A person who does not understand the affairs of the world thinks that it is the newly created cause that affects change in things and their transformation from one set to another. Actually, the cause is too weak and insignificant to bring about change or transformation in the essence of things. We perceive for instance, that a single grain of wheat produces three hundred ears of wheat, each of which bears thirty grains, so that a single grain produces ten thousand grains or nearly that number. Can anyone fail to recognize that the force inherent in the grain is insufficient to produce this amount? And so it is with other grains that are sown or planted. The same applies to the generation of a human being and of other living creatures from a drop of semen or the growth of a large fish from a tiny fish egg. pg 377
Once, on a Motzoei Shabbos, the chasidim were sitting in the bais medrash of the Ruzhiner Rebbe zy”a for Melave Malka. Suddenly, the Rebbe opened the door of his room next to the bais medrash, stood at the entrance, and said, “The Baal Shem Tov was not a deity, and the zaida, the Magid, was not just an ordinary wagon driver. And once, when the holy Baal Shem Tov prayed, his talis fringe fell out of his gartel and dragged on the floor. The Magid approached, picked it up, and put it back in the gartel, but he was trembled with such tremendous fear that he fainted and his life was in danger. They were compelled to rouse the Baal Shem Tov from his deep dveikus in order to calm him.” He then added, “I told you that the Baal Shem Tov was not a deity and my zaida, the Magid, was no wagon driver. Still and all, when he touched the Besht’s garment, he fainted from fear. The entire world is Hashem’s garment. How much fear must we feel to touch this world!” May the memory of the...
