You may or may not have known this, but there is a superstructure which is sort of like a hyper-dimensional crystal. It can be visualized as a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) in which certain objectives are to be accomplished and innumerable elements can interact via complex algorithms, driven by innumerable consoles joined by a single server.
If you were to navigate within this generated world, you would need to know where you’re aiming to go and how you will get there. You would also require the instruments and methods to reach that destination. You must have mathematics and logic.
To fabricate an object from the web of elements, you would need to see its patterns and connections: which vertex could act as a substratum, and in what manner compatibility and functionality could be achieved. You would need a rigorous science and a meaningful aesthetic, physics and fantasy.
Say you wanted to communicate information across this conglomerate. You would probably need to encrypt the information with a code, then to utilize this language to activate the nodes of the system. The recipient of your language could interpret the information only if it was fluent in that language (which includes its phonetics, etymology, lexicon, syntax, and all other nuances).
Such a civilization requires an effective economy and government, and demands proper civil engineering. Our simplistic matrix has grown to become a living organism, a harmonious super-galactic symphony that is fractal both inwardly and outwardly. Of course you want to know where it starts and where it ends, what gives it existence and life.
Would you believe that this world is real? We Jews call it The Teaching, which as a name is reminiscent of everything in human history from meditative disciplines to utopian constitutions. It’s a field guide by virtue of its origins, like the ancient ontological mystery of an apothecary-wizard. It can be accessed by all because it is all, but its concentric spheres are maneuvered with discipline and order.
Perhaps this is the meaning of the first passage in Midrash Rabbah: “The Torah says: ‘I was the crafting tool of the Unique Source [to create existence]’.”
Too often we tend to resist precision in our learning. Sometimes when we encounter p’sukim or unfamiliar words, we just let them go without attempting to understand and define them. We speak about topics as broad sets of equations (if Rabbi “X” holds “A”, Rabbi “Y” will hold “B” because “C” – “D” is cheese according to the braisa) without stopping to experience the content. We avoid basic questions, important questions, because we’re doubtful of our own relevance to the material. They are seen as distractions; we’ve labeled fundamental aspects of Torah (at least subconsciously) to be forms of bitul Torah. We’ve divorced our mundane lives from the Teaching we seek to understand. (This is, I believe, why there are cultural divisions within the Jewish people, even those who identify as distinctly Jewish, but I’m willing to refine that understanding.) If Torah would be our craft, our truth, we would be careful, objective, deliberate, and holistic… at peace.
Let’s be precise, let’s be honest, and let’s learn in color.