Apples

Did you ever see an apple tree? A piece of wood, wooden branches, and then all of a sudden it’s full of apples, growing out of the wood. From nothing comes beautiful fruit.

Have you ever seen a child? Also out of practically nothing — a living growing delightful child.

Where does everything come from? How does everything grow? How does everything prosper? How does everything exist?

The Torah tells us. In the beginning, G-d created the world out of nothing. Chassidus explains that, because the world was created out of nothing, therefore in order that it should not revert to nothingness, it’s necessary for G-d to constantly recreate it every moment.

Creation is a manifestation of G-dliness. Everything comes from the words of His mouth: “Let there be light,” and there was light, and so on.

Chassidus explains that when it says that G-d spoke, it means an emanation of G-dliness. Just as when a person talks, he’s revealing to others what he’s thinking. Similarly, in a much more profound and awesome way, when G-d creates the world, He does so via an emanation of G-dliness, to keep everything existing.

And just as when a person speaks, the words are practically nothing compared to the person’s thinking and mental capacity, so too, when G-d creates the world through his words, it means that G-d contracts, conceals His G-dliness in order to create finite beings. It’s so concealed, that people don’t even sense the G-dliness that is within them, creating them and keeping them existing every moment out of nothing.

That’s what we are. That’s what the whole world is. So the next time we bite into an apple, we realize how wondrous G-d‘s world is.