By Yanki Tauber, Chabad.org
Why are we here? This, the mother of all questions, is addressed in turn by the various streams of Torah thought, each after its own style.
The Talmud states, simply and succinctly, “I was created to serve my Creator.” The moralistic-oriented works of Mussar describe the purpose of life as the refinement of one’s character traits. The Zohar says that G-d created us “in order that His creations should know Him.” Master Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria offered the following reason for creation:
G-d is the essence of good, and the nature of good is to bestow goodness. But goodness cannot be bestowed when there is no one to receive it. To this end G-d created our world—so that there should be recipients of His goodness.
Chassidic teaching explains that these reasons, as well as the reasons given by other Kabbalistic and philosophical works, are but the various faces of a singular Divine desire for creation, as expressed in the various “worlds” or realms of G-d’s creation. Chassidism also offers its own formulation of this Divine desire: that we “make a home for G-d in the material world.”
A Home for G-d
What does it mean to make our world a home for G-d?
A basic tenet of our faith is that “the entire world is filled with His presence” and “there is no place void of Him.” So it’s not that we have to bring G-d into the material world—He is already there. But G-d can be in the world without being at home in it.
Being “at home” means being in a place that is receptive to your presence, a place devoted to serving your needs and desires. It means being in a place where you are your true, private self, as opposed to the public self you assume in other environments.
The material world, in its natural state, is not an environment hospitable to G-d. If there is one common feature to all things material, it is their intrinsic egocentrism, their placement of the self
