| There is a well-known Chabad melody sung to the words “Indeed, You are God who conceals Himself” (Isa. 45:15).
Contrary to what one might suppose, this is a melody of joy, because a person knows that, although seemingly absent, God is “a God who conceals Himself,” and this awareness causes him to be joyful. The Ba’al Shem Tov used to say that the verse from the Torah portion of the rebuke, “I will conceal (haster astir) My face” (Deut. 31:18), literally means “I will conceal the concealment.” The curse in God’s doubly concealing His face is that a person does not even know that there is a concealment; he does not sense the darkness and the gaping chasm beneath him. But as soon as a person knows that there is concealment, the concealment ceases. Belief in God’s unity does not necessarily disclose the depth of divine existence, but it reveals that a concealment of God exists, that He is hidden right here. The joy in this revelation is not like any other It is the crux of every kind of joy in the world, the bedrock of all true joy, which can never be undermined. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz |