A well-known Chabad tune accompanies the words, “Indeed, You are a hidden God” (Isaiah 45:15).
Surprisingly, perhaps, it is a buoyant melody—because when a person realizes that God is not absent but “a hidden God,” that is cause for joy.
The verse “I will surely hide My face” (Deuteronomy 25:188) may be translated literally as “Hide, I will hide My face.”
The Baal Shem Tov thus interprets it to mean that when God truly hides Himself, He hides the concealment itself.
Then a person cannot even know that there is a concealment; he cannot sense the darkness and abyss yawning beneath him (Toldot Yaakov Yosef, beginning of Bereshit).
But the moment one knows that there is a concealment, it ceases to exist.
Faith in God’s unity is … the discovery of His concealment, so that one knows and senses that God is present, although hidden.
And the joy of this is … the root of true delight, which is the immovable heart of all joy in the world.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz