Chasidut zu Bamidbar 11:29

The prophets, mouthpieces of God on the earth, were not satisfied with correcting the peoples’ ways, that the people [merely] desist from robbing and stealing and committing abominations. Rather, they aspired to make them into a people of God, a nation of prophets. Moses our Teacher said, “Who would grant that all of God’s people could be prophets,”²¹⁴Numbers 11:29. and his generation was called the ‘generation of knowledge.’²¹⁵For the notion that the generation of the desert narratives was imbued with higher levels of knowledge and understanding, see e.g. Zohar Hadash, Hukkat. See the Zohar (Shlach 168b) regarding them, that there has never been in the world a generation as lofty as this one, nor will there be until King Messiah comes...and in the future the Holy One will prepare a place for them to come to when they are the first resurrected. “The generation of Hezekiah were all filled with Torah, even the children.” (Sanhedrin 104)

And yet: even this act of filling of the world with holiness was done for the sake of Israel. For only exceptional individuals are able to stand apart [l’hitboded] and remove themselves from the world, becoming sanctified and prophetic despite the materiality of the world. Only to Moses did God say ‘but you, remain here with Me.’²¹⁹Deuteronomy 5:28. This is not so of the rest of the nation, who could become prophets while yet ensconced in the world (something Moses desired when he said ‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets,’²²⁰Numbers 11:29. small and great alike according to their stature). This is only possible when both the world in which they exist and their very bodies are sanctified by the influence of prophecy. For how could it be possible that the prophets, windows of the heavens, could bring down portions of Beriyah and Yetzirah to this world [Note: See the Zohar, Vayetzeh 149, and in M’M there, and other places in the Zohar; cf. Shaarei Kedushah 3:6,²²¹This entire section (as well as those surrounding it) of Vital’s Shaarei Kedushah analyzes the nature of prophecy. In the passage referenced, Vital states that only Moses prophesized on the unmitigated level of Atzilut. All the other prophets prophesized on the lower, filtered levels of Beriyah and Yetzirah. that the holy prophets received their prophecy from the worlds of Beriyah and Yetzirah.] and to the people in it, without the world and the very bodies of the people in it rising in turn?