This Torah we were given is not of the world, neither is it something extraneous to it. Rather, it is the hidden essence, the primal thought from which all the cosmos and each thing within it extends. It is not about the world, it is the world—the world as its Creator sees it and knows it to be.

The sages of the Talmud told us that the Torah is the blueprint G-d used to design His creation. There is not a thing that cannot be found there. Even more, they told us, G-d

and His Torah are one, for His thoughts are not outside of Him as our thoughts are.

But He took that blueprint, that infinite wisdom and condensed it a thousandfold, a billionfold, and more, into finite, earthly terms that we could grasp–yet without losing a drop of its purity, its intimate bond with Him. next He put it into our hands to learn, to explore and to extend.

So now, when our mind grasps a thought of Torah, thoroughly, with utter clarity, we grasp that inner wisdom. And at the t