fer to Him, imperceptibly, our
own righteous indignation at the sight of a wicked deed, or our own
compassion with the sufferer, or even our own mode of deliberation and
decision. Moreover, the prophets and the Torah, in order to make God plain
to the people, described Him in vivid images of human life, with anger and
jealousy as well as compassion and repentance, and also with the organs
and functions of the senses,--seeing, hearing, smelling, speaking, and
walking.

7. The rabbis are all the more emphatic in their assertions that the Torah
merely intends to assist the simple-minded, and that unseemly expressions
concerning Deity are due to the inadequacy of language, and must not be
taken literally.(186) "It is an act of boldness allowed only to the
prophets to measure the Creator by the standard of the creature," says the
Haggadist, and again, "God appeared to Israel, now as a heroic warrior,
now as a venerable sage imparting knowledge, and again as a kind dispenser
of bounties, but always in a manner befitting the time and circumstance,
so as to satisfy the need of the human heart."(187) This is strikingly
illustrated in the following dialogue: "A heretic came to Rabbi Meir
asking, 'How can you reconcile the passage which reads, "Do I not fill
heaven and earth, says the Lord," with the one which relates that the Lord
appeared to Moses between the cherubim of the ark of the covenant?'
Whereupon Rabbi Meir took two mirrors, one large and the other small, and
placed them before the interrogator. 'Look into this glass,' he said, 'and
into that. Does not your figure seem different in one than in the other?
How much more will the majesty of God, who has neither figure nor form, be
reflected differently in the minds of men! To one it will appear according
to his narrow view of life, and to the other in accordance with his larger
mental horizon.' "(188)

In like manner Rabbi Joshua ben Hanania, when asked sarcastically by the
Emperor Hadrian to show him his God, replied: "Come and look at the sun
which now shines in the full splendor of noonday! Behold, thou art
dazzled. How, then, canst thou see without bewilderment the majesty of Him
from whom emanates both sun and stars?"(189) This rejoinder, which was
familiar to the Greeks also, is excelled by the one of Rabban Gamaliel II
to a heathen who asked him "Where does the God dwell to whom you daily
pray?" "Tell me first," he answered, "where does your soul dwell, which is
s