Tehillim on the Parsha: Pekudei: Great Deeds Without Limit Part Three

The angel takes it for a tour from morning to evening, and shows it the place where it is destined to die and the place where it is destined to be buried.

Then the Angel leads the soul takes a tour round the entire world and shows him the righteous and the wicked, and he shows it everything. And in the evening it returns to its mother’s womb.

Then the Holy One, Blessed is He, makes for it a lock indoors, as it is stated, “He shut the sea with bolted doors as its flow emerged from the womb (Job 38:8).” And it is written, “And I placed My words in your mouth, and I covered you with the shadow of My hand (Isaiah 51:16).”

The Holy One, Blessed is He, stands and says to it, “Until here you may come and no further (Job 38:11).”

The child is left in its mother’s womb for nine months. The first three months the child resides in its mother’s stomach, in the lower chamber; the second three months it resides in the central chamber; the last three months it resides in the upper chamber.

And when it comes time to go out into the world’s air, it rolls down and descends in an instant from the upper chamber to the central one and from central one to the last one.

At first it eats and drinks from whatever its mother eats and drinks, but it does not produce any excrement. Thus it is stated, “He who performs great deeds that are beyond comprehension; and infinite wonders.”

Eventually the time comes for it to go out into the air of the world.

Thereupon, that Angel comes in then says to it, “The time has come for you to go out into the world’s air.” But it says to him, “Why do you wish to take me out to the world’s air?” The angel says to it, “My son, you should know that you were created against your will, so now you should know that you are born against your will and you die against your will, and and against your will you are destined to give justification in reckoning before the King, the King of all Kings, the Holy One, Blessed is He.”

But it does not want to leave until the Angel strikes it and extinguishes the lamp above its head and takes it out into the world’s air against its will. The baby immediately forgets all its saw on its way out and all that it knows. Why does the baby cry on its way out? Because it lost a place of rest and relief, and for the world it had to leave behind.