0 responses to “I read a most remarkable teaching of the Rebbe (it is so remarkable I feel I need to give the source otherwise it won’t be believed (5748 Parshas Devarim Mugah) to give some background – well known is the Kabbalistic doctrine of iskafiyah and ishapachah – iskafiyah is to withhold (for example, not to do the wrong thing you wish to) ishpachah is to transform (to begin to do the right thing) Ultimately as the Rebbe explains in a mammer, life goes from ishapacha (for there must first a motive) to iskafiyah, as all who have entered into the path of God can attest (as our sages say, “harder to do a mitzvah(commandment) commanded by God than a voluntary good deed”) for though the former is obvious, the yetzer hara/ body / instincts rebel) We further know that the act of iskafiyah (and somewhat ishapachah) cause the essential light of God to permeate all reality – so for millennia (literally) we have been engaged in these two excersizes – the essence of Judaism – but all of this is not an end says the Rebbe, rather a means – for it is the subsequent light, this pure essential Divine Being – the light of Moshiach! which was the intent”