Musar על עבודה זרה 9:14

This imprint of G–d is the mystical factor that causes the Presence of the שכינה in Israel since the spirituality of the Torah is represented by the souls of Israel. These souls enable G–d to fulfil His promise ושכנתי בתוכם, "I shall dwell among them" (Exodus 25,8). The Torah refers to messianic times and the revelation of G–d's Presence at that time. Concerning that era we have the prophecy of Isaiah 25,9: "On that day it (the people of Israel) will say: "This is our G–d; we trusted in Him, and He delivered us; this is the Lord in whom we trusted." This whole development depends on the progressive evolution of many souls to higher levels. The Ari zal has explained the verse הקטן יהיה לאלף, והצעיר לגוי גדול, נאום ה' בעתה אחישנו "the smallest shall become one thousand; the least, a mighty nation; I the Lord will speed it in due time" (Isaiah 60,22). The obvious difficulty here is that either the redemption comes at a time appointed by G–d, i.e. בעתה, or there is no timetable for redemption, and G–d is free to bring redemption at any time. Different commentators deal with this problem in different ways. The Arizal sees in the verse an allusion to a statement in the Talmud that אין בן דוד בא עד שיכלו כל הנשמות שבגוף, the Messiah will not come until all the souls of the body have been "exhausted" (Yevamot 62). The meaning is that nowadays, while we are in exile, the existing souls of Israel are mostly revolving around themselves and not progressing to higher dimensions. Once these souls have all exhausted their stay on earth, and "new" souls arrive, redemption will occur, and with it the revelation of the original light that G–d withdrew from this earth after the seven days of Creation. G–d called this "the smallest will become one thousand." It is a process of increasing the Jewish birth-rate so that the "store" of souls that has not yet been placed in bodies will be exhausted sooner. In this way the date for the redemption can be advanced dramatically. There is then no contradiction between the words בעתה, and אחישנה. As a result the Presence of the שכינה is directly related to fulfillment of the commandment to procreate. Even though we have quoted proof from a verse in Numbers 10,36 that the Presence of G–d is possible when there are 22,000 souls present (compare page 2 of this chapter), this was only meant to illustrate that G–ds Presence does manifest itself on earth. The extent to which this is possible when all the souls that have been assigned to bodies have fulfilled their task is beyond our experience, and cannot be compared with what occurred in the desert.