100.06 Linkage: Linkage of God’s potential to Man’s Potential (pps.73-74)

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to, and influenced by, man’s striving for potential²⁵³ and by man’s ascent. The greater man’s freedom and consequent ascent, the greater the cosmic potential.²⁵⁴

Inasmuch as the cosmic Divine potential is intertwined with that of man, one must come to the conclusion that while man is totally dependent on the Divine, God is also somewhat dependent on man, to whatever small degree.²⁵⁵ That elements of a dependency exist, is recognized in Jewish tradition.²⁵⁶

The Midrash makes this point:
When the Israelites do God’s will, they add to the power of God on high. When the Israelites do not do God’s will? they, as it were, weaken the great power of God.²⁵⁷

“Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord? and I am God” (Isaiah 43:12). That is, when you are my witnesses, I am God, and when you are not My witnesses, I am, as it were? not God.
-Midrash Rabbah, Psalms 123:l²⁵⁸

Genesis 1:26 states: “And God said: ‘Let us make man in Our image . . .’ ” The Zohar responds to the question of why the plural “us” by explaining that man is a partner (shutaf) with the Divine in the creation of man.²⁵⁹ The rabbinidkabbalistic concept of tikkun olam (“perfecting/completing the world”) further complements the theme of man’s partnership with the Divine.

Were it not for My covenant? day and night, the laws of heaven and earth I should not have ordained.
-Jeremiah 33:25

God is in need of man for the attainment of His ends.
-Heschel²⁶⁰

When Israel performs the will of the Omnipresent, they add strength to the heavenly power; as it is said: “To God we render strength” (Psalms 60:14). When, however, Israel does not perform the will of the Omnipresent, they weaken— if it is possible to say svthe great power of Him who is above; as it is written, “Thou didst weaken the Rock that begot Thee.”
-Pesikta²⁶¹

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²⁵³ See Genesis Rabbah, chap. 30, on the verse “. . .walk before Me, and be wholehearted” (Genesis 17:1)-“in the view of Rabbi Johanan we need His honor; in the view of Rabbi Simeon be Lakish He needs our honor.” As cited in Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p. 243.

²⁵⁴ See Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, p. 9 1. “Halakhic man cannot be cowed by anyone. He knows no fear of flesh and blood. For is he not a creator of worlds, a partner of the Almighty in the act of creation?”
Cf. Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust, p. 60. “Man, according to his own strength, continues the work of creation and becomes, urged on by God’s call, a humble associate of the Creator.”

²⁵⁵ See Bokser, Abraham Isaac Kook, pp. 27-28. “As long as the striving for divine ideals and their effectuation in the course of a continuous historical existence does not manifest itself in the nation, the divine Presence is in exile, and the life-force released by the service of God is in a state of weakness” (Ikve Hatzon, “Daat Elohim,” in Eder Hayakar, pp. 130-141).

²⁵⁶ “Of course, man needs God. But God, ‘in the fullness of His reality,’ needs man. He who says ‘Thy will be done’ may say no more, but truth adds for him ‘through me whom Thou needest.’ ” (Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), p. 83. “God thus responds to a man’s dealings with the beings and things of the universe by pouring His divinity into all of nature. In this sense, it is man who ‘turns the world into a sacrament.’ ” Idem, mamre (Melbourne University Press, 1946). p. 105. As cited in Schulweis, Evil and the Morality of God, p. 99.
Cf. Gordis, A Faith for Moderns, p. 260.
Cf. Soloveitchik. Halakhic Man, p. 99. “The dream of creation is the central idea in the halakhic consciousness-the idea of the importance of man as a partner of the Almighty in the act of creation, man as creator of worlds.”
See also the contemporary discourses of Rav Shlomo Chaitn Hakohen Aviner in Tal Hermon: lyunirn BaTorah editor A. Kleinspitz, privately printed in Jerusalem by Ateret Kohanim. See section on Bereshit. Translation of selected segments follows: ‘ . . All that God created needs completion by us, as is written ‘asher ha-rah Elokim la-a-sot.‘”
“. . . It is possible to say that all that we do is a continuation of. . . ‘na-a-seh ha-adam’. We complete the creation of man.”

²⁵⁷ Midrash Rabbah, Lamentations 1:6.

²⁵⁸ See Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History, p. 23.

²⁵⁹ There is a midrashic concept that there are three partners in the creation of a child-man, woman, and the Divine.

²⁶⁰ Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p. 241. Cf. ibid., p. 242. “God is a partner and a partisan in man’s struggle for justice, peace and holiness, and it is because of His being in need of man that He entered a convenant with him for all time.” Cf. Heschel, God in Search of Man, p. 413. “To be is to stand for, and what man stands for is the great mystery of being His partner. God is in need of man.”

²⁶¹ Pesikta, ed. Buber, XXVI, 166b, as cited in Heschel, Man Is Not Alone. p. 243.

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