One of my readers, SavtaV, emailed me this:

Q.  Is Hashem a male? In Hebrew, it’s necessary to choose a gender, because all the adjectives and verbs require it. Not so in English – and without a body, it doesn’t make a lot of sense (to me) to choose – but I’ve noticed you always refer to “Him.” And what about the Shechinah?


A.  I’m hardly a Kabbalist, but since I consider it core and central to my life to continually cultivate my relationship to God, I have spent time thinking and learning about this question.

Hashem (God) is neither male nor female.  God contains both male and female attributes.  It is difficult to speak of these things, for two reasons:

1. No human can truly conceptualize God, as the whole concept transcends everything we know.  It transcends the five senses; it transcends time and space and science.  Can your mind truly conceive that numbers go on FOREVER?  Mine can’t.  Infinity is but one of the facets of God that are ultimately unknowable by humans.  That doesn’t prove their inability to exist – we all know infinity exists, yet we can’t draw it or truly know it.

2. As soon as you start talking about males and females, there are people that get uncomfortable.  As soon as I shall generalize in this post about traditionally “male” attributes and traditionally “female” attributes, some of you will get annoyed.  So sorry for that, but I’m going to do it anyway, because I still think that most of the males in this world more or less fit the prototype, and most females in the world more or less fit the prototype, while I acknowledge that many exceptions exist.

Typically male attributes include power and strength.  
Typically female attributes include insightfulness, the drive to nurture, and sympathy.

When God acts towards us in typically “male” ways, or when we pray to God in a way that evokes those attributes, we use male names.  When God acts in “female” ways, or when we want God to, we use female names.

Examples:

1. “Elo-him” (I hyphenated the name so as not to take God’s name in vain, in the event someone prints and discards this post.)
This name means: God of power.  Its construction is male, and its meaning is classically male.  This is also the name of strict justice, as opposed to kindness/compassion.

2. There is a four-letter name of God that is so holy I can’t even write it.  We don’t pronounce it as its spelled, even in our prayers.  We pronounce it “Ado-nay” which means “my master” – but in true form it is a feminine name in its grammatical construction, and whenever used, refers to the attribute of compassion and mercy – typically feminine attributes.

3. Shechinah – God’s compassionate presence.  This is classically female in construction, and denotes care and love – feminine traits.

So in English, it would be most correct to say “it” since God is neither male nor female.  However, this is clumsy, and therefore not worth it for me.

Nevertheless in Hebrew, the pronoun used for God is, indeed, “he.”  This is because God’s overriding quality is that of power and strength over the whole world.  When we ask God for things, we say “You” in the masculine form, indicating that God possesses all the power and strength to give us these things.

(Btw, what’s so fascinating about THAT is that how many other languages are there where the pronoun “you” must be qualified as either male or female?  While many – most? – languages genderize nouns – with the interesting exception of English – very few – and I’m sure my readers will correct me if I’m wrong –  genderizes the “you” pronoun.  Why this is true is a whole ‘nother topic.  Just saying it’s not like it’s an inconvenient fact that a pronoun must be chosen – it’s deliberate.)

It’s also notable that EVERY noun in Hebrew is either male or female.  Is a table male?  Of course not, but on some deep level it contains a classically “male” purpose, and when you say “it [the table] is made of wood” in Hebrew, the true translation would be “he is made of wood.”  In fact, if you listen closely when Israelis speak English, they very often say “he” or “she” for objects instead of “it” (and not just for trucks or boats).

A much deeper and interesting discussion of the male and female attributes of God is here.

Would love to hear your (respectful) thoughts, insights, and input on this topic.