Questions for today:
How do we straddle the opposing realities of how on one hand, our understanding of Divinity is not a ‘message’, but actual Divinity, and at the same time, so completely different?
Yesterday, we gave an introduction to understanding the divine characteristics. We described how the Creator breathed of the Creator's very inner self to become our soul.
Because our Soul is actually Divine, we could use our life as a metaphor to understand these divine characteristics. Not only that, but this Divinity of our Soul gives us the ability to grasp these divine concepts.
Today we give another introduction.
When Abraham described himself as 'dust and ashes' it wasn't just being humble, it was also descriptive.
When you look at ashes compared to a tree, they're not ‘similar’ – the ashes are the ‘actual substance’ of the tree, with the energy, liquid, and gases removed.
When the Torah uses a metaphor, for example, Abraham's love, it's not just 'similar' to the creator's attributes – like the ashes, it's the creator's very attributes, brought down to a level we can understand.
On the flip side, when you compare the ashes to an actual tree, they're not just quantitatively smaller they're completely different.
Similarly, when we use these metaphors to understand the Divine attributes, they're not just quantitatively less, they're an entirely different realm.
266 46 Tanya Chitas thought for Elul 18 ~ m285 38 Elul 15
Tanya book 4, Essay 15, pt2
Study today’s Tanya in full:
https://www.chabadmed.com/dailystudy/tanya.asp?tdate=9/11/2022
See today’s video: