All the descents are for the purpose of ascent

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Drob, Sanford L. _Kabbalistic Metaphors: Jewish Mystical Themes in Ancient and Modern Thought_ Jason Aronson Inc. 1989.

p.142
“It is known that all the descents are for the purpose of ascent. For His main intention, blessed be He, is to have his Blessed divinity be revealed precisely through inversion, in darkness, and in concealment. This is also in order to coerce the sitra achra [the realm of evil] and transform darkness into light … and it is precisely in the revelation of evil that His blessed will be revealed.” (From Rabbi Aharon Halevi Horowitz of Staroselye (Shklove 182), as quoted in Elior, _The Paradoxical Ascent to God, pp.206-7)

Cf

“His disciples said, “Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it.” 

He said to them, “Anyone here with two ears had better listen! There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark.” 

Jesus said, “Love your friends like your own soul, protect them like the pupil of your eye.” (The Gospel of Thomas, Sayings 24-25)

Cf

“And Jesus answered him: The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” (The Gospel of Mark, 12:29-31)

p.144
“[T]he World of Emanation is not a world in the sense that the other three are: in a certain sense it is the Godhead itself… As one descends in the system of worlds, there is more and more matter. Another way of stating this is that the beings of the lower worlds have a greater awareness of their independent, progressively separate selves, of their private “I.” This consciousness of self obscures the divine light, and dims the true, unchanging “I” that exists within each individual being…” (qtd. Adin Steinsaltz, _The Strife of the Spirit_, 1988)

Cf 

“Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, “These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) kingdom.” 

They said to him, “Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?” 

Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].” (The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 22)

Cf 

“Jesus said, “I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. 

Split a piece of wood; I am there. 

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” (The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 77)