9. But I’ve only asked you here about fire and wind and the day you have passed through, things you can’t exist without, and you haven’t answered me about them."
10. He said to me: "You can’t even understand the things that are yours, which you have grown up with.
11. How then can your mind contain the way of the Most High? How can a person who is already corrupted by the corrupt world understand the realm beyond corruption?"I fell on my face
12. and said to him, "It would have been better not to have come into being than to come here, live in the middle of wickedness, suffer, and not understand why."
13. He answered me: "I went forth to a forest of trees on the plain, and they devised a plan
14. and said: ‘Come, let’s go and make war on the sea so that it may recede before us, and let’s make for ourselves more forests.’
15. And likewise, the waves of the sea also formed a plan and said, ‘Come, let’s go up and subdue the forest on the plain so that there too we may complete another region for ourselves.’
16. But the plan of the forest came to naught, for fire came and consumed it.
17. Likewise also the plan of the waves of the sea, for the sand stood firm and prevented it.
18. If then you were judge of these, which would you begin to justify and which to condemn?"
19. I answered, "Each made a stupid plan, for land is given to the forest, and the sea is the appointed place for its waves."
20. Uriel answered me: "You have judged well. So why haven’t you judged well in your own case?
21. As the land is given to the forest and the sea to the waves, so also only those who live on earth can understand the things that are on earth, and only those who live above the heavens can understand the things that are above the height of the heavens."
22. I answered, "I beg you, Lord, why has the sense of understanding been given to me?
23. It wasn’t my purpose to ask about the ways above but about the things that we see every day. Why has Israel been handed over to the Gentiles to our shame? Why has the people you loved been given over to godless tribes? Why has the Law of our ancestors been invalidated and the written ordinances come to nothing?
24. Why do we pass from the world like locusts and our life like a mist? Why aren’t we worthy to obtain mercy?