Let My People Know

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “A gnat is higher than a sinner.”

From the viewpoint of the Godly will, a gnat is higher than a sinner.

Although a gnat may be a lowly creature that does base things, it does not rebel against God, because … the gnat is a necessary part of the structure of the world, unlike the sinner.

The person who transgresses is only a possibility that exists in the structure, and this possibility is subservient to a person’s free will.

If he chooses to sin, he does so not in order to fulfill his mission but voluntarily, of his own choice, in a rebellion against the divine sovereignty.

—Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz