Preface
In 1952, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, suffered the loss of a younger brother, an exceptional genius, R. Aryeh Leib, who, at age 45, left behind a widow and a small child. Their youngest brother had been murdered by the Nazis, and their father had died after torture, interrogation and forced exile in Stalin’s gulag. Miraculously, their mother had survived, but the Rebbe concealed from her the news of Aryeh Leib’s death out of concern for her health.
On the seventh day of the traditional seven days of mourning, the Rebbe spoke some brief words to a small gathering. The content of the talk became a recurring theme in the Rebbe’s teachings and serves as a keystone in understanding his approach to life.
The talk was later transcribed and the Rebbe added footnotes that greatly elucidated his cryptic words at the time.1
What follows is a re-rendering of the original, incorporating the footnotes into the text and expanding them in consonance with the references that the Rebbe provided and other talks in which the Rebbe returned to this theme.
Great answers inevitably open up yet more burning questions, and this is certainly the case here. Many of these questions were addressed in these same talks of the Rebbe. Where such a question left unresolved may lead to a serious misunderstanding, one of these explanations has been included. Otherwise, the reader is referred to the references cited in the footnotes for greater scope—and, most likely, yet more questions.
On the heels of a holocaust of the Jewish people in both body and spirit, the Rebbe forged onward and upward.When he spoke of these things, his face would often be washed with tears, his words choked by painful sobs. When he spoke of these things, his face would often be washed with tears, his words choked by painful sobs. After all, the pain of the entire Jewish world came streaming to his door, by mail, by phone and in many thousands of intimate private audiences. From the mouth of any other, these words might somehow have been construed and dismissed as naive or even callous. From a man whose heart bore all the burden of six million holy martyrs and many more millions of survivors, they could be nothing less than a courageous, yet deeply rooted thesis of faith and optimism.
The Objective
Our universe was created through a cascade of descent.
It began with the emergence of infinite light, the unbounded, unknowable wisdom of the Creator. Then that light was entirely removed. Darkness, emptiness. And then a fine, carefully aimed trickle of light, a glimmer of the divine state of consciousness that had departed. And then a stepping down of that current of consciousness, finely tuning itself again and again to invest within yet more and more discrete restrictions of time and space, and yet lower and lower.
As the human psyche compresses the unbridled energy of raw desire into a tame and ordered intellect, and then sweeps aside that intellect so that palpable emotions may emerge, and then ekes out a dim shadow of those emotions as the articulations of conscious thought, which then emerge out of consciousness to become audible words and even physical gestures—
—so too, but on a vast cosmic scale, the divine consciousness compresses and constricts itself, stepping down and down again and again in uncountable descents, until our tangible, measurable, hard and solid reality could emerge.
A universe of such constricted consciousness, like a pebble lying on the ground, it knows no roots. A reality that looks and feels as though it has no origin beyond itself. A thing that just is.
Light became darkness, oneness became otherness.
The objective:The objective: That afterward will follow ascent after ascent. At every moment, a more receptive world. At every moment, a greater light than has ever shone. That afterward will follow ascent after ascent. At every moment, a more receptive world. At every moment, a greater light than has ever shone.2
Since that was the divine objective, that is what actually occurred. Once the descent was complete, a relentless ascent ensued.
“And the heavens and the earth were complete…on the seventh day.”3 The word for complete—ויכולו— also means to yearn. Heaven and earth began to yearn to return upward, as the Creator desired they should.
The souls that dwell in their heavenly place above perceive this, as do the tzadikim in this world. The sages tell us that those who devote their lives to the pursuit of Torah wisdom have no rest, neither in this world nor in the World To Come, because spiritually they rise constantly higher and higher.4 Why had they not reached this higher place beforehand? Because a moment ago it did not exist. At each moment, through their persistent toil of wisdom, a new, higher realm of existence emerges into being out of hidden mystery, to which they then ascend through the labor of their souls.5
The rest of us, however, perceive only a world of cyclical rise and fall. Indeed, that is how history is described by the Kabbalists. As the moon waxes and wanes, they explain, so the souls of humankind have their times of glory and luminance, and their times of diminution and darkness.
But the truth is that what appears to us as descent is a crucial stage within a continuous ascent. It is, after all, the entire objective of the universe which preceded its creation. Indeed, it preceded all of existence. And if so, there is no place from which even a seed of an idea of opposition to this ascent could emerge. Nothing, not you nor I nor any of G‑d’s creations could possibly stand in its way.
The Spiral Staircase
The Baal Shem Tov provided a magnificent analogy for this illusion—encapsulating in a single image that for which the Etz Chaim, the principal work of Lurianic Kabbalah, spends many chapters:6
Imagine yourself standing at the foot of a tall pillar. At the top of this pillar you can make out the entryway into a house. So you begin your ascent on the stairway upward.
But the stairway turns out to be a spiral staircase.With your first step, the spiral has already taken you to the backside of the pillar. With your first step, the spiral has already taken you to the backside of the pillar. Your objective has fallen out of view—and you fall into confusion. You thought you were on the path to ascent, but instead you’ve entered into darkness.
Nevertheless, you persist to the next step and to the next. Eventually you come back around to the front of the pillar, to see that you were rising higher and closer all along.
In this way, the Baal Shem Tov explained the verse, “Seven times a tzadik falls and rises.” The fall, the descent, is actually a step towards rising yet higher. It is a necessary and crucial development in the act of being a tzadik.
Why? Because, as explained in many other instances at length,7 between one stage and a higher stage there is always an intermediary stage—the painful stage of leaving the first stage behind.
Even in the chain of descent by which this universe was originally created this was true: A lower state of being could only emerge once the original, higher state was utterly submerged and hidden, as though it were not in existence. And so the chain continued until it arrived at our material realm of existence.
All the more so when it comes to an ascent to a higher state of being. If it is a true ascent, it requires a complete divestment of all sense of form and self.
Think of the acorn that must begin to decompose in the earth before it begins to grow into a mighty oak.Think of the acorn that must begin to decompose in the earth before it begins to grow into a mighty oak. Or how a caterpillar must dissolve its form within its cocoon before transforming into a butterfly. Or how a caterpillar must dissolve its form within its cocoon before transforming into a butterfly. So too, for the tzadik to enter a higher state of being, he must traverse the back side of the spiral staircase—the stage of dissolution of self.
This bitul, this abandonment of your previous stature, feels like a great fall. But if you could view yourself from a larger context, you would see you are steadily rising.
This is what the Baal Shem Tov meant when he said that, although he was capable of ascending to heaven in a storm like Elijah the Prophet, he wanted to undergo the process of “and to dust you shall return.”
Why? Because the lowest possible descent—returning to dust—is a preparatory stage to a yet higher ascent than rising to heaven in a storm.
And since such a preparation is crucial in order to attain this higher level, it is in truth not a descent at all. Rather it is a stage in a yet higher ascent.
The Lunar Cycle
Classically, this process of descent for the sake of ascent is represented in Torah literature by the cycle of the moon, its light ever waning and waxing. And indeed, at that point when the moon’s light to us wanes entirely and disappears, that is when it stands closest to the sun. As its dark side faces us, the light side that we cannot perceive is absorbing the sun’s light from a position yet closer than the earth.
The Jewish people identify with the moon.The Jewish people identify with the moon. For us, too, those times of darkness are when we are truly closest to G‑d in all His essence. For us, too, those times of darkness are when we are truly closest to G‑d in all His essence. It is then that we absorb the strength we need to reach the highest heights.8
When the wisdom of King Solomon shone throughout the world, the nations were at peace. The Zohar says, “The moon was full.”9 Meaning, the Jewish People were at their apex.
And yet, says the Etz Chaim, that was only the sixth phase.10 The seventh phase and the ultimate fullness of the human soul will be achieved only after this very long exile of Israel among the nations. When it concludes with the coming of Moshiach very soon, the world itself, and every individual within it, will shine divine light.
From where does the world receive this power to shine? From the time of our exile. In our descent, not only the Jewish People, but the entire world is climbing higher.11
Failure as Ascent
Our failures, too, when viewed from their inner reality, are also stages in ascent. Even our moral failures, as well as their consequences—from the outside they are ugly and despicable, tearing us away from our goal and from our connection to all that is divine, but from an inside view, from a place that knows the latent power of every soul that must eventually awaken and carry it back home, a place that can perceive a future in which all things will ultimately be repaired, from such a vantage point they too are steps along the backside of the spiral staircase.12
They must be, because otherwise we would be little gods.
This is fundamental to our faith, the reason we do not worship anything or anyone—not even the most divine of the holy angels—nothing other than the one G‑d.13 Maimonides counts this as number five of the thirteen fundamentals of our faith: We are allowed no intermediaries between ourselves and G‑d. Because all of them, whether of earth or heaven, are only “tools in the hands of their User.”
To give any credence to a star, an angel, a force of nature, or a human being is to concede that they are empowered to achieve something outside of G‑d’s plans. That is the very root of polytheism and its origin, as Maimonides explains in great length at the outset of the Laws of Avoda Zarah. It is the antithesis of Jewish faith.
True, the human being—unlike the angels or the forces of nature—has been endowed with free will.To believe that this freedom of ours can somehow interfere with G‑d’s chosen theme for His universe—how is that different from any other form of polytheism? As Maimonides explains elsewhere:14 Just as the Creator desires that fire should burn and water should flow, so He desires that a human being should have moral freedom.
But to believe that this freedom of ours can somehow interfere with G‑d’s chosen theme for His universe—how is that different from any other form of polytheism? Does our free will then render us little gods, G‑d forbid, that we can worship ourselves?
Rather, no matter how great a setback, how messy a failure, the ascent continues just the same. At every moment, the world is rising higher.
Free Will
What difference then can our free will make? Certainly the Torah holds us culpable for choosing to do wrong and meritorious for choosing good. Certainly there are consequences described by the Torah for our actions. We can raise ourselves up along with the world in which we live, or we can choose to tug ourselves and our world downward.
It must be that the consequences of our choices are limited to a subset of circumstances. We can move a few items to the base of our rocket ship as it soars upward. But the sum total of the universe remains constant and unalterable—an ongoing ascent.
Yet deeper, it must be that this objective of the Creator is fulfilled not only in the creation as a whole, but also in the life of each individual as well. Why should there be any distinction between the whole and its parts?
If so, when we see what appears to be a futile descent in any individual’s personal life, if we could only view it in the context of the ultimate goal, somehow we would see this as another step of ascent towards a yet higher stage. Just like the fall of the tzadik that allows him to climb higher, so too in every human life, the fall is actually the beginning of a new ascent.
Because no life is futile.No life is futile. At some point, whether in this lifetime or another, this investment must pay off. G‑d creates life and directs life, and G‑d does not create failures. At some point, whether in this lifetime or another, this investment must pay off. Whatever we choose in life, wherever it takes us, we can never descend a single step from this overarching and all-encompassing incessant climb of the universe and of all life, higher and higher at every moment.
Steering Through the Spiral
In that case, we are back to our question: What then are the consequences of our free will?
The answer is that, although the ascent was determined from the outset of creation, its pace and path was left to be determined from within—by us. Indeed, we are in a position to create a much greater ascent, not only through our successes, but indirectly through our failures as well.
We know that our moral decisions can alter the pace of this ascentAlthough the ascent was determined from the outset of creation, its pace and path was left to be determined from within—by us. because this is consistent with the teaching of our sages: “If Israel will merit, the Moshiach will come speedily. If not, he will come in his time.”
But additionally, our moral choices affect how this ascent occurs.
One route of ascent is without any regression whatsoever, one success on the heels of another. But then the final victory is not as great. The darkness—of the individual and of his world— is left untouched and unengaged—and is therefore never entirely transformed.
And then there is an alternative path of ascent, similar to a common strategy of war: Sometimes, when at war, it is advantageous to allow the opposition an initial gain—only so that consequently it can be utterly vanquished.
The Tzemach Tzedek15 describes this strategy at length. But it is important to first understand why it works:
Nothing can exist in G‑d’s world—no creature and no event—without a divine spark to sustain it. Indeed that spark of divine goodness is the essential life of each thing. It is the purpose and meaning for which this particular event or creature was created.
But in the case of evil, this divine spark is obscured to the point of near-oblivion —“the lamp of the wicked flickers dimly.” Somehow, its essential purpose is entirely obfuscated by its outer gameplay. It seems to deny any possibility that divine meaning lies within.
The only means to rescue such a deeply embedded and sequestered divine spark is to engage the outer shell that holds it captive. In the unfolding of its game, the meaning and purpose that this darkness holds will be uncovered.
But if it is a forbidden thing, how will it ever be engaged? The very fact that Torah forbids us tells us that any direct interaction with it will not lift it up, but rather pull us down. That is the very meaning of the word for “forbidden”—assur, meaning tied down.16
So the Tzemach Tzedek, citing the Zohar, describes how this engagement and unfolding can occur when perfect souls are born into imperfect bodies. Through the difficulties and suffering these souls experience in life, the darkness has been given its due and is now open to surrender its inner light.
Another path, described elsewhere, is when a forbidden thing challenges us with its temptations and lies. When we withstand the test, the darkness has redeemed itself. It has made us stronger, more resilient and much deeper human beings, bringing the innermost of our souls to the surface.
A yet more challenging route, also described in classic Torah literature, is via moral failure.
As just mentioned, in the short term, moral failure feeds the evil and hurts the subject by doing so. In the long term, however, by holding captive a divine soul, the evil is bringing about its own demise and the redemption of the good it conceals.
This is how the Ari, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, read the verse, “One man will dominate over another man for his own bad.”17 It refers, he said, to the forces of darkness dominating over the forces of good in this world.18 Why does G‑d allow such a thing in His world? Why does He place temptation in the world to begin with? Certainly He knows that at times we will succeed and at other times not.
But this is theWhy does He place temptation in the world to begin with? But this is the means by which evil consumes itself, and in the process hands over the divine jewels that it conceals. means by which evil consumes itself, and in the process hands over the divine jewels that it conceals.
When this soul, held captive by the forces of darkness, will awaken and return, she will carry back with herself whatever sparks of truth and goodness she has picked up along her travels—including those that were entirely forsaken, given up for lost in the belly of the monster. And now, entirely on account of this wayward child, these most precious divine sparks will be returned to the crown of the King.
A radical, dramatic shift in the entire cosmic order has occurred: That marked as lost is now found; that labeled as darkness now shines. By traveling the long road of failure and return, a soul rises to the ultimate reward—to become a proactive partner with the Maker of all things in creating a whole new world.
As for the monster, this creature of darkness we face so often in this world, without the divine energy of those lost sparks, it vanishes as though it never was. And ultimately so it will be with all evil, when G‑d will “remove the spirit of impurity from the earth.”19
Indeed, we believe that every divine soul eventually will return to its pristine place, whether in one life or in another. As Nachamides writes, a divine soul, a breath of G‑d, can never be lost.20
Purpose Is Not Desire
If sin can also fit into G‑d’s plans, why are we held culpable for choosing this route? Certainly, we cannot say that He desires immorality—that would be absurd. The Torah tells us that these things are hateful in G‑d’s eyes. But if the results, nevertheless, in the long term, are enhanced through the process of failure—why then are we punished?
The answer is simple: True, the final result may be positive—but that was not our motive.If sin can also fit into G‑d’s plans, why are we held culpable for choosing this route? Because it’s the motive that counts. And it’s the motive that renders a person culpable.
When we sin, we do so for personal gratification. If our intent would truly be for the sake of heaven, we would never be capable of committing an act of rebellion against G‑d’s will. Indeed, the Talmud tells us that “if a person will say, ‘I will sin now and repent later,’ he is never provided the opportunity to repent.”21
Take a look at the brothers of Yosef. By selling their brother into slavery, they enabled him to become the viceroy of Egypt—and prepared the way for their own rescue from famine years later. But none of that could vindicate them in the slightest, until they repented. Because none of that was what they had in mind.
In short, the outcome does not render an immoral act virtuous in any way.22 Even when a cruel and malicious deed eventually brings the victim to greater heights—and ultimately it must, and it must lead to such heights that the pain and suffering are entirely subsumed to insignificance, and yes, that is something that far eludes our imagination, and precisely that elusiveness is the best indication of what extreme good is hidden away in this pain—yet, nevertheless, the crime itself remains ugly and evil in G‑d’s eyes.
As for the perpetrator, when he repents from the depths of his heart, he can change the meaning of that event in his life, as Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish taught, “Great is teshuvah, for it transforms brazen sins into merits.”23 He can divorce himself from the crime by transforming himself into a person who would never commit such a thing again. He can even revert the consequences of his actions and their impact on the world to good.
“All that G‑d does is for His sake,” writes Solomon the wise, “even the wicked man on the day of his wickedness.”24 As explained in Tanya,25 eventually this wickedness will be transformed to the light of a bright day—“the greatest light—that light which emerges out of darkness.”
Nevertheless, the act itself remains wickedness, an ugly and despicable act, no matter how much good it led to. Utility does not imply desirability.
The Purpose of Tzimtzum
The universe, at its very foundation, is imperfect. It innately allows room for the undesirable. And that is its most desirable quality.
When G‑d created the universe,The universe, at its very foundation, is imperfect. It innately allows room for the undesirable. And that is its most valuable quality. He began with infinite light.26 That light was good. He then removed that light entirely, so that a world could be, a world whose creatures could sense their own existence, make their own decisions and take responsibility for their own lives and their own world.
As a father must take his hands off the handlebars and allow his child the possibility of falling so that she can learn to ride the bike on her own, so G‑d had to remove His obvious presence from His world. Because as long as any of that divine light remained, autonomy of self could never be born.
Was the darkness good? No. Only the light was called good. Truthfully, whatever goes sour in this universe can be blamed squarely on that initial state of tzimtzum—an absolute and utter void of divine goodness. If not for that tzimtzum, our world would be a perfect place, the moon would never wane, and Adam would have never sinned.
And yet, were it not for that initial void, there could be no true goodness. Indeed, the greatest good is that which emerges out of that darkness. So great, that to that darkness, light plays only a supporting role.
The Midrash27 makes this point on the verse in Genesis: “It was evening and it was morning, one day.”28
“It was evening”—these are the deeds of the wicked.
“It was morning”—these are the deeds of the righteous.
But how can I know that which G‑d desires?
When it says, “And G‑d saw the light, that it was good”—now I know that it is the deeds of the righteous that G‑d desires.
The Baal Shem Tov asked,29 “How could one imagine that G‑d desires the deeds of the wicked?”
“Rather,” he answered, “since the deeds of the wicked provide a setting for the deeds of the righteous, one may think that both enter into ‘one day’—a singularity.”
In other words, since good deeds are only truly good when we are given the agency, the capacity, and the opportunity to do the opposite—and especially when we have demonstrated that capacity in reality and subsequently turned ourselves around to do good—therefore one might imagine, G‑d forbid, that these evil deeds are not thoroughly evil. They serve a purpose, after all, as the setting that enhances the beauty of righteous deeds, much as black velvet provides a setting for a brilliant gem.
So the Midrash tells us that no, even before the outset of the universe’s story, G‑d had already decided that there will be good and there will be bad. He chose to desire good and to despise the bad. Not because these things can harm Him or disturb Him in any way–that would be absurd.30 It is only that He chose that this universe will also comprise things He does not desire, and that these things as well will serve a purpose—to make possible the existence of true good.
What We Cannot Know
Why?31 What forces Him to do things this way? True, we can’t begin to imagine a world in which true good can flourish without a backdrop of evil, much as we cannot imagine light without darkness. But He is the Creator of all things and concepts, capable of creating whatever sort of universe He so desires. Why didn’t He create a universe in which there can be only perfect goodness without evil and suffering?
The Torah answers all our questions, all but this one. Why?
It must be that this is the one question for which He does not wish to provide us an answer. For, if He would, we would make peace with evil, with suffering and with our exile, knowing that it is all essentially goodness. And then we would not struggle against it.The Torah answers all our questions, all but this one. Why? And that acquiescence to evil is one thing He will not allow in His universe.
One day,32 we will come to understand. For now, we cannot say, “This too is good.” We cannot honestly feel that way while surrounded by suffering, pain and evil that has no possible explanation in our minds.
But there will come a time when we will look in the rear view mirror of history and see only good. That is the true meaning of the Jewish faith in a time of liberation and enlightenment for the entire world. It is not simply a faith that things will be good from that point on. The past itself will be redeemed.
The prophet Isaiah says that we will exclaim, “I thank you, G‑d, for your wrath towards me!” How can we possibly thank G‑d for His wrath and our suffering? Why?
It must be that the light and goodness of that time will be so immense, on an entirely new vista we cannot begin to imagine, that it will finally make sense of all the pogroms and persecution, all the mass destruction and brutal evil. So incredibly wondrous that from that perspective we will see there really wasn’t anger at all. It was all good, pure, sweet good—only that it was a good entirelyFor now, we cannot fathom such a vision. For now, we must fight against evil with outrage. beyond our capacity to understand at that time.
But for now, we cannot fathom such a vision. For now, we must fight against evil with outrage. We must cure as much suffering as we can and demand of G‑d that He end this exile of our people and of the human soul.
Questions That Burn in the Dark
The best way to understand any concept is to see how it exists in Torah itself. There, we see each concept at its origin, since Torah is the blueprint of the universe.33 This concept of darkness for the sake of light also begins in Torah.
Look at the difference between the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud: In the Jerusalem Talmud, we arrive almost immediately at the Halachah. In the Babylonian Talmud, we must plow our way through page after page of questions and challenges, confusion and debate—and even then find ourselves grasping for clarity.
And yet, wherever there is a conflict between the two, the final ruling is invariably according to the Babylonian Talmud.
Yes, every difficulty, every question and confusion in Halachah comes from the opposite of holiness.Uncertainty is not knowledge and confusion is the antithesis of wisdom. Yet these very states of uncertainty and confusion, these questions, debates and rebuttals are Torah. Uncertainty is not knowledge and confusion is the antithesis of wisdom. Yet these very states of uncertainty and confusion, these questions, debates and rebuttals are Torah just as much as “In the beginning G‑d created the heavens and the earth.” We make a blessing thanking our Creator for giving us the opportunity to engage in these ‘opposite of holiness’ Torah conversations.
They are opposite to holiness only in the sense that in comparison to the light and clarity of the final and accepted opinion they are ‘in the dark’. But this darkness itself is Torah—the most crucial Torah. It is precisely in these dark corridors that Torah attains its fulfillment.
Similarly, bad choices come from bad places—and yet, ultimately, they lead to greater heights. So that, eventually, the meaning and the darkness of those places becomes reframed as light.
No Wrong Turns
What is most important to all of us is that there is never room for despair. Despair is a denial of G‑d’s oneness, a contradiction to all that we believe.34
No person can say, “I made a bad turn and messed up G‑d’s plans.” Even at the time a person runs flagrantly against what G‑d desires from him, even as he experiences a great spiritual and moral fall, at that very moment, if we could only see the view from above and beyond time, we would see the entire world, him included, continuingDespair is a denial of G‑d’s oneness, a contradiction to all that we believe. Along the route of every bad turn, a new path of even greater ascent has just opened. to climb higher and yet higher.
Indeed, along the route of every bad turn, a new path of even greater ascent has just opened.
There is no life that does not bring with it disappointment, no one who walks forward without stumbling, no one who climbs without falling, no one who contributes life to the world without causing some damage along the way. “There is no person who is such a tzadik on this earth,” wrote Solomon “that he does good and does no fault.”35
Until, at the end, our lives are an absurd muddle of good and evil, inextricably bound.
But with death, evil dies as well. The failures, the ugly acts and the damage done—all these wither and eventually perish. The good we have accomplished—and that we truly are—this lives forever. All the more so the good that shines from our battles with the darkness and the redemption of our failures.36
In the end, everything, absolutely everything, is far more than worthwhile. Not just good, but ”G‑d saw all that He had done and it was very good.”37
Our destination lies around the bend. Any moment now, humanity will emerge from the backside of a long spiral stairway. Any day now, we will enter the doorway of heaven’s home on earth.
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