GOD

I don’t believe in God; I know God.
The God I know is Ehyeh, the I’ing of all reality.
The God I know is YHVH, the Happening happening as all happening.
The God I know is Elohim, the myriad happenings of YHVH as nature.
The God I know is HaMakom, the universe where YHVH/Elohim happens.
The God I can’t know is Ein Sof, the formless No-thing informing all things.

I don’t praise God, placate God, pray to God, or play God. I am God. And so are you.

Why do you believe your theology is true?

I don’t believe, I know.  

Belief is something we affirm as true without any evidence to prove it is true. I don’t believe all is God, I know all is God. 

I began meditating when I was sixteen. Once, early on in my practice, my sense of separate self, my ego, “Rami,” simply disappeared. I didn’t know this at the time, since there was no “me” to know anything, but when “Rami” returned I knew the unity of all things (Elohim) in, with, and as the singular Happening of Reality (YHVH) I call God. 

While the intensity of this moment passed, the truth it revealed stays with me to this day.

Could I be wrong? Sure. Am I wrong? No.

Is belief always an admission of not-knowing?

Yes. 

Belief is code for “I don’t know”. Or, more accurately, belief is code for “I don’t know if this is true but I really want it to be true so I will believe it is true regardless of the lack of evidence in support of it being true”.

I do my best to avoid beliefs. If I discover that something I say is true is in fact untrue, I don’t hold it as a belief, I just stop saying it.

I’m not a theologian, and God troubles as well as intrigues me. How am I to understand the notion that God created the universe out of nothing? And what does I am that I am mean?

The notion of creation ex nihilo isn’t biblical. Torah says God spoke the universe into existence. The universe is the vibration of God’s breath the way a song is the vibration of the singer’s breath. In this sense, everything that exists is an extension of God. Which takes us to the notion of Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, I am that I am. Since everything is a manifesting of God, God is saying, “ I am that, and I am that, and I am that and that and that and that….” Torah reinforces this when Torah speaks of God as YHVH, from the verb h-y-h, to happen. YHVH is the Happening happening as all happening. Or as we say in Yiddish, Alles iz Gott, everything is God.

1 … 3 4 5

  • Elliot Pachter, president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis

    “Rami Shapiro ignited our colleagues from across the movements to engage in frank discussion about the meaning and message of their rabbinate.”

  • Dr. Gordon Peerman

    Rabbi Rami is Jon Stewart’s spiritual double: hilarious and insightful, who wickedly exposes the religious insanities of our time while movingly offering an authentic interspirituality that is timeless.