Let My People Know

Adin Steinsaltz: “Man is not an angel, nor is he a beast.”

What is man?

What is the true essence of this unity of angel and beast, body and soul, reason and emotion, good and bad?

Truly, of all these, there is not one that can give a satisfactory definition of man’s real self; only the combination of all these is man—this is the human in him.

Man is not an angel, nor is he a beast; he is the combination of both: a man.

And he is so with all the many combinations and links of these contradictory facets; there is no place for one of them without the others.

Their unification into one creates the true being of the man. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz