Why Are We Here? The Mystical Dimension - Ari Abramowitz: The Land of Israel Fellowship

so let's start off by answering the question and it's a small question but an important question why are we here right what is our purpose in the world for each individual this may manifest itself very differently but for the for the jewish people and really for all of humanity we do have a clearly stated purpose in the world and what is that purpose so according to the sages and the mystics and really if you dig deep enough to just the simplest understanding of the bible our purpose in this world is to make a dwelling place for hashem here within it our purpose is to make a dwelling place for god in the world now what does that mean so i've shared with you my mantra that's provided me with more strength and courage than anything else right that mantra that i turn to when i'm in the midst of the storm of life and i forget everything else right those three words that i have clung to for dear life three words that that carry within them an entire world of commentaries and consequences but they're also just the simplest three words that there are and many of you who have been part of this fellowship you know what i'm going to say say it with me en od milvado right there's nothing other than him right the [Music] if there's nothing other than him his great unimaginable light and his undifferentiated oneness then how do we live in this world that has a very very convincing differentiation right duality and multiplicity and even terrible evil if there's nothing other than hashem which we know from throughout the the bible and the prophets it's not just like a one-off verse in deuteronomy that we're clinging on to this is a fundamental concept throughout the bible if there's nothing other than him then go and try to explain this world which seems to testify that everything is other than him this is why other faiths and and maybe even some of you right may think that there's like you know the the light side and the dark side and the dark side is other than god or outside of god and like satan god or competing forces i can understand the what would lead someone to to hold there so because we can talk about this for the entire fellowship here's the structure very oversimplified before creation there was this undifferentiated oneness of god which in the world of ultimate truth has still not changed god is still one his name is one undifferentiated but what has changed what did creation bring into reality into existence our perception of duality in order to make that the multiplicity the duality the differences the other then appear very real in our perception hashem created a series of filters that conceal and constrict that light right the mask the light the mask it right but we'll get into purim soon and so his great light goes through these filters right this firot until it gets to the lowest level the the the physical crass tangible world that we live in now i wish i could talk about this the whole fellowship i have i have sources i wanted to share with you but very briefly the way it played out was that god created these vessels right to hold his supernal light and the vessels couldn't contain it and so they shattered and those sparks of light were scattered throughout all of reality anyways why is it this way on the truest deepest level i don't know i don't these are things that the human mind can't understand but on the level that we can understand it's because there's something about the revelation of hashem's light here in the lowest realms of darkness that brings pleasure to god if we could even say such a thing and and like like a father right hashem is our father what is hashem's pleasure right seeing us happy seeing us fulfill our potential bringing out the best within us he loves us more than we could ever imagine and when we're able to transform the darkness of this world into light for him when we're able to see through the illusion of evil and otherness and duality well the emergence of that light from the darkness is just it's so much more beautiful than the light was to begin with it's the transformation of the darkness into light that happens through us that gives hashem pleasure