In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

393 27 / On Feminine God-Talk 1994 Passover is here as I write this, and we have been singing songs around the Passover table. Joyfully we raise our voices: Adir Hu, Barukh Hu, Gadol Hu, Dagul Hu. Hu. Hu. Hu. Hu. “He. He. He. He.” He is noble, He is blessed, He is great, He is outstanding. It is hard to miss the message , applied as it is with a sledgehammer: God is a He. As we say seven times at the end of Yom Kippur: YHVH, He is God, YHVH, He is God. Every time we say a blessing in Hebrew, the message is underlined: barukh ata YHVH, “Be blessed, you-he YHVH.” Masculine verbal forms, masculine adjectives, masculine nouns unremittingly deliver the subliminal message: God is male. Even the nouns in the liturgy are masculine, in content as well as form: our father, our king, our mighty hero. Alongside this liturgical message goes a theological one: God is not really male. God has no form, so He cannot be a male. Language is gendered, and that limits us, but God was never really male, and the He should be understood as generic or neutral. Religious leaders sometimes seem almost surprised that they should have to state this: since God is not human, how could anyone believe Him to be male. Like a secret message to the initiates recorded at 331 /3 r.p.m. on a 45 r.p.m. record, the theological message gets overwhelmed by the drumbeat of He’s, Him’s, King’s and Father’s. Every child hears that God is male; only the religiously sophisticated learn more. There is some truth in the theological message that God, not being human, is also not male. The God of the Bible is not sexually a male, not a phallic figure. There is no worship of male sexuality, potency, or virility in the Bible. In stark contrast to the veneration of the phallus of male pagan deities, the penis of God is never mentioned. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the God of biblical Israel is grammatically male: all the verbal forms, adjectives, and pronouns are masculine. God in the Bible is also sociologically male: the husband, the father, the king. 394 Theologies II FROM LANGUAGE TO STATUS This cumulative impact of male-centered language and imagery is profoundly alienating to women. At the simplest level, it seems to carry intimations of masculinist theology: if God is male, then perhaps every male is a little bit of God. Even when this equation is avoided, we are left with a kind of “male club” to which God and men belong. God and men share something (indefinable) that women lack. This something is, more often than not, power, privilege, and status. A vicious circle develops . Male images are used for God because they are images of status and power. The fact that these images are used for God then reinvests these male images with even more status and power. Women are completely left out of both the imagery and the power loop. There is warrant in the Bible for using nonmale, nongendered and inclusive imagery for God. The Book of Hosea (in which the gendered image of God-the-husband features so prominently) also draws many other metaphors for God. These include animal metaphors, notably the lion, and nonanimal metaphors such as the tree. We can build on these and other nonpersonal biblical metaphors, such as God as Rock. God-the-mother may be more problematic. The Bible abounds in passages describing God’s role in procreation, God’s formation, supervision , and birthing of children. These are often taken as descriptions of God as mother. However, the imagery is still accompanied by masculine verbs, so that it conveys a message of a male God birthing. The cumulative effect can therefore be that as birthing is considered divine it is also considered less female. If the God with womb and breasts remains male in our consciousness, then “He” will diminish women. The language with which we think about God has to become more gender-flexible before individual metaphors can begin to offset the masculine impact of our God-talk. There is an undeniable need to introduce female God language. But the decision to do so immediately presents a whole set of questions. WHAT NAME CAN WE USE? 1. Shekhinah is the most obvious name that comes to mind. This is a name with a long venerable history. In...

Share