Rabbi Yehoishophot Oliver, a-farbrengen.blogspot.com
I was asked: “What is the point of investing so much time and effort to study Chassidus Chabad, which discusses Hashem’s greatness in such tremendous detail, if at the end of the day one can never truly understand Hashem? Whatever one understands is only “the tip of the iceberg!”
I responded that Chassidus says that one of the tactics of the kelipa of Amalek is to come in a “silk kapote” and try to discourage the Jew from becoming excited from a miracle story. He says: “Big deal! Why are you so excited? Of course Hashem can perform a miracle—he created the entire world and has absolute power over it!”
However, in reality one should become excited from the miracle story, because although we understand intellectually that Hashem completely transcends all of existence, on our level, superficially, this is not our experience. What we see openly is nature, ha’teva, which is numerically equal to the value of the name of Elokim. Thus, a miracle is a ray of light in a sea of darkness, and thus it should, and was intended to, excite and inspire us.
The same goes for Chassidus. Granted—from Hashem’s perspective—“Da’as Elyon”—our grasp of His greatness and absolute unity is infinitesimal. Still, the teachings of Chassidus in general, and Chassidus Chabad in particular, represent a divine revelation of a staggering, unprecedented scale when compared with the amount that could be understood before this wisdom was revealed.
Thus, the reason that this study is neglected is that we don’t appreciate what it is, or even if we once did (of course, not fully, but to a significant degree), we have allowed ourselves to forget, to become distracted by the routine of life.
“Hashem has exposed His holy arm” (Yeshaya 52:10), and if we neglect to study it and make it part of ourselves, we are neglecting to take the priceless gift that Hashem is extending to us. On His initiative, out of His pure, infinite kindness, He has revealed His innermost dimension to us, with the hope that we will allow it to enter and permeate the innermost dimension of our souls. Let’s not disappoint Him.
the bottom line is still that with the tool of chassidus the mind still can’t grasp godliness. you can know what it is not – anything like anything you know – which is of the material world. and any descriptives are only the human attempt to give SOME type of face or name to hashem so that it can be addressed at all. but the elusiveness of really knowing (intellectually) god will only be changed by the final redemption. until then, though we can sense hashem through all we see and learn, we won’t know him. that’s the catch-22 of… Read more »
very nicely written. hope to see more from this guy.