For my whole writing career I have pursued the belief that words are malleable and language is as much a barrier to knowledge as a means of developing knowledge. Words, like knowledge, can evolve and expand in breadth and depth of meaning and implication, and we can begin to hear undertones and after-tones as our sensitivity to each word expands.

So, remember back when you were learning a new language. At first, you equated words in your known language, 1 to 1 with new words in the foreign language. But if your learning gained any depth, you soon saw that the relationships were not 1 to 1 at all. They were hazy, with only partial overlaps, and often with layers or facets of a word in one language, that in the second language were entirely unrelated.

Now, some time ago I began to believe that the Torah had a depth to it that was beyond human. I came to this belief from the opposite direction of traditional orthodoxy that has always maintained that ‘Torah is the word of God.’ Well, there is much in Torah that I believe is all too human, which is to say, deeply flawed, or at least prone to being understood in a deeply flawed way. But I also began to see layers of causality and fore-knowledge that appeared well beyond the capability of mere humans.

I began to wonder: are we translating the Hebrew incorrectly? Are the meanings we’ve applied to words based on ancient or medieval misconceptions, or on the limited knowledge of our forebears? So, here’s a thought experiment. It’s very simple and yet I’ve found it transformative:

Instead of thinking the word ‘melekh’ means ‘king,’ imagine it means ‘consciousness.’ Simple. But watch what that does to your understanding as you say any standard blessing:

Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, Consciousness of the Universe...

Suddenly, your consciousness is bound up with the Divine, directly, palpably. Your consciousness is part of the Melekh of the Olam.

Oh, oh. What does ‘Olam’ really mean?