Knowing the End of the Exile

Chesed L'Avraham 5:35, R' Avraham Azulai, זצוק"ל (Free Translation)

The world as it is found was created by the Holy One Blessed be He in the most exalted state at the time of its creation, and through Adam Harishon it was truly connected with G-dliness...the shechina. With the sin of Adam Harishon all of existence fell in a great descent, along with the shechina, and the entire existence physicalized with great loss and became enclothed in externality which imposed curses on all the fallen and low things.

This situation was not remedied until Yisroel stood at Har Sinai to receive the Torah, and with the sin of the golden calf the situation was spoiled, and thus the world was fixed and broken over and over until the building of the Beis Hamikdash. At that time the world stood in a beautiful state of repair...and since then until now the world and the shechina with it began to descend into the klipos. The klipos rule, and there is not a single day that there isn't greater curse than the day before because every day the external forces descend from level to level, and every lower level is harder than the previous. This is "sukkas Dovid hanofeles", that it is forever falling and descending, and the ketz of the geulah is dependent on its descent, and when it finishes descending it will immediately rise in one moment.

Thus, one who knows and will understand the greatest depths where the external forces dwell and its sefiros and its palaces of tuma, from there he will know the secret of the geulah. Because to see the descent of the shechina and the place where she stands, and how many levels remain in her descent, and the pace of her descent each day--from this he will understand the depths of the secret of the golus and the geulah, each of which is dependent on the other.