People Before G-d

How precious is a human being in the eyes of G-d!

Hashem cares more about how we treat our fellows than how we treat G-d. Aside from the salient examples of the Waters of Noah, and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where G-d withheld punishment despite rampant idolatry, until humankind began to wrong each other, we also see how much G-d cares about the honor of human beings from the laws of teshuvah. For when a person wrongs G-d, one needs only to regret the action and resolve to correct it, and one is immediately accepted.

How to achieve the supernatural

"And Hannah said in her heart" (Sam. I 1:13). This means (that He wanted) {that she wanted} to do something supernatural, and she did not want to pray verbally. "For with the word of Hashem were the Heavens created" (Psalms 33:6), and so too the nether worlds, and when we want to do something in opposition to the worlds {another version: not according to the nature of the world}, one must do this thing in thought. For there, all is entirely a single unity, [as in the Talmudic story of R. Chanina ben Dosa, who said] (Ta'anis 25a) "He who commanded the oil and it burned, will command the vinegar and it [too] will burn." [I.e. on the level of Thought, this is consistent, though not on the level of Speech and words, constrained by logic.] Therefore [regarding Hannah] "he did not hear her voice, but her lips moved" (Sam. I 1:13), because she wanted to bring this [level of Thought] to this [physical] world {another version: to understand this in thought}. [Hence] the lips [nevertheless moved], which are the last of the five speech-producing organs [corresponding to the Five Worlds, the last of which corresponds to the physical world].