Jews. I assure you, they won’t mind.
Second, a Jew is a person who honors the joys and sorrows of life with the traditions of Judaism. When a boy is born there should be a bris (circumcision). When a daughter marries there should be a chuppah (wedding canopy) and a ketubah (wedding contract). When there is a death there should be a shivah (mourning period). These are examples, you understand. There is so much more to Judaism than these. But my point is that being a Jew means rooting your life in, though not necessarily regulating your life by, Jewish tradition.
Third, a Jew is a person who upholds the values of Torah. What values? One God who created one world and one humanity, and who demands that we treat each other, Jew and Gentile, with the utmost respect as beings created in the image and likeness of God, and who placed us in a garden which we were to maintain.
Fourth, a Jew is a person who practices tikkun and teshuvah. A Jew who does not work to repair the rifts in the world, both inner and outer, this person is a poor Jew. A Jew who does not do teshuvah, who does not attend to the present moment and engage it with godliness, this person, too, is a poor Jew.
I will not set forth the details here of how to be a Jew. Indeed, I am inclined to let people find their own way through mitzvot and halachah. But suffice it to say that as much as we call ourselves the Chosen People, it is becoming more and more clear to me that if we are to mean anything at all in this world we must become the Choosing People—people who choose to live by the principles and practices of tikkun and teshuvah: acting justly and compassionately toward all creatures, and cultivating the awareness of all selves as a manifestation of God.
My best to you and your horses.
B’Shalom
GOD
My dearest Aaron Hershel,
You ask me of God, to define the Nameless, to place in your palm the secret of the One who spoke and the world came to be. And here it is: God is All.
I am tempted to stop with this, to close this letter, sign my name, and leave you with this simple truth. Yet I fear you will not understand. Know from the first that all that follows is but an elaboration of the simple fact that God is All.
What does it mean to be All? God is the sole Reality. God is the Source of all things and their Substance. There is no thing or feeling or thought that is not from God, even the idea that there is no God! For this is what it is to be All: God must embrace even God’s own negation.
Listen again: God is the Source and Substance of everything and its opposite. There is nothing outside of God. Thus we read: “I am God and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:5). Not simply that there is no other god but God, as our Moslem cousins say, but that there is nothing else but God, which is what their Sufi masters whisper to the initiated.
It rained heavily during the night, and our village is thick with mud. I walked to the Beit Midrash (House of Learning) this morning and stopped to watch a group of little children playing in a puddle of mud.
They sat in the puddle, oblivious to the damp, and made dozens of mud figures: houses, animals, and towers. From their talk it was clear that they imagined an identity for each: a story that told the figure’s past and foretold its future. For a while the mud figures took on independence, a life separate and unique. But they are still just mud. Mud is their source, and mud is their substance. From the perspective of the children wrapped up in the play of separate figures their mud creations had separate selves. From the point of view of a casual observer it is clear that the separate self is an illusion, that in fact they are all just mud.
It is the same with us and God: “Adonai (the Lord) alone is God in heaven above and on earth below, there is none else” (Deuteronomy 4:39). Ayn od—there is none else—meaning that there is nothing else in heaven or on earth but God.
Can this be? When I look at the world I do not see God. I see trees of varying kinds, people of all types, houses, fields, lakes, cows, horses, chickens, and on and on. In this I am like the children at play seeing real figures and not simply mud.
Where in all this is God?
Some would argue that God is a divine spark inside each being, some would say only within human beings. Others would argue that God is above and outside creation. But I teach neither position. God is not inside or outside, God is the very thing itself! And when there is no thing, but only empty space? God is that as well.
I want you to remember two important words: Yesh and Ayn, form and emptiness. Yesh refers to the seeming separateness of things, each thing having its own form, its own boundary, its own separate existence. Ayn refers to the emptiness of things, to the fact that forms and boundaries are not real in and of themselves, but rather useful constructions of the mind. To feed myself I must be able to separate my mouth from your mouth. This ability creates the world of Yesh. But to love my neighbor as my self (Leviticus 19:18) I must be able to transcend that distinction and recognize a greater unity without form. This is Ayn.
And which is God, Yesh or Ayn? Both and neither!
Picture a bowl in your mind. Define the bowl. Is it just the clay that forms its walls? Or is it the empty space that fills with borscht? Without the space the bowl is useless. Without the walls the bowl is useless. So which is the bowl? The answer is both. To be a bowl it must have form and emptiness.
It is the same with God. For God to be God, for God to be All, God must manifest both as both form and emptiness. This teaching is called shlemut, the completeness of God. To be shlemut God must contain all opposites. God must be both Yesh and Ayn simultaneously.
I have recently found a wonderful analogy to explain this teaching of shlemut, God’s completeness. It has to do with magnets. I know little about them but this: A magnet has two poles, one positive and one negative. A magnet cannot be otherwise and still be a magnet. The two poles go together and only when they are together can there be a magnet. Even if you cut the magnet in half and in half again, it will always manifest these two poles. No matter how small you slice the magnet, its very nature necessitates the duality of positive and negative poles.
Now think of God. Yesh and Ayn are the poles of God. God cannot be God without them, and they cannot be themselves without each other and God. This is what is meant by God’s shlemut, God’s wholeness. All opposites are contained in and necessitated by God. We will return to this truth over and over again for it explains the deepest mysteries.
But enough for now. I have sought to clarify and may have only confused. You asked a difficult question, made all the more difficult because the answer is so simple: God is All.
B’Shalom
CREATION
My dearest Aaron Hershel,
How wonderful to find your letter waiting for me this morning. I had not expected to hear from you so soon. It is always a delight. And your question! Why did God create the world? What is the purpose of creation?
Could you have started with anything smaller? Definitions we have, reasons why—that is another matter altogether. But you ask and I answer. That is how it is with us, and I am blessed to have you as my student.
Why did God create the world?
Because it is God’s nature to manifest shlemut, divine wholeness and infinite possibility. Infinite possibility must include Yesh and Ayn, form and emptiness. You see, I told you that these
