Hidden Hidden

3 Tishrei 5782

“And I will hide My face” (Devarim 31:18)

There are times when G‑d hides His face. Then there are times when G‑d hides His face and He also hides the fact that His face is hidden. In this kind of galut, we dwell in darkness thinking it is light. It is a double galut, a concealment within a concealment.

“Only G-d Himself has the ability to create a being so corporeal that it is entirely unaware that its existence depends on a Creator; indeed, it is satisfied with the delusion that it is responsible for its own creation.” (Iggeret HaKodesh, beginning of Epistle 20)

This concealment within a concealment is in fact evidence of Hashem’s true greatness. Only G-d Himself - who is not, Chas v’Shalom, caused by some other cause preceding Himself - has the ability to create something out of absolute nothingness and to even conceal this within an intricate “natural” order.

“The Lord repaid me in accordance with my righteousness, according to the cleanliness of my hands before His eyes.” (Tehillim 18:25)

In this darkness of the double galut, we have to rely on our blind trust that Hashem is truly there, taking account of all our doings and rewarding them in their entirety in this world and in the world to come. When we blindly fulfill Hashem’s will, by doing mitzvahs without seeing their reward, we bind ourselves to His essence on a pure level. When we do this we will occasionally even get small hints, in the form of undeniable personal miracles, that Hashem is watching and we are on the right path.