Rabbi Daniel wrote:
You kind of answered you're own question.
There is reality and there is perception.
Reality is.
We perceive.
G-d is everywhere. up up down down right left all around.
Since we humans occupy this little space called 'earth' we call are living space "down here" and we call G-d "up there."

Even if a prophet had a prophecy, asleep, in the comfort of his own bed, he would still refer to his message as coming from Heaven. In general when we refer to spiritual things we refer to them coming from heaven.

So even though G-d came "down" to Mt. Sinai to speak to Moses, we still consider the information to have come from heaven.
Hi R. Daniel, I know that you didn't mean it, but isn't what you are saying about perception in that manner, tantamount to saying the national revelation was an "illusion"?      If I were talking to you in your presence, I would perceive, by my senses, you there with me, and not somewhere in Cleveland.     So I am thinking God is different in His existence than us.

If I weren't in your house, I was be saying "trinity" and be going that direction, but here I don't think I am going to be getting any "Amen!" shout outs from the pews on that train of thought.

So, here at MT, R. Daniel's house, may I suggest that God in His fullness is unexplainable and unknowable by anyone but God Himself?    Yes, we know some things about God, which He chooses to reveal to us, but we are limited.

R. Daniel, you wrote "we still consider the information to have come from heaven".   Yes, that is what I am saying, not to take away from what you referred to with Abraham.    I would like to get to the issue of the Torah and the tree of knowing good and evil - any connection?     I was thinking that maybe in rabbi school, that may be a topic.

If the law is not given, then good and evil don't have a reference.    But it seems to me that the law is not necessary unless there is disobedience - which before eating from the tree, there was not disobedience.       But upon eating from the tree, with disobedience,  the law became conscience.  

So, in the formal giving of the law at Sinai, we have the good if the Torah is observed, and evil if the Torah is not observed - setting down "in writing" what is sin and what is not.     Connecting back to the tree of good and evil in the garden - and sin entering the world.

My Lord, what a morning, when the stars begin to fall - Judith Durham