A Roman matrona once came to Rabbi Yosei bar Chalafta with a question that sounded innocent and was not. "In how many days did your God create the universe?" she asked. Rabbi Yosei answered from the Torah: "In six days, as it is written, 'For in six days Hashem made heaven and earth' (Exodus 31:17)." She leaned forward. "And what has He been doing ever since?"

This is the opening of one of the most beloved scenes in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 2:4. The matrona was testing the rabbi with a philosopher's favorite trap: if God finished creating long ago, is He now unemployed? Rabbi Yosei did not flinch. "He sits and makes matches," he said. "The daughter of so-and-so to so-and-so. The wife of so-and-so to someone else. The property of so-and-so to another."

She laughed. "That is all? I can do that. I have a thousand slaves and a thousand maidservants. In a very short time -- sha'ah kalah, a trifling hour -- I could match them all up myself." And Rabbi Yosei answered with the line that has echoed in Jewish weddings ever since: "It may look easy to your eyes, but before the Holy One Blessed be He, it is as difficult as parting the Sea of Reeds."

The experiment and the morning after

The matrona decided to prove him wrong. She lined up her thousand slaves and her thousand maidservants in rows and called out the pairings. "You with her. You with him." By midnight every couple was matched. She went to bed satisfied.

In the morning they came to her. One had a bandaged head. Another had a blackened eye. A third was limping. "I don't want him," one said. "I don't want her," said another. A wail of misery rose from her estate. She sent for Rabbi Yosei bar Chalafta.

When he arrived she admitted defeat. "Truly, your Torah is fine and praiseworthy. Everything you told me was true." He did not gloat. He simply repeated himself, and added a deeper teaching: "The Holy One matches couples against their will and against their preferences -- because He knows what is good for them even when they do not. As it says, 'God settles the lonely in a home; He brings forth the bound bakosharot' (Psalms 68:7). What is bakosharot? With weeping (bechi) and with singing (shirot)." Every real marriage, the midrash is saying, holds both.

The ladder between heaven and earth

Rabbi Berachya gave a second answer to the matrona's question. What has God been doing since creation? "He sits and makes ladders. One He causes to ascend, another to descend, as it is written, 'God is the judge; this one He brings low, and that one He raises up' (Psalms 75:8)." Destiny is a vertical staircase, and the Holy One is always holding the rungs.

Then Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 2:4 sharpens the verse against specific biblical figures. "This one He brings low, and that one He raises up" -- the rabbis read it about Aaron. With the word "this" he was brought low: "And this (hazeh) calf came out" of the fire at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 32:24). And with the word "this" he was raised up: "This is the offering of Aaron and his sons" when he was consecrated as High Priest (Leviticus 6:13). The same word, one moment of shame and one moment of sanctification, and a whole life suspended between them.

Rabbi Yonah of Botzrah read the verse about Israel. With "this" they fell -- "For this (zeh) man Moses... we do not know what has become of him" (Exodus 32:1), the sentence that unleashed the Calf. And with "this" they rose -- "This (zeh) they shall give... a half-shekel as an offering to Hashem" (Exodus 30:12-13). The word that toppled them also lifted them back up.

Two thousand years later the matrona's question still echoes. What is God doing? According to Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 2:4, He is doing the work we think is easy: pairing souls, raising up the fallen, bringing down the arrogant, and weaving weeping into song. It is harder than splitting the sea. It is the labor that keeps the world in motion.