Creating Vessels

This is a response to a query I received from a beloved friend.

The Mekubalim teach that when Hashem created the world there was tons and tons of light but not enough receptacles to contain the light. The receptacles broke and the sparks of light spread everywhere. In their language their was a lot of אורות and not enough כלים to contain the אורות. Because of the overload, there was שבירת הכלים.

Now we spend history gathring those holy sparks of light. We picked them up in Mitzraim and then left [that was the רכוש גדול according to the tzadikim]. We picked them up in Babylon then switched trains [I too, often switch at Babylon]. We picked them up in Persia, Modai, Greece, Poland, Russia, Morrocco, Hungary etc. etc. and now we are busy picking up sparks in Teaneck and L.A. When all of the sparks are picked up we can return home and enjoy the geulah:-).

I don't believe in writing kabbala for the sake of kabbala. Almost nobody really understands it anyway - only the select few. So what have WE to learn from this?

Hashem has infinite light to share with us - אור אין סוף. We have to create כלים - vessels, to contain all of his light. How do we prepare these כלים?

The tzadikim teach that this is done when we feel כלות הנפש - this unrequited desire for ruchniyus.

In the memoirs of HaGaon Rav Menashe Klein ztz"l about his holocaust experience he spoke of how all people could think about all day is food. Even the most spiritual people, when starving to death are obssessed with food.

Li-havdil - the more we feel possessed by a need to be filled with ruchniyus, the more we will be able to contain.

Rav Ovadiah Yosef knew enough at a very young age to allow himself to be a good Jew and to make a nice living in the Rabbinate. But he had a כלות נפש that enabled him to learn thousands upon thousands of complex sfarim by heart and to write dozens of volumes of chiddushei torah and halacha. And only sleep an hour or two a night.

The Klausenberger Rebbe was physically tortured by the Nazis and lost his wife and eleven beloved children but he had a כלות הנפש to rebuild, so he came to Eretz Yisrael, established a shomer shabbos hospital [Laniado], built a city [Kiryat Tzanz], founded a program that has enabled thousands to learn hundreds of thousands of dapei gemara [Mifal Hashas], wrote countless volumes of divrei torah in halacha and chasidus [divrei yatziv and shefa chaim], all the while rebuilding his chasidus which had been destroyed in the fires of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. [BTW - Rav Asher Weiss is his talmid. If you think the talmid can learn - imagine how much the Rebbe can learn...]

You too, sweet friend, if you develop more and more of a כלות נפש for דברים שבקדושה can reach tremendous heights. That means that you should have a desire to know all of Bavli and Yerushalmi with meforshim, Tanach, medrashei halacha, Shulcan Aruch etc. etc. all the way down to the Ktzos, Nesivos, Minchas Chinuch and Asvan Di-oraisa [such people are rare but exist].

In chesed you can develop a כלות נפש to do anything you can for anyone any time with a smile (within your abilities) [we need more such people].

In tefilla you can develop a כלות נפש to feel a tremendous geshmak from davening which will make you enjoy and savor every minute of davening [making you one of the only such people around].

The important thing is to set the bar high, raise your eyes to heaven and accept that it is a process but if you are consistent, you will acheive great heights.