The soul begins in an intimate, essential bond with a Source Beyond All Things. Even as she invests herself into a material world, into a human form, that primordial bond remains imprinted deep within her.
It is that bond that pulls her constantly to return, like a magnet pulling its lost other half. Our incessant search for meaning, all our striving for that which we cannot grasp, all is an expression of this dynamic, this thirst to return.
This desire to return is innate, yet it must be awakened. The soul must first realize she is distant. Return in all its strength and passion is found, therefore, in the soul who has wandered far from her true self and then awakened to recognize she is lost.
We are like the child being pushed on a swing by her father—the further our souls are thrust away, the greater the force of our return.
As well, the drive to return is G‑d's fishing net. For in its search to reunite with Him, the soul finds G‑d in all the matters of this world. And so, these too are pulled in. And the deeper the descent, the greater the treasure.
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson 
