Great for anyone who is searching for deeper meaning to their belief in a creator being.

Thank you for the ARC to read and review.

A wonderful book with a more unconventional look at God and religion. It focuses on God in symbolism and makes images of the Bible very easy to understand.

This book took me a while to get into. Not that it's bad. It's good, has great insight, and the author shares personal stories as well. Definitely something to be digested Thank you to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review.

This was a good book that provided a good deal of information about God and how to learn to embrace him more. The book also talked about Judaism. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC.

A book filled with metaphors for God. Thought provoking and insightful. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to think about God in new ways.

I'm in the deconstruction phase of my faith, and this book came right on time. This is a book that I plan to refer back to frequently. I especially loved the way the author approached biblical teachings.

God Is Here: Reimagining the Divine by Toba Spitzer gives the reader a new outlook on God, outside of the traditional view we're all familiar with. Spitzer also offers practices for each chapter to help the reader apply these new views to their life. In the chapter about God as water he says," Like a worker in the fields, I can harvest loving-kindness by opening my heart to as many people as possible, and by having some compassion on myself and others when we fall short of our aspirations. The world around us is 'untilled ground,' just waiting for us to do the holy work that will bring down the nurturing rains of healing for all." I really enjoyed this book and appreciated the different perspective of God. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

In the first chapter of the book, the author wants us to think of metaphor as a “framework for how we understand and talk about much of what makes us human.” Many people are not comfortable with the word God. She believes that emotional connection with God is important to our species. Yet we seem to have lost God in our lives due to beliefs that are stagnant. The close examination of and research into the Bible by the author — of a a god from old myths and rituals was a part of a particular society at an early age who lived lived then were influenced by their own circumstances and experiences of the world. There is a god of surprises and more — one we don’t know. The one we most commonly known as a man as a punisher or rewards us if we are good.

As I read this nonfiction book, I found her use of a metaphor to explain who God is and how we might be able to experience him fascinating. The suggestions are easy to do. They are at the end of the chapters. She had me thinking of God in different ways. She helps people to look at God in different ways. She believes that there is only one God. It’s an interesting book that shows how to think of God in different ways and get in touch with our spiritual self.

I was having a bit of trouble formulating my review for this book. Most times when trying to talk about books I aim to tell you how I feel about a book and I also try, even if the book is not for me, to tell you who the book might be intended for.

With this book, it was not intended for me as a reader and I had a lot of trouble finding value in it for a wide audience.

I feel this book would be good for a very narrow group of people. Specifically those in the early stages of their exploration of Judaism and in all stages of understanding GOD contextually.

It goes into great detail as to the many ways of understanding who or what GOD is. It's asking you to reimagine all the ways God is present in your life and also how to bring him to the forefront as you understand him in different ways.

I took it as a testimony to how GOD works in different people's lives and I appreciated the simple idea of using different metaphors when thinking of things religiously.

Thanks to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for sending this my way!

I enjoyed this book very much. Toba Spitzer help us break down metaphors in the Bible that make God more accessible to our human brains I also learned a lot about Judaism and see that even if the book was written with that lens, I understood how it applied to all religions who keep to the Old Testament.

Finding God Through Metaphor

Thinking of God as a big, powerful being in the sky is uncomfortable for many people. They can’t form a connection. Tobi Spitzer, as a Jewish rabbi is familiar with this problem. In this book, she uses the Old Testament to find metaphors for God that are more relatable in our world.

In the Hebrew Bible, she finds metaphors for God in the real world: Water, Voice Fire, Rock, and Cloud. Metaphor is a way to gain understand something that is difficult to comprehend directly. Spitzer’s book gives us a way to approach and understand God through the real world. I felt her most successful metaphor was water. Water is powerful and flowing, but it can also be gentle.

The use of metaphor promotes the idea that God is here in the natural world and that he can be sensed in many ways. I thought the thesis was a good one. It gives a way to think about and relate to God that is immediate and real not necessarily filtered through words and ideas that are difficult to understand.

In addition to the discussion of metaphor, each chapter has suggestions for bringing alive the ideas. She also provides textual insights from the Bible and well as spiritual traditions such as Judaism and Christianity.

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Rabbi Spitzer gives helpful ways to envision God for those struggling to believe in a "conventional" viewpoint. A healing book for many who want to believe but have been stymied by such obstacles as religious language. Out now.

Thanks to the author, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are mine.

#GodIsHere #StMartinsPress #netgalley

I enjoyed reading God Is Here by Toba Spitzer. I learned more about Jewish beliefs and traditions which is something I always enjoy doing. I found the tools and suggestions in the book to be very helpful in strengthening my mindfulness & awareness of God's presence in my life.

Rabbi Spitzer has written an insightful inspiring book.She teaches us about the divine about the world of Judaism.The Rabbi has a interesting informative style of writing I will be recommending this ,to friends and bookclubs for discussion netgalley #godishere

Are you looking for a new way to look at the divine? Trying to discover your spiritual side, but don't believe in God as a concept? Rabbi Toba Spitzer examines the concept of God and how it can seem limiting. He discusses how to look at things differently and backs this up with early sources from Judaism as well as Christianity. If you are questioning things, this is the book for you!

While I am a Jesus follower and Spitzer is a Jewish rabbi, I appreciate many of her thought provoking comments on how we think about and experience the divine.

The idea of conceptual metaphors was new to me yet I use them frequently. I might say I was “up” when excited or feeling “blue” when depressed. The metaphors are a way to think about something but do not define it. Conceptual metaphors are used of God and Spitzer explores what is problematic about them and suggests new ways of thinking about God. I am still working on understanding her view of truth. She says we do not discover pre-existing truth but rather observe the world and then formulate truths about it. (128/2865) The same goes for religion.

I appreciate the metaphors Spitzer explores. She writes about God as Water and suggests a new way of thinking of God's power. God as Place reminds us God is here. Every place is sacred. God as Voice (sound) led to insights about silence. God as Rock produced insights into God being refuge and strength. She writes about God as Cloud (by day) and Fire (by night), exploring the invisibility and visibility of God and (fire) one's anger.

Spitzer includes practices to help readers bring the metaphor into the reality of life. She suggests chants, engaging Scripture, singing, silence, and much more. I appreciate she is open to practices from the Christian tradition, such as spiritual direction.

This book is not within my normal reading for my spiritual discipline. I don't agree with everything Spitzer says, such as suggesting God is learning and growing and is continually surprised and confounded by human behavior. (2130/2865) Nonetheless, Spitzer gave me much to contemplate on how I think about God and experience Him. The book would be especially helpful to those wondering about God's existence.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

I received an electronic ARC from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley.
Rabbi Spitzer shares a look at God as so much more. Shared from a Jewish perspective, readers see how God is viewed and could be viewed. Each chapter focuses on a metaphor for a view of God and offers explanations for what is written in the Hebrew Bible. Each chapter ends with recommendations to practice spiritual methods to deepen our individual relationships with God.
Spitzer's writing is clear and reflects the research done to reach her conclusions. She shares with gentle words to encourage readers to explore and learn for themselves with the ultimate goal of deeper relationships.

In this book, Rabbi Spitzer mines scripture for metaphors of God that take us beyond the prevalent image of a big, all-powerful man in the sky. Depicting God as water, as rock, as fire, these scriptural passages describe a God who is not remote but all around us—a source of life, of protection, of inspiration. The book also offers meditations to help the reader connect with the divine in their everyday lives.

I love how this book helps the reader see God in new ways—in ways that can bring comfort and liberation. It's an invaluable text for anyone looking to connect to the spiritual and the divine.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

This book came to me at the perfect time. I enjoyed how Rabbi Spitzer personal insight lends itself to her belief in God. I love Judaism. I love how open Rabbi Spitzer is and how her book can contain so much wisdom. This is a book I would come to again and again when I need a recharge or am looking for something. This is a remarkable book and I’m so glad I stumbled upon it when I did. I truly think it was just meant to be.

Religion is something very personal to each one of us. I think this is a book that I would recommend to read a few chapters at a time to absorb and think about what the author is saying to you. I needed to read some of it and think about it, to really absorb what she was saying to me. I think everyone will get different things out of this book. I just finished reading it and I can tell I will be thinking about he words in this book and see the way I look and view things now. Thank You Toba Spitzer for letting me read this and give my review on it.