Mystical Ambiguity

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav on the Via Negativa

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav teaches that we can know a thing’s essence by knowing all its limitations and imperfections. If I want to know what perfect wisdom is, I can do so by coming to a total knowledge of what perfect wisdom isn’t.

If you want a literary context for this idea, recurrent in his work, check out his tale “The Chandelier Maker.”

But there’s…