P. Ami begins by quoting me as follows: “Hashem is specific: the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If this being is real, he is so because he has revealed himself as being in covenant with a particular people.”. Mr Laymen’s idea is not the accepted Jewish concept of G-d.
Later Mr. Ami says The revelations and covenant between G-d and Abraham are specific to him and his descendants. Those laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai are laws that set the Children of Israel apart as the chosen nation of servants to G-d.
I fail to see the difference between my formulation and Mr. Ami’s.
Secondly, Mr. Ami identifies HaShem (“the name,” the holy unexpressible name for non-experts) with Ein Sof. But Ein Sof is a specifically Kabbalistic (mystical) formulation. Mysticism and rabbinism are two very different traditions, even if some rabbis were also Kabbalists.
Of course Ein Sof “looks like” and “sounds like” Prof. Mansur’s version of Allah. They are both fundamentally a mystical version of the deity: an infinite power, beyond naming, beyond identification, finally only known in transcendental unity with the cosmos.
With all due respect to mystics of all the monotheistic traditions, I do not think it is the same deity of the Bible. To simply assert that it is, is to assert what must be proved. My all-too-summary brief against Prof. Mansur is also a brief against all mysticism.
From the standpoint of the Jewish tradition, rabbinism was generally opposed to the kabbalistic interpretation. It was in any case a secret, esoteric lore, restricted to a tiny number of wise and mature adepts, not general knowledge for the average Jew.
I am certainly no expert in the Talmudim (the Bavli and the Yerushalmi), but I request from Mr. Ami a rabbinical text which identifies HaShem with Ein Sof. Until I see that, I suggest he is conflating two very different traditions within Judaism.
