We not only comfortably address YHVH as “You,” but we also assert that YHVH is Eloheinu—“our God.” Who are we to say our God? Yet the Torah says we can. YHVH Eloheinu affirms that the Timeless Ultimate Reality is our God—our loving judge and guide who cares about us and empowers us, judging our deeds, responding accordingly and giving us what we need to actualize our potential and grow. In other words: “You, the Timeless Ultimate Reality, are our God. What we do and experience matters to You. You personally identify with our challenges and guide us so that we can actualize our godly greatness.” Elohim (of which Eloheinu is the possessive form) is the Divine name associated with God’s attribute of judgment. It suggests that God is a judge. The Torah teaches that judgment is a great expression of love. In other words, we must understand that God judges us because He loves us and cares about us. God’s manifestation as Elohim means that what we do makes a difference to the Divine. We are important and we matter to God, and that is why He judges us. The people we love the most, we judge the most. We are the most critical of our loved ones because we care greatly that they achieve their highest goals. God, too, wants us to reach our greatest potential. He responds to our choices and gives us what we need, so that we can actualize our highest self as created in the Divine image. This is how loving parents act in response to their kids when they misbehave, and this is how God responds when we transgress. When I was a child, one day I decided that I would take revenge on my mother over something that, today, I do not even recall. In a fit of anger, I took all of her nylon stockings and tied them into little knots. As I was sitting there feeling very satisfied with my macramé, I heard someone at the door and quickly hid the stockings in the china cabinet. I was proud, but I was also scared. The next day, when my mother couldn’t find any stockings, she asked me, “David, do you know where my stockings are?” “Stockings? Aren’t they in the drawer?” “No.” Several hours later, my mother found her stockings in the china cabinet. Dangling my artwork in front of me, she asked, “Do you have any idea how this happened?” "The washing machine?” “No.” My mother knew very well that I did it. She punished me by canceling my birthday party. At the time, I was really devastated, but today I am happy because now I am a year younger! Now that I’m more mature, I can imagine that if my mother wouldn’t have cared that I knotted her stockings, it wouldn’t have made me feel all that good. As scared as I was of her catching me, it would have felt worse if her only response was, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll get more.” That would have said to me, “What you do doesn’t matter to me. You don’t matter to me.” Nothing hurts more than that. I have seen the self-esteem of children destroyed because their parents never punished them. These kids never experienced the consequences of their choices. Of course, I am not condoning any abusive form of punishment. But I do believe that a child has to see—and wants to see—that what he or she does makes a difference. The fact that God is Eloheinu, “our God” who judges us, means that we have a relationship with Him. YHVH, the Timeless Ultimate Reality, the source, essence and context of everything and everyone in existence is Eloheinu, “our God.” He loves us, cares about us and empowers us to actualize our own godliness. Thus, Eloheinu can be understood as our Loving Life Coach and Personal Trainer. A Buddhist, interestingly, wouldn’t utter such praise for the Ultimate. Buddhists do not believe that God is personal, or that we can have an intimate relationship with Him. In Buddhist practice, a person’s highest spiritual accomplishment is to achieve selflessness and merge with a non-personal Ultimate Reality. Buddhists don’t pray to God. They don’t expect the Ultimate Reality to be personable or caring. They would never acknowledge that YHVH is also Eloheinu. A couple years ago, I was on the Larry King Show with Dr. Deepak Chopra, the well-known Hindu healer and teacher of Eastern practice. Larry started the show by asking, “Who is God?” Deepak responded, “The infinite realm of possibilities. The One who was, the One who is.” He described God in a very esoteric and metaphysical way, but there was nothing personal about his description of God. Larry then turned to me and asked, “Rabbi, is God watching us, judging us?” “Yes, Larry,” I answered. “He is watching us. But He is not just judging us—He is loving us.” I could see that Larry and Deepak were surprised by my answer. During the commercial, Deepak warmly told me that he loved what I said. Larry agreed, “Yeah, Rabbi, you are doing great.” I wondered what was so impressive, but then I realized that for a rabbi to describe God as loving was an anomaly. They must have assumed, like many people do, that Jews view God as angry, mean, vengeful and punishing. But how could anyone—and why would anyone—pray to such a nasty God? The Torah’s view is altogether different. The Torah reveals to the world that we can all stand confidently before YHVH, the Timeless Ultimate Reality, who is personal as Eloheinu, and who can be comfortably, informally addressed as “You.” God is paradoxically beyond the beyond and yet mysteriously manifest and encountered as close, personal and ever-present. YHVH is Eloheinu—the Timeless Ultimate Reality is our God—our Loving Judge, Life Coach and Personal Trainer. He is involved in our everyday lives and personally identifies with our daily challenges. He loves, cares, guides and empowers us, judging our deeds, responding accordingly and giving us what we need to grow and actualize our potential. As we learned in the introduction, tefillah is a faith-building exercise. The more we believe and acknowledge the meaning of YHVH Eloheinu, the more this Divine truth becomes evident and experienced in our everyday lives.