If you meet your friend in the street and it causes you to forget all your troubles, it is a wonderful sign! It’s a sign that your neshamah encountered Hashem! When two friends love each other, their souls are ignited, and it’s as Chazal said, “If a man and wife merit it, the Shechinah rests between them.” When there is no separation and the souls come together, they’re automatically illuminated and thus they encounter Hashem.
We find in Divrei Yisrael and in many other sefarim the idea that the redemption will come through chessed and ahavas Yisrael. And indeed, we see today—the moments before the geulah—that chessed is spreading and proliferating in Klal Yisrael as in no other time before. The reason for this is that when Klal Yisrael finds itself in a lower state, the people don’t possess the vessels to understand grandiose or esoteric concepts of Torah... chessed and love are the only way to lift them up in these times.
