Let My People Know

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “Empty tranquility.”

While it is undoubtedly true that, in certain respects, one who lives within the world of Judaism gains the ability to solve his inner dilemmas and torments, the end goal is never to enable one to settle down in tranquility.

If, at any point, a Jew believes that he has freed himself of the Esaus and the Labans of his life, and that he will now be able to enter a good and spacious land where he will live at ease and rest in peace, he is simply mistaken.

Going deeper and deeper into Judaism does not mean that one solves all of one’s problems and attains tranquility.

That kind of empty tranquility only brings a person closer and closer to death, to the point where his existence is entirely superfluous.

Once our questions have been answered, they do not go away; they simply change, becoming new questions altogether.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz