The Liminal Space Between Being and Becoming

“Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial.”

The Ritual Process
Borrowing from the earlier work of fellow ethnographer Arnold van Gannep, Turner used the term ‘liminality’ (from the Latin root limen, meaning “threshold”) to refer to the intermediate, or transitional, stage that occurs during a rite of passage. According to Turner, when individuals undergo such rites, they invariably reach a point where they must shed one status or identity without having fully entered into the next. These individuals thus become situated in between two identities — “betwixt and between” recognized fixed groupings within the social classification and order. In other words, these individuals find themselves thrust into what is known as the liminal space — the “precarious in-between” place that bridges “what is” and “what can or will be.” - The Ritual Process, Victor Turner

ויקרא י״ט:א׳-ב׳

(א) וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יהוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר(ב) דַּבֵּ֞ר אֶל־כָּל־עֲדַ֧ת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל וְאָמַרְתָּ֥ אֲלֵהֶ֖ם קְדֹשִׁ֣ים תִּהְי֑וּ כִּ֣י קָד֔וֹשׁ אֲנִ֖י יהוה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃

Leviticus 19:1-2

(1) Hashem spoke to Moses, saying:(2) Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, Hashem your God, am holy.

אור החיים על ויקרא י״ט:ב׳:י״ג-י״ד

(יג)עוד ירצה על זה הדרך קדושים תהיו לשון עתיד פירוש אין הפסק למצוה זו, כי כל שער מהקדושה אשר יכנס עדיין ישנו בגדר הכנסה שער אחר למעלה ממנו, כי אין שיעור להדרגות הקדושה המזומנת לכל הרוצה ליטול את השם... לזה אמר תהיו כי מצוה זו אין לה הפסק ותמיד ישנה בגדר מצוה זו להיות קדושים. (יד) ונתן טעם לדבריו כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם שאין שיעור אל קדושתו יתברך, וחפץ יהוה בבניו ידידיו להדמות לקונם בהפלגת הקדושה, ומעתה דון בדעתך ההדרגות אשר תבא בהם:

Or HaChaim on Leviticus 19:2:13-14

(13) We may also interpret the words קדושים תהיו by emphasizing the future tense, i.e. תהיו, "you shall become holy." The implication is that this is a commandment which is an ongoing process. The Torah asks us to eat מצה on Passover, to sit in huts on סוכות, to abstain from certain kinds of activities on the Sabbath, etc. The common denominator of all those commandments is that they apply on certain days or on certain dates only. Not so the commandment of "be holy." This commandment applies day in day out throughout our lifetime. The imperative to strive for sanctity is one that we cannot take a vacation from. Even while we are busy performing this commandment it is one that we never have mastered completely. Whatever sanctity we attain is superior to what we had achieved previously but inferior to what we still hope to achieve. . . The Torah writes תהיו in order to remind us that the ultimate realisation of the ideal of holiness will forever remain "in the future." (14) The Torah supplies the reason for this with the words "for I the Lord your G'd am holy." G'd implies that just as there is no limit to His holiness, so our striving for holiness must remain something that has no upper limit. G'd desires that His favourite creatures engage in an ongoing process of becoming more and more like their father in Heaven.

Astrophysicist Jedidah Isler refers to liminality as an “untapped genius,” stating that “there’s freedom in [the] in-between, freedom to create from the indefiniteness of not-quite-here, not-quite-there, a new self-definition.”

Process Theology
Process theology recognizes every “thing” is really a series of events across time, a process, that emerges in relationship. We are each a process, and creation is a process. God is a process, revelation is a process. All emerge in relationship, meaning that no thing can be understood in isolation. Each event has an interiority in which it integrates the reality around it with its own choice about how to proceed. In addition, an exteriority in which it has an impact on the choices of every other event around it. We are all part of something interactive and dynamic.

In such a worldview, God is not outside the system as some unchanging, eternal abstraction. Instead, God permeates every aspect of becoming, indeed grounds all becoming by inviting us and every level of reality toward our own optimal possibilities. The future remains open, through God’s lure, to our own decisions of how or what we will chose next. God, then, uses a persistent, persuasive power, working in each of us (and all creation at every level) to nudge us toward the best possible outcome. But God’s power is not coercive and not all powerful. God cannot break the rules or unilaterally dictate our choices. Having created and then partnered with this particular cosmos, God is vulnerable to the choices that each of us makes freely as co-creators.
Rabbi Bradley Artson on Process Theology

Essence and Flow By Joy Ladin
You live in the gap
between essence and flow,
neither being nor becoming
the essence that is everywhere,
making love or having sex
with every category of existence. Essence flows
over your head and between your legs
and leaves you high and dry, transformed
into something that can’t transform,
a borrowed outfit that doesn’t fit
your hunger to join the boys and girls
so lusciously compatible with existence
they can forget for years at a time
the nothingness that licks
the glamorous lips of essence. You hang around –
why? who knows? –
bearing witness to the willing world
from the unfashionable position you’ve fashioned, silent as a beach
through which the river
of essence you aren’t
flows into the sea.

https://www.ritualwell.org/blog/revelation-resilience-sefirat-ha%E2%80%99aveilut-shavuot-tisha-b%E2%80%99av

Rabbi Jenna Shaw