The idea that God and creation are linked in a greater unity is troubling to many. Without a clear distinction between the two, there is often a fear that individuality will be devalued and nature diminished. The implication of nonduality, however, is just the opposite.

The essence of reality is an all-encompassing Unity that embraces and indeed generates relative diversity. It is not that you and I are creatures fashioned by God. It is rather that you and I are temporary manifestations of God. We are real. We are worthwhile. We are unique. What we are not is eternal, separate, and independent. We are God, though certainly not the totality of God.

The relationship between God and creation is like that between an ocean and its waves. Each wave, while unique and distinct in time and space, is a manifestation of the same ocean. Without the ocean there could be no wave. Yet waves are no less real for their having no existence separate from the ocean. Waves are no less distinct one from the other for their each being manifestations of the same ocean.

Similarly, you and I, and the myriad details of creation, are no less real for being manifestations of the one God. Our separate reality is dependent upon that larger unity. Our separate reality is momentary, transient, and relative, but that does not make it illusory or unreal.

The aim of Jewish spiritual practice is to become conscious of both the wave and the ocean, the relative and the absolute. The Jewish mystic celebrates the self even as she experiences its transience. She honors the other even as she recognizes it as part of herself and the Greater Unity from which both arise. Jewish spirituality is not an “either/or” proposition; it is profoundly and unrelentingly “and.”

Jewish spiritual practice does not supplant the self with the One, but awakens the self to its inseparability from the One. Jewish spiritual practice awakens you to the complementary awareness of the One and the Many as equal manifestations of God and allows you to function in the relative world of separate selves, while at the same time encountering through that relative world the absolute world of inseparable unity. It is not that the relative is more or less real than the absolute, but that both are authentic expressions of God, as we encounter God.

Rabbi Aharon haLevi Horowitz, Schneur Zalman’s great disciple, taught this idea centuries ago.

God’s only desire is to reveal unity through diversity. That is, to reveal that all of reality is unique in all of its levels and in all of its details, and nevertheless united in a fundamental oneness.¹ The main point of creation … [is] to reveal the wholeness of God from the opposite perspective…. For it is the nature of completeness to include all opposites in the One.²

Rabbi Aharon’s point is crucial to understanding Jewish spiritual practice. The goal is not to exchange one opposite for another, but to see that all opposites are manifestations of God, the one true Reality. Heaven is no more divine than earth. An angel is no more holy than your neighbor. A rock is no less a manifestation of God than a rabbit. There is a profound equivalence among the animate and the inanimate, and at the same time there is a profound difference.

You must hold both the relative and the absolute in mind simultaneously, seeing them both as manifestations of the greater nondual reality of God. This is the essence of Jewish spiritual practice. It cannot be done by retreating into one half of the whole or the other. It can be done only by allowing each half to take its place in the whole.

The thirteenth–century Spanish kabbalist Abraham Abulafia speaks of this in terms of pouring a jug of water into a flowing stream. The water from the jug is no less present in the stream, but neither is it separate from the stream. Through sustained spiritual practice you can pour your ego into the stream of God and fulfill your humanity by realizing your divinity.

For now he [the awakened individual] is no longer separated from God, and behold he is God and God is he; for he is so intimately adhering to God that he cannot by any means be separate from God, for he is God. See now that I, even I, am God. He is I and I am He.³

This is the voice of spiritual awakening: He is I and I am He! It is an ecstatic overcoming of ego-centered consciousness by a greater boundaryless awareness. It is not so much that the ego is gone for good, but that it is no longer in opposition to anything. The self defines itself no longer in terms of the other, but as a manifestation of the whole.

Being a manifestation of the whole obligates you to the whole. Knowing that you are not separate from the rest of creation awakens you to the fact that you are responsible to creation. Too often people imagine that being empty of separate selfhood means that nothing matters; the world is a game, an illusion, a worthless place from which the soul seeks to escape. This is not the Jewish view.

The fact that you are a temporary manifestation of God does not mean you are unimportant. On the contrary, you are a unique and unreproducible expression of the Divine that is endowed with irreducible value and holiness. You are a vehicle of godliness placed here to bring godliness to bear on every aspect of life as you encounter it. And that means recognizing and honoring the godliness of all other things.

There is a mistaken understanding among many that spirituality is in opposition to this-worldly concerns. Many who cling to spiritual practice do so in order to transcend this world, to escape the ordinary, and to find refuge in the extraordinary. Within Judaism there is no dichotomy between everyday life and holiness. Your charge is to be holy and to make the world holy.⁴ Your spiritual practice reveals your interconnectedness with the world and the interconnectedness of the world with God. No longer deluded into seeing yourself in opposition to others, you cannot separate yourself or your actions from the impact they have on others. The awakening of unity is accompanied by a powerful sense of shared suffering, compassion, and a compelling need to do justly in the world. There is no escaping the world, but a deep and compassionate embracing of it. You are challenged to uplift the world with justice and compassion, not to transcend it with mystical revelry.

Judaism, perhaps far more than any of the world’s major religions, is a religion for householders. It is not something you do instead of marrying, raising a family, managing a career, and paying bills. Judaism is the way you do all these things. This is what Torah means when she challenges you to be holy. You are asked to manifest holiness in the ordinary events of your everyday life. Make eating holy. Make conversation holy. Make sleeping holy. Make sex holy.

Making life holy requires you to see all things as manifestations of God, the Source and Substance of all that was, is, and will be. Making life holy obligates you to live your life and help others live theirs according to the highest ethical and moral standards. You do not meditate in order to see beyond the suffering of your neighbor. You meditate in order to see the suffering of your neighbor as clearly as you see your own. You do not practice Judaism to escape the pain of ordinary living. You practice Judaism to alleviate that pain for both yourself and the world. But you cannot do this if you continue to see your neighbor as other than yourself.

Awakening to the unity of self and other in the Greater Unity of God kindles your deepest sense of compassion and empowers you to repair the world with justice. Jewish spirituality is not about escaping from the world, but about recognizing, honoring, and caring for even its smallest part.

When I teach this spiritual ideal to children I often use a midsize jigsaw puzzle depicting the earth floating in the deep black of space. I pour the pieces onto a table and ask the children to put the puzzle together. What they don’t know is that I have removed one piece and put it in my pocket. It is a small piece of blue-black space, one among dozens of the same color.

After a while the puzzle is complete, all but the missing piece. I ask the children how they feel about the puzzle. They are frustrated: all that work and they can’t finish.

“But it is such a small piece,” I remind them. “There are so many just like it. You can certainly see what the whole puzzle looks like without that missing piece.”

“Yes, but it isn’t done. It has a hole in it.”

“But it is such a small hole. One missing piece among hundreds that are here. Can it really matter that much?”

“Yes!” they cry, upset at my seeming lack of understanding. “Without that piece nothing is right. It just isn’t right!”

Then I take the piece out of my pocket and wait for the groans to subside.

“Look at this piece. It is so small. So simple. And not so different from the others. In fact, when we place this piece in the puzzle it will be hard to tell exactly where it is; it will blend in so evenly. And yet how you missed it! How important it was to you! How central to your completion of the puzzle!

“Now listen very carefully: Each of us is just like this piece. We are not so different from all the other pieces of the universe; looked at from outer space, we just blend in. And yet, just like this piece, we are absolutely essential to the whole.

“If we care so much about this little piece of the puzzle, how much more must we care about ourselves and each other.”