"Behold I send an angel before you, to keep you in the way, and to bring you to the place which I have prepared" (Shemot/Exodus 23:20).
"And he [Moses] said to Him, 'If your Presence does not go [with us], do not lift us up from here'" (Shemot/Exodus 33:15).
What is the difference between having an angel sent before us and having the Presence of G-d, the Shekhinah going among us? The angel, as described by the Ramban, was Metatron, a messenger between HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the Jewish people. For Moshe, this angel represented a separation between G-d and the people and was a great setback for the intimacy that both G-d and Moshe desired. The existence of Metatron represents the internal conflict of the Jewish people, that on the one hand they wished to be drawn close to the Source of Life and at the same time were terrified of the directness of this unmediated intimacy. As it is written, "they were shaken and stood far off, and they said to Moshe, speak with us and we will here, but let not G-d speak with us lest we die" (Shemot/Exodus 20:15-16). The Jewish people say that the Presence of the One is too intense for them. We the Jewish people continue to say that the Presence of the One is too intense for us; and yet somewhere, perhaps hidden deep inside us, our truest longing screams to be expressed: G-d bring me close to you.
Still, here we are, shying away, G-d help us.
The greatest block in our spiritual journey towards G-d is not accepting the fullness of His Shekhinah. The Zohar, in its commentary on this week's parashah, Parashat Mishpatim, describes the predicament in which we and the Shekhinah find ourselves: "Two powers hold fast to the Shekhinah, imbibing strength from Her strength, and clinging one to Her right hand and one to Her left. Therefore, some incline towards the right and some towards the left, and all depend on this holy 'Mother'. But the things of the left are attached to this Mother only when she herself imbibes from the 'other side'" (Zohar III, 125a). In the end, absolutely nothing is outside the Shekhinah. And yet she has two aspects, one from the left which has knowledge of evil and seems to be "outside", and another from the right which leads to pure good and seems to be "inside". The truth is that these inside and outside aspects are actually one "aspect", called the Shekhinah, who is in Herself not really an aspect at all, but rather a direct manifestation of the Eternal One.
It is difficult to come to an awareness of the depth of this reality. It is not easy for us to unconditionally accept evil in its total fullness and power and, in the very same fraction of a moment, choose good and that which leads to the ultimate good. The difficulties of this situation are not the same for each person, nor even for one person as s/he changes over time. As the Zohar said above, "some incline to the right and some towards the left." For those who incline to the left, the power and manifestation of evil is evident; moreover these people can grasp something that those who incline to the right, have much more difficulty grasping. They understand in a very deep way that everything, not excluding one quark or imaginary particle, belongs to G-d. This reality is so apparent to them, that they even cease to call evil 'evil' and will instead declare, 'surely, everything is the same'. They are, of course, not completely wrong. One cannot, however, choose good if there is nothing to distinguish it from evil. Moreover, from the perspective that sees everything as the same, from the very outset there is no motivation to make this choice towards good. Though their methods will not attain their goal, it must be understood that these people who incline to the left, blur distinctions for only one reason, to come closer to G-d. If these people can be reminded of this guiding motivation, the longing for good re-manifests itself, with the surprising spontaneity of a spring flower bud.
For those who incline to the right, the problem is, ironically, more deeply ingrained and more difficult to extricate. For these people, the desire for good is second nature. They are constantly longing to be more involved with G-d's goodness. Yet precisely because of this longing, they are quickly frustrated by the persistence of evil in the world and within their own being. Without a blink of an eye, this frustration grows into anger and finally hardens into hatred. The Jewish spiritual tradition as a whole has become so accustomed to this process, and so accustomed to this process accompanying the noble search for G-d's goodness, that it has made the deadly mistake of calling this hatred good. Unequivocally, it is not. If we could grasp this one point, we would be like the spring flower that after 5764 years finally opened.