“Ten, ten the spoons weighed” (Numbers 7:86)—the Ten Sayings by which the world was made correspond to the Ten Commandments by which the Torah was given.

Zohar

Infinite Light is masquerading as a finite world.

There are two pieces of evidence. First of all, there’s a world appearing out of nothing. Something out of nothing is entirely beyond our conception, but we can know one thing: something finite can’t generate a world out of the absolute void. Creativity has its limit—there’s got to be something there to start with. Unless you’re infinite. Then creativity is unlimited as well.

It turns out that the light that projects the cosmos into existence at each moment is infinite. If the cosmos it projects appears finite, it must be a disguise.

There’s more evidence, something nobody seems willing to take into account. Perhaps it’s one of those forbidden questions. Perhaps it just breaks too many assumptions. But we’ll ask it anyway: Have the properties of light changed over the centuries? Has the power of gravity weakened with time? Has matter become less material? Everything else decays and passes over time, but the basic forces of nature stand constant and unchanging. If their source was finite, shouldn’t they slowly wear down?

Evidence that they are no more than finite iterations of an infinite force. The force of the One Creator who is beyond time and change. So far beyond, that He can do that as well—He can dwell within time and change, and remain immutable.

Every piece of His world contains another form of infinitude.

The very design of the world incorporates infinity. In each and every thing you can examine in this world, you will find infinite wisdom. You will never exhaust the depth, the beauty, the intricacy, the mystery of any aspect of it—whether a blade of grass or a molecular structure or an atom.

From every event, there is no end to possible outcomes. The complexity of the microcosmos and the macrocosmos is such that infinite possibilities extend from every point in time. There is infinity in every step, in every second, as there is in every inch. The appearance of simplicity, of neatness that we can measure and record confidently in a book, is a facade. It is Infinity in disguise.

He could have made a world neat and tidy and immaculately measurable. Yes, He is infinite—but that also makes Him omnipotent. If He wanted, He could have made a finite world that had nothing to do with Him—no trace of the infinite anywhere.

Apparently, that is not His scheme. As the Zohar comments on the words of the verse, “Ten, ten the spoons weighed”—“the Ten Sayings by which the world was made correspond to the Ten Commandments by which the Torah was given.”

Meaning that everything was made, the design of the cosmos was determined, with an ultimate goal in mind: That the divine should be able to make itself at home in our world.

That is why each article of our world, when you turn it over a few times and rub it between your fingers, turns out to be no more than a front for the infinite. Neat and measurable on the outside, unlimited capacity on the inside. In fact, you could call it “functional design”: finitude, designed to be a home for the Infinite.