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First Will Be the Correction of the World
69. First Will Be the Correction of the World
I heard on Sivan, June 1943
He said that first will be the correction of the world, then there will be the complete redemption, the coming of the Messiah. This is the meaning of “And your eyes shall see your Teacher,” etc., “And the whole earth shall be full of knowledge.” This is the meaning of what he wrote, that first the interior of the worlds will be corrected, and subsequently the exterior of the worlds. But we must know that the correction of the externality of the worlds is a higher degree than the correction of the internality.
And the root of Israel is from the internality of the worlds. This is the meaning of “for you are the least of all the peoples.” However, by correcting the internality, the externality will be corrected, too, though in small pieces. And the externality will be corrected each time (until many pennies accumulate into a great sum), until all the externality is corrected.
The main difference between the internality and the externality is, for example, when one performs a certain Mitzva [commandment], not all the organs agree to it. It is like a person who fasts. We say that only his internality agreed with the fast, but his externality is feeling discomfort by the fast, since the body is always in opposition to the soul. Thus, the difference between Israel and the nations of the world should only be made concerning the soul; but concerning the body, they are the same, for the body Israel, too, cares only for its own benefit.
Hence, when individuals in the whole of Israel are corrected, the whole world will naturally be corrected. It follows that the nations of the world will be corrected to the extent that we correct ourselves. This is the meaning of what our sages said, “Rewarded—he sentences himself and the whole world to the side of merit.” They did not say, “he sentences the whole of Israel,” but “the entire world to the side of merit,” meaning that the internality will correct the externality.