10. The Looking Glass

The curtain dividing Divine and human perspectives operates like a one-way mirror, or like the tinted glass on some automobile windows. The Creator sees us up close and personal, but no one looking back can see in.

As a result, human knowledge and Divine knowledge are utterly different. When I come to know something, that knowledge adds to me incrementally. There is me, the thing outside of me, and my knowledge of it. Three separate things.
When G-d knows something, He doesn’t change. He, His Knowledge, and what He knows are all one thing. And his knowledge adds nothing to Him, because He knows things by knowing Himself.

To explain, there is a story that’s told about the famous Alter Rebbe, author of the classic chassidic text, the Tanya, who traveled to console the family of a colleague who had passed away. One of the children, aged six, who later became the saintly Yisrael of Ruzhin, posed a question to the Alter Rebbe, as follows.
“The verse states, ‘Hear O Israel, the L-rd is G-d, the L-rd is One.’ If so, there is nothing else but G-d. The next verse says ‘You should love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your possessions.’ What is going on here? Is G-d telling G-d to love G-d?”

The Alter Rebbe, who was noted for short explanations at that time in his life, gave the child a lengthy explanation of some two hours. The gist of his explanation was based on the fact that when a Jew says this prayer, he interjects a third verse between these two. That verse emphasizes the kingship of G-d, and the consequent gulf between the king and the people. Having effected such a separation, it then becomes possible to love G-d.

Not all of us today are as spiritually attuned as that six-year-old, but we are all able to achieve a comparable degree of elevated consciousness. By meditating on the one-way mirror, that great divide that separates us, unites us even more.

11. Hide and Seek

Until now we've discovered that the key to the Are We or Aren’t We Paradox is the “curtain” that separates the human perspective from the Divine. Let’s move on from there.

G-d doesn’t want robots.

If He did, He wouldn’t have hidden so well from His creations. But hide He did, so now we are busy trying to peer behind the veil, to discover the ultimate, to transcend, to awaken.

Or not. Sometimes we are busy with other things and the veil is just a veil, soon forgotten.

The story is told of a rebbe who found a child crying and asked him what’s wrong. “I’ve been playing hide- and-go-seek and I was hiding but my friends stopped looking for me and went away.” The rebbe cast his eyes heavenward and said, “Master of the Universe. Your children have been looking for you so long and you have hidden so well, that they have stopped looking for you. Come out of hiding and return to your children!”

Abraham knew that Divine concealment has a purpose. Without it, there could be no free choice. Why would anyone do anything wrong if they knew that the master of the universe was watching intently, judging our deeds, planning our destiny, awaiting our decisions? If we saw the One Above watching us, what merit would there be in virtue?

British researchers have recently found that a picture of eyes is all that’s needed to elicit honest behavior. They randomly varied the posters placed over a common lounge honor box where college staff and students would contribute coffee money in the absence of any cashier. When the picture hung above the box was flowers or a landscape the coffee money didn’t vary, but whenever a picture of eyes was posted over the honor box, contributions tripled on average.
Even the idea of being watched keeps people honest. How much more so knowing that there really is a consciousness soaking up our actions and calculating the consequences.

The curtain separating Divine knowledge from human awareness grants us freedom and independence, values that we cherish. Abraham knew that freedom is a test, and tradition maintains that he was tested to the hilt. By mastering his mind and heart, he passed his tests, choosing at every opportunity to establish ethical monotheism as the cornerstone of his life.

9. Something From Nothing

Let’s rewind the cosmos back to the beginning, and then just a little bit more, to get an inkling of how to resolve the Are We or Aren’t We paradox.

Choose your beginning.

Many people believe in a big bang creation, a “singularity”, that started the universe with an immensely powerful infusion of primordial light in the distant past. Others believe in a six day creation that started the universe with an immensely powerful infusion of primordial light in the distant past.

In either case there was a beginning to the physical universe, a beginning to time and space, a first event that emerged from absolute nothingness. But how could that be? How could something come from nothing?

Thirty-eight hundred years ago, Abraham had not heard of a six-day creation. He also hadn’t heard of the big bang. But he did figure out that there must have been a beginning. From observing and contemplating nature, he deduced that prior to the first defining moment of creation, there was an undefined Creator. He also figured out that this Creator was not a thing. In fact the most cogent thing one might say about this Creator is that He is the consummate example of no-thing-ness.

But wait a moment. What’s the difference between saying that the Creator is no-thing and saying that the Creator is nothing? We are basically using the same terms to define monotheism and atheism! But these are obviously not the same, for in one scenario, the world and everything that’s in it is an exquisitely planned and executed masterpiece while in the other it’s a collosal, uncaused, accidental, cosmic hiccup (without a hiccuper, no less!)

Abraham knew the difference between no-thing-ness and nothingness. He empathized with those who felt that they are real and the Creator is zero. Yet he knew that actually he was the zero while the Creator is the Real One, strange as that might be.

It’s all a matter of perspective. From the Divine perspective, we are like the creatures in our dreams, vivid, yet ephemeral, constantly subject to the creative imagination of the dreamer. Were G-d to remove His mind from us, we would vanish. But from the human perspective, the Creator is an option, if we believe, He is real, if not, not. Ultimately, it is our perspective that is illusory for whether we dream or not, the ultimate reality is Divine.

The nothingness that precedes creation is the great divide, the Big Block, the curtain that hides the Divine presence from the Creations. That curtain allows us free choice, allows evil to exist, allows us to relate to G-d, and Him to us. It allows the created to seek the Creator in an ultimate game of hide-and-go-seek, and it provides a context for reward once the game is up.

(Further reading.. Likutei Torah, Devarim. Maimonides, Laws of Torah Foundations 2:10, esp. English commentary, Moznaim ed. p.174)

8. Are We or Aren't We?

Once the patriarch Abraham realized that the Prime Mover was necessarily in the world, as much as beyond it, he was faced with the very same dilemma that has plagued philosophers ever since: The Are We or Aren't We Paradox.

Simply stated it amounts to this: If G-d exists, he must be infinite. That's Monotheism 101, no way around it. Being that He's infinite, there is no place devoid of Him, that is, He must be omnipresent, He exists everywhere. So if there is no place where He isn't, He must be here where I am. Because if He is not here where I am, He is limited spatially, and if He's limited in space, He's not unlimited and therefore He's not G-d. So He must be here where I am. The only problem is, I'm here and I'm not Him. And if it's really Him that's here and not me, then what am I doing here? Do I really exist? What's going on here?

To understand this better, there is a famous story about a Chassidic charity collector who traveled to a Jewish community that was not friendly to the Chassidic movement. So anti-Chassidic were they, that they appointed a community leader to interrogate visiting charity collectors to ensure they weren't members of "The Sect" as those townsfolk not-too-lovingly referred to the Chassidic movement.

So this erstwhile Chassidic alms-gatherer was being pointedly questioned by the community leader, saying "What is your opinion of the Sect?"

The collector replied, "Oh them. They are always thinking about themselves whereas the fine people of this town are always thinking about G-d!" Satisfied with this answer, he was given a note of endorsement to support him in his rounds. Once he had finished is work in town, he stopped by the local synogogue to bid farewell to the congregants.

He walked up to the lectern, gave it a bang and announced: "Gentlemen! Some of you may have been wondering what I meant when I said that the Chassidim are always thinking about themselves whereas the people of this fine town are always thinking about G-d. What I meant was this: What is reality? You are probably thinking 'what a silly question'. Reality is what you see all around you. So for you, the fact that you are real is obvious. So you will always be wondering about the Creator, asking yourself how could it be that He is here when the fact is that you are here and not Him? The Chassidim however, realize that G-d is the true reality, so they are always wondering about themselves, thinking how can they be here, when the fact is that G-d is really here, and not them!"

With that he dashed out the door into the waiting wagon and sped off down the road before they had a chance to react to their lesson in philosophy.

And so, dear reader, there is no way around it. All of existence is a paradox, and we live in an enigmatic universe. And with regards to whether and how one might come to resolve the Are We or Aren't We Paradox, that's a topic for next week.

7. So Far Out, It's In

Abraham’s cognitive quest takes him to the great beyond, indeed the ultimate beyond.

The ultimate beyond. What an expression. In a way it’s scary, wild, yet attractive, mysterious. But we need not let go of our rational faculties, at least not yet, because the Abraham Principle is a logical notion and we have yet to exhaust its rational implications.

We have said that transcendence is about being above and beyond, being abstracted from any limitation. But is that not also a sort of limitation?

To explain, imagine you’ve got some unlimited being and you have to figure out where to put it. If you place it within the world and not beyond it, you have definitely limited it, so that’s not the right placement. If you put it beyond the world and not within it,

you have limited it in a different way, by being beyond and not within.

To be truly unlimited means that beyond and within are equal in relation to it. Ultimately, to be beyond beyond must include to be within.

So here we have a Being, an ultimate being, that is not only beyond the world but within it too. Not only beyond space but within its confines; not only before time but in time as well.

But wait a moment, you might say. Weren’t we looking for an explanation of space and time? An explanation that was beyond the parts, beyond the system, transcendent? So what are we doing coming full circle, looking for the Creator within space and time? Isn’t that what Abraham was rebelling against in the first place?

Good question. And in good Jewish style, we will answer this question with another question… the famous “Are we or aren’t we?” paradox. Stay tuned.