ON THE LOCATIONS OF GOD: Jewish Approaches to Omnipresence

In the Jewish mystical tradition, some argue that God can't literally be everywhere. He must be absent from places that lie beneath His dignity. Medieval Jewish philosophers, by contrast, argued that God is not located in space or time at all. Some biblical verses imply that God is always located everywhere. And yet, elsewhere, the Bible describes God as especially located in specific regions, at specific times. The rabbis talk about humans making space for God. To what extent can all of these threads come together to form a coherent conception of God's relationship with space? The striking conclusion of this chapter is that the ways in which God's presence are limited are more religiously significant than the ways in which God's presence is ubiquitous.