The Peril of Speech

The great secret seems to have no affinity with tenets of any
kind. There is hardly a symbol which, when used, would not
impair or even undo the grasp or remembrance of the incom-
parable. Opinions confuse and stand in the way of intuitions;
surveys, definitions take the name of God in vain. We have
neither an image nor a definition of God. We have only God’s
name. And the name is ineffable.
      The pious person, therefore, is not distinguished by passion
for uttering in words what they know, conscious of the danger
of expending the best beyond recall. In expressing, one is de-
livered of what they are replete with, and the pious person's desire
is to live it rather than to be released of it. Eloquence is a gift
rarely given to saints. It is natural, too, that the utterance of
the most profound is tridimensional, its literal meaning reflect-
ing merely the surface of that which the utterance is trying to
convey.
      If a poet and a pious person should confer and exchange views,
the poet would say: "All God lives, I say."; and the pious person
would know: "All God says, I live."
      It is the theoretician, who, rather than standing face to face
with the mystery, holds their mental mirrors against it, making
myths of mysteries, computing dogmas of enigmas and wor-
shipping the image in the mirrors. They do not seem to realize
that idolization of ideas leads to an atrophy of the intuition of
the ineffable; that God may be lost in our creed, in our wor-
ship, in our dogmas.
      To say how our thoughts detect the patina of the holy on
the surface of the common is worth spending a lifetime. But
thoughts in which such detection can be told are scarce, and
the most vital words die when spoken. This is why God begins
where words end.
      Yet no one can live on mystery alone. The awareness of 
the ineffable is like listening to a question, to a behest. Some-
thing is asked of us. But what? We are driven to know God
in order to conform to God’s ways. But to know God we would
have to attain the nearly impossible: to render the ineffable in
positive terms. The question, then, arises: If, in order to be
known, the ineffable has to be expressed, does it not follow
that we know it as it is not?
      Religious insights have to be carried over a long distance to
reach expression, and they may easily shrivel or even perish on
the way from the heart to the lips. Our awareness is immediate,
but our interpretations are discursive. They are often casual-
ties of the soul's congested traffic, particularly when under the
strain of realizing more than the heart can hear, we compro-
mize with words that carry us away.
      The intuition of God is universal, yet there is hardly a
universal form—with few possible exceptions—to express it.
Indeed, the conceptions of the divine have differed widely
and contradicted each other, often flourishing like noisome
weeds, inflicting sting and discord. If uniformity and impec-
cability of expression were the mark of authenticity, such di-
vergence and distortion would refute our assumption of the
reality of the mystery. The fact, however, is that people's opin-
ions about God throughout history do not show a greater
variety than, for example, their opinions about the nature of
the world.

Standards of Expression

We must beware lest we violate the holy, lest our dogmas over-
think the mystery, lest our psalms sing it away. The right of
interpretation is given only to one who covers their face, "afraid
to look at God," to one who, when the vision is forced upon
them, says, "I am undone...for mine eyes have seen God."
We can only drink the flow of thoughts out of the
rock of their words. Only words that would not be trite in
the presence of a dying person, only ideas that would not pale
in the face of the rising sun or in the midst of a violent earth-
quake: "God is One" or: "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord
of Hosts..." may be used as metaphors in speaking of God.
      The ineffable will only enter a word in the way in which
the hour to come will enter the path of time: when there
shall be no other hours in the way. It will speak when of all
words only one will be worthwhile. For the mystery is not
always evasive. It confides itself at rare moments to those who
are chosen. We cannot express God, yet God expresses God’s
will to us. It is through God's word that we know that God is
not beyond good and evil. Our emotion would leave us in a
state of bewilderment, if not for the guidance we received.

What Do We Mean By the Divine?

How do we identify the divine? In order to recognize what it
is, we would have to know it. But if our knowledge were con-
tigent upon acts of divine communication, we might never
be able to identify such a communication as divine.
      Moreover, an idea does not become valid or credible by vir-
tue of the circumstance in which it enters our mind. We can-
not plead truth in the name of the throes under which it was
born. Any message that claims to be divine must stand on its
own and be saturated with a unique meaningfulness which
would identify it as divine. If a person should appear among us
and proclaim an idea communicated to them in a miraculous
manner, and our critical examinations should even confirm the
miraculous manner of their experience, would we for that mat-
ter feel obliged to accept their idea as valid and true?
      Nor should our own inner experiences fare better. We must
be in possession of an a priori idea of the divine, of a quality
or relation representing to us the ultimate, by which we would
be able to identify it when given to us in such acts.
      Compellingness is not a mark of the highest nor is our feel-
ing or being in a state of absolute dependence and index of God’s
presence. Physical force or inner obsessions may overpower
us with irresistible compellingness and, as has often been
pointed out, a survivor of a wrecked ship embracing a floating
board is in a state of absolute dependence upon the board.
      No inquiry can get under way without some presumption
or perspective to start from. The scientist in formulating a
problem must anticipate, in some measure, the content of the
solution they are aiming at, for otherwise they would neither know
what they ask about nor be able to judge whether the solutions
they will find will be relevant to their problem. Philosophy has
been defined as a science with a minimum of presuppositions,
for there is no way of proceeding in our thoughts without any
perspective, without any initial assumption.
      Such an initial assumption lies at the beginning of all specu-
lation about God. To the speculative mind God is the most
perfect being, and it is the attribute of perfection and its im-
plication of wisdom which serves as a starting point for the in-
quiries into the existence and nature of God.
  
The Attribute of Perfection

The notion of God as a perfect being is not of biblical extrac-
tion. It is the product not of prophetic religion but of Greek
philosophy; a postulate of reason rather than a direct, com-
pelling, initial answer of a human to God’s reality. In the Decalogue,
God does not speak of God’s being perfect but of God’s having
made free people out of slaves. Signifying a state of being with-
out defect and lack, perfection is a term of praise which we
may utter in pouring forth our emotion; yet for a person to utter
it as a name for God’s essence would mean to evaluate and to  
endorse God. The biblical language is free of such insolence, it
only dared to call "Its work" (Deuteronomy 32:4) "Its way."
(II Samuel 22:31) or the "Torah" (Psalm 19:7) tamim, perfect.
We were never told "Hear, O Israel, God is perfect!" It is an
attribution which is strikingly absent in both the biblical and
rabbinic literature.
      Who are to appraise God or even to name God?
We never pronounce the Ineffable Name and utter instead
a paraphrase—the Lord—which, in our vocabulary, is a title of
minor distinction. This, according to Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz,
is not due to the fact that God’s majesty is limited, but because
our world is of minor importance. A great emperor holds
among his many appellations the title "sovereign" of a certain
island. That title is of minor worth, because the island is small
in size.
      There is, however, one idea that carries our thoughts beyond
the horizon of our island; an idea which addresses itself to all
minds and is tacitly accepted as an axiom by science and as a
dogma by monotheistic religion. It is the idea of the one. All
knowledge and understanding rest upon its validity. In spite of
the profound differences in what it describes and means in the
various realms of human thought, there is much that is com-
mom and much that is of mutual importance.

The Idea of the Universe

The perspective on which we depend in science and philos-
ophy, notwithstanding all specialization and meticulousness
in studying the details, is a view of the whole, without which
our knowledge would be like a book composed exclusively of
iotas. Accordingly, all science, and philosophies have one
axiom in common—the axiom of unity of all that is, was and
will be. They all assume that things are not entirely divorced
from and indifferent to each other, but subject to universal
laws, and that they form, by their interaction with one another
or, as Lotze put it, by their "sympathetic rapport," a universe.
However, the possibility of their interaction with each other
is conditioned upon a unity that pervades all of them. The
world could not exist at all except as one, deprived of unity,
it would not be a cosmos but chaos, an agglomeration of count-
less possibilities.
      The exponents of pluralism, "asserting that reality is made
up of a number of relatively independent entities, each of
which exists, at any rate to some extent, in its own right," seem
to deny the fundamental unity and wholeness of the universe.
Yet, while questioning whether that unity is absolute and all-
pervading to a degree that would exclude chance and indeter-
minations, they are bound to supplement the pluralistic hy-
pothesis by a principle of unity, in order to explain the
interaction of the independent entities, and to account for that
which makes reality a world.
      Nor does the theory of relativity contradict the doctrine of
constancy and unity of nature. Showing that the simultaneity 
of two processes is relative and that magnitudes are determined
by the system of reference in which they are measured, its
aim is to find new invariants by describing reality in a way
which would be independent of the choice of the system of
reference. It does not discard the principle of unity, but, on
the contrary, strives to "satisfy a new and more strict demand
for unity."
      While it is impossible to trace back the way in which the
great secret of the all-embracing unity reached our minds, it
certainly was not attained by mere sense perception or by a
mind that thought in installments, through a series of distinct
steps, each logically dependent on those which preceded. What
the idea of the universe refers to surpasses the scope of percep-
tion or the extension of any possible premise, embracing things
known and unknown, origins and ends, facts and possibilities,
the prehistoric past and the far-stretching future, phenomena
which Newton described as well as those which will be ob-
served a thousand years from now. The idea of the universe is
a metaphysical insight.

Cosmic Brotherhood

The intuition of that all-pervading unity has often inspired
humanity with a sense of living in cosmic brotherhood with all be-
ings. Out of the awareness of the oneness of nature comes
often an emotion of being one with nature.

              I am the eye with which the Universe
                 Beholds itself and knows itself divine.
                        (Shelley "Hymns of Apollo")

      There is deep philosophical significance to such cosmic
piety. Knowledge is at all possible because of the kinship of
the knower and the known, because a person's intelligence seems
to correspond to the world's intelligibility. But over and above
that there is another kinship: the kinship of being. We are all—
humans, stars, flowers, birds—assigned to the same cast, rehearsing
for the same inexplicable drama. We all have a mystery in 
common—the mystery of being.
      But are we all one in purpose? True, we all have being, even
suffering and a struggle for existence in common; but do we
have strivings, commitments in common? A human's position in
nature is too distinct to justify the idea that their vocation is to
conform to her ways or to be one with her essence.

 The Realm of Being and the Realm of Values

The idea of unity, from which cosmic piety draws its inspira-
tion, is a half-truth. For while the things of nature may consti-
tue a unit, the realm of values seems to be torn between good
and evil and in many other directions. History is no less our
abode than nature, and the conflicts that rage within it look
more like perennial warfare between two hostile principles
than like a sphere of harmony.
      It is, indeed, a spiritual temptation to meditate on the cosmic
fellowship of all beings or to surrender once and for all to the
spirit of the whole. It is suspiciously easier to feel one with
nature than to feel one with every person: with the savage, with
the leper, with the slave. Those who know that to be one
with the whole means to be for the sake of every part of the
whole will seek to love not only humanity but also the indi-
vidual person, to regard any human as if they were all human. Once
we decide to serve here and now, we discover that the vision
of abstract unity goes out of sight like lightning, and what re-
mains is the gloom of a drizzly night, where we must in toil
and tears strike the darkness to beget a gleam, to light a torch.
      Polytheists are blind to the unity that transcends a world of
multiplicity, while monists overlook the multiplicity of a
world, the abundance and discord of which encounter us
wherever we turn. Monism is a loom for weaving an illusion.
Life is tangled, fierce, fickle. We cannot remain in agreement
with all goals. We are constantly compelled to make a choice,
and the choice of one goal means the forsaking of another.
      Even granted its validity, the idea of a universal harmony in
nature, of a general concord in the relations of the part to the
whole is destitute of significance to the immediate problems of
living. However intricate, wise and prodigal of beauty nature
is, we in our human confusions are unable to translate its gen-
eral laws into the language of individual decisions, for to decide
means to transcend rather than follow the pattern of natural
laws. The norms of spiritual living are a challenge to nature
not a part of nature. There is a discrepancy between being and
spirit, between facts and norms, between that which is and that
which ought to be. Nature shows little regard for spiritual
norms and is often callous, if not hostile to our moral en-
deavors.
      A human is more than reason. A human is life. In facing the all-em-
bracing question, a person faces that which is more than a principle,
more than a theoretical problem. A principle is something a person 
may conceive or convert into an object of their mind, but in fac-
ing the ultimate question a person finds themself called upon and
challenged beyond words to the depth of their existence. It is
not a question that they comprehend but the fact of their being
exposed to a knowledge that comprehends them. Of what avail,
then, is the knowledge of principles, the mathematical prin-
ciples?

One is Not God

God is one, but one is not God. Some of us are inclined to
deify the one supreme force or law that regulates all phe-
nomena of nature, in the same manner in which primitive peo-
ples once deified the stars. Yet, to refer to the supreme law of
nature as God or to say that the world came into being by
virtue of its own energy is to beg the question.
      For the cardinal question is not what is the law that would
explain the interaction of phenomena in the universe, but why
is there a law, a universe at all. The content and operation of
the universal law may be conceived and described, but the fact
that there is such a law does not lose its ineffable character by
the knowledge we may acquire about the scope of its oper-
ation.
      To instill scientific explanations of nature in a soul astir with
the holy terror of the ineffable is like trying to plant artificial
flowers in the midst of blossoms in a garden. Unless we be-
tray what we sense, unless we succumb to intellectual nar-
cissism, how can we regard the known as the ultimate?
      As noted above, it is not nature's order and wisdom which
are manifest in time and space, but the indicativeness within
all order and wisdom of that which surpasses them, of that
which is beyond time and space which communicates to us an
awareness of the ultimate question. The world is replete with
such indicativeness; wherever we go it is the ineffable we
encounter, with our sense too feeble and unworthy to grasp it.
If the universe is an immense allusion and our inner life an
anonymous question, the discovery of one universal law dom-
inating empirical reality would not answer our essential ques-
tion. The ultimate problem is not a problem of syntax, of try-
ing to learn how the various parts of nature are collocated and
arranged in their relations to one another. The problem is:
What does reality, what does unity stand for? Universal laws
one attempts to describe by relations within the given, within
the known, but in facing our ultimate question we are carried 
beyond the known, to the presence of the divine.
      From the empirical plurality of facts and values, we could
not infer one design which would dominate both the realm of
facts and the realm of norms, nature and history. It is only in
the mirror of divine unity, in which we may behold the unity
of all: of necessity and freedom of law and love. It alone gives
us an insight into the unity that transcends all conflicts, the
brotherhood of hope and grief, of joy and fear, of tower and
grave, of good and evil. Unity as a scientific concept is only a
reflection of a transcendent idea, embracing not only time and
space but also being and value, the known and the mystery,
the here and the beyond.
      God cannot be distilled to a well-defined idea. All concepts
fade when applied to God’s essence. To the pious person knowl-
edge of God is not a thought within their grasp, but a form of
thinking in which they try to comprehend all reality. It is the
untold secret of the soil in which all knowledge becomes a seed
of sense, a secret by which we live and which we never truly
understand; a soil from which the roots of all values derive
perpetual vitality. Over and against the split between a human and
nature, self and thought, time and timelessness, the pious person
is able to sense the interweaving of all, the holding together of
what is apart, the love that hovers over acts of kindness, moun-
tains, flowers, which shine in their splendor as if looked at by
God.
      How do we identify the divine?
      Divine is a message that discloses unity where we see diver-
sity, that discloses peace when we are involved in discord. God is
It who holds our fitful lives together, who reveals to us
that what is empirically diverse in color, in interest, in creeds—
races, classes, nations—is one in I God’s eyes and one in essence.
      God means: No one is ever alone; the essence of the tem-
poral is the eternal; the moment is an image of eternity in an
infinite mosaic. God means: Togetherness of all beings in holy
otherness.
      God means: What is behind our soul is beyond our spirit;
what is at the source of our selves is at the goal of our ways.
It is the heart of all, eager to receive and eager to give.
      When God becomes our form of thinking we begin to sense
all humans as one human, the whole world in a grain of sand, eternity
in a moment. To worldly ethics one human being is less than
two human beings, to the religious mind if a person has caused a
single soul to perish, it is as though they had caused a whole
world to perish, and if they have saved a single soul, it is as though
they had saved a whole world.
      If in the afterglow of a religious insight I can see a way to
gather up my scattered life, to unite what lies in strife; a way
that is good for all humanity as it is for me—I will know it is Its
way.