suppose He also wants a strong people alongside Him. A people willing to do the searching, and ready to put in a whole lot of trust—in Him and in each other. It’s not much different with leaders. We need leaders who have strong convictions. We also need leaders who empower their people—and hold them tightly together.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Chabad.org
Thornhill, Ontario