"The Great Redemption" (66)

"The Great Redemption" by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto

-- A Discourse on The End of the Exile and the Beginning of the Great Redemption

Translated by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman
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66.

Thus you find that the emendation of all of creation hinges on the cutting off of the husks. After all, don’t they darken the light of peace upon which hinges all the tranquility of the world? (Thus,) when they leave the world, the world itself will experience only peace and tranquility. This goodness, which is the highest degree of consolation we (can) seek, (will manifest itself in such a way) that the world will be emended in great perfection, (and it will reach the point) when “no one will frighten you” (Leviticus 26:6).

You need to know that everything has boundaries from which it never deviates. The (Divine) emanation descends within boundaries as well which are appropriate to those below receiving it, which they couldn’t bear if it were greater.

But because all the husk wants to do is to hold back the good, it bolsters itself so as to shut off the light and (have it) breach its boundaries. In fact, it’s written about this, “cursed be he who breaches his neighbor’s boundary” (Deuteronomy 27:17). For anyone who breaches a boundary strengthens the husk and narrows the pathways of emanation. That’s why Solomon warned us so vehemently not to “breach the ancient boundaries that your fathers set” (Proverbs 22:28), the boundaries about which it’s written “don’t breach your neighbor’s boundaries ... of antiquity” (Deuteronomy 19:14).

For boundaries are important, and creation couldn’t exist without them. So don’t allow your sins to breach this boundary again and to dilute it further, since that only lessens the emanation and the power of holiness and of the Jewish Nation.

But in the end of days, when everything will return to a great (state of) emendation, those breaches will be undone and the boundaries themselves will be widened. In fact, they’ll be wider yet than they’d been originally. As it’s said, “widen the place of your tent and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; don’t refrain” (Isaiah 54:2). But let me explain this to you.

Isn’t it so that a thing’s boundary is defined by that thing's grouping and its level of importance? Nonetheless, since everything will ascend high above its current grouping and be more important as a consequence, its boundary will likewise widen. And thus it’s said, “they’ll inherit a double portion of their land” (Isaiah 61:7). And though the land of Tzvi had been foreshortened, it will expand outward to its original size -- in fact, it will be wider than it had been at first. And that's what’s being referred to by the term “a double portion”. And once that’s so, then all boundaries will broaden, and there’ll be little difference between one grouping and another.

In truth, this is one of the functions of (the aforementioned) peace, since boundaries are derived from the capacity of Gevurah. So when this peace becomes very strong, Chessed will overpower Gevurah, and all the Luminaries will draw very much closer to each other, since their abilities to draw close and unite would have become stronger. That will be true of those receiving from them -- the troops and all the hosts in their watch -- as well (that is, they too will draw close). So, “the plowman will overtake the reaper” (Amos 9:13), because each capacity will draw close to the next, and there won’t be so much of a need for boundaries, for all the Luminaries will have drawn close and nothing will draw them apart.

Thus all the Luminaries will accomplish their tasks nearly all at once, but that won’t be considered a (chaotic) admixture (of this and that). Since the capacity of peace would have become strong and joined everything into a single unit. And so the Luminaries will work as one, and the (earthly and heavenly) receivers will receive as one and accomplish their tasks one after the other with barely a pause.

Understand this well, because it’s a very deep mystery.

(c) 2006 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

(Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org )

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