It follows that all of the suffering in our world is designed to motivate us to destroy the evil husk of the body and to acquire the perfect form of the desire to give. That matches what we said above: the path of suffering can lead us to the desired form.
Know that interpersonal mitzvot [bein adam leḥavero] take priority over mitzvot between man and God [bein adam laMakom], because causing benefit to one’s fellow leads him to cause benefit to God.
OUR ESSENCE Given all of the above, the first inquiry is also answered. We asked: What is our essence? The answer is that our essence is identical to that of the essences of all the particulars in the world, which is none other than the desire to receive (as discussed in chapter 7). Yet, this [desire to receive] is not the way that we imagine it in the second stage, in which it is the selfish desire to receive. Instead, it [the desire to receive] is in the way that things are in the first stage, within the Ein Sof. That is, it [the desire to receive] has its eternal form, in which it receives in order to give satisfaction to the Creator (see chapter 13).