Before His Death, Rabbi Zusya

It Is Not The Nature Of The Task, But Its Consecration, That Is The Vital Thing.

So Long As You "have" Yourself, Have Yourself As An Object, Your Experience Of Man Is Only As Of A Thing Among Things.

Creation Is Not A Hurdle On The Road To God, It Is The Road Itself.

If You Want To Raise A Man From Mud And Filth, Do Not Think It Is Enough To Stay On Top And Reach A Helping Hand Down To Him. You Must Go All The Way Down Yourself, Down Into Mud And Filth. Then Take Hold Of Him With Strong Hands And Pull Him And Yourself Out Into The Light.

But It Can Also Happen, If Will And Grace Are Joined, That As I Contemplate The Tree I Am Drawn Into A Relation, And The Tree Ceases To Be An It. . . . Does The Tree Then Have Consciousness, Similar To Our Own? I Have No Experience Of That. But Thinking That You Have Brought This Off In Your Own Case, Must You Again Divide The Indivisible? What I Encounter Is Neither The Soul Of A Tree Nor A Dryad, But The Tree Itself.