Matters of Interpretation

Whenever this union [of heavenly light and earthly fire, of spirit and nature] appears incarnate in human form, this person testifies – with the testimony of life – for the divine unity of spirit and nature, reveals this unity anew to the world of man which again and again becomes estranged from it, and evokes ecstatic joy. For true ecstasy hails neither from spirit nor from nature, but from the union of these two.

Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, Schocken Books, 1947, 38.

Image: “The Synagogue,” Wacław Koniuszko, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons