Let My People Know

"No man or creature can comprehend the divine wisdom itself"

 

No man or creature can comprehend the divine wisdom itself. 

However, as the Talmud states, ''Wherever you find His greatness"–wherever His infinity is referred to in the Scriptures–"you find His humility":

In that very same place, you read of how God constricts Himself and defines Himself to a specific place. 

In every place that you find His power, His infinite power to constrict His own infinity, there you find His humility–there you find Him manifesting Himself in the small details. 

Where He is described as the "God of gods and Lord of lords" (Deuteronomy 10:17), He is also described as "He who does justice for the orphan and widow" (Deuteronomy 10:18). 

Where He is described as "the high and lofty One, who inhabits eternity, holy is His name" (Isaiah 57:15), this is followed by "I dwell on high and holy, and with the oppressed and low in spirit, to revive the spirit of the low, and enliven the heart of the oppressed." 

God, whom "the heavens and the heavens of heaven cannot contain" (1 Kings 8:27), "constricted His presence between the carrying-poles of the ark.” 

This is God's greatness, and this is His power. 

He is not merely great but infinite; and His infinity and omnipotence enables the expression of His chokhmah in finite words and forms. 

To say that because God is infinite and without limit He therefore cannot manifest Himself through a finite medium is to impose a limit on Him–that is, to render Him finite! 

It is specifically His infinity that enables Him to clothe Himself in finite garments. This is what the Talmud means when its says, "wherever you find His greatness, you find His humility."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From Opening the Tanya by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz