[Avodah] Just One HaShem in Heaven

[Zev Sero]

On 10/12/2010 2:04 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 01:06:31PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> The song was popularised (and perhaps written) by "Uncle Yossi", AKA
>> R Yosef Goldstein, long-time principal of Beis Yaacov in Borough Park,
>> and a Lubav.  The tune is a traditional L niggun.
>
> Glad to help you bring the ge'ulah to the world. In any case, it still
> my point that "Hashem is everywhere" was logically enough coined by a
> chassid, for whom Immanence is given more emphasis than Transcendance
> in daily avodah.

I'm not so sure about that.  L chassidus is primarily about transcending
that gap (and the laws of logic which dictate its existence) and bringing
the Transcendent (Sovev Kol Almin) into this world where it logically
can't exist.  That the purpose of the whole creation was to transcend
this gap, and create for Him (i.e. as He really is) a residence davka
in the physical world, which is impossible.

To get topical, this leads into the LR's answer to the BY's famous
question why Chanukah lasts eight days and not seven: The miracle of
Chanukah was that the oil was normal physical olive oil, and burned at
the normal rate for such oil, and no more oil was being created, and yet
it lasted eight days.  Most miracles break the physical laws of our
universe, but this one broke the logical law that ought to bind all
possible universes, Aristotle's Law of Non-Contradiction.  So did the
miracle of "mekom ha'aron eino min hamidah".  And this is because the
light of Sovev briefly pierced into this world of Memalei Kol Almin.
The purpose of all our avodah is to make that paradoxical miracle
permanent, and visible to  all.

But we're really over-analysing this.  The song was written to accompany
a story for children about how Hashem is always watching us, even if
nobody else is.  It's there to teach a practical lesson, not high-flying
concepts of theology.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher