I think it is a universal human striving to have the creation or the student meet and ultimately surpass the maker or teacher. So imposing my own Weltanschauung on the question of the ideal between creator and creature - I would say that God (as much as we can say about such a thing) would seek in us a potential equal, a suitor. After all, the concept of being made in God's image implies to me not a corrupted copy, but offspring capable of taking over the family franchise some day. The whole thing is more than a little Pygmalionic.
Before I read on in catching up on the thread, what an intriguing notion, the family franchise! I must think about this.
I think that there a love affair going on between men and God, at least on the part of the mystics. And that this love affair is not junk stuff but an honest minded attempt to understand the beloved. And, perhaps, to become it.
The Pygmalion image has great force. I have always seen God in this story, as I have in the sci fi story of the person who had a whole world of people in his computer and didn't know what to do with them--source?
There is so much in the Old Testament depiction of God, especially for a person who has not studied the Talmud and all the work around it, that is off-putting at best. It was a god of a wandering folk with few guidelines in their lives and a great many challenges.
Even when one studies the commentaries to the Talmud, one sees the understanding of the enormous kindness that was implicit in the Commandments. This understanding, it seems to me, has been lost. |
