The most important topic in hashkafa is an understanding, to the best of our ability, who G-d is. Why is this important? It is impossible to truly fear G-d if you do not know what He is. What G-d expects of us is intertwined with who He is; we are meant to resemble Him. The entire Torah is about gaining the ability to know G-d and the difference between G-d and man. But what can we, with our limited knowledge and understanding, truly get to know about G-d? G-d has nothing to do with spirituality or physicality. Why isn't he spirituality? Even the world of spirituality is bound by laws of time, such as the concept that a person can spend up to 11 months in Gehinnom. G-d is not bound by time or space. The way we understand G-d out of all of this is to compare Him to ourselves and to understand what He is not. Unlike man G-d is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent; like an expanded, exaggerated and superior version of ourselves. The whole purpose of learning Torah is to come to the understanding of ein od milvado, there is nothing else but Him. Before G-d could create us, he had to first create non-existence and then pull us out into existence. G-d's constant renewal of the world is a constant renewal of the creation of non-existence. What can we learn about G-d from His names? What makes G-d so powerful? Man's existence is always on loan and must be given by G-d over an over again; G-d simply is. We borrow our existence; He is existence. Every self in the world is completely independent and unique from every other self. The purpose of man is not to get in touch with the self; the purpose of man is to have a relationship with Him. The deepest philosophical thinking happens in infants under six months of age who are trying to figure out the world. They do not at first realize that they have a self and that the world is separate from them and outside of them. An infant thinks that when it opens its eyes and sees something, it has created that existence; when it closes its eyes, everything is destroyed. This stage of our lives is really a punishment. It is the one time in our lives when we think we are omnipotent - and yet in truth, we are at our weakest and most vulnerable, unable to do even the smallest task for ourselves.