By being in exile they [the children of Israel] will feel the need to be only in a state of bestowal, by which they will be rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator. Thus, the suffering of exile will reform them (Rabash, Article 27, 1986 “The Creator and Israel Went into Exile”).

We were created with vessels of reception, which are opposite to the Creator. Since the Creator wishes to bring us closer to Him according to the law of equivalence of form, He is revealed only to the extent that we become similar to Him. Therefore a person is called “Adam,” from the word “Edomeh,” “I shall be similar to the Creator.”

As long as a person’s desires have not yet been corrected because he has not attained the state of equivalence of form, the similarity of his qualities to the qualities of the Creator, those desires remain opposite to the Creator. Yet even one who still possesses qualities opposite to the Creator, but at the same time strives for adhesion with Him, is already called “Israel” (“Yashar-El,” straight to the Creator).

However, true “Israel” is the degree of equivalence of form. To the one who attains it, the Creator is revealed accordingly, and this signifies that they have both come out of exile together.

Just as a person comes out of exile, that is, out of his uncorrected Kelim, so too the Creator comes out of exile by revealing Himself to that person to the same extent. But insofar as a person remains in exile in certain desires, or even partially within some of them, to that same extent the Creator remains concealed from him.

The degrees of the Creator’s concealment or revelation with respect to us are called the worlds (Olamot, from the word “Alama,” concealment.) The Creator is revealed only in accordance with one’s corrected desires. This determines where on the spiritual ladder a person stands in relation to the Creator.

Altogether a person possesses 620 desires. In other words, there are 620 acts of correction that separate him from the Creator, 620 corrections that he must perform in order to correct his desires, fill them, and thereby attain adhesion with the Creator. Accordingly, a person comes out of exile and—by having acquired the desire to attain the land of Israel (Eretz Israel), as it is written—enters it, and dwells there, that is, in the place where the Creator always dwells.

In the land of Israel live the people called “Yehudim” (Jews), who are in unity (Yichud) with the Creator, a people whose desires are directed solely toward the Creator. Outside that land dwell the “nations of the world” whose desires are scattered and dispersed among every kind of craving and passion for various pleasures.

In other words, a person’s 620 desires that are directed toward himself are called the “nations of the world.” To the extent that he corrects them into desires to bestow upon the Creator, each one of them is transformed from a gentile (Goy) into a Yehudi, that is, it becomes a Ger (a convert to Judaism). In this way, each corrected desire rises to the degree of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/20/26, Rabash, “The Creator and Israel Went into Exile”

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