"Two things may be said to happen when faith is a personal experience.
There is the joyful factor of the one who feels the wondrous nearness of God.
And there is the triumphal joy of God in the extrication of a person from his darkness and ignorance.
The wholly human concept of God’s remoteness and inaccessibility is really another aspect of God’s desire for man to come to Him.
God puts a distance between Himself and man only in order to have man cross it.
He conceals Himself so that man shall seek and find Him.
Whenever man succeeds in crossing the apparent gap between them, there is a creative joy on the part of both God and man.
In man, the joy corresponds to the degree of his aspiration to bridge the gap.
In God, it corresponds to the expectation that formed a barrier intended to be burst.
Just as when a clever son is questioned by his proud father to ascertain the extent of the child’s learning, he may answer one problem after another.
But the joy of the father and of the child is greatest when the test is truly difficult."
From Pebbles of Wisdom from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (forthcoming)
