SUNDAY: BINAH-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN

READING: FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN SUNDAY

The 15th of Av: the Day of Love

Part 3

The 15th of Av: the Day of Love – Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #16

Reading Four Attributes of Love (00:15) – Excerpt #16. Baal HaSulam, “When we observe the attributes of love…”

1. S. (04:34) Can we reach the love that is unconditional without being in love that is conditional or must you go through these degrees?

R. You must go through all the measures before it.

2. S. (04:51) What is negligence in love of friends?

R. Negligence in love of friends?

S. Yes.

R. Negligence? I don’t know, that you don’t give all your forces that are available to you to come closer to the friends through overcoming in love.

S. Meaning I basically should always give this increment, the effort, to accept the friends in me to open my heart?

R. Yes.

3. S. (05:42) He speaks here about the four measures that are basically that which is conditional and unconditional depends on the way that I see it, the benefit of the friends.

R. Yes.

S. In reason or above reason?

R. According to your decision.

S. Can we reach, see the benefit of the friend above reason? I don’t know if it’s according to my decision it’s in reason, but I don’t know what the Kabbalist meant.

R. We will see that later on but the question is to the point.

4. S. (06:24) Baal HaSulam speaks here about the business and conduct of a person is sometimes he doesn’t know his contacts and sometimes he does know, what is he talking about here?

R. Let us say he knows everything as in an x-ray.

5. S. (06:47) Is conditional love better than unconditional love?

R. Yes.

6. S. (07:22) In unconditional love that’s when I see the merits of the friend, I appreciate it. When I see a friend or hear a friend that has good merits I enjoy it, I enjoy to hear him, so if I enjoy it why is that unconditional love?

R. No, let us define again conditional love and unconditional love.

Reading Excerpt 16 (08:13) “When we observe the attributes…” Again 

7. S. (12:13) About conditional love, is the difference between the first measure and the second within this conditional love is that in the first one you still remember the harm and they have to overcome it in the second they don’t remember it?

R. Yes.

S. Usually we say in order to have love we need fear. If there are four kinds of love Is there also a kind of grading of fear?

R. Right, against it, correct.

8. S. (12:56) I don’t understand the difference between what he describes here between love of friends which is something we are trying to generate here and love that there is between human beings that is revealed in any other society or constellation. It seems as if it can happen, not only love of friends, it can occur in any society. Some people you fight with them in the beginning and then you love them or some people you appreciate them, so what is special here about love of friends that what we need?

R. What does he write? And here the four, we observe attributes between man and man and we find the four measures of love atop one another meaning two that are four. So what are you looking at me, these four attributes we have to pass them to the four degrees between man and the Creator.

S. How am I supposed to relate to the Creator in these four different ways he describes? That’s not so clear?

R. For that we need to go to the introduction of TES and study it. There takes up a lot of volume and we will learn it. I am ready.

9. S. (14:56) When a Kabbalist corrects himself he sees only positive qualities in others, only good?

R. No.

S. He sees the others transparent both the good and the bad and they can choose to see only?

R. He sees the actions of the Creator upon man.

S. What does that mean?

R. That he doesn’t see the person himself but he sees the result of the actions of the Creator upon some person.

S. He sees the cause and then he sees why it is for a person’s benefit?

R. Yes.

10. S. (15:43) The first and the second attributes, can we even reach a state that we forget the crimes or we intermittently move between the two different attributes?

R. There is both.

S. Meaning we reach the first attribute and fall to the second or the second and then fall to the first this way? I don’t see myself forgetting the crimes I’ve been done, so the question is am I once there and once here?

R. You still can’t see the difference.

S. It’s the same with respect to the third and the fourth or is the fourth the final?

R. The third and fourth are already in revelation.

S. Meaning, if you’ve reached the fourth you will not fall, it’s constant?

R. Yes. 

11. S. (16:53)To continue what we talked about in the first part, sometimes a person has to make a zero out of himself, meaning that there is work in love of friends, there is work. We see the flaws and one has to annul himself and it’s more or less the question they asked before, if naturally you see the friend to be great, there’s no work here we’re a spirituality there? If I see someone much more successful than me it is easy for me doing all myself because he is really better than me, so where here in spirituality, what is my spiritual work here?

R. There’s no spirituality here. You’re speaking about a corporeal calculation.

S. Talking about the relation between two people. I understand the person I don’t appreciate I have work here to find the qualities that are good, where his point in the heart is, how is he looking for the Creator, but if I see a person much more advanced than me, this is the situation, we’ve been in conditional love, but the second kind there is no trace of anything negative between us. I see a person much better than me and in any area so I annul myself and that’s it. What is my spiritual work there? When I see a person who is much more successful than me serving the goal much better than me?

R. Okay, so you gave them some place there in your system.

S. That’s it, it’s over?

R. I don’t know but up until now yes. That’s conditional love because you see it, you recognize it as that he reached praise.

12. S. (19:09) Will it be true to say that with respect to every friend that I have these four attributes simultaneously and I just identify?

R. I don’t know, that depends on you and the friends and the general state.

S. What I’m asking is can I every moment to increase and to relate to the fourth attribute? Ultimately, that’s the measure with which I should work, to reach the fourth measure of love that is unconditional?

R. How do you recognize it?

S. I can identify it by the other three measures and also to understand how much I bestow to the friend which I want to bestow even despite what I identify in the connection between us?

R. That is not enough. 

13. S. (20:00) Why is it that the Creator does not reveal to a person until he corrects his relation to his friends in the four kinds of love that we talked about today?

R. How can you reveal himself in what qualities will he be revealed, if a person didn’t set his relations right that the Creator can be revealed in them?

S. Why is a Kabbalist that has attainment speaking only out of his attainment?

R. Where will he speak out of? From what he imagines?

S. Here are we able to connect and the Creator will have a choice to reveal to us as this correct?

R. Yes.

14. S. (21:27) When I see a friend doing good to others how does that help me love him?

R. Because you love him.

S. Yes, unconditional love. How’s it then when I see someone doing good to others I love him. What do I love in it?

R. You love his actions.

S. Why?

R. It’s his approach to creation that by this he wants to resemble the Creator.

S. This is what I love in him?

R. Yes, that He continues the actions of the Creator in creation.

S. How can I make this transition from seeing the friend not so successful in doing that and he is actually doing the opposite and to become and to see that he is helping everyone doing good actions to everyone? 

R. Again.

S. How do I turn my approach the other way around,instead of seeing the friend, seeing him doing bad to others?

R. That is what you believe.

S. Yes, to see that he is actually doing everything for others, how do I switch my approach?

R. You switch your approach with the help of the friends, you just come closer to them and then you discover that they are all to the extent that you come closer to them, as much as they are in a tendency towards one another.

S. To the extent that I come closer to them the more I come closer I discover that?

R. Yes.

15. S. (23:40) About unconditional love, why does one get to know the merit of the friends and is that is why he loves him, and is that not unconditional love?

R. Because it is based on the action that his friend is doing.

S. Doesn’t it depend on seeing him great that he has merit isn’t it?

R. The fact that he is great and has merits doesn’t mean that he depends on it.

S. Meaning because he personally doesn’t get anything from his merits anything?

R. That is clear, that is like that.

S. There is a stage between the unconditional love that he doesn’t yet know his dealings with others and that is why he still loves him and then he already knows that he’s scrutinized in all his feelings are good. Between these two states is there a state that he does see the actions and he thinks they are wrong and then his love decreases and only then he scrutinizes?

R. It could be that there are descents and ascents here.

16. S. (25:28) These four attributes of love from above downwards, how does love of friends turn into love for the Creator. Does it happen in every degree or does it only happen in the aftermath?

R. He brings upon himself the measures of love and then afterwards he discovers the Creator and can recognize in what measures of love the Creator is in. That is called from the love of man to the love of God.

17. S. (26:25) At the end of the excerpt it says he has checked and found that not only is there no trace of flaw in them but His goodness is greater than any anything imaginable now it is eternal and complete love. Is this eternal and complete love detected opposite in the ever- growing will to receive?

R. Of course it does. I don’t know exactly what eternal and complete love you are speaking about but if he discovers it he reveals it so there is nothing else to do. If so, nothing remains no more deeds in reality.

18. S. (27:35) How can we scrutinize what the truth is and what my imagination is? What is the indication in which to distinguish?

R.You can’t, if a person has to scrutinize on his own, it is impossible. He is either through the group or the group and the Creator, it depends on which degree we are speaking about. Alone a person cannot understand anything. It is just like if we measure something in this world, so we need a certain point except for us a northern point or a center of gravity of the earth that we can determine anything on our own.

19. S. (28:40) It seems that the condition in love is the two measures we impose that on ourselves and we make those calculations so that we can give the love instead of going straight to unconditional love?

R. I didn’t understand if it is a question, repeat please.

S. It seems to me that when we talk about conditional love it is almost like something we have imposed on ourselves. We need the friends to be a certain way for us to give them love and that becomes conditional love. That becomes those two instead of going straight to unconditional love?

R. Yes if that is the question so it is right.