הרב דר. שמואל לעבענס איז מגדיר דאס געדאנק פון זיין א "פּערזאן", ועפ"י הרב דר. אברהם יהושע העשיל:
ער איז נאכדעם מבאר דעם געדאנק אז לפי הרמב"ם איז מאראל נישט גענצליך קאגניטיוויסט און זענען לאחרי הכל נאר פון די מוסכמות, ולכן פעהלט אין דעם די געדאנק פון "פּעטאס" בנוגע "ג-ט".
ער איז מסכם שיטת הרמב"ם בזה בכלל כלפי "ג-ט":
הרב דר. לעבּענס אליין וויל מאכן א פשרה אין דעם אז "ג-ט" איז סיי א "פּערזאן/כאראקטער" און סיי למעלה מזה, דורך דעם געדאנק בתורת החסידות פון צימצום עפ"י קבלת האריז"ל. והיינו, וואו אלעס איז באמת נאר כביכול אַן איידיע און "מעשה/סיפור" בתוך די "שכל" פון ג-ט. און אין דעם "איידיע" איז "ג-ט" טאקע ובאמת א (סארט) "פּערזאן/כאראקטער" כביכול מיט "פּעטאס", הגם באמת באמת, אינדרויסן פון דעם, איז עס ווייט ווייט נישט אזוי כלל וכלל. ווי ער שרייבט:
א קנייטש אין דעם מלמעלה למטה/מלמטה למעלה חילוק בתורת חב"ד.God’s omnipotence entails that He cannot create objects beyond His mind. And thus, either (a) God relinquishes or contracts His omnipotence, to make room for creation; or (b) the creation doesn’t take place outside God’s mind
Option (a) requires God to give up, even if only for the duration of the existence of the universe, His omnipotence. But we’ve already discussed the troubles that emerge for voluntarily suspended perfect omnipotence, being as that is against the very nature of God and is thus a logical impossibility outside the realm of "doing"
Alternatively, many Kabbalists, especially within the Hassidic movement, endorse (b). A perfect God is self-sufficient. He doesn’t want to create a world outside Himself, since He has no wants, and no such world could exist. But He can tell Himself a story in which He imagines His creating a world. The desire to do so is self-contained within His self-sufficient being. He simply wants to express Himself. In fact, it’s not really a desire at all, it’s merely His nature to express Himself. This He does in His timeless eternity
God didn’t contract His omnipotence to create a world outside His mind. That’s not possible. Instead, He timelessly creates a world that appears to be outside His mind, but which, in actual fact, has been in His mind all along. This is, what I term, Hassidic Idealism
If God imagines Himself as a character in the story that He imagines, and if, in the story, He is the creator of all that exists outside His mind, then, in the story, it must be true that He contracted his omnipotence. But of course, this is just a story. God in actual fact is immutable. He never changes. He never contracts. He just imagines that He does, and thereby creates an imaginary world. What’s true for us, on the whole, is simply what’s true in the story that God imagines. What’s true for God, by contrast, is what’s true outside the story. Within the story, it’s true to say that tzimtzum occurred; our physical world exists, created ex nihilo. From God’s perspective, by contrast, tzimtzum is just a story. Our world is just an idea
When the Bible describes God’s omnipotence, it’s talking about God qua author, outside the story. When Maimonides or Crescas describe a totally impassible God, they too describe God outside the story. But when Maimonides says that God merely manifests as having emotions, he fails to recognize that if that’s how God manifests, then that’s how He really truly is, qua character in His story
Religious experiences of a second-personal nature may well be experiences of God qua character in His own story. These are encounters, within the story of the world, and as real as the world itself, between two persons in that world. Religious experiences of an impersonal nature, by contrast, may give a person a glimpse of God beyond the story
In our world – on this side of tzimtzum – God is a person who engages in covenantal relations. He shares His pathos with prophets and grants us libertarian freedom. This is true even if there exists a perspective, beyond our ken – on the other side of the contraction – in which it’s true to say that we’re not free at all, but merely characters in a Heavenly tale
God within the story is a person of tremendous power, who lovingly creates lesser people, like us, with whom to commune. Beyond the story of our world, God is – if we follow Crescas – a non-personal mind, and – if we follow Maimonides – He isn’t even that