Yāḏaʿ: Embodied Knowing

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.” (Deuteronomy 7:9)

The ‘knowing’ of Adonai is not merely cognitive.

We cannot think and read our way into this kind of knowledge.

The ‘knowing’ of our divine design (our telos) encompasses our whole being - body, mind-soul, and spirit.

It’s the embodied experience of yāḏaʿ.

Yāḏaʿ is extraordinarily intimate and moving, empirical and felt.

It’s that first sip of cold lemonade on a hot summer’s day and the prick of an unexpected thorn while walking about barefooted in a field.

It’s the precipice of joy that comes with looking into your newborn’s eyes for the first time and the cave of sorrow and heartbreak at the powerless witnessing of a beloved friend suffer.

In Genesis, Adam and Eve knew (yāḏaʿ) that they were naked after eating the fruit - not through deductive reasoning - but through a psychosomatic reaction from their head to their loins of shame and a sense of unsafety.

Later, Adam and Eve knew (yāḏaʿ) each other, and became pregnant with a son. They encountered the ecstasy of a lover’s gaze and the thrill of one another’s touch.

Yāḏaʿ is vulnerable. Our shame too may feel squeamish or uncomfortable. It seems almost scandalous and far too revealing.

Yet this is the knowledge of our Maker. Not dismissing our dialectics and inquisitions, but integrating them into our whole selves - every sense and emotion and relationship and conviction.

He wants us to yāḏaʿ his covenant and mitvahs and teachings in the same way we know a lover, miss a best friend, find inspiration in the radiant pedals of a blooming iris, or behold a sunrise dancing atop the ocean waters.

To know God - and all that comes from God - is to be filled with and delight in his goodness, beauty, and truth. It’s to be naked and unashamed before a Creator who loves us.