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Q&A: More on Tzimtzum

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Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

More on Tzimtzum

Question

Hello, hello,
I saw that you’ve already discussed this a lot, so I hope I’m not bothering you.
There’s something here that I simply don’t understand about tzimtzum.
If I understand correctly, the whole topic begins with the problem of how there is room for the world, when everything is full of divinity.
As I understand it, the problem doesn’t even get off the ground. The fact that everything is full of divinity is because—as the Guide for the Perplexed puts it—”there is no relation between Him and place.” And I’ll explain what I mean with an analogy:
There are 3 rows here, with 2 chairs in each row. So there are 6 chairs here. And here too is the rule 2×3=6. It doesn’t make sense to come and ask: how is there room for the chairs, if 2×3=6 is also present here. As I understand it, God is “similar,” “so to speak,” “in principle,” to the laws of mathematics (of course, unlike them, He also has will, etc.), and He doesn’t “take up” any space in which physicality could not also exist.
This whole notion that wherever God is, something else cannot be there feels to me like it’s moving in a direction uncomfortably close to a certain kind of anthropomorphism.
Am I missing something here?
Thanks very much in advance

Answer

God is a being, not a principle, so the analogy is problematic. I wrote a formulation that in my view is more successful (originating with Rabbi Shem Tov Gefen): that our existence is in a lower dimension, and therefore does not encroach upon the existence of the Holy One, blessed be He.

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