Sparks in Judaism
"The Glitter in the Gold"
The Talmud offers the following explanation for the phenomenon of galut: "The people of Israel were exiled amongst the nations only so that converts might be added to them."
On the most basic level, this is a reference to the many non-Jews who, in the course of the centuries of our dispersion, have come in contact with the Jewish people and have been inspired to convert to Judaism. But Chassidic teaching explains that the Talmud is also referring to souls of a different sort that are transformed and elevated in the course of our exiles: the sparks of holiness contained within the physical creation.
The great Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria taught that every object, force and phenomenon in existence has a spark of holiness within it -- a pinpoint of divinity that constitutes its soul, its spiritual essence and design. This spark embodies the divine desire that the thing exist, and its function within G-d's overall purpose for creation. When a person utilizes something to serve his Creator, he penetrates its shell of mundanity, revealing and realizing its divine essence.
It is to this end that we have been dispersed across the face of earth: so that we may come in contact with the sparks of holiness that await redemption in every corner of the globe.
Every soul has its own sparks scattered about in the world, which actually form an integral part of itself: no soul is complete until it has redeemed those sparks related to its being. Thus a person moves through life, impelled from place to place and from occupation to occupation by seemingly random forces; but everything is by divine providence, which guides every man to those possessions and opportunities whose soul is intimately connected with his."
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2614/jewish/Sparks.htm
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