God, Himself
"The Devil, Himself"
I'm always in it for the money.
I'll run anything for the money.
What else are you gonna do?
When it runs out?
Besides nothing?
But plenty of time?
What else are you gonna do?
Besides nothing?
When it runs out?
Write a blues tune.
About a woman.
To the Devil, Himself.
God, Himself
The phrase matters.
God, Himself.
Comma included.
Because without the comma, it turns into an abstraction, an object, a category to sort, debate, or disprove. With the comma, it becomes a pointing gesture. Not a definition—an indication. Like saying the fire, itself or the sea, itself. Speech is already late.
Most of what goes wrong in theology begins when that distinction is forgotten.
- Not the Devil’s Mirror.
“God, Himself” is not the Devil’s opposite. That is a category error. The Devil is a figure inside the story. God is the condition under which the story is tellable at all. The Devil tempts, bargains, flatters, offers shortcuts. God does not negotiate because negotiation presupposes lack. God is not trying to get anything from anyone. The Devil is always in a hurry. God is never rushed.
That is why the blues work for the Devil so easily. The blues live in lack—money running out, love slipping away, time doing what time does best. The Devil fits there naturally: What else is there to do? It is a real question. A good one.
“God, Himself” answers that question without answering it. Not by filling the lack, but by revealing it as secondary.
- Dictation Changes Everything.
If the Torah is dictation, then everything else follows with ruthless consistency.
Dictation means:
• wording is not decorative,
• repetition is not stylistic,
• gaps are intentional,
• anomalies are data, not noise.
Dictation collapses the modern distinction between content and form. There is no “idea behind the words” that could have been phrased differently. The phrasing is the idea. Law is not encoded in language; language is the law.
That is why Judaism does not permit paraphrase at the level of revelation. Commentary is endless; replacement is forbidden. The text can be circled forever, but it cannot be rewritten.
Once dictation is accepted, questions about whether Hebrew is “beautiful” become irrelevant. Precision replaces aesthetics.
- Hebrew Is Not “Human” in the Usual Sense.
Saying Hebrew is not a human language can be coherent—if careful about what is meant.
Hebrew is spoken by humans. It can be learned, mispronounced, butchered, forgotten, revived. In that sense, it behaves like a human language.
But its function in the tradition is not human-first. Hebrew is not a label system attached to a preexisting reality. It is closer to an operating language—a language in which reality executes.
Creation happens through speech. Not metaphorically. Functionally.
“Let there be” is not a description of an act; it is the act.
That is the core claim. Everything else—gematria, letter-shapes, spacing, cantillation—flows from that. If language is ontological, then letters are not arbitrary. They are constraints. Limits. Switches.
That is why Torah cannot be translated without remainder. Meaning leaks. Always. Not because translators are bad, but because other languages are downstream.
- Angels Aren’t Translators—They’re Vectors.
The idea that angels “fix God’s Hebrew” implies God needs editing. Absurd.
Angels are not editors; they are vectors. They do not improve the signal; they carry it. Like voltage through a system that would fry the circuit if delivered raw.
When tradition says angels “carry” prayers, that need not imply distance. It can name embodiment. Prayer moves through layers of articulation—breath, sound, intention, meaning. Angels can name those layers.
They are how, not who.
That is why the three visitors to Abraham can both announce a birth and destroy a city without contradiction. Same source. Different vector. Mercy and judgment are not opposites; they are outputs of the same reality under different conditions.
- God Does Not “Speak” the Way Humans Do.
When “God speaks” is said, translation is already happening. God does not open a mouth. God does not choose words from a menu. God does not hesitate, revise, or clarify.
Speech, in this context, can be understood as manifestation through distinction.
Speech divides. Light from dark. Sea from land. Command from permission. Clean from unclean. Speech introduces difference.
That is why law is central. Law is not moral advice; it is differentiation. It tells reality where one thing ends and another begins. Without law, everything collapses into undifferentiated force.
The Devil hates this. Not because law is harsh, but because law limits improvisation. The Devil thrives in blur—maybe this, maybe that, what’s the difference?
God, Himself, draws lines.
- Silence Is Not Absence.
The practice sometimes described as “move on the two” is not necessarily mystical theatrics. It can be attentional ethics.
Impulse once is noise. Impulse twice is signal.
That is not magic. That is restraint. It is the refusal to confuse urgency with truth. God does not shout because shouting bypasses consent. God waits because waiting preserves freedom.
Revelation comes with terror. Sinai is not cozy. Law is frightening because reality will not bend to preference. It will only meet a person where that person stands.
Silence, in that context, is not emptiness. It is compression.
- Purim Is the Blueprint of Hiddenness.
Purim matters because it shows what dictation looks like when God refuses to be named.
No miracles that break physics. No seas split. No fire from heaven. Just coincidence stacked so precisely it collapses into inevitability.
God is not absent in Esther. God is hidden by design.
That is why Purim unnerves modern readers. It removes the comfort of spectacle. It says: This is what divine action looks like most of the time.
Often nothing “travels.” The field changes phase.
- Prophecy Is Not Prediction.
Prediction extrapolates. Prophecy discloses structure.
Prophets do not know the future because they see ahead; they know it because they see through. The grain of reality is perceived so clearly that outcomes become legible.
That is why prophecy can be conditional. Change the conditions, change the outcome. The structure remains.
Amalek appears whenever differentiation is threatened. Not because any nation is metaphysically doomed, but because certain configurations of power, resentment, and abstraction recur. Prophecy names the pattern, not the passport.
- God, Himself, Is Not an Experience.
Experiences come and go. They spike. They fade. They demand repetition. God, Himself, does none of that.
The moment God is turned into an experience, the axis tilts back toward Devil territory—chasing intensity, novelty, proof.
God, Himself, is known through obligation, not ecstasy.
That is the scandal. The command comes before the feeling. Often without it. Sometimes against it.
That is why Judaism distrusts rapture. Not because joy is bad, but because joy without law becomes appetite.
- Dictation Does Not Crush the Human Voice.
Dictation does not crush the human voice. It can create space for it.
Because if the core text is fixed, interpretation can be endless without becoming arbitrary. Freedom is possible because the foundation is not negotiable.
Precision at the center. Play at the edges. The negative space is part of the text.
That is not coincidence. It is fidelity.
- God, Himself, Is Not a Character.
God is not a being among beings. Not even the biggest one. Not a super-agent who occasionally intervenes.
God is the condition under which beings can appear, act, and be judged at all.
That is why prayer does not inform God. It aligns the speaker. That is why repentance does not change God. It changes position.
And that is why Hebrew matters—not because angels prefer it, but because it resists drift. It holds shape under pressure.
- The Counterweight.
So when the fragment says:
Write a blues tune.
About a woman.
To the Devil, Himself.
The counterweight is not:
Write a hymn.
About heaven.
To God.
The counterweight is stillness instead of hustle.
Measure instead of appetite.
Listening instead of leverage.
God, Himself, does not need belief.
But belief needs God, Himself, to stop devouring itself.
That is not delusion.
That is discipline.
And if angels are involved at all, they are not correcting Hebrew. They are standing by quietly, making sure the world does not shake itself apart while the ear learns what was already there.
