Let My People Know

"Profound inner struggles"

 

The fact that man is only a very small detail, a dot and less than a dot as against the Infinite, is balanced by the fact that it is precisely he in his smallness who gives each of the parts its significance. 

Since there is an order of causes and influences, and a prime mover of all the worlds, every single person can, in his deeds, thoughts, and aspirations, reach to every one of these points of existence. 

Not only is man free to act on the system, each of his deeds has–in all the worlds, in terms of space and time and of the Supreme or Ultimate Reality–immeasurable significance. 

In contrast to all the automatic patterns of forces functioning in the cosmos, man alone moves independently within the system. 

He alone is important to the manifestations because he can change them, cause them to move from one level to another. 

Furthermore, man–dwelling as he does in two different worlds and undergoing profound inner struggles–is given the chance to rise far beyond the level of our existence and the place in which he spiritually finds himself, and to act on higher worlds without end. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From The Thirteen Petalled Rose by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz