The soul must descend to this world into a coarse physical body. This descent causes the soul tremendous anguish and suffering. However, the soul ignores the anguish and suffering because the goal of its mission is to illuminate the body and its environment with holy light and to transform the physical body into a dwelling place for God.

The soul’s descent into the body causes tremendous suffering:

The statements of our Sages, of blessed memory…strongly emphasize something that is clear and self-evident – the soul’s purity and pristine clarity. [The soul] is purely spiritual and is intrinsically totally unconnected to physical and material matters, and certainly not to physical desires and the like, [for they] only come about through the body and the animal soul. Nevertheless, the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted this soul, that is directly connected to the divine, to descend and be clothed within a physical and material body and to be connected and united with it for a number of decades. This means that for a number of decades the soul will be in a state totally antithetical to its own nature.

It is impossible to imagine how much suffering the soul endures while fulfilling its mission:

This [process of the soul’s descent into this world] is in order to fulfill the mission [it was given by] its Creator, i.e., to purify the body and illuminate a person’s this-worldly physical existence with the light of the Endless One, making it a sanctuary and dwelling place for the Divine Presence, may He be blessed. Then, the soul views all of the torture and suffering it endured while in the body and the physical world as totally insignificant. [On the contrary,] the eternal reward and pleasure it will merit through fulfilling its mission are immeasurably valuable compared to the [mere] fleeting suffering of this world. (Rabbi Menaĥem Mendel Schneerson, Igrot Kodesh 8:2:292)

Rabbi Shalom Dovber Schneersohn had a hasid [disciple] who was a successful dealer in precious gems. That hasid once noticed that the Rebbe was paying special attention to, and showing great kindness toward, extremely simple people, which surprised the hasid greatly.

Further reading: For more on the simple Jew who saved the Jewish people from a heavenly accusation, see p. 70.