I had a discussion with a friend of mine about ‘What G’d is’. I told him that you can’t describe G’d in human terms. It’s something spiritual, it’s the perfection. I also told him, that the first thing that G’d asks us when we pass away is if we have been honest in business. And my friend asked, if you say that G’d asks us questions when we pass away aren’t those human terms? Could you help me out to answer him this question?
You are asking a very good and very deep question. You are correct that we cannot say anything about G-d that implies any kind of personification, which would limit Him. We can’t say what G-d is, and we can’t even say what He is not. The truth is that the only thing we can say about G-d Himself is that He is an absolute unity.
However, there are many times that the Torah, or the Sages of the Talmud try to present us with a concept. They do this using analogies or metaphors. Some of these metaphors seem to imply that G-d has a body (for example we say that He took us out of Egypt with an outstretched arm etc.), others that He is personified (like your example of the questions that we will be asked after death). It is clear that these are only metaphors or analogies, which is the best that our minds can cope with. They also conceal deep kabbalistic truths that cannot be written literally. I think you will have to ask your friend to accept that the terminology we use to describe G-d is confusing and apparently contradictory because there is no way that our finite minds can grasp or understand the Infinite.
Hopefully at some point in the future when you and your friend have mastered all of the revealed Torah you will be able to begin your studies of kabbala and come to understand a deeper layer of meaning in these (and other) statements.
Rabbi David Sedley