Let My People Know

"It is written that what God demands of us is to reach our own "beyond," our own infinite dimension, and not to reach His infinity.

 

The fact that we can even relate to the very essence of faith stems from the fact that we are a part of the Divine. 

Our very speech flows from this vital source, but here are also the limitations. 

Were we, God forbid, creatures of the Devil (not that we believe there are such creatures, or that there is a Devil—in spite of a lot of credible evidence to the contrary), we would not be able to speak about that which we are conversing. 

The little we are able to talk about God is by virtue of the fact that a part of us is of God, even though the rest of us is a creature of God. 

Between these two, in this extremely narrow gap, are we bidden to overcome the barrier of our humanity. 

Every such overcoming, every Divine relation in us, every indication of that which we relate to as holy, is the success of the Divine.

Elsewhere in the Tanya it is written that what God demands of us is to reach our own "beyond," our own infinite dimension, and not to reach His infinity. 

The writer urges us to get out from the confines of the created and to go beyond—the passage being that which binds us to God. 

The mitzvah is one such passageway or connecting link, like a hand outstretched by the Divine. 

While any of the expressions of martyrdom is another way we have to connect with Him. 

In both of these, we find the infinite that lies within the finite; something of Divine essence is made available to us. 

Which is the other side of the statement "And ye shall be as gods." 

For if man were totally cut off from God, there would be no meaning to Divine revelations or even to His Creation. 

The meaning of the Creation of man and of man's worship of God—of Divine revelation altogether —rests on the fact that in spite of all the hiddenness of God, we do have a way of reaching the infinite. 

And it is even possible, in certain instances, to reach Him precisely within the hiddenness.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From The Sustaining Utterance, “Concealment as Part of Creation,” p. 51 by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz