God Is Here

January 31, 2022
Spitzer, a congregational rabbi, examines metaphors and broadens popular conceptions of God in her uneven debut. She notes that many find the traditional notion of God as “Someone or Something that we’re told is both all-powerful and all-good” difficult to reconcile with the existence of evil and suffering. In response, the author proffers several metaphors for God—including rock, water, voice, fire, cloud, and electricity—intended to expand how one thinks about God and appeal to those turned off by conventional understandings of a higher power. In unpacking scriptural comparisons of God, Spitzer reveals, for instance, how a reference to God as the “Rock of Ages” highlights God’s eternal nature, and “Fount of Living Waters” speaks to God’s capacity to provide spiritual sustenance. The author also weaves in less expected sources, including Black American civil rights history and personal anecdotes such as her father’s kayaking obsession and the death of her partner due to cancer. Despite ostensibly writing for those troubled by theodicy, Spitzer offers little to address that paradox, and the platitudes she does offer (“We can never really predict the future”) fall flat. Though wide-ranging and imaginative, this doesn’t live up to its own ambitious goals.