This was inspired by a fellow Kabbalist of the Italian High Renaissance, Rabbi Yehudah Moscato. I say he was of the Italian Renaissance not just because he lived at that time, but because he really was a person of that time. He was very much into fine music, art and poetry. But he was also a very religious Jew and he gave popular lectures in the synagogue.

He compared every creature that G_d made to an instrument in a giganormous orchestra. (There is actually an ancient Midrash, "Perek Shira" that lists the song each creature sings, from the sun and the moon down to the frogs and the dogs.) But then, he says, they're not just playing a symphony, but a concerto. A concerto is when you have a soloist--such as a violinist or pianist (well, in those days, clavichord)--and he plays back and forth with the orchestra. He plays a melody or theme while they gently pluck away, and then they all come back in full strength, echoing his music.

So Rabbi Moscato said that the human being is the soloist. Each instrument plays his part, but the human being plays all the parts as one. Every human being is really playing from the same score, he says, only that some play with sensitivity and passion, while others tinker away, missing notes, chopping up phrases, totally out of tune with the composer's intent. Then, according to how each of us plays, the orchestra--the entire universe--echoes back.

When I read Rabbi Moscato, I realized that really this is the case with every instrument: All of them rely on a resonance chamber. We only see how we pluck the strings, little do we realize the waves that echo through the universe and how they come back to us.