Let My People Know

"What is the logic in a person with a stomach ache asking God to heal him? Doesn't God have more important things to do?"

 

Because God is so far from us, it is reasonable to ask why He should pay us any attention. 

What is the logic in a person with a stomach ache asking God to heal him? 

Doesn't God have more important things to do? 

But on the other hand, everything in the created universe is equally distant from God. 

We could as easily ask: Doesn't God have anything more important to do than to attend to the Milky Way? 

Although the Milky Way is composed of billions of stars, what is that in God's eyes? 

He created them merely by saying, "Let there be…”

From His viewpoint, a stomach ache and the Andromeda galaxy are equal. 

When an adult and child play a game with play money, there is no real difference between a penny and a million dollars, for it is no more than a game. 

But for the child, who takes the game seriously, it makes a great difference whether he wins one dollar or a hundred. 

All of his happiness depends on the choices he makes. 

In this sense, God is playing with us in this world, playing King of the Universe. 

However, and this is the crucial point, at the moment that He acknowledges that "His Name is called King,” that He is joining us in the game, He really is the King of the Universe. 

God's word, His speech, is not separate from Him, but a part of His very being. 

He does not send representatives to play this role; He Himself descends to the very lowest level in order to be the King of the Universe. 

And thus, God perceives everything on every level, whether the voice of a child ("the voice of the lad where he is") or that of an angel. 

To the One "Whose Name is called King,” both are equally inconsequential and equally important. 


–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From Learning from the Tanya by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz