"According to Jewish mysticism, all of us have the gifts we need to reflect the image of God, each in our own unique way. The very fact that we have arrived here, in human incarnation, tells us that we have the courage to take on the task. Today, although we are busy and often preoccupied with day-to-day matters, many of us actively desire to have our entire lives permeated with spirituality. We want to work at creating our lives around a higher ideal. The teachings of Kabbalah are appropriate because Kabbalah was not cultivated in a 'saintly' atmosphere completely separate from daily life. Most rabbis, including many kabbalists, worked for a living at some trade or business. If they wanted to be close to God, they had to commit time and energy to it, but most had to do it while they were living a normal life. Hasidic teachings in particular insist, with traditional Judaism, that our 'temple' is the home as well as the synagogue or religious institution; that marrying and raising children is just as holy as having a separate spiritual life; that caring for our bodies and minds is as important as spiritual experience.

"Of course, special times and activities such as retreats and purifications can be helpful as part of a spiritual practice. Mystics in Judaism as in other traditions were known to depart from the normal person's routine — for example, by sleeping less or fasting more. But Judaism holds that, for most people, separations from the world should be temporary and limited, enabling us to refresh our connection to spirit. We must then return to the world and integrate what we have received. This is the point of our effort, for the ultimate goal is that the whole world will become a vessel for divinity. When humans reach the point of 'From my flesh I will see God!' as Job says (19:26), the purpose of creation will be realized. We will have remembered and fully realized our divine image.

"Kabbalah provides a unique system for enabling us to do this. It continually tries to point us to the deeper levels of everything we do. Nothing in the world is outside its purview. Kabbalah teaches, for example, that our true divine purpose can never be completely forgotten. If we look with a compassionate eye at our lives and at the society we live in, we can perceive that most people are indeed striving for spiritual greatness but have expressed that striving only in partial, truncated ways. Science's quest for power over nature, an individual's aspiration for wealth and honor, our desperate searches for love and pleasure are all part of the same effort. They are all part of divinity — love, power, honor, and delight are all attributes of God. But in our society they are usually cut off from their ultimate source, so they do not give full satisfaction.

"For Kabbalah, everything is a metaphor that provides access to ultimate reality. Problems that arise on one level can be resolved on another. And at each point, we are thrown back to the question 'How can we manifest godliness? How can we be divine?' "