by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh

One way of understanding the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew is to think of a Jew as a giver, and a non-Jew as a receiver.

All stages of the creative process--the evolution of worlds one from another, the interaction between them, and their ultimate unification--depend upon the dynamic of giving and receiving. The will to give and the will to receive are the two most fundamental cosmic forces.

The will to give is the "male" principle in creation, while the will to receive is the "female" principle. The will to give is portrayed in Kabbalah as a convex projection. The will to receive is portrayed as a concave receptacle.

To realize that one is an empty vessel is to experience existential lowliness, the inner dimension of the Divine attribute of kingdom, the seventh and final of the emotive attributes of the soul. As the "conclusion" of all emotive experience, the sense of lowliness implies total dependence on the benevolence of God.

God's ultimate desire in creation is that our state of reality--the lowest--become a "dwelling place" for Him, a home in which His absolute essence may be revealed, as stated above. In the soul, lowliness is the state referred to as that "home."

It is the "vacuum" of the empty vessel that arouses and draws into itself the "projection" of the giver. Deep in the unconscious of the giver is a recognition that the origin of the receiver "precedes" (in God's essence) his own.

All souls long to ascend from "animal" to "man"--to take hold, as it were, of God's "signature," as represented by Israel, "God's first-born son." It is the receiver who arouses from below (while remaining below) the will of the giver to descend and enter the "home" created for him.

It is thus the ultimate purpose of the non-Jewish world to make this world a pleasant "home," a worthy abode for the Jewish People to enter and bless. Thereby, the giver and the receiver will connect and the Divine Presence will descend to illuminate lower reality.

We thus conclude with the thought that the rectified relation of Jew to non-Jew is a partnership, almost like the partnership of husband to wife. The wife, serving as a devoted helpmate, thereby expresses her existential lowliness and dependence on her husband, while the husband, sensing that the ultimate origin of his wife's soul precedes that of his own, thus displays his own existential lowliness and dependence on his wife.

God Himself is the "third partner" of every marriage; it is by His power that the marriage becomes consummate and fruitful.