| In order to attain a perception of the Divine, a person must push not only beyond the boundaries of material existence and the perception associated with the material world, but also beyond the confining existence of his own self.
In order for God to be revealed in this world, one must make a place for Him, and wherever a person’s sense of self is present, God cannot be revealed. Therefore the Talmud states, “Any person who has arrogance within him, the Holy One, blessed be He, said: He and I cannot dwell together in the world” (Sota 5a). But at the end of days, at the end of the existence of this world with its present meaning, form, and structure, at a time when the “world” (olam) will no longer constitute a “concealment” (he’elem), the existence of physicality will itself be a revelation of the Divine. Then “all flesh will see together that the mouth of God has spoken.” Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz |