"What an incredible story! It must be your Tikkun! "Did you raise up a lot of sparks? "Only a Tzaddik like that can go down into the midst of that forsaken place and raise up all those sparks from there."

These expressions are all slang-type sayings that are thrown around, sometimes seriously but more often jokingly, amongst a certain crowd of Yeshiva people that have some connection to Kabbalah or Chassidut. The question is: What in the world are they talking about? What is one's Tikkun? What are sparks? What does it mean to go down somewhere to raise up sparks? Raise them to where?

LIFE-DEATH

To explain: When G-d originally created the spiritual and physical worlds, an important part of this creative process involved the stage called the Shattering of the Vessels. Briefly, the Shattering of the Vessels was a world order of spiritual points, Nekkudim, which aligned themselves one above the other. Having little to do with each other, these points were typically called Kings, as they characterized total independency, selfishness, and egoism. G-d, however, shattered this world order and created another more caring one in its stead. This is the world of Tikkun.

Still, whatever happened to all those shattered vessels that underwent the primordial cataclysm? The many splinters and shards that resulted from the breakage actually fell throughout the universe, eventually to materialize and compose the physical matter and non-matter of our earthly world.

Now, in order to better understand the deeper meaning of this fall-out, and its relevance to sparks in particular, it is necessary to make the following analogy:

DEATH-LIFE

Upon a person's demise, in human terms, a minimal spark of life which stems from the Divine soul remains behind with the human body. Without this spark, the body would not only cease to exist entirely (no dust would even remain); but also, these bodily remains, which represent the essence of the whole physique, would have no possibility of ever rising in the future Resurrection of the Dead. That is, it is this Divine spark which keeps the body spiritually intact until that final day.

Similarly, coming back to the splinters and shards which make up our earthly existence, much like a dead body, they too are sustained by a Divine spark of life. For without these sparks, physical reality would also completely disintegrate into oblivion, unable to be elevated to its spiritual source and holy origin (the rectification of all reality).

LIFE

The above is an extremely deep parallel. As it touches upon the very purpose of man's existence and his Divine mission in the world. For instance: the whole process of bringing down a soul (spark) into this world, and bonding it to a body of dust (shard) so as to refine its coarse nature (egoism). In fact, we can define man's sole quest for perfection, his Divine service or Tikkun in this world, as a sort of lost and found scenario, where he is Providentially offered the opportunity to recover lost sparks. Man, a microcosmic reflection of the universe, is constantly involved in a dynamic interplay with these sparks, which have been lost either as a direct result of his personal sins in this and past lives; and/or as a result of national or global fall-outs (as mentioned above); and/or as a result of the original sin of Adam, amongst other causes.

Man has a daily, yearly and life-long quota of sparks to elevate. This quota not only serves to explain the length of one's life, but also the nature of that life (a person's trials and tribulations, challenges and successes, etc.) Collectively also, the whole Jewish nation's length and nature of their exile is essentially spark related.

REDEMPTION-RESURRECTION

Let us look, for a moment, at a day in the life of Moishe Sparkstein. Just like any other day in his life, Moishe's got a certain daily schedule. Often, it is a continuation of many routine tasks and long-term commitments that he's been working at for various periods of time. At first glance, Moishe's life seems quite dull, same-old, same-old.

Today, though, Moishe woke up in a sort of strange mood. He tried to snap out of it and prepare himself properly for the morning prayers. As the Torah Sages say, "One who comes to purify himself receives Divine Help". But try as he may, he just can't concentrate on his prayers! His mind is being invaded by all sorts of distracting and disturbing thoughts, a past replay and pressing present circumstances. In between the reverie, he begins to ponder, "But didn't the Torah Sages say that one who comes to purify himself would be guaranteed to receive Divine help...doesn't that include having an amazing prayer!?" Suddenly he stops...he remembers. These invading thoughts bombarding his consciousness are the very sparks themselves! Captured as they are within the shells of reality, they are part of his daily quota of unique sparks being custom-sent down to him from Heaven. It is as if these sparks are saying: "Hey Moishe, you are a rich man. You're counting your spiritual Tefillah money. Are you going to forget about us? We are trapped here in this prison. Redeem us! After all, we belong to you: we are your own flesh and blood. Are you so preoccupied with your own life that you don't care about us? Ransom us now! For if not now, when?! Don't you recall the last time you didn't deal properly with similar invading thoughts? You paid for it big time - you got flu for two whole weeks!"

Moishe just couldn't resist smiling one of those rare uncontrollable smiles of his. He now remembers that his family name, Sparkstein, isn't just a name. It is a legacy handed down to him from generations of world-class "spark elevators". True, he isn't as proficient as his ancestors in elevating these sparks with their fallen shards; but still, he does know of an effective and easy method. Simply and gently he puts aside these Divine sent thoughts from his mind, and goes on with his prayer with deep and proper concentration. There...he did it! He can never ever remember having such a high, ecstatic davening, or day, for that matter.

AVRAHAM AVINU

The verse says (Bereishis 24:1),"Avraham was old and advanced in days, and HASHEM blessed Avraham with everything. "These advanced days that Avraham had are explained as being a life-long accomplishment of elevating all the sparks that came his way. As a result, G-d blessed Avraham bakol, with everything, meaning that Avraham received all the reward of Divine blessing that G-d was awaiting to bestow upon His children, since the beginning of creation. However, the only way to bring down this blessing into the world was by knowing the secret of how to elevate sparks. In this Avraham was the master. Let us hope and pray that we can be master "spark elevators", too.

P.S.

We should know that the most powerful, efficient and quickest way of elevating sparks is through Torah learning, prayer, and mitzvah performance. This is because these holy activities connect the mundane to the Divine.

Chassidic Insights on Bereshis. Questions and subscriptions can be mailed to: the Yeshiva