Turning Our Pronouns for God on Their Heads

There’s been a lot of argument over the years about the proper pronouns to use when speaking about and to God.

With the resurgence of feminism in the 1960s, we began to see the limits of the supposedly universal pronoun “he” and lobbied for more inclusive language—adding “she” to “he” when speaking of God, or avoiding pronouns altogether by simply repeating “God” in every sentence instead of using a pronoun for the antecedent. (Admittedly, this is a bit awkward, but it’s still better than most alternatives. And is anyone else dismayed by the lack of inclusive language in most religious services today, after all these years of consciousness raising?) 

Some—I among them—opted to go the route of many mystics and use the neutral pronoun when referring to God, “it,”  as a way of focusing on the reality of God beyond the personal dimension. This was distressing to some, who (incorrectly) concluded that referring to God as “it” necessarily objectified God or stripped God of all personal dimensionality.  They might accept  impersonal metaphors or names for God such as Ocean or Being or Ultimate Reality or the One, but referring to God as “it” or speaking of “its” complexity was beyond the pale for them.  Nevertheless, I found the pronoun “it” a good reminder not to limit God to the personal, our privileged way of experiencing God.  I often joked that I taught my children not to say He-She or She-He when speaking of God, but “He-She-It.”  For some this was blasphemous (spotten we called it in Dutch, making light of the sacred) rather than funny.  For me, it was another reminder:  humor is also necessary when we talk about God. 

We all make assumptions about the meaning of pronouns in our language.  Ancient and contemporary rabbis, for example, are fond of teaching the theological depth of the pronoun switch in the formula for blessing, Blessed are You, Lord Our God, Ruler of the Universe, who....  Many prayers start out addressing God in the second person as “you” and then switch midstream to addressing God in the third person, “Ruler/King/who=he.”  This juxtaposition embodies the life-giving paradox that God is at once very near us and far beyond us.  That is a deep theological  teaching.

And here is another.  When it comes to God,  all our language falters, even our pronouns. They  may not mean what we assume they mean.  Recently, this teaching of the Baal Shem Tov from Ben Porath Yosef 31a made me sit up and pay attention to pronouns for God in a way I had never considered before:

It is written, “You are He, the Lord our God” (Jeremiah 14:22). The Baal Shem Tov explained this verse in the following manner:

      When a person thinks that he is speaking directly to God, where he can say “You,” he is really very far from God.  He is actually only speaking to Him in the third person, and is actually saying “he.”

     On the other hand, when a person feels that he is separated and far from God, where he can only speak of Him in the third person—”He”—then he is really very close to God, and is actually in His presence.  Such a person can therefore speak of Him as “the Lord our God.” 

[in Aryeh Kaplan, The Light Beyond:  Adventures in Hassidic Thought, 29]