In the times of the Beis HaMikdash, when the divine light was revealed for all to see, the divine service of the Jewish people mainly involved the soul’s revealed faculties: the people actually experienced G-dliness in their minds and with their spiritual emotions. And since this kind of divine service is prompted by reason and feeling, the yechidah within the soul, the soul’s very essence, did not play a perceptible role in it.

It is specifically in times of exile -- when the divine light is hidden, when obstacles to divine service abound, and when the intellect and spiritual emotions are inactive -- that the yechidah within the soul is aroused. For it is this innermost faculty of the soul that fortifies a man with the self-sacrifice that can overcome all the difficulties and trials that beset him.