It’s a feeling humanity has wrestled with for millennia, and it's a feeling that finds a rather stark depiction in the mystical depths of the Zohar.
The Zohar, that foundational text of Jewish mysticism, doesn't shy away from the darker corners of the human condition. And in his introduction to the Zohar, Baal HaSulam, one of the most important commentators on the Zohar, brings to our attention a particularly vivid passage.
He points us to a discussion in Tikkunei Zohar (Tikkunim Ḥadashim 97b), which itself is commenting on a verse from Proverbs (30:15): "The leech has two daughters: ‘Give’ and ‘Give.’"
A leech with daughters? What’s going on here?
Well, the Tikkunei Zohar equates that "leech" to gehinnom. You might know gehinnom better as hell, or perhaps purgatory. It's that place of spiritual purification, or, for some, punishment.
And who populates this gehinnom in this particular vision? Evildoers. But not just any evildoers – ones described as barking like dogs. And what are they barking? "Hav, hav – Give, give!"
What do they want? According to this passage, they want it all! "Give us the wealth of this world; give us the wealth of the World to Come."
Think about the audacity of that demand. Not just the fleeting pleasures and possessions of our earthly existence, but also the eternal rewards of spiritual fulfillment. It's a profound and unsettling image, isn’t it? A portrait of insatiable desire, an unquenchable thirst that even divine justice can't seem to satisfy.
It makes you wonder: what is enough? Is it possible to ever truly fill that void within? Is the endless pursuit of "more" ultimately a path to fulfillment, or just a deeper descent into the barking madness of gehinnom?