Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

shi’abud parnasah
] (namely, the compulsion to 
engage in mundane occupations in order to earn a living rather than being totally 
dedicated to divine service) is a means to the much loftier end of the final 
redemption.
111
This is the reason why the Egyptian exile lasted for only 210 years, 
whereas the current exile, by the time of Rashaz, had already endured for over 1700 
year.
112
3.2. Purification of sparks in the time of exile. 
Rashaz often inscribes the preparative aspect of the current exile onto the Lurianic 
idea of the purification of sparks [
berur nitsotsot
].
113
The intermingling of the divine 
sparks with the husks has resulted from the breaking of the vessels or from the sin of 
the Tree of Knowledge,
114
two events that are associated with the process of creation 
in general, not with any particular episode in Jewish or universal history. Indeed, the 
concept of the purification of sparks is employed here with the purpose of detaching 
110
See TO 54a. The distinction between the audible revelation on Sinai and the visual revelation at 
the end of days is based, on the one hand, on the emphasis on hearing in 
na’aseh ve-nishma’
, and on 
seeing in Isaiah’s prophecy: “They shall see eye to eye” [Is 52:8], on the other hand. I will discuss it 
in detail in the next chapter. 
111
TO 54a; see also TO 15a. The definition of the current state of exile as enslavement for the sake of 
making a living is related to Rashaz’s notion of the work performed during the exile as a means of 
purifying or transforming materiality. It is also related to his idea that worship is a means of 
reunifying with God by stepping out of materiality as well as by drawing God down into the material 
world. This will be discussed in next chapters.
112
TO 49a. 
113
On the purification of sparks in Kabbalah and Hasidism, see Jacobs, “The Uplifting of Sparks,” 
106-26. 
114
See, for example, MAHZ 
5566
, i, 232, where the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and the biblical 
description of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden are used as a metaphor of the exile of 
Shekhinah
and the dispersion of holy sparks. The four rivers flowing out of Eden are identified with the four 
exiles (see 
Bereshit rabah
16:4; 
Vayikra rabah 
13:5), which represent the four ways by which the 
sparks and the souls of Israel fell under the power of husks and the seventy gentile nations. 

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98 
the concepts of exile, redemption, and messianism from any particular political or 
historical circumstances. 
Rashaz perceives the creation as an act by which the divine undergoes exile. 
As he puts it in one of his homilies, the consequence of the creation is “the fallen 
sukkah of David” [Am 9:11]: the divine presence falls into the lower worlds in order 
to enliven them. This process results in the confinement of the active, overflowing 
and limitless life giving force, 
Hesed 
of 
Malkhut
, within the boundaries of the 
material world, which effectively renders it a limited entity. The time of exile serves 
to purify the divine sparks which had fallen into the husks, and thus to elevate “the 
fallen sukkah of David”, restoring it to its original place.
115
The task of purification is multifaceted. It can be seen from the theosophical 
perspective as a process that takes place within the sefirotic structure, in which 
Ze’ir 
anpin
, the transcendent, supra-temporal aspect of the Godhead, purifies the fallen