A clinical psychologist performing an experiment may ask certain questions of his subjects and, although he is quite sure of what the answer will be, knowing his subject's personality, he will refrain from exerting any influence.

Hence the answer, even if known beforehand by the scientist, is freely chosen and therefore valid in terms of the experiment.

In terms of Divine providence, however, what is the purpose of testing someone if the results are already known?

A medieval Sage, the Ramban, has ventured the opinion that it is necessary in order for an action to emerge from the realm of the potential to the manifest; a person has to earn the reward for a good deed and not for a good intention.

The trials and tests a man is made to undergo are not meant to provide God with information that He already knows.

They are meant to help a person realize the greater potential in him, to reinforce his capacity to overcome difficulties and to create something new. 

It is a way of letting spiritual powers become expressed in practice.

The emphasis is not on God's knowing but on knowing as a human experience."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From The Candle of God, p. 201, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

That is to say, every soul is a letter in the entire Torah, and has its own part to play.

The soul that has fulfilled its task, that has done what it has to do in terms of creating or repairing its own part of the world and realizing its own essence, can wait after death for the perfec­tion of the world as a whole.

But not all the souls are so privileged.

Many stray for one reason or another.

Sometimes a person does not do all the proper things, and sometimes he misuses forces and spoils his portion and the portion of others.

In such cases the soul does not complete its task and may even itself be damaged by contact with the world.

It has not managed to complete that por­tion of reality which only this particular soul can complete.

And therefore after the death of the body, the soul returns and is reincarnated in the body of another person and again must try and complete what it failed to correct or what it injured in the past." 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From The Thirteen Petalled Rose, p. 63, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

"By definition, the way of the Torah is not religious in the strict sense of addressing only that part of a person's life concerned only with relations between the human and the Divine.

The Torah is not a narrow domain of holiness a man may enter or leave as he chooses while the domain of ordinary existence remains neutral territory, where God does not interfere much, and where in any case there is not much point in trying to relate to Him.

Since the Torah is the blueprint of the world, it regulates the whole and cannot be confined to any particular part.

True, its directives are not all on the same level of practicality; nevertheless, its instructions and guidelines and modes of relating are valid for all situations in life.

The more one becomes identified with the Torah,the more does its significance expand beyond particular circumstance.

Rather than constituting itself an ideal for the monastic life, say, or a guide or for any other sort of separa­tion from the reality of the world, Torah works in precisely the opposite fashion, introducing more content and meaning into the trivial details of the life of the world.

One finds the Torah significant in every aspect of community, commerce, agricul­ture, and industry, in the life of feeling and love, in relations between the sexes — down to the most minute aspects of living, like buttoning one's shoes or lying down to sleep.

What is surprising is that with the great quantity and range of its laws, what to do and what not to do, Torah still does not really limit the activities of an individual in any field of endeavor.

That is to say, there is no field of action or thought which, in principle, the Torah repudiates. 

The Law, in general and in detail, the­oretically and practically, mostly adds detail to action, qualifies modes of behavior, imposes new modes, directs the conduct of one's daily business from waking to sleeping–the supposition being that if all these actions are properly defined and prepared, then the guidance of the Law need not and does not change their essence, but adds a quality to them."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From The Thirteen Petalled Rose, p. 94, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The animal spirit is the vital force that gives life to the body, though it possesses, in addition, spiritual components that are oriented beyond this function and do not exist purely as ends in themselves.

The divine soul reflects the pure inner essence of humanity, its yearning toward the divine; it is unconnected to the body or its needs, which, indeed, it frequently overcomes.

It aspires to be and do good.

Every man's life is an ongoing struggle between these two souls, each of which strives to capture and dominate the individual." 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From The Tales of Rabbi Nachman, p. 85, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

“Rabbi Nachman himself explained why he chose the particular format of storytelling, rather than direct statements of Torah teaching.

In order to absorb knowledge and a message from well constructed and direct Torah teaching, one has first of all to be knowledgeable to a certain extent.

More than that, one has to make a conscious effort to learn while one hears any direct statements.

At the same time, one has to have a willingness to accept what one hears.

Rabbi Nachman stated in his symbolic form that the stories he was telling were even for people who had been sleeping, in a way, for seventy years, meaning that the message in the stories somehow gets to them, even when they are not consciously thinking about it as a teaching.

Rabbi Nachman avoids the possibility of evoking antagonism from the reader who might react to or be unable to accept direct statements.

His stories seep in and later on do the work.

Because of that, even though the stories can be misunderstood, somehow the inner content does not get lost, and afterward, in one way or another, it has some impact on the reader."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

 From The Tales of Rabbi Nachman, p. 275, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The tradition passed from one Beit Midrash to another, which from generation to generation changed their character and methods of study.

One element, however, remained stable throughout: the tradition was oral, not written.

It is true that in earlier times, and even during the Temple period, Torah scholars would make mnemonic notes for themselves, but these were no more than shorthand comments on unusual events or decisions which the writers saw fit to record for posterity.

As a rule, the Oral Torah was not written down.

These scrolls, known as 'hidden scrolls' and not meant for public use, were neither studied nor used for teaching, and were preserved only as the personal memoranda of individual Sages.

Moreover, there was a halachic ruling to the effect that 'the words which are written, you are not at liberty to say by heart, and the words transmitted orally, you are not at liberty to commit to writing' (Gittin 60b).

One reason given for this was that an oral doctrine enables maximum flexibility in transmission and interpretation, whereas a written text is bound to reach, at a certain stage, a point of ossification beyond which it cannot be developed.

Exposition of a written text becomes by nature supplemental, while the text itself is no longer renewed and invigorated.

Thus, alongside the written Torah there coexisted a more flexible tradition, which conveyed a practical understanding of the Torah's basic terms and concepts and, above all, explained the actual practice of its commandments.

All this had been transmitted in an ancient chain of tradition stretching from Moses through the whole list of Sages detailed in Pirkei Avot (chapters 1-2) until Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi's (Rebbi's) generation.

This heritage was zealously preserved as an oral tradition, not to be recorded, not to be petrified.

Despite these and many other considerations, Rebbi decided that the time had come to change the method of preserving the Oral Torah by establishing hard and fast rules for guiding its interpretation and formulating it in a specific, clearly defined way that would meet the needs of the time."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

 From Talmudic Images, p.84, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

"For a Talmudic Sage to express a minority opinion was not unusual.

In various controversies, Sages would sometimes express majority opinions, and at other times would be in the minority.

Even when the ruling went against the opinion of a particular individual, he was not required to change his mind.

He was, however, obligated to acquiesce to the halachic ruling of the majority."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

 From Talmudic Images, p. 59 , by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

"Hillel (d.10 CE) was famous as a lover of humanity, and even more for his appreciation of the uniqueness of each person he encountered.

He was known for his ability to address each one who approached him in a way that was most appropriate for that person.

An interesting expression of this ideal is his attempt to summarize the Torah on 'one leg': 'Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.'

This negative formulation of the Biblical passage, 'Love your neighbor as yourself' (Leviticus 19: 18), expresses most aptly the notion that each of us has unique qualities, and therefore one must not judge others by the same criteria that one uses to judge oneself."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

 From Talmudic Images, p.6 by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

"The heroes of the Oral Torah are heroes of a special kind.

Their stories are not tales of war and battles, and their chronicles are devoid of impressive events.

These heroes are heroes of the spirit, whose acts of heroism lie in their thoughts and their words.

The palaces and fortresses they established are invisible to the eye.

The Talmudic Sages themselves declared that it is inappropriate to erect mausoleums on the graves of scholars, since their teachings are their monuments."

 –Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From Talmudic Images, p. xiii, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz