Cleanliness and God

Maybe I'm all wet, but it seemed to me as though ancient Hebrew religion was designed to emphasize how holy and separate God was.  God wasn't everywhere like the pantheists wanted, nor multiple as the polytheists and animists hoped, nor someone you could pick up and hide under the saddle-blankets.  Pictures were right out--they couldn't get close to God that way either.

He was separate.  You couldn't get near without being clean yourself, and even the priests couldn't get very close--and they had to be careful not to "put holiness on the people" afterwards!

Yet they were assured that He was their God and they were His people--even if they could not approach Him.

Once they got that lesson down solid, Jesus taught the rest of the lesson. I can't remember who said that if Jesus had come to the Hindus they'd have showered Him with flowers--and not understood Him at all.  They hadn't gotten lesson 1 yet.