Yearning as the purpose of this world

עוד שם יפה שעה א' בעוה"ז בתשובה ומעש"ט מכל חיי עוה"ב.

It is further stated there: "Better one hour in this world spent in teshuvah and good deeds than all the life of the world to come."

The Sefas Emes opens with the famous Mishnah (Avos 4:17) that prizes a single hour of avodah in this world above the entire eternity of the world to come, and he sets out to explain why.

י"ל שעה לשון רצון כשהאדם יש לו תמיד תשוקה ורצון אחד להתדבק בו ית' [כמאמר רשב"י ז"ל אני לדודי בכל יומא בחד קטורא אתקטרנא בי' בקב"ה והשתא ועלי תשוקתו כו' ע"ש בא"ז פ' האזינו].

One may explain that "sha'ah" (hour) is a term of ratzon (desire) — that a person should always have one yearning and one will, to cling to Hashem [as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: "I am to my Beloved" — every day I bind myself in one bond to Hashem, "and now His desire is upon me," see the Or HaZahar on Parshas Ha'azinu].

He reads the word "sha'ah" not as a unit of time but as an expression of ratzon (longing) — the constant pull of the soul to attach itself to Hashem, the very bond that Rashbi describes as renewing itself daily.

ובאמת הרצון והתשוקה הוא הדבר שאין להשיגו בעוה"ב כ"כ כמו בעוה"ז.

And in truth, this ratzon (desire) and yearning is something that cannot be attained in the world to come as fully as it can in this world.

Precisely the longing itself — the striving from within concealment — is unique to this world; in the world to come, where everything is revealed, there is no room left for yearning.

כמשל בן המלך שמגעגע לחזור לבית אביו כאשר חכמים הגידו כי זה הי' כל המבוקש בשליחות נשמח האדם לעוה"ז כדי להתרבות התשוקה בלב האדם להתדבק בשורשו וזה אומרו יפה שעה אחת כו':

It is like the parable of the king's son who pines to return to his father's house; as the Chachamim taught, this was the entire purpose of the shlichus (mission) for which a person's neshamah was sent into this world — to increase the yearning in a person's heart to cling to his root. And this is the meaning of "Better one hour…"

A person is sent into this world the way a prince is sent away from the palace, and the whole point of that mission is to kindle in him a burning longing to return to his Source — which is why that one hour of yearning outweighs all of the next world.

Summary: The Sefas Emes reinterprets the Mishnah's praise of "one hour in this world" by reading "hour" as ratzon — the soul's yearning to cling to Hashem. Such longing can only arise amid the concealment of this world, and awakening it is the very purpose for which the neshamah is sent here, which is why a single hour of it surpasses all the world to come.