"The Way of G-d"

Part 2: “Divine Providence”
Chapter 4: “Israel and the Other Nations”

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We'll spend some time now retracing the history of the human spirit in order to understand G-d's plans for the Jewish Nation.

As we indicated earlier on, before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge Adam and Eve were on an unfathomably higher spiritual level than we are. And had they not sinned, they would have been able to grow greater and greater yet in spirit. We learn now that they were to have borne a specific number of descendants who were then to enjoy that same level of being.

There was also to have been a certain order and layout to the lot of them. A certain number of Adam and Eve's early descendants were to have served as "root souls" and to have been of primary importance, while the others were to have served as the latters' "offshoots" and to have been as deeply influenced and defined by their "roots" as fruit-trees are by their's.

But all that went by the waysides when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree and diminished their -- and their descendants' -- beings (as we also discussed). For those early descendants no longer deserved the abiding glory that was originally due them, and they could no longer people the world with others on a high spiritual state.

That having been said, it's also important to point out that the original "jot" of glory within them was never blotted out, in fact. It always abided in Adam and Eve's as well as their descendants' beings. And so none of them were utterly rejected. But humanity's lower level was still and all not to be denied.

G-d did give those early descendants the ability to consciously choose to garner their inner resources, and to thus strive to elevate their beings to the highest reaches. But there was to have been a time limit (much like the one given each one of us to reach our own spiritual potential). Simply because it's the way of this world that things that call for effort are to be achieved by a certain point, and no later.

This series is dedicated to the memory of Yitzchak Hehrsh ben Daniel, and Sarah Rivka bas Yaakov Dovid.

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