"All human efforts to get closer to God are bound to fail.
However high one may ascend, there will always remain an infinite, unbridgeable gap between man and God.
We feel the desire to come closer to God, yet we have no means for fulfilling it.
This is the point of the Giving of the Torah.
We, as humans, are incapable of reaching God.
But God--with His infinite loving kindness and goodness--lowers Himself toward us, so to speak, in order to fulfill the purpose of Creation."
--Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From "The Significance of the Giving of the Torah," an essay by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
