Grasping a Thought In Your Hand

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Trying to understand the Creator with a human mind is like trying to grasp a thought with a hand.

(Tanya II 9)
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Early on in my Kabbalah classes, I usually teach my students that Kabbalah does not teach us about our Creator. Rather, Kabbalah only teaches us about our Creator's revelations. Sometimes students react to this teaching with a puzzled look.
 
I remember the first time I myself encountered this teaching. It was a real let down! I engaged a Rabbi to teach me about my Creator and all he can offer me were teachings about something else.
 
To help my students rapidly get passed a moment where they might be experiencing an unsettled state of mind, I immediately do an exercise with them. The purpose of the exercise is to help them appreciate the limits of the human mind when it comes to grasping certain very elevated realities.
 
I’d select a popular student and ask him to try to grab a thought in his hand.
 
Typically, the student will shoot me this man, are you from out of space look.

Then in feigned seriousness I’d ask the student, “Why can’t you catch the thought? Come on ... maybe you just didn’t try hard enough. Please try again.”

To which the student wanting to duck out of an impossible task will respond, “Hands are not designed to grasp thoughts.”

Then I’d quip, “Neither are minds tools designed to grasp the Creator!”

With this exercise the student has come to appreciate on his own why he cannot grasp the Creator and comfortably self-adjusts his own learning expectations.