By Alfredo Borodowski   Our generation has been granted a rare privilege: the turning of the page of a new millennium in humanity’s almanac. The crossing of such a dramatic divide is not trivial. Deep transitional moments can generate great uncertainties and anxieties about the future. Such cognitive disruption can provide fertile ground for the flourishing of mystical and irrational beliefs. Medieval chronicles document a pattern of collective panic about impending plagues and other cataclysms precisely at the juncture of centuries.             As our own millennium approached, primeval fears reappeared. Hollywood produced a wave of astronomical disasters, from a killer comet in Doomsday Rock (1997) to an asteroid in Armageddon (1998). Although most of us did not really believe that a giant meteor was on course to obliterate the planet, many did succumb to a collective hysteria concerning the collapse of modernity through the crashing of its core achievement: technology. People feared that the “Y2K” or “millennium bug” would cripple humanity by disabling computers across the globe the minute 2000 rolled in. It wasn’t until we woke up on New Year’s Day and went online as usual  that we overcame that particular anxiety.      Beginning in the 17th century, Western thinkers dreamed of entering an age of perpetual bliss. Francis Bacon, in The Advancement of Learning (1605), proclaimed a new and glorious era in which science would put an end to human misery and pain.  After the Holocaust and Hiroshima, technology seemed less trustworthy and progress less self-evident. Global warming, epidemics, and 9/11 have further undermined our collective confidence in rationality. In such an uneasy climate, mystics and gurus abound, rock stars wear red Kabbalah bracelets, and the adolescent sorcerer Harry Potter captivates children and grownups alike.     Dwelling and Seeking   Fascination with the otherwordly has accompanied a broader search for meaning, and for God. As this search intensified in the late 20th century, a striking phenomenon became apparent: the God emerging from the wreckage of modernity was noticeably different from the God we knew before.   In his thought provoking study, After Heaven (1998), the Princeton University sociologist of religion Robert Wuthnow argues that stable historical periods generate what he calls “dwelling spiritualities.” Reflecting the prevalent cultural stability, these spiritualities express themselves through comprehensive philosophical and theological systems. Alternatively, unstable periods develop “seeking spiritualities,” which are characterized by loose amalgams of religious experiences and pragmatic solutions rather than rigid coherent systems. Each of these spiritual modes inspires its own imagery. Using biblical models, Wuthnow explains that “dwelling spiritualities”are represented by fixed spatial entities such as the Garden of Eden, the Promised Land, the Temple, and the figures of kings and priests. By contrast, “seeking spiritualities” express themselves in the portable tabernacle, pilgrimages, and in the prophets and mystics.   Spiritualities of seeking are a natural component of our millennial culture. We are a generation of commuters, in effect residing between locations. Portable cell phones, laptops and handheld devices have become emblems of control, vitality and achievement. A few decades ago, moving to a different residence was ranked with losing a loved one and divorce as a most traumatic experience. Today, families relocate multiple times for opportunity and fulfillment. In this fluid geography, the sacred has lost a fixed address.   During the Enlightenment, the ideal state of being was equated with the contemplative life. In post-modernity, it is to be in motion. To be is to experience constant evolution. Immutability entails stagnation. The God who resides in a cathedral made of solid theology will be disconnected from the world and deemed irrelevant. With the end of modernity, the immutable God of the philosophers was replaced by the God of journey, who is revealed in the unfolding experience of life. For many spiritual seekers today, regardless of religion or ethnicity, the quest has naturally led to Kabbalah.        Dwelling and seeking spiritualities parallel the two theological systems that have competed for dominance within Judaism since the Middle Ages, the philosophical and the kabbalistic. Maimonides (1135-1204), the towering expositor of the philosophical school, writes of God’s immutability in his Guide of the Perplexed (I: 11):   Sitting (Yeshivah). The first meaning given to this term in our language was that of being seated. Thus: Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat (I Samuel 1:9). But in view of the fact that a sitting individual is in a state of the most perfect stability and steadiness, this term is used figuratively to denote all steady, stable, and changeless states . . . In the latter sense it is said of God, may He be exalted, Thou, O Lord, sittest for all eternity (Lamentations 5:19); O Thou who sittest in the heaven (Psalms 123:1); He that sitteth in heaven (Psalms 2:4). That is, the stable One who undergoes no manner of change, neither a change in His essence – as He has no modes besides His essence with respect to which He might change – nor a change in His relation to what is other than Himself – since, as shall be explained later, there does not exist a relation with respect to which He could change. And herein His being, wholly changeless in every respect, achieves perfection, as he makes clear, saying: For the Lord change not (Malachi 3:6), meaning that He undergoes no change at all.*   Maimonides reminds the reader that the verb “to sit” possesses various meanings. In its primary usage, sitting denotes a position of the human body. However, the word also connotes a lack of motion. It is this second definition that applies to God, for whom to sit means to be immobile. Maimonides recognizes and fears the temptation of our imagination to picture God as seated on a heavenly throne, like a powerful monarch here on earth. He warns that all scriptural references to a seated God should be understood as a figurative indication that God remains motionless, and therefore perfect.   We moderns believe that motion is an indicator of freedom, development and growth, but motion entails deficiency. We open the refrigerator due to our need for nourishment; our lungs expand because without air we would perish. For Maimonides, perfection increases as motion decreases. Mimicking the Divine, the ideal human being is the sedentary philosopher. Adam and Eve, Maimonides explains (Guide I:2), absorbed themselves completely in the contemplative pursuit. Paradise, in this paradigm, is the state in which all corporeal needs are provided in order to facilitate a full-time intellectual life. It is not surprising that the original punishment entailed eviction from paradise and reduction to a lesser state of existence: motion.   The kabbalistic worldview is famously symbolized in the diagram of the Ten Sefirot, or ten essences of the Divine. As a teacher, I have often asked my adult students, newcomers to Jewish mysticism, to share ideas that emerged in their minds as they looked at the diagram. Their answers nearly always reflect dynamic concepts: energy, connection, motion and balance. In addition, when focusing on the biblical characters and human anatomy that are linked in Kabbalah to the divine spheres – Hesed (Lovingkindness), for example, is associated with the right arm and Abraham – many  students speak of a direct and close interconnection between God and the world. Another common observation is that the different spheres appeared attached to each other through what resembled “highways” or “bridges.”   Readers who are versed in the kabbalistic system may be struck by the accuracy of these intuitive statements. In the theosophic system of the Sefirot, the ten spheres represent energetic aspects of the Divine, constantly flowing in a search for balance. The diagram is analogous to a snapshot, a frozen moment in a divine life of motion. The spheres are interconnected through tzinorot or cosmic pipes. The task of the kabbalist is to contemplate the flow of energy, reflect upon the unity of the system, and influence the divine emanation through the performance of mitzvot.   If the Maimonidean ideal is a life of quiet contemplation, the rabbis of the Zohar, the 13th-century mystical treatise, engage in a dynamic process in imitation of God. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and his disciples, main characters of the Zohar, walk long distances together, never studying at a fixed location such as a beit midrashor a synagogue. Instead, along the way, they talk about Torah in gardens, under trees, or by springs of water. Maimonides teaches a spirituality of dwelling. Kabbalah is a spirituality of seeking, in tune with the rhythms of post-modernity.   The Evolution of Evolution   Among the most influential novels of postmodern spirituality is The Celestine Prophecy (1993), by James Redfield. The plot centers on an ancient Mayan manuscript (implausibly written in Aramaic) containing ten spiritual insights. The official Church, represented by the Peruvian Cardinal Sebastian, opposes the publication of the manuscript, while Father Sanchez, an archetypical liberation theology figure, advocates its promulgation. The climax arrives with a confrontation between these two characters, symbolic of the clash between traditional religion and postmodern spirituality. Tellingly, the argument revolves around one concept: “evolution.”   Father Sanchez states: “The Manuscript describes the inspiration that comes when we are truly loving others and evolving our lives forward.” Cardinal Sebastian replies: “Evolve! Evolve! Listen to yourself, Father, you have always fought against the influence of evolution. What has happened to you?” Yes, admits Father Sanchez, “I fought against the idea of evolution . . . But now I see that the truth is a synthesis of the scientific and religious worldviews. The truth is that evolution is the way God created, and is still creating.”   “But there is no evolution,” Sebastian protests. “God created this world and that’s it.” Father Sanchez drives the point home: “The Manuscript describes the progress of succeeding generations as an evolution of understanding, an evolution toward a higher spirituality.” The Celestine Prophecy – of which more than 20 million copies have been sold, in more than 30 languages – boils down to a central tenet of postmodern spirituality: the transference of the old dispute over biological evolution to the terrain of the human soul and consciousness.   M. Scott Peck, whose self-help spiritual manual, The Road Less Traveled (1978), has become canonical in its field, dedicates a chapter entitled “The Miracle of Evolution”to the correspondences between biological and spiritual evolution. Similarly, in How To Know God (2000), the prolific Indian-born physician and guru Deepak Chopra writes that “evolution cannot be stopped; spiritual growth is assured.”Perhaps the boldest articulation of this principle may be found in another classic of the spiritual movement, Peter Russell’s Waking Up in Time (1992). Russell maintains that the turn of the millennium has triggered an evolutionary spiritual leap or “new consciousness,” which is “not religious in nature but spiritual.”   Popular spiritual writers tend to identify clear stages in the evolution of the soul, placing mysticism at the pinnacle of that process. Here we find a striking convergence between postmodern spirituality and Jewish mysticism. Consider this passage by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the great mystic and religious Zionist who was chief rabbi of Palestine during the British Mandate:   The theory of evolution accords with the secret of Kabbalah better than any other theory. Evolution follows a path of ascent and thus provides the world with a basis for optimism. How can one despair, seeing that everything evolves and ascends? When we penetrate the inner nature of evolution, we find divinity illuminated in perfect clarity. (Orot Hakodesh 2: 537)**   In our new age of anxiety, the ritual and institutional structures of traditional religions are widely perceived as obstacles to the evolution of the soul. The resultant intersection of Kabbalah and popular spirituality should come as no surprise to students of Jewish religious thought. In the opening pages of his seminal Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941), Gershom Scholem writes: “Mysticism is a definite stage in the historical development of religion and makes its appearance under well defined conditions . . . It is connected with, and is inseparable from, a certain stage of religious consciousness.”   The first stage of Scholem’s historical model is a “mythical epoch” in which the gods cohabitate with humans. Nature is the location of human’s relationship to God. Stage two involves a process of separation between humans and God, creating an unbridgeable abyss between them. This gives birth to classical religions that attempt to traverse the divine-human gulf through revelation and prayer. The Maimonidean God belongs to this stage. The third stage consists of the emergence of mysticism as a search for the hidden path that would overcome the painful separation generated by institutional religion. Scholem makes it clear that the mystical stage reflects more of a mythical worldview than a religious one:   [Mysticism] strives to piece together the fragments broken by the religious cataclysm, to bring back the old unity which religion has destroyed . . ..To a certain extent, therefore, mysticism signifies a revival of the mythical thought, although the difference must not be overlooked between the unity which is there before there is duality, and the unity to be won back in a new upsurge of the religious consciousness.   The contemporary vogue of spirituality may be viewed as the fulfillment of Scholem’s evolutionary theory. One cannot help but be struck by the fact that the charts often found in popular postmodern spiritual literature resemble Scholem’s academic analysis. The enchanting realms of warlocks and angels, and even the renewed popularity of super-heroes such as Batman and Spiderman, signal a relapse to the mythical, a process that scholars sometimes refer to as “re-primitivization.” But what does this process mean for our understanding of God?   In Praise of Imperfection   According to the evolutionary spiritual structure, the immutability of God may engender alienation and despair. The bridging of the gulf necessitates a connective journey between the Divine and the human. To achieve that end, some recent writers have embraced the idea of “process theology,” a school of thought originated by the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). Process theology teaches that God is not a static, unchanging being, but instead is growing and evolving, just a step or two ahead of humanity. Change is not merely an instrument in the service of evolution, but is the divine attribute par excellence. Change, not stasis, is perfection. In the words of M. Scott Peck, in his sequel, The Road Less Traveled and Beyond (1997): “It is a very common but destructive notion that perfection is an unchanging state.”   Both process theology and Jewish mysticism recognize that human actions have cosmic significance. In the realm of Kabbalah, the commandments of Jewish law (mitzvot) are not only a form of discipline, carriers of wisdom, or the expression of a sacred community; they also redeem the Divine by rearranging and balancing the cosmic forces. God and humans are co-creators of the future; they journey together toward the next redemptive historical phase.   Inherent in the belief in divine evolution is a rejection of the classical understanding of the omnipotent God. Rabbi Harold Kushner captured this idea in his best-selling book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981), which became a flagship work of spiritual literature among non-Jews as well as Jews. Kushner’s premise is that natural evil such as disease and earthquakes do not arise by divine decree but are random occurrences. Pain and suffering are intrinsic to life, and not even God is capable of preventing them. Years after the publication of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Kushner acknowledged the connection between his view of God and process theology. In an essay published in 1996 entitled, “Would an All-Powerful God Be Worthy of Worship,” he wrote: “I came to believe in a limited God, a God who could do great things but could not do all things, not because I found such a God-concept theologically required or Scripturally defensible, but because I found it morally necessary.”   In other words, Kushner identified a moral foundation for process theology. It is precisely in the crack in divine power that the imperfect but loving God of process theology emerged. If God is in process, evil is the inevitable outcome of an evolving divinity who has not yet achieved full potential. The God emerging in the postmodern age cannot be defined by the attribute of absolute omnipotence and perfection. Instead, empathy and love distinguish this divinity. Filled with touching stories, including the tragic death of his own 14-year-old son, Kushner’s book filled a strong need for readers chagrined by the apparent failings of an imperfect God.             Relocating the Divine, Telling the Story   The unchanging deity, according to Aristotle, could only reside above the fluctuating earth, in the domain of the immutable heavenly laws. Following Aristotle, Maimonides, in the Guide of the Perplexed, quoted three biblical verses (as we noted earlier) that describe a “seated” God who resides in heaven. Going beyond Maimonides, Wuthnow explains that “dwelling spiritualities” prefer to imagine God in the heavens than in any other locations. Today, with the ascendance of “seeking spiritualities,” the concept of divine immanence acquires new currency. God and humans, both evolving, share the historical arena.   Although the 10 spheres of theosophic Kabbalah extend infinitely upward, they are planted on earth. The world is considered to be the lowest emanation of the Divine. Classic religions (which belong to Scholem’s Stage Two) envision the search for the Divine through vertical metaphors. God inhabits the heavens and the mountains, and the prophet or wise man must climb toward the Divine, bridging the gap between the sacred and the profane. While mystical practice may include such journeys of ascent, it adds another dimension: the peeling off of layer after layer of externals in a search for the Divine within the self. The inner self is a reflection of the Divine Self. The ascription of human limbs to some of the ten spheres facilitates and validates the deep correspondence between the human and the Divine. It is precisely through such a concept of immanence that mysticism and modern spirituality join forces. As articulated by Peter Russell in Waking Up in Time, mankind is “awakening to the wisdom that lies within us all, of which the great sages have always spoken. This is our next step in evolution – not an outer step, but an inner step.” This, he says, “is the great next frontier: not outer space but inner space.” The same idea is beautifully expressed in the Zohar. The first commandment to Abraham in Genesis 12:1, “Lekh lekha,” is interpreted by Rabbi Elazar not merely as a geographical relocation, but literally,” go to yourself,” an immersion into the depth of the self (I Zohar 79b).   The immutable God of Maimonides has no story to share. What could an immutable being experience? Postmodern spirituality embraces an alternative view of God, which includes biographical approaches to understanding the Divine. In The Personhood of God (2005), the American-Israeli scholar Yochanan Muffs argues that the biblical God “is not an abstract principle but a real personality involved in the human situation.” Muffs further explains that “there are no doubts that God appears in the Bible as a person possessed with a wide range of emotions: concern, joy, sadness, regret, and chagrin, among many others.” As Rabbi William Kaufman observed in The Evolving God in Jewish Process Theology (1997), the God of the Bible and Whitehead’s process theology “seem to fit hand-in-glove.”   Popular spiritual literature typically takes the form of novels, biographies and first-person narratives of transformational quests. The Hebrew Bible is a sacred narrative, focusing on the lives of families, the archetypical journey from Egypt to Sinai to the Promised Land, and the story of a God who participates as an active player in the human drama. The Zohar is similarly a narrative work: Gershom Scholem called it a “mystical novel,” and Arthur Green, placing it within the tradition of medieval troubadours, calls it “a work of sacred fantasy.” Indeed, the narrative nature of the Zohar prompts Daniel Matt to caution the reader of his new, ongoing translation: “You are about to enter an enchanted realm. Still, although the Zohar sometimes reads like a mystical novel, remember that this is fundamentally a biblical commentary.”   For some 2,200 years, ever since the rendition of the Torah into Greek – a translation, made in Alexandria, known as the Septuagint – the Book of Genesis familiarly began with the words: “In the beginning, God created Heaven and earth.” However, in 1962, a committee of noted scholars assembled by the Jewish Publication Society decided to break with that tradition and change the translation of Genesis 1:1 to read, “When God began to create.” Their revision became the standard academic version and serves as the basis for the Gunther Plaut and Etz Hayyim commentaries used today at most Reform and Conservative synagogues.   How significant was this change? Consider the following analogy: “When Abe began mowing the lawn, the grass was a mess.” The lawn and the grass preceded Abe’s action of mowing. What’s new is Abe’s activity. The JPS translation, “When God began to create the heaven and the earth – the earth being unformed and void,” tells us thatchaos preexisted God’s creative act.   The God of “In the beginning” reflected the omnipotent God prevalent from the birth of Greek philosophy through modernity. Creation ex nihilo occurs and ends at one moment. Creation out of pre-existent matter, however, assumes a God who learns and evolves in the daily experience of mastering the chaos. That evolution is achieved in direct partnership with humanity. It would seem that beyond their philological rigor, grounded in Rashi and other classic commentaries, the 1962 JPS translation committee anticipated the “right God” for our own time. The God of postmodern spirituality is alive and well in the very first verse of the Torah.   In these anxious, fluid times, the mystical God seems ascendant, but those who long for the God of Maimonides should not despair. History’s pendulum has swung more than once between mysticism and rationality. Maimonides’ God sits patiently, awaiting a future era of stability and contemplation. The current penchant for motion and journeys may prove disorienting and taxing on the soul. As we settle into the new millennium, religious seekers may create a new conceptual framework, another theological dance between earth and heaven. * Translation by Shlomo Pines, The Guide of the Perplexed (University of Chicago Press, 1963.)  ** Translation by Daniel Matt, in The Essential Kabbalah (1996).