Louis Jacobs
…the holy sparks clamour to be rescued by the Hasid fully engaged in the world. When attending to his material needs for the sake of God, the Hasid is carrying out acts of divine worship. For him to lead an ascetic life is to shirk his duty of rescuing the holy sparks. Traditional Judaism also knows of eating for the sake of heaven, that bodily appetites should be satisfied not out of hedonistic motives but in order to keep the body strong and healthy for the service of God. In Hasidism, worldly pursuit in the spirit of holiness is not simply a means to the noblest of ends; it is an end in itself. ‘For the sake of heaven’ means, in Hasidism, that the true motivation must be to carry out the heavenly task laid upon humanity—that of rescuing the holy sparks.
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