שבת Date: 25 Elul, 5774 (9/20/14) – Chagigah#12 {Eliezer}

BRIGHT LIGHT

[12a middle] R’ Elazar: G-d removed his blinding spiritual light from creation and saves it later to reward the righteous. R’ Chaim Freedlander (quoting R’ Dessler): Hashem had to remove his obvious blinding presence from the world in order to give us the ‘free choice’ and the option to sin. If G-d’s presence was ever-known to us, we would never be able in practice to sin (of course in theory the option always exists, but practically it would be impossible).

E’s Lesson: We only have free will in this world for G-d to be able to reward us for choosing properly. We should never abuse our gift or pretend that G-d is not all knowing/seeing. May we always ‘see’ G-d’s brilliance in this world and help bring light back into the darkest of places.