Let My People Know

"A problem, whether it concerns mathematics or science or spiritual reality, can usually be solved in more than one way"

 

If a person is unsure of himself, and wishes to know whether his way is appropriate to him, one of the tests of validity would be to examine its flexibility—whether it can be translated into different levels of the hidden or the manifest, as the case may be. 

It should lend itself with ease to a variety of expressions. 

If this cannot be done, if his key cannot open the whole of Torah, it may be necessary to reexamine that key and see if it is not perhaps a delusion. 

There should be more than one way of getting to any problem of truth. 

A problem, whether it concerns mathematics or science or spiritual reality, can usually be solved in more than one way. 

What is essential is that all the approaches should lead to the same correct solution. 

Some go through the air, some by sea, others over land. 

All should lead to an equivalent answer, even if couched in different words, even if they sound oddly at variance.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
 
From an essay, "Mysticism in the Jewish Tradition," by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz