What Is Being In Exile?

Being in exile is a title for all the forms of being-separated from the light, or from God, separated from the knowing  of the presence of God. 

This is what Jacob is saying: that he did not know that in this vacant space, there is the presence of the Creator. The strongest wish of the Creator is actually in this vacant space. And the strongest wish of the Creator is that humans, his vessel, would want to take part, to be in partnership with him, to complete creation. To complete creation means that all the light could extend itself to (including the point of) Malchut, of Zimzum Aleph. This is what Jacob took as his priority.