LESSON 36: Wellsprings of Light
 
When many in the Torah world hear the word “Kabbalah”, or “Sod”, they feel as if they are trespassing on private property. It doesn’t help that many people today learn Kabbalah, or aspects of it, even though they are totally unqualified to do so, creating quite a controversy. However, sometimes it is important to draw from such knowledge to understand the answers to even basic questions. Not everyone wants to know how the body works in detail, but if someone becomes ill, God forbid, such knowledge can save his life. Likewise, when things go wrong in history, it helps to have a deeper understanding of what was going on “behind the scenes”, to better appreciate how to avoid such mistakes in the future. If you want to cure the symptoms, you have to first deal with their cause. Most of us, when celebrating Purim, think only about the miraculous victory that brought down Haman and ended his diabolical plan to annihilate the Jewish people of his time. As a result, we focus only on the celebration aspect of the holiday, and do not contemplate the lesson it is also supposed to teach future generations, just as we do at the Pesach Seder each year as well (see Day 20). However, the Zohar provides a very important insight as to why the Purim redemption was not the final one, as it ought to have been: Since the power of the kingdom of Bavel was removed, the “Lower Heh” [of God’s four-letter Name] began to emanate light. However, since the Jewish people did not return to become purified from their impurity, to become the treasured nation as before, only a few at a time and as a mixture, and since they were not found in completion, the light of the “Upper Yud” [of God’s Name and corresponding to the sefirah of Chochmah] did not descend that much as before, and therefore, the upper springs did not flow or give off light as before … (Zohar, Shemos 9b) In simpler terms, the Purim redemption represented a very significant turning point in Jewish history. At that time, after the fall of Bavel, the upper spiritual realms were prepared to shower down Divine Light onto the Jewish people, making possible a temple on the level of the first one. This would have completely rectified the Jewish people, and for that matter, the entire world, ushering in the Messianic Era. However, it didn’t happen, for one reason only: not all the Jews came back from Bavel, choosing instead to stay in the Diaspora, even though they had permission to return to Eretz Yisroel and re-build the temple and the nation. As a result, the Zohar reveals, the holy light destined to be revealed at that time remained hidden above. Instead, future exiles remained in store for the Jewish people, and darkness descended upon the land. The returning Jews from Golus Bavel had the opportunity to rectify the sin of the Spies, but failed a second time. The rest, as they say, is history. And now, it is our history, since we are the most recent generation to live out the exile that should have ended back in the time of Mordechai and Esther. Knowing this may not make one want to pack up and move to the Holy Land, but at the very least, it ought to make one yearn to be able to yearn to do so.
Monday, February 11, 2008