Q&A: The Location of God
The Location of God
Question
Hello Rabbi, I was thinking about the location of God. Just as there is a certain definition of what God is, is there also a definition of His location?
Of course there is the concept of “our Father in Heaven,” or the idea that after death a person “ascends to heaven”; prayers ascend to heaven to the Throne of Glory… It seems as though the whole spiritual system is in heaven, but it also seems that this is only a metaphor, since we know that we’re talking about air and atmosphere…
There is also the phrase/song that people say בעיקר to children, though it seems this is how people generally think:
“God is here, God is there, God is found throughout the world.”
That is a bit like defining everything by everything, even somewhat like Spinoza’s god.
So maybe the intention is that He exists in another dimension of reality?
Answer
Why should He have a location? Even a photon has no location. A material object has a location.
See the Talmud in Berakhot 5a regarding the location of the soul and the comparison to the Holy One, blessed be He.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t see what or how to correct. I simply don’t understand the question. I see no reason why something without a location should not affect the world. My soul too is spiritual and therefore has no location, yet it has an effect. It affects my physical body, but that doesn’t mean it is located there.
Berakhot 10a*
There is also Planck length; below that length there is no meaning, but it still expresses reality in a certain way, because Planck multiplied by some number makes up, for the sake of argument, a meter.
I also wondered how something that has no location, definition, or form can have such enormous influence (or had such influence in the past) without any way of grasping it beyond the philosophical level. And even in philosophy there are disputes about the issue…
—I’ll emphasize that I have no knowledge of philosophy or physics, so these are all just questions that naturally come up. If something here is incorrect, I’d be happy to be corrected.