We live in a tension, do we not?  Each and every day we balance who we are with what we can do.  We leverage our immanence even while we wrestle with our transcendence. Where do these come together?
     Answers abound, but Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's The Lonely Man of Faith offers some clues.  We are, he said, two Adams, First and Second.  Both Adams are made in the image of God, both are gifted by their creator to do marvelous and extraordinary things.  First Adam is a person who engages with the world, who steps into the world, who uses his gifts to create exceptional displays of human ingenuity. First Adam is concerned with "how": how can we use and enjoy this world in a way that maximizes its blessings for us?  Equally gifted, Second Adam, however is concerned with "why."  Why are we here? Why are we human? What are we to make our existence?
     We need both Adams to be whom we are created and destined to be.  God wants us to enjoy and enhance this world even while we wishes for us to understand why we live on it.  We must act as much as we contemplate.
    Yet ultimately, as the Rabbi points out, Second Adam is lonely.  Loneliness, he suggests, is the essence of faith.  We believe in a God whom we cannot see.
     Fair enough.  However, though the Rabbi may not agree, God has in fact made himself known, visibly, in history, space, and time.  It is in the person of Jesus that, although a person of faith will still experience physical and existential loneliness in this present existence, she understands the real truth of God:  he is here, he has come.