Monday, August 4, 2008

"What are you doing at this moment?"


“The world is being created at every moment.

This makes it possible for man to create himself, because that which existed two minutes ago is a different world.

Now a new world has been formed and there are new people and new situations, and one can create one’s own world anew.

This optimistic spirit is parallel to another statement to the effect that no man struggles all his life between good and evil.

He struggles for only one moment at each conjuncture, at each choice.

The decision is always now, at the moment itself.


And there can be no other moment of struggle and choice that is exactly like this present one, in which I create a world.

Every moment is unique.

And once the world thus created is manifested, it becomes a part of the infinite reality of multiple worlds.

In one such world, I can be a Tzaddik; in another, a moment later, I can be something else entirely.

In short, the question is always being asked of one: “What are you doing at this moment?"


It is in this sense that God creates the world and the only one who can answer is man.

The other creatures of the world are part of the Divine speech; man can also respond.

God can say, “Let there be light!” and man can say: “I don’t want it,” or he can say “Hear O Israel.”

--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From “Creation is always new” in The Sustaining Utterance by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, pp. 128-129.