Messiah as Divine Metaphor

"How Does G-d Reveal Unity? ...Consider a teacher and his student.  The teacher knows that the student has a less developed intellect, and that if he presents a concept on the level of his own comprehension, the student will only be confused.  To introduce a new idea to the student, he condenses it and uses metaphors or parables to bring it within the student's grasp.....Using metaphors is not meant to separate the teacher and the student, but to bring them together in a unity that does not compromise either of them.....To allow us to unite with Him, G-d has provided an elaborate trail of metaphors, like stepping-stones across a wide river.  These steps function like a metaphor or a translator.  A translator does not add any new ideas to a conversation--that is not his role--but he unites two parties in communication.  An intermediary does not settle a dispute, but be creates a bridge, a line of communication, that enables the two sides to achieve a common understanding.  In a student-teacher relationship, the teacher is both source and mediator.  The teacher's metaphor is the intermediary, allowing an abstract concept to be translated into one that can be grasped.  The teacher's goal is to create a series of stepping-stones to accommodate the student's intellectual stride, leading him deeper and deeper into the concept.  The metaphor, then, is equal parts 'light,' the teacher's concept, and 'container,' language that makes the ideas accessible to the student," Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Toward a Meaningful Life:  The Wisdom of the Rebbe (Adapted by Simon Jacobson)

It's interesting how the above comment can apply to Yeshua.  He is simultaneously both man:

"For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," 1 Tim. 2:5

And G-d:

"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," Colossians 2:9

The reality is that Yeshua, as a man, is the physical manifestation of the Word of G-d--and this Word is a metaphor, a translation, for the spiritual reality of G-d which is so transcendent that we can never experience.

We long to touch the face of G-d...but, with our present limitations, the best we can hope for is to touch the metaphor (Yeshua).

If we apply the Schneerson's teacher-student metaphor, G-d is the source that dwells in a "thick darkness" (1 Kings 8:12); yet He sends out His teaching--His Word--which mediates between Him and us, operating like a metaphor for our delicate minds, so that we may experience His light and become one with Him.  The blueprint for this unifying with G-d is, of course, the Torah:

"In describing the wisdom of King Solomon, the verse states, 'And he grew wiser than all men...and he spoke three thousand metaphors.'  At first glance, we might think that this description of Solomon's abilities reflects his fertile imagination rather than any great wisdom.  But the metaphor is far more than an entertaining way to convey an idea; it is the translation of a concept into a lower level of intellectual discourse.  The greatness of Solomon's wisdom lay in the fact that he could take the most profound, sublime thoughts and bring them to life for minds far less developed--three thousand steps less developed--than his own.  This, in turn, enables the recipients to retrace the steps, one by one, until they can achieve the original high level of discourse.
     Solomon's wisdom is itself a metaphor for the sort of wisdom that went into G-d's creation of our physical world.  After the radical 'jump' from a nonexistential reality to an existential one, G-d began creating all existences in their most spiritual, sublime forms.  He then caused them to develop, in many stages, ultimately producing our physical world, the most tangible embodiment of G-d's created realities.  Every material element or force is actually a physical manifestation of a higher, more spiritual one; water, for example, is the physical embodiment of love and kindness, while fire represents the physical dimension of power.
     But as the properties of the world become more tangible, they also become farther removed from their divine source...
     In our universe, this process has reached the point where everyone is able to experience the 'containers' but very few can glimpse even a hint of the 'light' within.  We can see or read the words on paper, but we don't always sense the idea they represent.
     And yet this is precisely what G-d wants:  that our 'dark' and 'lowly' world obscure its connection to the divine, so that man, out of his own free will, would choose to peel back the successive layers of the container to reveal the light.  And to facilitate that process G-d created different steps along the way, a ladder by which man can climb ever upward and unite with his creator.
     ...
     To this end, we have the Bible--the ultimate metaphor, for it is G-d's pure wisdom manifested in language that we are allowed to comprehend.  By studying the Bible, we unite with G-d's wisdom, and by performing the commandments as instructed therein, we actualize G-d's will.  This is the means by which we take the first solid steps toward a unity with G-dliness, by which we can cross the divide between our limited reality and G-d's infinite reality.  The first step is to acknowledge the need for such unity, which means understanding how the two realities came into being.
     Light, with all its paradoxical qualities, is our best metaphor for understanding the process of creation.  We speak of 'enlightenment' that dispels the darkness of ignorance, of a 'ray of hope' penetrating the blackness of despair, of a 'divine light' that bathes a soul in virtue.....Everything you do becomes a metaphor for revealing G-d's light.  And that is true unity," (ibid).