Effectively the world had three stages, the stage of darkness, the stage of light and the stage of light in darkness

The stage of darkness is the first two thousand years of creation, whereby man walked around in chaos and darkness; then as our sages teach, from the time of Abraham the world began to shine, for he discovered truth and God revealed himself and his Torah to the Jewish people; yet there was a problem with light; as always, for light banishes darkness; hence instead of seamlessly merging, say like food becomes part of the person; in the intense light, the person becomes nonexistent, in the face of the light.

However, though the person becomes nonexistent (like say, how you would feel if you met Einstein, in the light of his great intellect) nonetheless, the fact is, that within the individual, still reigns narcissistic tendencies.

Hence, as our sages teach, God put us in exile to remove the subtlest traces of ego and other stupid desires.

Hence, comes the final pre-messianic stage; namely, where we, through our experiences, particularly post-holocaust and becoming part of the darkness of secular culture, begin to a. despise the darkness, b. hence search for the light, and therefore c. When we find God, truth, Chassidus, it is light in darkness!