Wednesday, June 10, 2009

"The question of where I am is the other side of the question God asks of man: Where are you?"


"The question about where I am in my world is outwardly one that a person can ask of himself, but inwardly it is the voice of God speaking to man: to man who has lost his way.


And the moment a person reaches this awareness, he can grasp something which, with all the pain of the question, with all the fearful terror and awe of an encounter with God, leads to that which is larger and more glorious.

For the question of where I am--the question of a man who confronts himself alone, even if he is within a family, a community, a nation, and even if he feels at home in the world--this utterly solitary question is fundamentally resolved at the moment when a person realizes that it is the other side of the question God asks of man: Where are you?

This, then is the response to despair, to the unanswered plea of the bereaved and bewildered, to the lost son who cannot find a home.

It is the Other Voice asking the very same question."

--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From "The Search for Oneself" in The Thirteen Petalled Rose by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz