Our Father, Our King. But Where is G-d, Our Mother?

While listening to a song in the car about “Aveinu She’b’shamayim,” which means “Our Father in Heaven”, my six year-old asked me to translate. I told him it was talking about Hashem as our Tatty (Father in Yiddish). He was silent for a bit and then he asked me, “So, where is the mommy Hashem?”

This is a perfectly logical question, since he is growing up with a mommy and a tatty who both take care of him, teach him, and love him. So, if we call Hashem our Tatty, then where is the Mommy?

The use of masculine language to address and describe G-d is a classic issue in feminist literature regarding the patriarchal nature of Western religions. Mary Daly was a famous Christian feminist theologian who has a book called “Beyond God, the Father.” But what is the Jewish response to this, and more specifically, the mystical response?

I was lucky to have a conversation about how to speak to my children about the feminine part of God last year with a friend (shout out to Gittel Grossbaum). We mentioned all the places and ways that God or godliness is conceptualized as feminine: The Shechinah, the neshama (the soul), Malchus (the feminine sephira), the Shabbos Queen, etc.

For my 6 year old, this was my answer: Hashem, our Mommy, comes on Shabbos as the Shabbos Queen, I told him. Where is Tatty all week?, I asked my son. “At work!” he replied. Yes, so all week the Tatty part of the world is hard at work. But when Shabbos comes, we don’t work, we stay home, just like Mommy does. (I work from home so this makes sense to my son who thinks I don’t “go to work”. Hopefully I’ll correct that idea when he gets a little older). So, we spend Shabbos with Hashem as the Shabbos Queen, just like being home with mommy.

This answer satisfied him and I hope it will keep the door open to more questions and conversations.

But what is the adult answer to this question? Shabbos is feminine according to Jewish sources, but if you dig a little deeper, Shabbos is actually feminine in the evening and masculine during the day. At the end of Shabbos, the holiest moments as the sun is setting, the Kabbalists say that this is the union of the Shechinah and HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the feminine and masculine elements of G-d’s relationship to the world.

So really we are left with the question: Why do we primarily relate to Hashem as a masculine figure? Our King, Our Father. To explain this, we need to reiterate one basic contour of masculinity and femininity according to Chassidus. Masculinity is revelation, externality, content, and kedusha (holiness). Femininity is essence, inwardness, emptiness, and allows for the possibility of lack or imperfection. Our primary way of understanding G-d throughout human history has been as a perfect Creator, as something outside of ourselves, as the consumate provider. However, now, as we come close to the last moments of an exilic, fallen reality and we can taste the beginnings of redemption, we are beginning to recognize (especially through the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Chassidic movement) that there is also a way to relate to G-d as She is right here, as a part of us within our neshama (our soul), as the Shechinah with us in our exile, hidden alongside us. And knowing that intimate experience of G-d, not as a distant King, but as a Mother, as the soft, forgiving feminine within us brings us full circle in relating to Hashem as both. Not that G-d as a King is inaccurate or gone, G-d forbid, but that this is only one part of the equation.

Just like the world has been bereft of the female voice and the value of the feminine, so too our concept of G-d has been missing a crucial feminine component. When we connect the revelation of G-d that is perfect, beyond the world, and ultimate goodness with the essence of G-d that is literally a part of us in our messy, imperfect, worldly beings, then we begin to unite the masculine and feminine, the higher and lower, the ideal with the real, and truly make this crazy world a home for Hashem. And in the process we will see how we are the bridge to hold these opposites.

The reason we relate to G-d as masculine in our prayers and colloquially is because that is the giver/receiver dynamic. The Jewish People are Hashem’s wife and we look to Him as the giver of life. The feminine part of Hashem is you.

This Tishrei, when you come to Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkos and Simchas Torah, remember that Hashem is not somewhere “out there.” Yes, on Rosh Hashana the King is in His Palace, and we relate to Him as the giver of life or its opposite, but by the end of the month, we are sitting in the sukkah of His embrace and bringing holiness down into our dancing feet. The process of the month is to internalize the idea of G-d to the extent that He is deeply found in every crevace of our lives and our very bodies. So take some time to listen for that feminine, quiet voice of Hashem within you, leading you to love and trust yourself and to shine the perfection of G-d into this imperfect world. I trust you. Hashem trusts you. Now it is time for you to trust yourself.