Musar על שבת 60:8

What she meant to say was that this seed would not live indefinitely until the era of the Messiah, but would at that time fulfill the promise of Numbers 24,17: וקרקר כל בני שת, "and he will dig up the foundation of all the children of Sheth." In Kabbalistic terms: This means that the Messiah will remove all the קליפות, the negative influences surrounding the fruit, the pure interior. At that time the world will be founded on the principles envisaged by G–d at the time of Creation. G–d will then truly derive pleasure from His creatures, death will be banished and people will live forever wearing garments woven out of light -as I have explained in the introduction to my treatise תולדות אדם. Israel will then be known as אדם, בצלם ודמות עליון, as reflecting the likeness of man's celestial counterpart. Procreation will take place at a fast pace, as described in Shabbat 30: "In the future, a woman will give birth daily. When Noach came out of the ark, however, and his descendants are described (10,1), the word תולדת is spelled defective since only the survival of mankind as a species had been assured, seeing that man had forfeited the true צלם. What man had retained was only a דמיון הצלם, a resemblance of the Divine image, something more like the דמות. The so-called צלם nowadays is more like man's shadow, צל, sometimes more visible, other times less pronounced, depending on the spiritual level of the individual.

The Divine Presence does not rest upon any one unless there is joy (Shabbath 30b). And all of the prophets did not prophesy at such times as they desired, but they would prepare their minds and sit joyous and glad of heart and then prophesy, for Prophecy does not dwell where idleness or sadness is found, but only where joy is. Therefore, the pupils of the Prophets would place before them lyre, drum and harp and sought by their means the gift of Prophecy, as it is written "And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him" (II Kings 3:15).

JOY: The second [branch of love of G-d] is joy, it is a great, essential principal in serving G-d. This is what David exhorted us saying: "Serve G-d with joy, come before Him with song" (Tehilim 100:2), and "the righteous will rejoice, they will exult before God and delight with joy" (Tehilim 68:4). And our sages said: "the Divine presence rests on a person only through his rejoicing in a mitzva" (Shabbat 30b). On the aforementioned verse: "Serve G-d with joy", our sages said in a Midrash (Shocher Tov, Tehilim 100): "Rabbi Abahu says: 'when you stand to pray, your heart should rejoice, for you are praying to the Almighty of whom there is none like Him'".

The detriments to Chasidut are distractions and worries. For when one's mind is distracted and dispersed with its worries and occupations, it is impossible to turn to this contemplation; and without this contemplation, he will not attain Chasidut. And even if he has already attained it, the distractions force his mind (to attend to them) and confound it, not allowing him to strengthen in fear and love and other matters I mentioned pertaining to Chasidut. Therefore, our sages, of blessed memory, said: "the divine presence does not rest through sadness..." (Shabbat 30b).

Likewise our sages told us about the great humility of Hillel saying: "Our Rabbis taught: A man should always be humble like Hillel..." (Shabbat 30b).

In Parshat Vayetzei I have demonstrated how such mundane matters as לחם לאכול ובגד ללבוש which Jacob requested must be understood (page 234). What this means is that parallel to the repair of man's "clothing" i.e. the garments of leather being exchanged for garments of light, man's food supply too will undergo a dramatic change in the World to Come. Our Rabbis describe how ארץ ישראל will produce ready-to-eat cakes and the like in Shabbat 30.

We should remember that just as the "garment" of the body will be woven of light and will be prestigious, so the body itself will be the distinguished clothing of the soul. Israel experienced a glimpse of such a future while in the desert. This is why the Torah tells us in Deut. 8,4: שמלתך לא בלתה מעליך, “your clothing did not wear out, etc. during all these forty years. The first step in restoring man to the garments that he ought to be wearing were taken by two of Noach's sons when they covered their father by taking hold of the שמלה and covering him with it (Genesis 9,23).

This enables us to see important allusions to future events in these words. At this time, when Jacob went out to get married, he alluded to the deeper meaning of the union of man and woman, which is extolled as something that, in the future, will even provide joy for G–d Himself. We know this from Isaiah 62,5. In Yevamot 61, Rabbi Yossi is reported to have met Elijah and to have asked him about the meaning of the word כנגדו in Genesis 2,18 which reports G–d as saying: אעשה לו עזר כנגדו, "I shall make for him (Adam) as helpmate kenegdo." Rabbi Yossi wanted to know in what way a woman can help man do something he is not able to do himself. Elijah asked: "When a man brings home wheat, does the wheat grind itself? When a man brings home flax, does the flax convert itself into a garment? Do you not realize that a woman makes a man's eyes light up? Does she not put him on his feet?" Elijah's answer was an appropriate one to point out woman's role in our world. In the future, however, everything will be ready-made for man, as we have learned in Shabbat 30. What is woman's role then? [The Talmud describes hot rolls and other delicacies as being served up for man without any human input being required. The finest garments would also be available without the need for tailors, seamstresses, spinners, etc.] Jacob's references to לחם לאכול, ובגד ללבוש, referred to the time when man would not have to work for a living, when all the tedium associated with our present lives would be removed. He meant that bread would be "ready to eat, clothes ready to wear." I have already outlined that Jacob's marriages, which produced the twelve tribes, are an allusion to the eventual union between G–d and Israel. These considerations explain Jacob's choice of words.

We must understand that remark as analogous to what we have learned in Shabbat 30, that in the future a woman will give birth every day. A student asked how this could be as we cannot assume that every husband will have marital relations with every one of his wives daily? Rabbi Gamliel answered the student by referring him to the reproductive system of hens. The hens contain a whole array of ova all of which are impregnated by a rooster at the same time; the eggs are laid, however, only one per day. The sperm injected by the husband into the womb of the wife would act in a similar fashion. Not a single drop of sperm would go to waste. None of it would become evil smelling and become useless. Each drop will eventually fertilize the woman and develop into a child. Every act of marital intercourse will produce many children. Rabbi Gamliel, quoting Kohelet, tried to teach the scoffing student who had challenged the statement that in the future women would give birth daily, by demonstrating that in essence such a mechanism exists in this world. No new creative act is needed to make the prediction about man's future come true.