Sparks of Holiness & Teshuva

This is a fundamental principle: in everything in creation, there exists sparks of holiness. No thing, nothing is devoid of these sparks, even trees and stones. And, also in every human deed, even in a sin that one might commit, there is a spark from the original shattering.

What is the spark of the sin? It is teshuvah. At the moment that we do teshuvah for a particular sin, we raise up the sparks that are in it to the supernal world.

This is what “bearing sin” means (Exodus 34:7): God bears the sin and lifts it upward. And so also, we find (Gen 4:13) “my sin is too great to bear:” it is made great, when through my teshuvah, I raise up and elevate it to the supernal world.

English

(translation courtesy of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality)

Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger (1847-1905), also known as the Sefat Emet, was a preeminent Hasidic leader and Talmudist in Poland. Because his father, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai, died when Yehudah Aryeh Leib was only 8 years old, he was raised by his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir, the Hiddushei Harim, the first Gerrer Rebbe. It is told that he distinguished himself by the diligence with which he studied Torah, devoting 18 hours each day to mastering Talmud, the Zohar, and Chassidic classics; becoming a gaon (preeminent authority) in Jewish mysticism.