A Nexus of Individual Grace

...it is given to men to lift up the fallen and to free the imprisoned. Not only to wait, not only to watch for the Coming One: man can work toward the redemption of the world...It is told of some holy men that they imagined that they might bring about redemption by storm and force--in this world, when they were so afire with the grace of ecstasy that to them, who had embraced God, nothing appeared unattainable any longer, or in the coming world. A dying [friend of God] said, "My friends have gone hence, intending to bring the Messiah, and have forgotten to do so in their rapture. But I shall not forget."

In reality, however, each can only be effective in his domain. Each man has a sphere of being, far extended in space and time, which is allotted to him to be redeemed through him. Places which are heavy with unraised sparks and in which souls are fettered wait for the man who will come to them with the word of freedom...This help is an awesome venture, set down in the midst of threatening dangers, which only the holy man can enter upon without going under...But, though it is only those blessed ones who can plunge tranquilly into the darkness in order to aid a soul which is abandoned to the whirlpool of wandering, it is not denied to even the least of persons to raise the lost sparks from their imprisonment and send them home.

The sparks are to be found everywhere...No leap from the everyday into the miraculous is required. "With his every act man can work on the figure of the glory of God that it may step forth out of its concealment."

Through holy creation and through holy enjoyment the redemption of the world is accomplished.

Martin Buber, The Life of Hasidism, "Kavana: Intention."