Let My People Know

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “The question of Divine Providence.

On one hand, we feel God to be very near;.

On the other, as we see, He is very distant.

We call Him Father.

We also call Him “Ein Sof” (Infinite).

Actually, I need both these, especially when I am concerned with the question of Divine Providence.

For whenever I move something — even to the slightest degree—it has a reason and a result.

As the Tzadik said, lifting up a handful of sand and letting it run out through his fingers: “He who does not believe that every one of these particles returns exactly to the place that God wishes, is a heretic.”

Another image, attributed to the Baal Shem Tov, says that sometimes a great storm comes, hurls everything about, and causes the trees to shake violently so that the leaves fall. One such leaf may drop close to a worm, and it was for this the whole world was in a furor—that a worm may eat of a certain leaf.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz