Children of the Universe

It's easy to feel like orphans to this cold universe--to the elements, the forces and empty space that shrug indifferently at the drama of being human; to a universe that answers our aspirations with a chilling silence, our failures with a blank stare. We steer our own path wildly through the stars as the planets continue in their set orbits, the laws of electromagnetism endure and the sun rises and sets at just the time printed in the newspaper--as though the things that matter to us most simply do not exist.

We believe in that essence. Sometimes we call it "G-d" But could it be? Could the womb from which human intelligence emerged truly be so dumb? Are we not also a child of this place? If we have a heart, a mind, a soul, must not the core of the universe also have the capacity for such? "The One who formed the ear, does He not hear?"

Or could it be that submerged beneath this awesome show of might hides a transcendent essence that resonates with the stirring of our hearts; that if we could find the true fabric of reality we would find our own face reflected in its waters, our cries echoed in its depths, our joy dancing in its caverns? That we would find a universe made not of blind chance and physical law, but of conscious wisdom and the freedom that is beyond wisdom?

We believe in that essence. Sometimes we call it "G-d."

Which leaves us now with the opposite side of wonder: Does G-d then laugh? Is the Infinite Light so vulnerable as to cry over failure and rejoice in success? Does that which brings heaven and earth into existence truly love with the passion of a visceral human being or feel remorse just as a creature trapped within the tunnel of time?

But we are here, with all our inner turmoil and struggle, and that could only mean that G-d desired us to be here. And when G-d desired this frail creature, He looked down from His lofty realm beyond love and laughter and passion and remorse, down into this thought of a human being, and He said, "Shall he then be alone in his place and I in mine? Is this oneness?"

So He arranged a meeting place, reflecting within the bowels of the Infinite Light the boundless emotions that are the fabric of Man's soul. Like a father who stoops to play with his toddler, laughing with the child, excited over those silly things that excite a small child, yet always remaining an adult who is beyond all these games--so, too, He creates within Himself a place where in love and laughter, in compassion and awe and beauty, Man and G-d could find one another, and neither would be alone.

In truth, it is from that very place that human emotions emerge, as a child emerges from its mother's womb. And, too, in that same place, is woven the fabric from which our universe is formed.

This meeting place, the Kabbalah explains, is the place of the ten sefirot--ten modalities by which to run a universe: Conception, Understanding, Knowing, Giving, Withholding, Beauty, Victory, Glory, Bonding and Dominion. It is a place that is neither Creator nor creation, neither being nor not-being, neither infinite nor finite, but where heaven and earth merge as one--because within this place hides an Essence that is beyond all opposites, beyond all bounds.