Salvaging Sparks on Jacob's Journey

And behold, G‑d was standing over him, and said, "I am the L‑rd, the G‑d of Abraham your father, the G‑d of Isaac. The land upon which you are lying, I will give to you and to your descendants. And your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread out to the west, to the east, to the north and to the south. And in you and in your seed will be blessed all the families of the earth.'" (Gen. 28:13-14)

Rabbi Yitzchak said, "This teaches us that the Holy One folded up the entire Land of Israel under him, that it should be easy for his children to conquer. (Chulin 91b)

Why was it necessary to fold up the land, and why wasn't the promise that it would be easy to conquer sufficient? Elsewhere, I wrote an explanation of the Talmud's statement: "A place finds favor in the eyes of those who live there." (Sotah 47a)

And in tractate Berachot: "Rabbi Yossi ben Chanina said: What is the meaning of, '[Where is G‑d, that brought us up out of the land of Egypt; that led us]….through a land that no one passed through, and where no man [in hebrew, 'adam'] settled?' (Jeremiah 2:6). Since no one passed through, obviously no man could have settled there. Rather, it teaches us that any land that Adam decreed for settlement became settled, and every land that he did not decree for settlement, was not settled." (Berachot 31a)

We can understand this by means of the Arizal, who taught that Adam's sin cast all the sparks of the holy souls among the impure shells, causing good and evil to become intermingled. These [sparks] must be sifted out via Torah study, serving G‑d, and performing mitzvot - all with G‑d's help, which is the Divine Presence among us. This is the mystery of the verse "Give strength to G‑d" (Psalms 68:35), for when the sparks are sifted out, they ascend as "feminine waters". Thus, Israel was exiled among all the seventy nations, to the place of the sparks, and each individual Jew must go into exile to the place of the sparks of his own soul, to extract and rectify them. (Pri Etz Chaim, p.12; p.45)

The exception is Egypt, of which it states: "you shall never see them again" (Ex. 14:13). This is because: "they despoiled the Egyptians" (ibid. 13:36) "like a trap empty of fish" (Berachot 9b). Not one holy spark was left there, [therefore, they do not need to go back to Egypt] though the Shechina had been in complete exile there. They removed from there all the portions of goodness that had been intermingled with the evil and the impure shells.

This happened through the intervention of daat and thought, as it is stated, "It is sorted out in thought" (See Zohar II:20b). For Moses is the daat of holiness, which is "good", as it is written, "And she saw that he was good" (Ex. 2:2). About this, the Sages said: "'And another prophet like Moses did not arise in Israel'…(Deut.34:10) - in Israel he did not arise, but among the nations he did arise. And who was he? Balaam!" (Sifri, Zot Habracha 15)

Moses and Balaam were both in the mystery of daat, but one was from the side of holiness, and the other from the side of impurity. First, good and evil were intermingled, as a result of Adam's sin, and that of Cain and Abel. Later, it was rectified, so that Moses emerged completely good, and Balaam was separated from him. He was equal to Moses, but in the daat of the impure shells. Thus, it is written, "He knows the knowledge [in Hebrew, 'daat'] of the Most High" (Num. 24:16). Moses' generation, too, was known as the "Generation of Knowledge", and Moses is in every generation in order to perfect it.

Now, it is known that the sparks fell into Kelipat Noga, and that "noga" had the numerical value of the word "chen" [= 58, Hebrew for "grace"]. This is the meaning of the statement "A place finds favor in the eyes of those who live there", because the sparks from the root of a person's soul fell into kelipat noga, which is called "chen"; therefore, the place where he lives finds favor in his eyes, so that he will extract his own sparks from kelipat noga.

This was also what Rabbi Yossi ben Chanina meant [when he said,] "Every land that Adam decreed would be inhabited…" That is, any place that the sparks fell due to Adam's sin, when good and evil became intermingled, was decreed upon to be inhabited, so that a person whose soul-sparks are there should retrieve them.

Now, let us return to the Baal Shem Tov's explanation of the verse. A person travels from place to place in order to redeem the sparks of his own soul root. But G‑d folded up the entire Land of Israel under Jacob's head, so that he wouldn't have to travel. The entire land was gathered beneath him; he could redeem them right there.

Why did G‑d do this for Jacob and not for the other Patriarchs, or other individuals? It could be as I heard from my master, on the first Mishnah of tractate Peah: "These are the things that when a person does them, he eats from their fruits in This World, while the primary reward waits for him in the World to Come…making peace between friends or between husband and wife, and the study of Torah is equal to them all."

Just as both peace and disharmony exist throughout the world, so they exist in each person, following the principle of "Space, Time and Soul" (see Sefer Yetzira). A person can contain two conflicting individuals within him, but if he wants, he can remove the inner division and draw unity into the world. This can be done by studying Torah, and inevitably this affects the physical realm as well. Thus, "…the study of Torah is equal to them all". Even though there is an aspect of peace, by means of the Torah, everything is fixed.1

But to my mind, the answer is straightforward. Just as the general population rectifies the world through their actions, so Torah scholars can do this through their Torah study, for actions are created from the Torah. The Torah is the tool of the Holy One, and through it, the world was created. Thus, "…the study of Torah is equal to them all".

Now, Jacob was the aspect of the Torah itself, as it is written: "The voice is the voice of Jacob" (Gen. 27:22), and "Give truth to Jacob" (Micah 7:20), for the Torah is called "truth". Therefore, he could sort out [the sparks] in his place, whereas someone else would have had to travel around, because "the study of Torah is equal to all". Thus, G‑d folded the entire Land of Israel under Jacob, so that he could extract the sparks through the study of Torah, which corresponds to the entire world.

This is the meaning of the verse "and you shall spread out to the west, to the east, to the north and to the south". That is, while you are still in your place, you will sift out all the sparks from the four corners of the earth, and not need to travel around, for "the study of Torah is equal to all". And thus, the Talmud states that this was not like Abraham, of whom it was written, "Rise and walk the land, its length and breadth" (Gen. 13:17). He needed to travel from place to place to take them out. But of Jacob it is written, "The land upon which you are lying…," for there the sparks have fallen.

[Translation and cpommentary by Eliezer Shore from Kutonet Passim, p.35b-c (see also Tzafnah Paneach, p.114a)]

Reprinted with permission from www.baalshemtov.org