Da'as Tevunos - Section 46

Said the Intellect - Behold we see rules and laws, the He may His name be blessed uses to interact with us, we His creations, characteristics and ways of righteousness as he decreed though the depth of His wisdom, until because of these characteristics we attribute to Him many descriptions like all the words of the prophets may they rest in peace, and we call Him, merciful, gracious, powerful and all the other many nicknames which we attribute to Him. Indeed here we need to understand and understand the certain faith with which we need to believe in all this, for all of these descriptions and nicknames are not befitting Him may He be blessed according to his essential self at all, in that all of these actions are not actions that He may He be blessed does like a person does according to his nature and power, rather they are all matters that were willed from His will to do according to the value of the creations that he wanted to create and according to their power alone. And this matter is explained by the sages in many places in broad explanation. And in general that which we need to believe in this is, that He may His name be blessed, his existence is known to us with certainty as intrinsically compelled, but his essence is impossible for us to grasp at all; and not only that, but it is already forbidden to us as eternal prohibition to enter into this examination, and the sages already said (Chagigah 11b, "One who looks at four things, it would be appropriate that he had never come to the world"; and similarly they said (Chagigah 13a), "With that which is mysterious to you do not inquire...you should have no dealings with hidden matters". And it is a generalization, all that the mind of man can grasp and describe - is certainly not His essence may he be blessed, for he is lofty and exalted from any thought or reasoning, and he has none of the matters that are in his creations, not from the great or from the lowly, for that which is the greatest perfection in his creation - would be deficiency with regard to Him may he be blessed, and they are not like him in his rule at all. For all that is found in creations - the good and the negative the deficiency and the perfection - all of it is new that was caused to exist by Him may his name be blessed through his will, and they are things that are only according to our value and our matters, and not according to His value and His matter may He be blessed. And on this the text is filled with crying out and says (Isaiah 40:25), "And to whom shall you compare me and find me equal says the Holy One":

In general, the Master is certain bereft of all that we find in his creations, whether deficiency or completeness, and only he alone is the perfect with true perfection, to which there is no applicability of deficiency in any manner at all; and this is not comprehensible to us at all, and none of our matters are applicable to him. And indeed, in his will to create creations, and to direct the, and to distribute to them from His good, to shower them with blessings, and to give them some revelation from his heavenly honor upon every blessing and splendor, that they should benefit from his light, therefore He set for Himself, as if it could be, a rule and law of straight interaction, like all of this guidance which we see and hear, for he caused to exist, as if it could be, types of influence and characteristics of interaction, to grasp them and to utilize them towards a choice and good intended purpose for all his creations. And now, the characteristics - certainly His characteristics and the descriptives - are connected to Him, for he does all of this, even if they are not things that are compulsory to him at all, rather all are intended from him, and there existence is dependent only on his interest and will, for without all these he certainly could act and but for this, even now he could change them per his will:

In the end, the rule of His will is complete rule, which has nothing withholding it at all, at any time; and I already explained this matter above as necessary. And behold it is as if G-d hides himself from the aspect of His existence and his essence, which is not grasped or known at all to any creation, so the revelation of His glory and knowledge of Him is a small part from the aspect of His actions. And anything that is grasped by any creation in the world - can only be from the aspect of His actions, alone:

And indeed you also need to know, that even those of His actions which are grasped by us, are only grasped through their consequences; meaning, That which is acted upon by Him may he be blessed, indeed not through the manner of action - how He may he be blessed causes it to act. For all that which is intrinsic to Him may he be blessed - there is no comprehension that could be grasped, and it is impossible to grasp other than that which is in us, his creations. And therefore, even though the characteristics that are ascribed to Him may he be blessed, as for example, knowledge, memory, thought, compassion, anger, will - are not mentioned because these ways of His knowledge are like our knowledge, and the ways of his memory are like our memories, and His thought like our thought and His compassion like our compassion, and his anger like our anger, and His will like our will, and so for all of them; rather these actions he does in a manner that is incomprehensible or known to us at all, but what reaches us in a matter and construct is that which He wants [to perceive]. And not only this, but even the actions achieved through deficiency do not need to be done through this deficiency, in the way that may would need to do them if he wanted to do them, rather He says "let it be", in the manner that his way is hidden and not grasped by us at all, And to us the actions reach us in the measure that they reach. Go and learn from His voice may he be blessed in the Tent of Meeting, that the sages said, may their memory be for a blessing (Torat Cohanim, parshat vaYikra, Dibura d'Nedavah, chapter 2:10) "The voice of haShem in power...", and even so Moshe heard and all of Israel did not hear [in the tent of meeting]. And all of the comes about from Him may his name be blessed being omnipotent, and he can do anything that he wishes, for the is no rule that would stop Him, or any law or boundary that would prevent Him. Therefore we cannot compare his actions to the actions of his creations at all, as they are limited and stretched while He may he be blessed is entirely omnipotent:

And behold up to now I have provided you with an introduction, which is needed for all that we will be involved with in our discussion, now we will come to our subject: