Usually we say, “The end deed is the earliest in thought.” With this phrase we justify how the lowest levels are actually the end goal of the creation or for that matter how the end of anything is the very goal of its process.
However, as much as I believe in this idea and subscribe to it, I am beginning to see another angle which might be equally true. I am not bothered much by “two truths”, as we already know that any truth besides the Creator Himself is somehow a relative truth. Hence, we have the Talmudic principle, “Both these and those are the words of the Living Divine Being.”
Perhaps, actually the middle of a process is its goal, with the end just serving as an extreme to provide the balance point on which the middle thrives. For example, in the temperate zone spring and autumn are usually the most comfortable seasons. Winter and summer are just the extremities which provide the balance, allowing for the nice weather during spring and autumn.
This reminds me of a discussion I had with my brother, a Kabbalist, some years back about which realm is the goal of the creation. Is it the spiritual realm of emanations or is it the earthly realm we walk on? Based on Kabbalah, he claimed that the realm of emanations is the goal. I was so entrenched in the idea “the end deed is the earliest in thought” that I couldn’t easily wrap my head around what he was saying. So I countered based on Chabad Chassidic philosophy that, having been created last, really the earthly realm is the ultimate goal of creation.
Today, I can appreciate that maybe the spiritual realm of emanations is somehow “center cosmos” and the earthly realm is merely the nethermost physical counterbalance to the highest spiritual extremes, allowing the realm of emanations to be the realm of emanations; who as any midpoint needs to be tethered by flanking extremes to exist.
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