“In order for the world to exist as a coherent entity, one has to have a philosophical awareness of the fact that there is both a Universe and a Creator of the Universe.
In order to function, realistically, one has to assume a world that is not God, for if everything is the One God, there is no human, and no other reality.
God has to descend to us, and to talk in words that are comprehensible to us, in order to avoid being too far away.
It is like the children’s game of hide-and-seek.
God pretends to hide, and we look for Him.
And then we think that He looks for us.
And all the while, it is a game the Divine Omniscience plays with us for our sake.
This may be likened to the caterpillar and the cocoon it spins.
Both the insect and that which wraps him up are the same.
Manifest nature, law, God’s concealment, and God’s essence are one.
Just as the riddle is a mystery only to the one who is questioned; and the one who asks knows both the answer and the riddle.
In other words, concealment can be part of an essential unity in the dynamics of speech.
The speaker knows what is being spoken, and the one on the other side of speech, the listener, tries to penetrate the ‘mystery’ and to understand.”
From Pebbles of Wisdom from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (forthcoming)