Years ago, someone said to me: “this whole idea of Abraham being the father of Monotheism is a farce. I can prove to you that a certain Mesopotamian tribe worshipped a SINGLE tree, well before Abraham was born.”
I have to admit that his statement threw me for a minute.
Then I got it. If monotheism is the belief in ONE deity, as opposed to multiple ones, then we were beaten to the bunch by some tribe that whittled its pantheon of gods down to a single idol.
That’s if the polytheism vs monotheism question is a numbers game.
But it’s not.
Monotheism is a revolutionary perspective on the nature of reality.
What is this ‘Monotheism” of which we speak?
When one looks at life, one sees a magnificently multi-faceted reality.
There’s family and work, my home and the great outdoors. My boat, my lunch, my computer and my loves.
And then there’s also G-d.
Kicking that up a notch, to a deeply believing person all of reality DEPENDS on G-d.
Then there’s the Monotheist, to whom the only reality IS G-d.
The Monotheist doesn’t [simply] believe in one G-d.
The Monotheist believes in one REALITY, and that reality is G-d.
How does that belief square with our perception of the world around us, which has trillions and trillions of components?
The Judaic belief is that everything in the world is created by the Divine, and has a Divine purpose, its ‘spark’. Thus, everything in the world fits into one plan, G-d’s objective for the world.
So, my car, my lunch, my bedroom and the river, all share one unifying theme: They all have a Divine Purpose. They are One with the One.
Even more, every creation is totally dependent on the Divine for its existence, similar to the way a ray of the sun depends on the sun for its existence.
In that sense, creation isn’t a thing of the past. It’s happening now.
So bring a monotheist means leading a purpose-driven perspective on life, and recognizing that one can’t separate G-d from reality.
Thanks, Abraham.