God Is the Place of the World: “There Is None Besides Him”

The Talmudic Sages expressed a remarkable principle: “[God] is the place of the world, but the world is not His place” (Bereishit Rabbah 68:9). This short phrase holds such depth that it’s worth repeating and reflecting on.

“The world is not His place” – The universe is not some vast container in which God exists, as though He were just another being — physical or spiritual, inside a larger reality. Rather, “He is the place of the world” – God is reality itself. He is the “place” in which the entire universe exists. Every creature, every angel, every particle of existence is within Him.

Children may imagine God as an invisible being “walking” around somewhere in the sky or somewhere on Earth, however, the truth is the opposite: God is the ultimate reality, and our entire universe exists within Him. This is why we speak of “the reality of God.”

In Jewish tradition, one of God’s names is HaMakom – “The Place.” This is the source for the halachic (Jewish legal) term “mitzvot between a person and HaMakom,” meaning commandments between a person and God.

A student once asked his teacher, “Where is God?” The teacher replied, “You should be asking the opposite: Where is He not? Show me even one place where He isn’t…”

While it’s not easy to grasp, this is the ultimate truth: God is not “inside” our world, but our world is inside God. This is why Jewish mysticism says, “There is no place empty of Him”. Many people say this with their lips, but when we can truly understand this, it can change the way we see reality.

God as the Core of Reality

King David expressed this in the Psalms: “My days are like an extended shadow, and I wither like grass. But You, Lord, will sit enthroned forever… Long ago You established the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will remain. They will all wear out like a garment; like clothing You will change them, and they will pass away. But You remain the same, and Your years will never end” (Psalms 102).

David compared the relationship between God and the universe to a person wearing a garment. The garment exists only because the wearer exists. God is the heart and foundation of existence, and the survival of the world depends entirely on Him.

The Torah repeats this idea many times: “You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, the highest heavens and all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them, and the host of heaven worships You” (Nehemiah 9:6).

A Dependent Creation

The entire creation exists only because God chooses to sustain it at every moment. We can understand this with a modern analogy of electricity: just as the light in our homes stays on only as long as the power company keeps the current flowing, so the universe exists only because God continuously wills it to exist.

God’s independence from the world proves that He is the ultimate reality, and as Maimonides described Him, “the foundation of all foundations and the pillar of all wisdom” (Yesodei HaTorah 1:1).

Hasidic thought develops this further and explains that everything that exists, exists only because of God’s ongoing creative power. As the Tanya explains: “Every created being is, in truth, considered as nothing and void compared to the power of the Creator’s speech and breath, which constantly brings it forth from absolute nothingness into being… Without this continuous flow from God’s speech and breath, it would revert to nothingness” (Shaar HaYichud VeHaEmunah, ch. 3).

Practical Implications: Trust in God

This profound truth leads directly to a life-changing principle: “There is none besides Him” which means that no force (good or bad), can affect us independently of God. Every event, every person, and every situation is under His control. People are only agents carrying out His will, as the Talmudic Sages said: “Merit is brought about through the meritorious, and guilt through the guilty” (Bava Batra 119b).

“Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven” (Deuteronomy 10:12; Berachot 33b). We choose whether to be righteous or wicked, but God decides whether our plans succeed and how our actions unfold. We choose whether to be messengers for good or for harm, but He governs the outcome.

The Power of Saying “There Is None Besides Him”

When you truly believe that God is in full control, you naturally direct your hopes, fears, and prayers to Him alone. Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin wrote: “This is a great principle and a wondrous remedy: to remove and cancel from oneself all other influences and wills, so they cannot rule over him at all… When a person sets in his heart to say: ‘Isn’t God the true God, and there is none besides Him, no power in the world or in any universe at all, for all is filled only with His simple unity’ — and he nullifies in his heart any belief in other powers, focusing only on the Creator, then God will ensure that all other forces and wills in the world will vanish from affecting him… For to Him, it is all the same to act through the natural order He established or to overturn it” (Nefesh HaChaim, Gate 3, ch. 12).

This teaching is a practical path to peace of mind, resilience, and unshakable faith.