And know as well, that certainly now as well, even though He has hidden His goodness and withheld the rule of His perfection from the creations, even so it is certain that He sustains them, for from where else would their being and existence and maintenance come if not from His sustenance. If so certainly He is the sustainer, but this sustenance of His that he provides now - in comparison to that which would be appropriate for him to provide if He were sustaining according to the rule of his perfection he wished to provide sustenance - is not other than a shadow for man, or like a small mark that remains from writing on paper after the letters have been removed from it.
And we would call the general type of this sustenance - darkness and not light, with regard to the complete sustenance which could come if through the rule of His perfection he were to provide sustenance. Indeed with regard to ours this is all of our lives, for with this sustenance we live and exist, and not without it. And we find, when we mention the type of this sustenance which is innovated in the hiding of the countenance of His goodness may He be blessed, we call them with one generalization - like the shadow of the heavenly power alone, not more; and when we dissect it to its details - we find within it all the rules and laws which we discern in the heavenly behavior, for all of them together are a very small thing relative to the heavenly power if He were to act in his completeness, as I mentioned: