is to manifest Yesh and Ayn. This is God’s nature, this is what God is: The source and substance of all and nothing.
Recall my analogy of the magnets. Remember how the two poles, positive and negative, go together and only when they are together can there be a magnet? Can we say that the one pole precedes the other? Can we say that the one pole creates the other?
No. Each pole arises with the other. Its being depends upon the other. And vice versa. There is no first and second, there is no primacy of one over the other. There is only the two forever together. The magnet does not decide to make this happen; this is simply what the magnet is: two poles held in a greater unity. It is the nature of the magnet to hold these opposite poles in its greater unity; the magnet cannot be otherwise.
So, too, with God. Yesh and Ayn are the poles of God. God cannot be God without them, they cannot be themselves without each other and God. Thus all arise together. This is what is meant by God’s shlemut, God’s wholeness and completeness. The shlemut of God necessitates both Yesh and Ayn. The manifestation of Yesh and Ayn is what it means to be God.
Thus, those who tell you that our everyday world, the world we see from the perspective of Yesh, is illusory and without consequence are wrong. This world is of supreme value for it, no less than Ayn, is of God. Our world is fragile and impermanent, but it is the temporal and fleeting world of Yesh that is needed to reveal the timelessness of Ayn. And both are needed to express the completeness of God.
The sainted Aaron HaLevi Horowitz of Straosselje, (1776-1829) one of the early students of Hasidism and my teacher’s teacher, taught: “The main point of creation is to reveal God’s completeness from the opposite perspective.” Unity in the midst of diversity. Creation happens because God cannot but be God. And to be God, God must manifest that which appears to be separate from God, the temporal world we call Yesh.
The unawakened human mind recognizes things only in contrast to other things. We know I only in relation to Thou, good only in relation to evil, right only in relation to left, up only in relation to down. The human mind rarely sees beyond these opposites to the greater unity that necessitates them. But the mind can awaken to greater unity, and in this lies the purpose of creation and humankind. The purpose of creation is to manifest the infinite God in the finite world. The purpose of humanity is to know that creation is a manifestation of God.
Why, then, did God create the heavens and the earth? There is no why to creation. Creation is because God is. Is there value in creation ? Of course. For creation is the way God is God in time and space. Creation is holy in and of itself for in and of itself it is God. This is what God means when Torah says: “Be holy for I, the Source and Substance of All Form and Emptiness, am Holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Holiness is the natural state of reality. We are holy because God is holy, and we are God manifest in time and place. The Torah’s command is to be true to our divine nature and to honor the divine nature of all things.
When God created humankind what did God say? “Let us create adam (earthling, adam from adamah, earth) in our image” (Genesis 1:26). Who is this us? Some say God was speaking as a king who refers to himself in the third person plural: We decree this and we decree that. Others say God was conversing with the angels. In the book of Proverbs we read that Wisdom was with God at creation so maybe God was consulting her. I have a problem with all of these.
First, God does not speak in the kingly manner elsewhere in Torah, so why here? Second, there is no mention of the creation of angels in Genesis, so why assume them? Third, there is no mention of Wisdom in Genesis either, so why assume she was there?
We don’t have to imagine who God was speaking to. It is clear from the Torah that God was talking with the other beings that had just been created. God says let us make a being in our image after our likeness. And then God fashions adam from adamah, the earthen one from the earth. No other being was so fashioned. Only people. Why? To tell us that we are not alien to this world. To remind us that we come out of the earth and were not placed upon her.
What is the difference? When we imagine we are other than the mud and soil and plants and animals with whom we share this world we can imagine that we are superior. And if we are superior we can do with them whatever we choose. But if we know that we too are from the earth, then we will not feel superior. We will not walk upon the fields as victors seeking to impose our reign, but as children playing at the hem of their mother’s skirt or sucking on her milk-filled breast.
I know you will counter by saying God gave us the whole of creation to subdue and use. But I would argue that this is an example of Torah failing to speak divine wisdom. It happens at times and we can speak at length about this if you wish. My point is that Torah speaks the word of God when that word unites rather than divides.
We find two opinions in Torah. One says that we are to subdue nature and rule over her. The other says that we are to honor her as our self, that we are to realize that “The earth is God’s and the fullness thereof ” (Exodus 30:20). Can there be even a doubt in your mind as to which is the true teaching? There is none in mine.
God speaks through Torah when Torah teaches us of our fundamental connection with the earth and all she bears. The trees and grasses, the wolves and bears, the oceans and seas—these are our brothers, our sisters, our cousins.
I am tempted to go more deeply into this. For the question of the purpose of creation leads, as it has already, directly into the purpose of humanity. I will resist the impulse to proceed, however, suspecting that I have caused enough confusion for one letter.
All I ask of you, my dear friend, is that you look to see if my words are not so. Look carefully about you and ponder: If creation is God manifest in time and place, what is the purpose of humanity? I look forward to your insights.
B’Shalom
HUMANITY
My dearest Aaron Hershel,
When we began our correspondence I did not know what to expect either from you or from myself. Would I be able to answer your questions in a manner that furthered your knowledge and deepened your ability to question? Or would I simply overwhelm you with information and drown out your ability to see for yourself? Your recent letter suggests you can learn and think. I had asked you the question: What is the purpose of humanity? You answered well. Let me add some thoughts of my own.
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