"It rained heavily during the night, and the street is thick with mud. I walked to the Bet Midrash (House of Learning) this morning and stopped to watch a group of little children playing with the mud. Oblivious to the damp, they made dozens of mud figure's: houses, animals, towers. From their talk, it was clear that they imagined an identity for each. They gave their figure names and told their stories."
"For a while, their mud figures took on an independent existence. But they were all just mud. Mud was their source and mud was their substance. From the perspective of the children, their mud creations had separate selves. From the mud's point of view, it is clear such independence was an illusion--the creations were all just mud."
"It is the same with us and God. Adonai alone is in heaven above and earth below, there is none else.(Deuteronomy 4:39) There is none else, meaning there is nothing else in heaven or on earth but God."
"Can this be? When I look at the world, I do not see God. I see trees of various kinds, people of all types, houses, fields, lakes, cows, horses, chickens, and on and on. In this I am like the children at play, seeing real figures and not simply mud."
"Where in all this is God? The question itself is misleading. God is not 'in' this; God is this."
"Think carefully about what I have said. It is the key to all the secrets of life."
~Rabbi Rami Shapiro Open Secrets
