Let My People Know

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “A paradox.”

The name Elohim is related to nature, the elementary forms of creation, which we may call reality of the world.

The Lord God (YHVA) is the Divine name beyond existence.

But man cannot be created from this beyond; he has to be formed by the combination of form and purpose, the putting together of the end and the beginning.

He is therefore made of the dust of the earth and the sublime spirit of God.

His Divine soul is not even the same animal soul of creatures; he is a paradox of the lowest and highest.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz