Elevating the Sparks (Masaei)

There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves. -Arthur P. Stanley

In Jewish mysticism, Kabbala, there’s a concept of divine, spiritual sparks that are scattered and dispersed throughout the world. Many of these sparks are locked, imprisoned, bound to some mundane earthly reality, waiting to be unlocked, freed, released to return to the spiritual world, to return somehow to the divine source from whence they came.

Part of man’s task in this world is to find those sparks and free them. Many sparks are waiting, have been waiting for eons for specifically one person to come at an exact moment in time and through some positive act, some Mitzvah, free that spark and enable that spiritual ascendance, that consummation of a divine reunion that had been waiting for all of history.

The Torah portion of Masaei lists the forty-two different places where the nation of Israel camped during their forty-year sojourn through the desert. In some places they camped just for a day, in some they camped for years. The language the Torah uses to describe the stops alternates between and conjoins the term “journeys” (“Masaiehem”) and “outings” (“Motzaiehem”).

The Berdichever explains how a key purpose of each of these stops in their journey was to bring out (“Lehotzi” – the same verb as “outings”) the hidden divine sparks that were scattered throughout the desert.

In some locations, they were able to extract and elevate the spark quickly, hence they only needed a short visit. Some locations required years of effort to free the spark and therefore the long residence in those places. Different locations and different sparks also needed different types of effort. Some sparks could only be released by a divine service that focused on awe of God. Others could only be freed by demonstrating love of God. A third type of spark required a combination of both types of service, represented by the Kabbalistic attribute of “Tiferet” – glory.

By being in the right place, at the right time, for the right amount of time and performing the right actions, the nation of Israel was able to elevate the scattered and imprisoned divine sparks and reunite them with their original source.

May we use all of our sojourns to elevate the world around us.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To Rabbi Hillel and Yael Simon, for inspiring hosting of our family.