In the previous parashah, Bereshit, we learned that in six days G-d created His world. In those six days, every creature in all the worlds was created.
But from them all, the most wondrous creation is the Jew. A Jew is a being composed of the two most opposite extremes: his body is made of earth, while his soul is literally a piece of the Divine Above! This “piece of the Divine” is found only in the Jew, and in no other creation.
As is known, there are five levels from which the soul of a Jew derives. They are (in ascendant order): Asiyah, Yetzirah, Beri’ah, Atzilut, and Atik. Every Jew is born with a soul rooted in one of these five levels, and a Jew’s mission in life is to acquire new components of the soul from the worlds above his own. For example, an individual born with a soul from the World of Asiyah must, through his divine service, merit a soul from the World of Yetzirah, and so on, step after step.19
Every Jew must demand of himself to keep progressing! It is the normal state of all living things to yearn and long to ascend and climb, to progress and achieve — to gain another perception of G-dliness, additional spiritual levels and understanding... a desire to merit becoming a throne for the Divine Presence...
Yet a Jew must know that it is this very desire that arouses a spiritual battle, as we shall explain...
Wellsprings of Wisdom
19. In Veyalket Yosef (p. 37), by Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag, it is recorded:
Once the Ba’al Shem Tov said to the holy Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov: “Reb Michel! Do you know who your father is? Your father, Rabbi Yitzchak — he was born with a very lowly soul, a soul that in that generation had almost none lower than it. Yet through his service and immense toil, he merited to the level of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai!”
It was said by tzaddikim that the particular service through which Rabbi Yitzchak attained such greatness was the practice of gratitude (avodat hoda’ah): he made it his habit to thank G-d for everything that happened to him!