Could G-d Microwave a Burrito So Hot that He Couldn't Eat It?
A Talk of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The Lubavitcher Rebbe's talk in vol. VI of Likkutei Sichos begins innocently enough.
On the verse in this week's Torah portion (Exodus 1:14) about the enslaved children of Israel working with brick and mortar and all manner of harsh servitude in Egypt, the Talmud (Sotah 11b) explains why brick and mortar is singled out. It was the beginning of their servitude. The Rebbe notes that it was also the beginning qualitatively. In other words, it was the main part of the servitude, its necessary component. Even many years later, when Pharaoh harshened the servitude, it was in brickmaking. Indeed, as the story in the Midrash about the enslaving Pharaoh's seduction indicates, most of the Hebrews' time in Egypt, certainly almost the entire day, was spent with brick and mortar.
Now, every Jew is obligated to view themselves as if they personally left Egypt. The story of the Exodus is the spiritual archetype of redemption enclothed in history, and thus the process of leaving Egypt is ongoing to this day. It is thus of great interest that the main physical and spiritual enslavement of Egypt was with brick and mortar. What's the significance?
The spiritual idea of Egyptian slavery was to twist and pervert the instinct of the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to build the City of G-d and harness it to build cities for Pharaoh. As is commonplace in Kabbalah, the forces, like Pharaoh, that deny the root of all existence nevertheless instinctually know to suckle and derive vitality from holiness, like parasites, which makes their own superficial and contingent existence more real. That the enemies of the Jews seem to know throughout history how exactly to be anti-Jews with a preternatural instinct is not, unfortunately, something that in our time needs abstract explanation.
So, just as the city of G-d is built from stones (in the language of the Sefer Yetzirah, two stones build two houses, etc.), so too, like an ape before a man, the instinct of the unreal is to make its builders build the cities of Egypt with brick and mortar. All our Good or Not-good deeds are, at least at the superficial level, either building the City of G-d or the other city. There is that which is Jewish, which truly reflects the One G-d. And there is the rest. Our actions are not just actions but vessels for either Holiness or the External Forces like Pharaoh. What are we building? For whom do we toil?
Among the building materials inventoried by the Torah, however, there are two types: stones, which are created by G-d, and bricks, which are created by man. We find that in the context of the slavery in Egypt land, stones are never mentioned. Only bricks.
A stone is almost the perfect example of a “given object,” a fact, something that is there by dint of taking up space and taking up space because it is there. Bricks, on the other hand, are the result of human intentional processes. They could almost be called natural existence and artificial existence.
One way to interpret this dichotomy is that stones, like holiness, are inherently ready for building. They are the tools G-d provides for the job of building His cities. The Holy Temple in Jerusalem was built of stones. The Holy Land is referred to by its abundant stone (Deut. 8:9). Bricks, on the other hand, are like the realm of the permitted. We shape them according to our human will. The Law bans Jews from fully bowing to the ground outside the Temple on stone floors, but not on brick floors. The sanctity of the Temple and its exclusivity as the Jewish place of worship nonpareil is connected with its stones. A brick, meanwhile, is a human creation that can go toward holiness or toward the opposite. The Law banned the use of a brick erected by a Jew for idolatrous purposes that was actually worshipped, which is not the case for a stone. In short, stones denote inherent holiness and G-d in the driver’s seat. Brick denotes humankind in the driver’s seat.
This also agrees with the words of Rashi regarding the building of the Tower of Babel (on Gen. 11:3) that "there are no stones in Babylon, for it is a valley." The holiness of G-d, indeed, is not to be found in the "low" places!
By this paradigm, we would seem to have our answer about the absence of stonework in the Egyptian bondage. The entire instinctive goal of the unreal is to pervert holy building into building Egypt, to imitate the form of holiness—and of course, to the unreal, the ultimate truth always lies in the manipulation of form—and thereby become real. To achieve this end, it could not use the stones of G-d, at risk of “coming to teach and finding itself taught.” As anyone who’s read a bit of Flannery O’Connor knows, if you use G-d’s stones and be kind and perform holy deeds in a “pretend” way, you can cease being an unreal thing in control of itself and seeking to become real. You can accidentally become an actual servant of G-d. To Pharaoh, it ruins the entire goal of becoming real to become a servant in the process. No. Egypt had to use man's work, forms of negotiable affections that are susceptible to twisting in a way that G-d’s building blocks are not. It had to be bricks for Pharaoh.
However, in truth, this explanation is insufficient. If the entire goal of the Egyptians was to harness holiness to extend their own existence—as the verse emphasizes, they embittered their lives, the very vitality of the people was invested in Egyptian building—they should have specifically sought stones to use! By only using bricks, the Egyptians' instinct for "holiness capture" appears to be on the fritz. They are only perverting that which is made by human hands, rather than the holiness of the Divine! It is a concession to use bricks. If physical stones can be used to build Egyptian structures, the spiritual stones of G-d should be as well. Why, then, are the Hebrews not sent to the quarries?
We are thus compelled to reexamine our assumptions. Despite the incredible quality of stones embodying holiness, there must be in bricks some even higher quality. A quality that the spiritual Egypt desires most to use for impurity even more.
If anyone can create a brick, what’s so special about them? You don’t even have to be G-d.
Perhaps the great quality of bricks is their very lowliness. After all, we are taught that G-d created the universe because He "desired to have a dwelling in the lowest place." Ergo, the lower the place we make into G-d's home, the more His Will and Intention are fulfilled.
This is the distinction between the Mishkan (the Hebrews' portable desert tabernacle) and the Mikdash (the Temple in Jerusalem). The Mishkan was only a "temporary dwelling" for G-d, built from vegetation (wood), but the Mikdash was permanent and built from the mineral (stone). So we see that the lower order of inanimate being was the correct material for the more substantial dwelling place of G-d on Earth.
Similarly, we might posit that since bricks are lower and more human than stones, in a way, the Egyptians are taking away G-d's "real home" in lowliness, as it were. Taking bricks away from G-d’s city to build the cities of Egypt is a bigger win than taking stones. Stones, after all, aren’t the lowest. Bricks are lower.
However, in truth, this explanation also isn't up to the task. If the Egyptians had merely wanted to "steal" the lowest from G-d, they would have had the Hebrews build with bricks. Instead, they made the Hebrews bake the bricks. That is, the accurate Torah summation of Egyptian slavery, per various sources, was not Hebrews building Egyptian cities with brickwork. It is Hebrews gathering straw and creating bricks.
Surprisingly, the Egyptians in the story of the Exodus didn’t seem to care much for building. That means, in turn, that they weren’t much interested in repurposing G-d’s buildings. The spiritual battle of the Egyptians is not for the city or the dwelling place. It is over the bricks themselves. They simply don’t want bricks made for G-d. The crucial quality of bricks is not that they are the lowest and thus G-d’s rightful building material. The primary quality of bricks, to the Egyptians, is simply that they are made.
To understand the quality of making a brick, we must explain at a more fundamental level the aforementioned distinction between the Tabernacle and the Temple.
We said before that the true dwelling of G-d in the lowest was in the Temple because it used stones, not wood, and the mineral is lower than vegetation. However, this is not technically accurate. The Tabernacle had a floor of dust, which in the Law has holiness and significance. The Tabernacle does include the inanimate! So why was the rest of it built not from the lowest, like the Temple, but from wood?
Instead, we must categorize the Tabernacle and the Temple together. Both structures aim at drawing G-dliness into the lowest place. However, they differ in the definition of “G-dliness in the lowest place” and, thus, in their methods:
Perhaps “G-dliness in the lowest place” means that the thing that is most distant from G-d acknowledges His infinitude and omnipresence. There are, of course, no limits upon the power of G-d. G-dliness is such that it cannot be "kept out" of anywhere. If there were any limit to that Divine Light, it wouldn't be able to reach the lowest place, which by definition requires the greatest possible power to reach. For example, in the case of a kind man, the greater his kindness, the lower the type of person his kindness reaches. Abraham, the Torah’s exemplar of lovingkindness, fed even those who bowed to the dust on their feet, nihilists and materialists, the worst kinds of idol worshippers.
Or perhaps “G-dliness in the lowest place” emphasizes not the expression of G-d's infinitude per se, but the pervasiveness of the truth of G-d, such that every last creation recognizes and acknowledges that truth. In the explanation based on infinitude, He is the giver and the creation the receiver, He everything and it nothing, He full and it empty, He rich and it poor. How does He reach his extreme opposite? He is just that giving, all-encompassing, full, and rich. He can move the needle in the furthest reaches of the cosmos. If it’s all about G-d’s truth, however, then He need not impose. G-d is found in the lowest not in the sense that He overcomes their dichotomy, but by there never having been a real dichotomy in the first place. The creation, simply by being itself, without having to move an inch, is already part of the Divine truth. As the Ralbag, Gersonides, says: the quality of the truth is that it is in agreement with itself from every side.
Of these two definitions, the latter is certainly more profound. G-dliness dwelling in the lowest because it is true introduces a more significant innovation, accomplishment, and quality than G-dliness dwelling in the lowest because it is limitless. The reason the definition of “dwelling in the lowest” that follows the Divine truth is more profound is because it involves the receiver, the creation, more completely.
When G-dliness dwells in the lowest because He is infinite, it is like a point made in court by the defense that's so strong even the prosecution must agree. When G-dliness dwells in the lowest because He is true, it is like the simple acceptance of a mathematical proof. In the former case, the prosecution takes no enjoyment even in what it accepts. Even when honesty compels the prosecution to acknowledge one of the defense’s arguments, it is still at odds with the prosecution’s established role in the courtroom: to win. A mathematical proof, by contrast, is not offered "with a valence." It contradicts no one’s pre-established role. It is simply a given object, a window to the truth.
It is similar in the case of the man of kindness feeding the poor. True, he could be so kind that even the poorest receive. Yet if his giving is "in a way of giving," based on defined roles of him as giver and the poor as receiver, the food is bitter. No one wants to receive on condition that they are defined merely as a receiver. A more charitable way of giving is for the kind man to reach "before the root of giving," that is, to give in a simple, undefined way, like conveying a mathematical proof. To give “as a giver” defines the receiver as lesser. To give in a simple way leaves the roles undefined and is felt to be a far greater kindness by the receiver. Ideally, the given money or food becomes equally connected to giver and receiver. There doesn’t need to be a framing. The food is on the table, and we have already forgotten who placed it there and who is hungry.
When it is done in this way, not only does the receiver enjoy it more, but so does the giver. It is more satisfying to the giver when the receiver fully enjoys it than to be "a giver" in a defined giver/receiver dichotomy. And even when the giver does enter into the giver/receiver dichotomy, it is the receiving that is ultimately satisfying, not his own becoming a giver.
Thus, when G-d is giving of Himself into the lowest place, there is a more superficial and a more profound accomplishment. G-d is so without limit that even the prosecution must acknowledge the strength of the defense and even the poor must acknowledge that the wealth of the donor has reached them. G-d is undeniable. But even in His undeniability, the creation admitting He is undeniable is far more satisfying than being undeniable. This is what the Inner Torah means when it teaches that "the end of the action is first even relative to the thought of performing it" and the source of the vessel is higher than the source of the light. Even G-d being infinite is less interesting to G-d than the least finite creation admitting that He is infinite.
If this holds even in the more superficial accomplishment, we see how much more profound is G-d giving of Himself to the lowest place not by being infinite but by being true. This derives from a higher place is the Divine Simplicity, a place without definition, where the roles of "G-d" and “creation" are not fixed and definitive. In His simple truth, G-dliness is equally local to all things and perspectives; He has put Himself on the table before the world, and forgotten who has put Him there. The truth agrees with itself from all sides. From a high enough place where He is beyond definition as “a giver,” the world no longer has to be defined as a “receiver.” It knows G-dliness as G-d knows G-dliness, from the inside.
This, then, is the distinction between the Mishkan/Tabernacle and the Mikdash/Temple. The Tabernacle was about the revelation of G-dliness reaching the lowest, inanimate place. The Temple was about the lowest place truly receiving and thereby becoming a vessel for G-dliness on its terms and by its truth.
We see this even in their construction. The Tabernacle was ordered in a descending fashion. The roof was made from animal skins, the walls from wood, and the floor from dust. When the entire purpose of the construct is to reflect the penetration of G-dliness even to the lowest place, then it would express as a process of reaching—the light would first reach the highest thing, then the next, until the lowest. The Tabernacle’s very structure manifests dichotomy. G-d is the infinite Giver, and He gives of Himself first to what is closer and then, since He is not to be denied, even to what is farther, until even the dust of the floor acknowledges G-d and is part of His home.
The Temple, on the other hand, was built almost entirely from stone, because in a deeper sense, the world and G-d are not a dualism or dichotomy. The Giver is not limited to being “a giver” and the “receiver” knows G-d as its own truth. The goal is not to illustrate how far G-d’s power from on high eventually reaches. The goal is to build a structure of the lowest itself, and from within and by dint of that very lowest itself, to partake equally in the truth of G-d. Because the secret is that G-d finds the stone’s complete satisfaction in G-dliness more satisfying than He finds being “G-d the giver.”
The lowest is not instrumental to the infinite extension of G-dliness.
The lowest, the stone, is the entire ultimate point of G-d giving of Himself in the first place.
However, even the Temple is not the true expression of G-d "dwelling in the lowest." The true "dwelling in the lowest" will only be accomplished in the Future Time, with the Messianic Era and particularly the resurrection of the dead, off which the Temple is merely a taste.
There is a well-known statement of the Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya, on the words "G-d desired a dwelling in the lowest," that “against a desire, one cannot raise intellectual challenges.” In other words, G-d's desire to dwell in the lowest has no reason or goal, but comes from a place beyond rational justification. According to this teaching, all the aforementioned reasoning associated with the act of Creation, the infinite expression of the Infinite and the recognition of the Truth by the receiver, are only "preparations" for the true Divine self-revelation, which has no justification whatsoever.
This is an important practical distinction for those who wish to serve G-d because if the creation could become some state of affairs that fulfills G-d's ultimate desire, this means that we, as part of the creation, have fundamental importance as the creation. That is, we would not want to forfeit our independence from G-d, for our very independent existence fulfills His ultimate will! If being the lowest is either instrumental to or the ultimate goal of G-d’s revelation in the first place, we might think being lowly and distant from G-d is a crucial part of the Divine plan. We would know deep down that all humility before G-d is based on a secret exaltedness, that without our humility G-d could not (G-d forbid) achieve His ends!
In truth, however, G-d’s will to dwell in the lowest is a different type of desire. It is a desire that cannot be fulfilled because it is not motivated by reason. G-d has no desired state of affairs in mind. If there was a state of affairs, a certain arrangement by which “dwelling in the lowest” was possible, then that state of affairs was the ultimate reason and motivation behind G-d’s desire, contradicting the Alter Rebbe.
Thus, when we say that G-d desires a dwelling in the lowest, this dwelling cannot be an "accomplishment" or "fulfillment" of that desire. The desire is not rational and has no culmination.
But this demands a yet deeper definition of G-d. For if G-d is merely "the Infinite," defined in dichotomy with the limited creation, then the creation’s acknowledgment can constitute a culmination or ultimate purpose of that infinitude. If G-d is merely “Simple Truth Beyond The Duality of Giver and Receiver,” then the creation, by being able to equally partake in that Truth beyond its role as “receiver,” can fulfill His ultimate expression.
The Alter Rebbe is talking about a new depth of G-dliness. Call it the G-d who is beyond "Beyond Duality," beyond “Simple Truth.” This G-d is unknowable and undefinable; He has no defined qualities at all. All definition as we know it, after all, is definition in terms of finitude, contingency, and the world—which is exactly why no definition will do; every definition embeds Him in some rational relation, and every rational relation, in turn, has a most perfect form, an ultimate reason, a final culmination, a final state that would then be defined as that quality most associated with G-d. If G-d has a defined quality by dint of which He is G-d, then the quality is the cause of G-d, and if the quality has a finite creation for a prerequisite, then G-d is an effect of a finite creation.
It is only once He has no defined qualities at all that nothing can bring His Will to completion, wholeness, or an end.
No state of affairs can constitute the "fulfillment of G-d's ultimate Will." G-d’s desire for a cosmos, His yearning for a “dwelling place in the lowest,” must, by definition, be unfulfillable.
The game is rigged.
It immediately becomes clear that the Torah’s belief in a messianic era is its most radical belief. If the messianic era and the resurrection of the dead are, in fact, G-d dwelling in the lowest, they literally cannot occur, on pain of rendering G-d’s desire rational and G-d an effect of the world. How can we possibly say that the Future Time will fulfill G-d’s desire for a dwelling place in the lowest? How can Judaism claim that the game is not rigged?
We must conclude that the messianic era is not a state of affairs. That is, it is not rationally defined. We immediately object: “The messianic era is given a straightforward definition in the Law, as anyone familiar with Maimonides’ Laws of Kings could tell you! A child could define it for you!” No. The Law gives prerequisites and signs of the messianic era. But the state itself is an impossibility.
The era of Moshiach fulfills an unfulfillable Divine Will in that when it happens, it is an impossible thing happening.
What’s so impossible about Moshiach?
Let us return to the perennial concern not just of this essay but of space, time, and reality: the Divine Will to dwell in the lowest. We have been speaking, so far, as if “the lowest” refers to inanimate objects, the stone of the Temple. But that’s not true. Stones are not the lowest, and not where G-d wishes to dwell. The lowest, by any definition, must refer to the active denial of G-d. G-d, as a result of His desire to dwell in the lowest, creates things whose nature is, and cannot be other than, the denial of G-d. Call them shells, or peels, or klippot—creations “gone rogue,” metaphors that broke free. Sometimes, they dwell in the head of a pharaoh and say, "Only I exist."
This is the “lowest” in which G-d desires to dwell, and when G-d dwells there, it is called the messianic era and the resurrection of the dead. And again, it is impossible. It is impossible because G-d, as G-d, has declared that these creations deny him. And the messianic era means that they, as part of the Divine truth, do not deny him.
In other words, since G-d's will cannot culminate in a certain state of affairs, the mission is to find him a dwelling in a non-state-of-affairs—in the unreal and the impossible. It is only in the utterly impossible that the G-d who is completely beyond definition can find culmination. Only when that which cannot express Him nevertheless does can G-d express Himself within the world without at all being its effect.
To put it more simply, what G-d creates to convey Him cannot convey Him because His will cannot find culmination in the finite and rational. But what G-d creates to deny Him certainly cannot convey Him. Moshiach is the resolution of this problem through the logical contradiction of making the denial, that G-d has defined as a denial, into a conveyance. Logical contradictions are impossible. Therefore, Moshiach is impossible. And when this impossibility happens, it can, therefore, be the fulfillment of His Will unfulfillable.
We are left only with the question: What is the point of all this? G-d creates a klippah like Pharaoh, a reality whose inherent nature is the denial of G-d. Later, G-d somehow makes that denial into a conveyance, and it is called the messianic time. It is hard to take either step seriously. If Pharaoh is a denial of G-d, by G-d’s definition and power of denial, then he should be a denial through and through. It should be truly impossible for it to become a conveyance. And if later it is truly a conveyance, that means it should be impossible that the same thing was ever or could ever be a denial. If G-d can override these natures, then the receiver really is just “a receiver”—the nature of Pharaoh is overcome by G-d’s ability to do the impossible. It hasn’t really been brought into the fold. It doesn’t really agree with the Divine truth from every side. G-d rigged the game against himself, then rigged it for Himself. He isn’t following the rules that make the lowest place the lowest place in the first place. We have descended into absurdity. G-d is no longer dwelling in the lowest by dint of His truth. He is just asking Himself easy questions so He can answer them.
We come, at last, to the burrito.
We have been assuming that it is G-d who turns the denial of G-d into His conveyance. But that’s not true. G-d has created things that deny him in truth, to their dying breath, with Divine authority. He is going to respect their natures because it is their very natures that make them “the lowest” and therefore satisfying when they become “a dwelling.” They are going to be impossible to turn into dwellings to the end, and G-d will not touch them. And when they are turned into dwellings, that will be the messianic age.
This, dear reader, is where we come in.
Can G-d create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it? He can, He does, and the Jew lifts it.
Can G-d microwave a burrito so hot that He cannot eat it? How about, Can G-d create a denial of G-d so powerful that He cannot be revealed in it?
He can, He does, and the Jew reveals Him in it.
What is a Jew? A Jew is a literal piece of G-d above sent into the world and invested in a physical body. A Jew is sent so far away for plausible deniability reasons. It is not G-d that is going to do this. It cannot be G-d that is going to do this. The most profound and true dwelling of G-d in the lowest can only be accomplished by someone who is not G-d but can choose and create like G-d. This, of course, is utterly impossible.
The unfulfillable non-rational Will of G-d to dwell in the lowest cannot be fulfilled by anything that G-d Himself accomplishes, for then it would not have been the lowest. The purpose of the creation of our universe is for the Jew to take the "lowest" thing, which truly and by the Creator’s doing opposes G-dliness, break its opposition, and build something new from the pieces. This, of course, cannot be done.
G-d’s will can only be fulfilled in the impossibility that the servant of G-d creates.
The Future Time will therefore not be a spiritual reality but in this physical universe. On the contrary, nothing spiritual or rational can truly reveal the Divine as it is. It is ultimately material metaphysical apathy, when broken by the Jew, that is impossible and foolish enough to be a dwelling for G-d beyond all definitions. Only the brute fact is sufficiently unjustified to convey the uncaused G-d.
All our work in the spiritual is merely a preparation for the breaking of the lie within the physical. It is specifically those things that say "Only I am" that shall be revealed as the conveyance of G-d beyond rationality and the culmination of His unculminating Will.
Thus, in the end, we understand the Egyptians’ obsession with making bricks.
Because bricks, unlike stones, are made by firing in a kiln. Their material is remade in fire to become a strong building material. Where once the original "soft brick" material was, there is now an actual brick.
We burn and destroy the original qualities of the material and replace them with the very strength of the stones made by heaven. The Jew’s ultimate mission is to break the existential apathy, the neutrality of the physical world, and in the breaking substitute a new reality in its place, a new physical whose "I am" is the Divine "I am."
Our main mission in exile, in all Egypts, is to make bricks. The true fulfillment of G-d's will for the creation of the universe requires us to make that which actively denies G-d into the dwelling for His inmost self beyond definition. We begin first with the fiery kiln of the Law, which recontextualizes all matter. We will then make bricks from physical reality itself, bricks for the city. We are the impossible here to do the undoable, and we’re almost there.
A writing of the true Jewish genius.
To the point, 770 is built of bricks.