READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN SUNDAY

Baal HaSulam. The Love of God and the Love of Man

LESSON MATERIAL

The Love of God and the Love of Man

“‘Love your friend as yourself,’ Rabbi Akiva says this is a great rule in the Torah” (Beresheet Rabbah 24).

Collective and Individual

The above statement—although it is one of the most famous and cited sayings—is still unexplained to everyone with all its vastness. This is because the word Klal [rule/or collective] indicates a sum of details that relates to the above collective, where each and every detail carries a part within it in a way that the gathering of all the details together creates that collective.

If we say “a great Klal in the Torah,” it means that all the texts and the 612 Mitzvot [commandments] are the sum total of the details that relate to the verse, “Love your friend as yourself.” It is difficult to understand how such a statement can contain the sum-total of all the Mitzvot in the Torah. At most, it can be a Klal for the part of the Torah and sentences that relate to the Mitzvot between man and man. But how can you include the greater part of the Torah, which concerns work between man and the Creator in the verse, “Love your friend as yourself”?

That which You Hate, Do Not Do to Your Friend

If we can somehow reconcile the above words, there come the words of Old Hillel to that foreigner who came to him and asked him to convert him, as it says in the Gemara, “Convert me so that you will teach me the whole Torah while I am standing on one leg.” He told him, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend. This is the whole Torah, and the rest is its commentary, go study.” We see that he told him that the whole Torah is the interpretation of the verse, “Love your friend as yourself.”

Now, according to the words of Hillel—the teacher of all the Tannaim [sages during the early CE centuries], and by whom laws are interpreted—it is perfectly clear to us that the primary purpose of our holy Torah is to bring us to that sublime degree where we can observe this verse, “Love your friend as yourself,” for he says explicitly, “The rest is its commentary, go study.” That is, they interpret for us how to come to that rule.

It is surprising that such a statement can be correct in most issues of the Torah, which concern sentences between man and the Creator, when every beginner evidently knows that this is the heart of the Torah and not the interpretation explaining the verse, “Love your friend as yourself.”

Love Your Friend as Yourself

We should also examine and understand the meaning of the verse itself when he says, “Love your friend as yourself.” The literal meaning of it is to love your friend to the same extent that you love yourself. However, we see that the public cannot be like that at all. If it had said, “Love your friend as much as your friend loves you,” there would still not be many who could fully observe it, yet it would be acceptable.

But to love my friend as much as I love myself seems impossible. Even if there were but one person in the world besides me, it would still be impossible, much less when the world is full of people. Moreover, if one loved everyone as much as one loves oneself, he would have no time for himself, for it is certain that one satisfies one’s own needs without neglect, and with great passion, for one loves oneself.

It is not so concerning the needs of the collective: He has no strong reason to stimulate his desire to work for them. Even if he had a desire, could he still keep this statement literally? Would his strength endure? If not, how can the Torah obligate us to do something that is not in any way achievable?

We should not imagine that this verse was said as an exaggeration, for we are warned and insist on “You will neither add nor take away from it.” All the interpreters agreed to interpret the text literally. Moreover, they said that one must satisfy the needs of one’s friend even in a place where one is himself deficient. Even then he must satisfy the needs of his friend and leave himself deficient.

The Tosfot interpret Kidushin 20, “One who buys a Hebrew slave, it is as though he buys a master for himself.” The Tosfot interpret there in the name of the Jerusalem [Talmud] that “Sometimes he has but one pillow. If he lies on it himself, he does not observe, ‘For he is happy with you.’ If he does not lie on it and does not give it to his slave, it is sodomite rule. It turns out that against his will he must give it to his servant. Thus, he has bought himself a master.”

One Mitzva [Commandment]

This raises several questions: According to the aforesaid, we all sin against the Torah. Moreover, we do not observe even the primary part of the Torah, since we observe the details but not the actual rule. It is written: “When you observe the will of the Creator, the poor are in others and not in you,” for how can there be poor when everyone does what the Creator wants and loves their friends as themselves?

The issue of the Hebrew slave that the Jerusalem [Talmud] presents needs further study: The meaning of the text is that even if the foreigner is not Hebrew, he must love him like himself. And how could one explain that the rule for the foreigner is the same as that of the Hebrew, since “One law and one ordinance should be both for you and for the stranger who dwells with you.” The word Ger [proselyte/foreigner] also means a “residing proselyte,” meaning one who does not accept the Torah, except for retiring from idolatry. It is written about such a person: “You may give it to the stranger who is within your gates.”

This is the meaning of one Mitzva that the Tanna speaks of when he says, “Performing one Mitzva sentences oneself and the entire world to the side of merit.” It is very difficult to understand what the entire world has to do with this. We should not force an explanation that it is when one is half unworthy and half worthy, and the whole world is half unworthy and half worthy, for if we say so, we are missing the whole point.

Moreover, the whole world is full of gentiles and tyrants, so how can he see that they are half unworthy and half worthy? He can see about himself that he is half unworthy and half worthy, but not that the entire world is such. Furthermore, the text should have at least stated “The whole of Israel.” Why did the Tanna add the entire world here? Are we guarantors for the nations of the world, to add them to our account of good deeds?

We must understand that our sages spoke only of the practical part of the Torah, which brings the world and the Torah to the desired goal. Therefore, when they say one Mitzva, they certainly mean a practical Mitzva. This is certainly as Hillel says, meaning “Love your friend as yourself.” It is by this Mitzva alone that one attains the real goal, which is Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator. Thus, you find that with this one Mitzva, one observes the entire goal and purpose.

Now there is no question about the Mitzvot between man and the Creator because the practical ones among them have the same purpose of cleansing the body, the last point of which is to love your friend as yourself, after which immediately comes the Dvekut.

There is a general and a particular in this. We come from the particular to the general, for the general leads to the ultimate goal. Thus, it certainly makes no difference from which side to begin, from the particular or from the general, as long as we begin and not stay neutral until we reach our goal.

And to Adhere to Him

There still remains room to ask, “If the whole purpose of the Torah and all of creation is but to raise the base humanity to become worthy of that wonderful sublimity, and to adhere to Him, He should have created us with that sublimity to begin with instead of troubling us with the labor of creation, and the Torah and Mitzvot.

We could explain this with the words of our sages: “One who eats that which is not his is afraid to look at his face.” This means that anyone who feeds on the labor of others is afraid (ashamed) to look at his own form, for his form is inhuman.

Because no deficiency comes from His wholeness, He has prepared for us this work, so we may enjoy the labor of our own hands. This is why He created creation in this base form. The work in Torah and Mitzvot lifts us from the baseness of creation, and through it we achieve our sublimity by ourselves. Then we do not feel the delight and pleasure that comes to us from his generous hand as a gift, but as the owners of that pleasure.

However, we must still understand the source of the baseness that we feel upon receiving a gift. Nature scientists know that the nature of every branch is close to its root. The branch loves all the conducts in the root, wants them, covets them, and derives benefit from them. Conversely, the branch stays away from everything that is not in the root; it cannot tolerate them and is harmed by them.

Because our root is the Creator, Who does not receive but bestows, we feel sorrow and degradation upon every reception from another.

Now we understand the purpose of adhering to Him. The sublimity of Dvekut [adhesion] is only the equivalence of the branch with its root. On the other hand, the whole matter of baseness is only the remoteness from the root. In other words, each being whose ways are corrected to bestow upon others rises and becomes capable of adhering to Him, and every being whose way is reception and self-love is degraded and removed far from the Creator.

As a remedy, the Torah and Mitzvot have been prepared for us. In the beginning, we are to observe it Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], meaning to receive reward. This is the case during the period of Katnut [smallness], as education. When one grows, one is taught to observe Torah and Mitzvot Lishma [for Her sake], meaning to bring contentment to one’s Maker, and not for self-love.

Now we can understand the words of our sages who asked, “Why should the Creator mind whether one slaughters at the throat, or slaughters at the back of the neck? After all, the Mitzvot [commandments] were given only so as to cleanse people through them.”

But we still do not know what that cleansing means. With the aforesaid, we understand that “Man is born a wild ass’s colt,” completely immersed in the filth and baseness of self-reception and self-love, without any spark of love for one’s fellow person and bestowal. In that state, one is at the farthest point from the Root.

When one grows and is educated in Torah and Mitzvot defined only by the aim to bring contentment to one’s Maker and not at all for self-love, one comes to the degree of bestowal upon one’s fellow person through the natural remedy in the study of Torah and Mitzvot Lishma, that the Giver of the Torah knows, as our sages said, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice.”

By this the creature develops in the degrees of the above-said sublimity until one loses any form of self-love and self-reception, and one’s every attribute is to bestow or to receive in order to bestow. Our sages said about this, “The Mitzvot were given only in order to cleanse people by them,” and then one adheres to one’s Root to the extent of the words, “and to adhere to Him.”

Two Parts to the Torah: Between Man and the Creator and Between Man and Man

Even if we see that there are two parts to the Torah—the first, Mitzvot between man and the Creator, and the second, Mitzvot between man and man—they are both one and the same thing. This means that the practice of them and the desired goal from them are one: Lishma.

It makes no difference if one works for one’s friend or for the Creator, since it is engraved in the created being at birth that anything that comes from another appears empty and unreal.

Because of this, we are compelled to begin in Lo Lishma, as Nachmanides says, “Our sages said: ‘One should always engage in Torah, even if Lo Lishma, since from Lo Lishma he comes to Lishma.’ Therefore, when teaching the young, the women, and the uneducated, they are taught to work out of fear and to receive reward. Until they accumulate knowledge and gain wisdom, they are told that secret bit by bit, and are accustomed to that matter with ease until they attain Him and know Him and serve Him out of love.”

…Thus, when one completes one’s work in love of others and bestowal upon others through the final point, one also completes one’s love for the Creator and bestowal upon the Creator. And there is no difference between the two, for anything that is outside one’s body, meaning outside one’s self-interest, is judged equally—either to bestow upon one’s friend or to bestow contentment upon one’s Maker.

This is what Hillel Hanasi assumed, that “Love your friend as yourself” is the ultimate goal in the practice, as it is the clearest nature and form to man.

We should not be mistaken about actions, since they are set before his eyes. He knows that if he puts the needs of his friend before his own needs, then he is in the quality of bestowal. For this reason, he does not define the goal as “And you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,” for indeed they are one and the same, since he should also love his friend with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, as this is the meaning of the words “as yourself.” He certainly loves himself with all his heart and soul and might, and with the Creator, he may deceive oneself, but with his friend it is always spread out before his eyes.

Why Was the Torah Not Given to the Patriarchs?

By this we have clarified the first three questions. But there still remains the question how it is possible to observe it, for it is seemingly impossible. You should know that this is why the Torah was not given to the patriarchs but to their children’s children, a complete nation of 600,000 men from 20 years of age and on. They were asked if each and every one were willing to take upon himself these sublime work and goal, and after each and every one said “We will do and we will hear,” the matter became possible, for it is clear beyond doubt that if 600,000 men have no other engagement in life but to stand guard and see that no need is left unsatisfied in their friends, and they even do it with true love, with all their soul and might, there is absolutely no doubt that there will not be a need in any person in the nation to worry about his own sustenance, for he will have 600,000 loving and loyal people watching over him so not a single need is left unsatisfied.

This answers why the Torah was not given to the patriarchs, for in a small number of people, the Torah cannot be observed. It is impossible to begin the work of Lishma as is described above, which is why the Torah was not given to them.

All of Israel Are Responsible for One Another

In light of the above, we can understand a perplexing saying by our sages who said, “All of Israel are responsible for one another.” Furthermore, Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, adds, “The world is judged by its majority.”

It follows, that we are also responsible for all the nations of the world. I wonder; this seems inconceivable, for how can one be responsible for the sins of a person whom he does not know? It is said specifically, “The fathers will not be put to death for the children, and the children will not be put to death for the fathers; every man will be put to death for his own sin.”

Now we can understand the meaning of the words in utter simplicity, for it has been explained that it is utterly impossible to observe Torah and Mitzvot unless the entire nation participates.

It follows that each one becomes responsible for his friend. This means that the reckless make the observers of the Torah remain in their filth, for they cannot be completed in bestowal upon others and love of others without their help. Thus, if some in the nation sin, they make the rest of the nation suffer because of them.

This is the meaning of what is written in the Midrash, “Israel, one of them sins and all of them feel.” Rabbi Shimon said about this: “It is like people who were seated in a boat. One of them took a drill and began to drill under him. His friends told him, ‘What are you doing?’ He replied, ‘Why do you care? Am I not drilling under me?’ They replied, ‘The water is rising and flooding the boat.’” As we have said above, because the reckless are immersed in self-love, their actions create an iron fence that prevents the observers of Torah from even beginning to observe the Torah and Mitzvot properly.

Now we will clarify the words of Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, who says, “Since the world is judged by its majority, and the individual is judged by its majority, if one performs one Mitzva, happy is he, for he has sentenced himself and the entire world to the side of merit. If he commits one sin, woe unto him for he has sentenced himself and the entire world to the side of sin, as it is said, ‘And one sinner destroys much good.’”

We see that Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, takes the matter of the Arvut [mutual responsibility] even further, for he says, “The world is judged by its majority.” This is because in his opinion, it is not enough for one nation to receive the Torah and Mitzvot. He came to this opinion either by observing the reality before us, for we see that the end has not yet come, or he received it from his teachers.

The text also supports him, as it promises us that at the time of redemption, “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” and also, “All nations will flow onto Him,” and many more verses. This is the reason he conditioned the Arvut on the entire world, to tell you that an individual, too, cannot come to the desired goal by observing Torah and Mitzvot, if not through the assistance of all the people in the world.

Thus, each and every Mitzva that an individual performs affects the whole world. It is like a person who weighs beans on a scale, and each and every bean he puts on the scale induces the desired final decision. Likewise, each Mitzva that the individual performs before the whole earth is full of knowledge develops the world so it will come to this.

It is said, “And one sinner destroys much good,” since through the sin he commits, he reduces the weight on the scale, as though that person took back the bean he had put on the scale. By this, he turns the world backward.

Why Was the Torah Given to Israel?

Now we can answer the question why the Torah was given to the Israeli nation without the participation of all the nations of the world. The truth is that the purpose of creation applies to the entire human race, none excluded. However, because of the lowliness of the nature of creation and its power over people, it was impossible for people to be able to understand, determine, and agree to rise above it. They did not demonstrate the desire to relinquish self-love and come to equivalence of form, which is Dvekut with His attributes, as our sages said, “As he is merciful, so you are merciful.”

Thus, because of their ancestral merit, Israel succeeded, and over 400 years they developed and became qualified, and sentenced themselves to the side of merit. Each and every member of the nation agreed to love his fellow man.

Being a small and single nation among seventy great nations, when there are a hundred gentiles or more for every one of Israel, when they had taken upon themselves to love their fellow person, the Torah was then given specifically to qualify the Israeli nation, to qualify itself.

However, by this the Israeli nation was to be a “passage.” This means that to the extent that Israel cleanse themselves by observing the Torah, so they pass their power on to the rest of the nations. And when the rest of the nations also sentence themselves to the side of merit, the Messiah will be revealed, whose role is not only to qualify Israel to the ultimate goal of Dvekut with Him, but to teach the ways of the Creator to all the nations, as it is written, “And all nations will flow unto Him.”

LESSON

Morning Lesson October 6, 2023

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio

Part 1:

Baal HaSulam. The Love of God and the Love of Man (Two Parts to the Torah: Between Man and the Creator and Between Man and Man)

1. Rav’s Introduction: (00:55) The purpose of creation is to raise a person emotionally, mentally and internally, his will to receive from the animate degree of the beast to the degree of man, Adam, who resembles the Creator, to the degree of the Creator. That is why we need daily, from the beginning of our engagement in life to raise ourselves, raise ourselves from the degree of the beast that cares only for its own well-being, its family, to the degree of the Creator. In effect, to all of humanity’s, the highest desire that exists all in nature. Therefore, the Kabbalists write to us two parts to the Torah between man and the Creator and between man and man. We need to raise ourselves in order to climb to the degree of the Creator. We have to rise to the degree of love for his friend. Please.

Reading Two Parts to the Torah: (3:03) Between Man and the Creator and Between Man and Man, “Even if we see that there are two…”

Reading Two Parts to the Torah: Between Man and the Creator and Between Man and Man, (First Line), “Even if we see…”

2. R. (05:53) Meaning that we have a method for how to rise from the degree that we know is the degree of animals, beasts, who care only about the animal living force like our lives here, like all of the animate degree, how can we rise to the degree of the Creator? We feel eternal life, a life that we reach beyond the boundary of our body. The method by which we can climb above our own degree is called Torah, from the word Ohr, light. In the Torah there are two levels, when a person educates himself to care for the friends, therefore everyone can care for the Creator.

Reading Two Parts to the Torah: (07:24) Between Man and the Creator and Between Man and Man, “Even if we see that there are two…”

3. R. (09:54) Meaning our goal is to reach love of others. We need to do it by ourselves because we aren’t born in this quality. Until we come to it, we must see that this is our goal. That’s how it’s written.

4. S. (10:28) What does it mean that it was engraved in a person when he was born that there is, that everything appears to him as empty and unreal, everything comes to him from another?

R. That’s what we feel. We feel only ourselves. We can’t feel what’s happening with the other, we’re not inside the other’s body. That’s how we exist in this world, we need to develop that sensitivity to the other. We reach the same attitude towards the others that we have for ourselves.

S. I didn’t understand the connection but that everything that comes from another is unreal and  is empty for me, the other fills me?

R. No, I can’t feel him.

S. I received pleasure from the other, why can’t I feel him?

R. You received pleasure from the other meaning that you received that from the other.

S. Why is that felt as empty?

R. Because you don’t live in him, you can’t feel him, you can’t feel what he feels, you can feel yourself receiving from him. Which means from the outset we are in self-love, we have nothing to do with it but to expand it toward love of others, that I would feel the others the way I feel myself.

5. S. (12:50) To continue the friends question, for me, too, this sentence is kind of blocked because if we take this as an example all that comes to another. Let’s say a friend wakes me up for the morning lesson and also comes and picks me up, that’s not an empty thing for me, that’s an amazing thing to me, and very realistic. What’s the meaning here?

R. The meaning is that you can’t feel that same concern that exists in the heart of the friend, that he did it. Why won’t you do it?

S. It happens that I don’t do it or wake up alone but that if the friend did this and I feel him and his concern for me?

R. Yes, but it’s not the kind of concern, the care that you care for him.

S. Yes, but if we break it down to two and in my eyes this is not an empty thing, it’s an amazing thing?

R. Okay, you’re a good guy that’s what you want to say, but you can’t feel his concern for you and you’re not in concern for him.

S. Until now I thought I was so what do we have to do here?

R. What do you mean if you thought you were if you didn’t get up and take care of him?

S. Okay, I didn’t wake up. I wasn’t okay but my friend did care for me.

R. Yes.

S. Therefore it’s not an empty thing. It’s a completely whole thing, full thing in my eyes.

R. What do you mean full of the friend?

S. The friend is filled with love towards me?

R. In you, if at all.

S. I’m learning from this and next lesson I’ll make every effort and I also learn from that to wake up for another friend?

R. That’s correct. That’s correct. Let’s keep going.

Continue Reading. (15:13) “Thus, when one completes one’s work…”

6. R. (16:01) We need to understand this thoroughly, remember it and keep it. The way I relate to the friends is the way that I relate to the Creator and it cannot be any other way. Truly, in this, even in the smallest measure there is no difference between the two. Therefore our connection in the ten is showing us the degree of connection with the Creator, in a complete form, there’s no coefficient there. That’s how it works.

7. S. (16:52) He says here that at first they’re taught to gradually to work from fear and receive a reward. To work from fear and receive reward is also to receive what a regular person does?

R. Yes, yes.

S. Why is it Lo Lishma that brings him to become more knowledgeable?

R. A person begins to understand that there are actions for which he receives reward or punishment.

S. Okay, but just like the friend said here, a friend does actions towards me, he wakes me up, he shows me that he can bestow to and not just that he can receive in order to receive?

R. He’s showing it, it could be yes or it could be no. Depends on you not on him.

S. The question is whether this Lo Lishma is receiving in order to bestow or there such a stage along the way or is that not a stage that we have to look at whatsoever?

R. That has to do with a friend that awakens you, it is possible that he is awakening in order to receive.

S. This increasing of reason, is this a stage where we’re moving towards a person being in the right intention?

R. Yes.

S. That leads him to gradually have more pure bestowal?

R. If he’s in the correct society and he’s working on himself, yes. This is a necessary degree to reach connection with the Creator. We cannot reach connection with the Creator without inverting, without changing our attitude to the friend.

8. S. (19:17) To what extent does one’s attitude towards his wife influence these things?

R. That’s something else. It’s written that a man’s wife is like his body. He must relate to his wife just like to his own body.

S. Is that not a model that cannot influence his attitude toward the friends?

R. No, it’s something completely different. With his wife, he’s obligated from the side of the spiritual nature because they are in a single system and that’s how he needs to advance. You need to develop love which is exactly like love to himself. Just like to himself. The person’s wife is like his body. 

9. S. (20:53) There are many actions that I do toward the ten because Rabash wrote for me to do so. We learn them together and when I did it this morning, I tried to wake up a friend and I forgot to think that it’s in order to reach the Creator in the end. But by habit we exercise these rules by Rabash. Is that also effective or do we need to constantly?

R. It’s effective but it’s incomplete.

S. We need to constantly do like this restart on the intentions and all these actions somehow?

R. Until the end of correction.

10. S. (21:39) What is that final point?

R. The final point perhaps is complete adhesion.

S. Only in the complete adhesion a person comes to love the Creator?

R. Yes.

S. What happens until then?

R. He has degrees.

S. You don’t feel any connection with the Creator, only in the final point?

R. He does but it’s not the final point.

S. What does it mean that there’s no gap between the two? That only in the final point that there’s no difference between the two? Is it not from the very beginning that a person enters that feeling, even the smallest one? On the first degree it’s supposed to be?

R. The first degree a person enters into connection with the Creator and with the friends, there he begins to feel how crucial this connection is to Him.

S. He writes that when a person completes the work in love of others and bestowal to one’s fellow man, why does he separate between love and bestowal? Why is it not enough to say bestowal to his friend?

R. They demand of us love, to love your God, to love your friend as yourself and bestowal is a relative expression of love.

S. Why isn’t it enough to complete love of others and then it’s enough? What differentiates these two, are they different kinds of work?

R. Yes because a person can bestow even when he doesn’t quite love, with the intention that his bestowal will bring him to love.

11. S. (23:59) Why is the expansion of feeling to the feeling of myself, to the feeling of others, why does that lead a person to feel eternal life?

R. Because he feels what’s outside of him and outside of a person is the spiritual world, the eternal world, and he fell from it due to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, he can’t feel it. By acquiring the power of bestowal and loving the other he returns to this feeling of the upper world.

S. What’s eternal and the feeling of the other, what is eternal altogether?

R. Because you’re coming out of your ego and you will receive and you enter the will to bestow and by that you climb above the nature of this world.

S. What’s eternal?

R. Because it’s eternal it doesn’t disappear, it simply doesn’t disappear. It does not change, it’s always in bestowal.

12. S. (25:42) How to define spiritual love?

R. Grow.

S. Define, how do you define spiritual love?

R. It means that I feel the other, the way I feel myself.

S. What is that feeling?

R. Just like I feel what I want, similarly I feel what the other wants. I’m on the same level of concern as he is.

13. S. (26:34) In the end of correction we will all feel each other’s heart like one?

R. Yes, we’ll feel all of us as one.

S. Let’s say now I’m here in the hall, I see the friends in the world Kli with their yearning, their desire. Am I imagining that or do I feel it?

R. For the time being you’re imagining it until you reach a state to where you truly feel everyone as existing in one desire and in this one desire the Creator will be revealed.

S. Let’s now let’s say everyone will want to feel one another, he can do it now?

R. Yes.

S. If we all feel or want to feel one another can we make it happen now, can the Creator do that?

R. Maybe, I’m not sure it happens like that but you should try, you must try.

14. S. (27:50) The Creator is a system in which everyone is connected with the others. How could an action towards a friend who does not take into account all the system but only a certain friend, how can this be measured toward the whole system?

R. No, it can’t be right. If one is forming such a connection with the other, it doesn’t influence everyone directly and completely but he passes surrounding light to the others.

15. S. (28:41) How is it that by us wanting to bestow to a friend we are bestowing to the Creator?

R. Because there is one system and one desire. If in our desire we will relate with love to the friend, love is the quality of the Creator. In this way, we will begin to already resemble the Creator. That’s why we will relate to Him. We are in a certain level of equivalence of form with Him.

S. By me bestowing to the friend must I seek the Creator or is it in anyway the connection the Creator has created here. Do I need to begin with, want to find the Creator inside the friend?

R. Yes.

16. S. (30:01) This love is where I feel the friend like myself and even more? What exactly am I supposed to feel in the friend? What does he want to drink, what does he want to eat?

R. Everything, all of his desires. You can feel all of his desires, they are clothed in him.

S. If there are ten friends in my ten, I’m supposed to feel them all?

R. In a sense, yes. But not through corporeal desires, bodily desires rather you are interested in being with them and their intention toward the Creator. We all enter the same direction. As they all yearn to reach adhesion with the Creator, you will also be like that with them.

S. If I love the friend I forget about myself and I live only in the friends?

R. Not that you forget, rather you feel your desire and you feel their desires as one.

17. S. (31:40) Is it right to say that we actually have two systems, a system of bestowal and a system of love and what synchronizes between the two of them is the intention?

R. I could perhaps divide it like you do but I don’t think, no, the system of bestowal is the system of bestowal. It’s a first stage, perhaps in people getting closer and incorporating and love is the second stage. But nevertheless it’s the same system but the stages are different.

S. Is there a certain dependency on one or the other? What happens first: bestowal or love?

R. First, bestowal that’s what from the very beginning that we need to bestow to another inside the group, inside the ten. Later, we come to feelings of love. To incorporation.

18. S. (32:56) You said to the friend that eternal is something that doesn’t change, it’s always in bestowal. What does that mean relative to our life that we are living now in our corporeal bodies? Does that mean that we will continue to exist in a different way also after our death?

R. I didn’t understand the question.

S. We say that the Creator is eternal, so what does that mean toward us? Does that mean that we will continue to exist in a different way also after we die, after our corporeal body dies?

R. Here he speaks of a corporeal or bodily state, alive and dead, and we did not speak of that. I will speak about it another time, so as not to get confused. But I’ll just say one thing, our relationships in the ten, they continue even after the death of our body.

19. S. (34:41) You talked about the surrounding light then from that the picture that rises is that we don’t feel what’s living in a person, you feel the surrounding light. It’s saying that you don’t feel the direct light that comes from the Creator but the surrounding light, is that the reason that we start in Lo Lishma to make the corrections, to come to feel the direct light also from a person and from the Creator?

R. I don’t want to get confused and confuse others so keep this to yourself for now.

20. S. (35:35) To be clear, in Gmar Tikkun, there is bestowing and no receiving for ourselves, is it so?

R. We receive in order to bestow because we’re not receiving, we cannot bestow. It’s all of our actions both bestowal and reception, are all in order to connect and be ‘as one man in one heart.’

21. S. (36:30) What does it mean to feel the friend or the friends like myself, that their desires are like mine?

R. Imagine that you can feel your friends the same way you can feel your own desires. Just imagine. Ask your mom, ask a mother how she feels the child.

S. After all, I look at the world through myself, through the sensations and me. How to incorporate in the friend to that extent so that I can look at the world and feel through him?

R. Look at the world this way, at the whole world as if it’s you.

22. S. (37:32) Women, youth and general folk are taught gradually to receive. Why does he include women in this list?

R. Everyone has to come to it, to some extent, to feel that they are in the single system, everyone.

S. I understand that but what does it mean to our attitude toward women that they are included in this list, that we learned that women do understand and that they… Why is he including women in this list, that seemingly they can’t yet do it as they should?

R. Who told you. Who told you that?

S. It’s written that the women, the uneducated and the young.

R. Because they come into it later.

S. I understood.

S. How do you come to such a degree of identification that you do feel the other and also there’s those of us who have experienced it for a moment but if they did how can you prolong that time and make it eternal like you say?

R. Through exercises. Try to do such exercises throughout the day.

S. Imaginary exercises?

R. Yeah, until they approach the truth.

23. S. (39:18) Baal HaSulam writes for us that the Mitzvot between man and the Creator and man and his friend, the essence of what comes out of it is that they are both Lishma, meaning that they are kind of the same essence. What does he mean here?

R. It means that a person should only do it for the sake of the other and the other could be his friend or the Creator.

S. Everything that appears to me at this stage, if I’m doing the differentiation between one thing and another, meaning that that’s the direction of the work that we have to work towards to come to that concept?

R. Yes. Try and see.

24. S. (40:13) Can we say that it’s best to work from within the ten, from the center of the ten, so what is the difference between the work with a specific friend, or the center of a ten?

R. The difference could be along the way but eventually a person has to feel that he’s working from the center of the ten.

S. Is it kind of a sum of my excitement from all of the friends or what’s it for?

R. Yes.

25. S. (41:00) In my mind I understand what the goal is; it’s love of others. Throughout the lesson, throughout our meetings, I feel a big wall and that I don’t have the strength to overcome this wall. How can I overcome this state? I feel that I’m ashamed.

R. Take your power, and start working with it. Take your power into your own hands and start working with it.

26. S. (42:00) If we build the intention toward the Creator, the others share this intention. When we aim towards a friend and the Creator shares it. How do we make this connection between the friends and the Creator and connect between those two points, it’s hard?

R. We need to practice and gradually you will understand how to do it.

S. We ask in the ten to be as one between us and with the Creator, does that request strengthen or aims this connection towards the Creator?

R. You must feel it yourself.

27. S. (43:15) When I delight my friends and I see the joy of the Creator does he share his light with me? And if yes, do I see the quality of the Creator in this?

R. Yes, to some extent, yes.

28. S. (44:00) We have a great need to say words of gratitude to our Rav, our dear Rav, our dear spiritual teacher. How to express in words and pass to you all the love we feel towards you. You are like a spiritual father that for many years gave your children and didn’t receive anything in return. You are like the connecting link that connects everyone together. If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t be. Please accept our gratitude in the form of a prayer in silence. Dear World Kli, let’s raise a prayer to the Creator for our Rav.

R. Thank you, I can feel your plea to my heart and I thank you with great gratitude as if we’ll all be together in one desire to the Creator; the One Creator.

29. S. (45:45) Throughout this convention you can feel more and more all of the flaws, all of the noises that I see in me, and it’s not clear to me how I can correct myself. Meaning that I see that this is constantly repeating itself and it’s being revealed more and more but I can’t correct myself and certainly not in loving someone, I can’t exit this state. How can we even do this?

R. Come closer to the others and everything will succeed for you.

Continuing Reading. (46:40) “This is what Hillel…”

30. S. (48:36) Under the same context, you said earlier that the law is that my attitude to the ten is my attitude toward the Creator?

R. Yes.

S. What’s in the ten that expresses this concept called Creator?

R. The annulment of ourselves, of our part. And that’s why we begin to feel the Creator.

S. How to translate things I see in the ten as things I see in the Creator? How to succeed in that to connect them?

R. It happens, simply as much as you can disconnect from the self toward the friends who help you disconnect from yourself, by that you will be aimed at the Creator.

S. It could be that I have a certain attitude toward the ten that I’m aware of. It could be an attitude of anger or joy of love but I have no attitude toward the Creator, He’s concealed there, how to connect between them?

R. We go from self-love through love of others to love of the Creator. These stages are ahead of us to the extent that we try to do each and every stage, it brings us to the following stage.

S. If I relate to the ten where it’s easy for me, I see them, they’re a defined matter. Is it right to say that from this attitude I’ll discover my attitude toward the Creator, it’s like a result?

R. Let’s say so.

S. I’m not talking about the ten but I’m talking about people in general. Is there no such result? Meaning that the ten is something more precise, it’s something where..?

R. Yes, somehow there’s a ten there, the concept of one, one that is made out of ten. Each one annuls himself in order to be included or incorporated in the collective.

31. S. (52:03) I feel myself completely, I’m trying to feel the friend and I feel like it’s a particle, is that also love?

R. Partial, partially.

32. S. (52:25) About the feeling of others, can we do an exercise like in the gym? When I think of one friend with me and I think about him all the time then I add another friend and then like that I can collect the whole ten?

R. Maybe it’s possible.

S. Is it worthwhile to do this exercise?

R. In the gym, I don’t know.

S. Also, in the gym when I exercise I think about the friend in that process.

R. Okay, give it a try.

33. S. (53:00) What connects between the thought, between the intellect and feeling?

R. Thought and the feeling, they are simply two levels. The thought is intellectual and the feeling is animalist, beastly, bodily.

S. Do they need to connect? Do they need to become one?

R. They have to cause one another.

S. What connects between them and what minds them? I tell you sometimes, I hear you saying you need to understand that this and this and this, and sometimes I hear you say that you need to feel?

R. That’s two different systems. Understanding and feeling.

S. Does a person have to understand? I am certain that each of us reads what is written and will agree that we understand. The feeling feels like something completely differentiated from the understanding?

R. To feel is already through actions. With understanding you can understand immediately.

S. What actions?

R. The actions when you make several actions in your desires, you act and from them you feel what is happening.

S. Feeling is a flexible, developing thing?

R. Of course.

S. What develops it? Those actions we do?

R. The actions.

34. S. (55:07) The last sentence that with the Creator he can be mistaken and with a friend it’s always spread before him. How do I appreciate the measure of the feeling of the friends that are in me with my eyes?

R. Whatever you see, that’s how you appreciate it.

S. I don’t see the feelings.

R. These visual characters, they beget a feeling in you. Yes, what you see is the meaning of all these characters’ images.

S. I don’t quite understand. I feel a friend, I have a certain image visually and then I appreciate it somehow?

R. You see in this image and this begets in you various feelings.

S. I appreciate those feelings?

R. With your inner eyes, yes.

S. What are my inner eyes?

R. These are your sensations.

35. S. (56:44) There’s a problem.

R. Problem?

S. We went to Mount Meron and our friend fell down, she fainted, she broke her foot.

R. When were you there?

S. We just came back.

R. Who sent you there? Who went with you?

S. That’s how she fell and she broke her foot in two places.

R. You went without a guide?

S. There were ten people and two cars.

R. That means nothing, the car is not a guide.

S. Rabbi Shimon.

R. That also means nothing.

S. How to justify the good, loving Creator that breaks the legs of my friend?

R. I don’t know. I also don’t know why did you go there and at night?

S. Because there was a traffic jam on the way there and then we went to the hospital.

R. I asked if they sent you?

S. We went with a friend.

R. Oh!

S. And she broke her leg. We will think about her and pray?

R. That’s not customary. You can sit down. Next time jumping and driving can be over a mountain.

36. S. (58:53) I have a question about the heart and the feelings we talked about. During this convention, it’s my first convention, I felt that my heart is opening up and I’m feeling new feelings. I feel the friends that are asking questions. I feel some combination of sensations and there’s a certain yearning, how to sustain this? I’m really worried that when I go home and intermingle with the routines these feelings will disappear and I won’t be able to incorporate in the friends in this way in the world Kli and somehow bestow in my heart for our common advancement. How to keep that?

R. You must stay in touch. That’s why today we have the internet, the phone and development. We hear, we see, we write to one another and we participate in lessons and congresses. Where are you from?

S. I am from Odessa but I live in Barcelona. We have three Russian speaking friends and we have the Spanish Kli that I got to know here and we’ll be connected.

R. Excellent. We’ll also be in touch.

37. S. (01:01:07) Baal HaSulam writes that all that is outside one’s body is as one whether it’s to bestow to his friend or to bring contentment to his Creator. It’s something that seems to be understood to us what Baal HaSulam writes but how can I come to that feeling? What actions do I need to do to come to that feeling that if I perform an action toward a friend is the same as if I brought contentment to the Creator?

R. Prayer, prayer in the form of a request, that you want what you feel for the friend to pass to the Creator.

S. It was a very special convention until now there’s like a bomb of love that happened this last week and it’s still reverberating. It’s something that hasn’t been felt like this until now. There was a convention and that was it, a new degree and now there’s this fluctuation, this echoing, what happened?

R. You got an opportunity for connection, for a very special connection, a very high and exalted connection and how do you realize it? That’s up to you.

S. Is the implementation now or was it already?

R. It’s now, and in the future.

S. What’s expected of us?

R. Connection for the distance not to cool the relationships off, that you will care for one another and that you’ll be able to keep all the laws of connection.

38. S. (01:03:18) He says about the work with the Creator, you can see oneself but with the friends it’s always spread out and we work on Lishma but not from fear. Then he says you have to start with fear and it’s not clear to me because they say that the highest fear is that He is the Lord, Master. How does it start with the friends that have to do with fear, I don’t jump right away to love?

R. So you are of this spiritual fear. I am in connection with the friends in direction to the Creator and so on and so forth.

S. Do I have degrees that I qualify in them in order to reach love?

R. Yes.

S. What am I fearful for, for my Kli, for our connection?

R. Yes.

S. How does that lead me to Him being the Lord and Master?

R. Also, when you wish to see the Creator as the One who is aiming all of your states in the direction of the complete connection.

S. Connection, we are talking about a Kli that will be whole?

R. Also with the Creator.

S. What is the Kli that I have to be concerned with, first with the friends and then it can be a Kli for the Creator?

R. With the friends, when you are, ‘as one man in one heart.’

S. Before I enter love of friends I have to be concerned with this connected Kli that you talked about?

R. Yes.

39. S. (01:05:25) We are asking from the Creator to let us feel the friends as one but He doesn’t give this, why, because if He were to give it, what would happen?

R. You would feel all of humanity or at least your group as one place, one connection.

S. Excellent. Why doesn’t He give it?

R. Ask.

S. I’m asking but I understand but I’m not capable. What would happen?

R. Ask from your friends.

S. I need to ask the Creator to connect, no?

R. Ask the friends who will also ask from the Creator.

S. For them to ask for me?

R. Not only you, for everyone, for the whole ten.

S. Is there something in us that doesn’t enable the Creator to give it to us yet? Why, what prevents it?

R. Yes, you’re not connected.

S. But He needs to connect us. What can we do?

R. That He will connect you according to your deficiency, your lack.

S. The deficiency is not enough?

R. Of course. You have had the same question for the past few months perhaps.

40. S. (01:07:24) I think we all felt this bomb of love that the friend was talking about but in a couple of days we’re going back to a virtual environment until the Turkey Congress. How can we continue this feeling of being in this sea of love, virtually, it’s much harder virtually, it seems to me?

R. Try to be in all the lessons and also direct me to your demands and we will work together and there will be no cessation between now and the Turkey Congress.

S. I’m in all the lessons and all the meetings.

R. Get in touch with the organizers here and stay in contact with them. Maybe you will ask for a change and you’ll be in touch with all the organizations and management.

S. From all the ladies of the UK, we love you very much and we send you all our love.

R. Thank you.

41. S. (01:09:47) Does the degree of connection between us determine the degree of which we feel the Creator?

R. Of course, of course the degree of connection between us determines all the spiritual degrees that we have to come to until the end of the correction.

42. S. (01:10:22) What is it like to feel a new degree?

R. What does it mean to feel a new degree? It’s to feel a new realm, the connection between people, you feel all the parts of creation that’s newer and stronger.

43. S. (01:11:01) First, I want to thank you from the depths of our heart for this great connection. It was my first convention and to say that still we could not feel the others but with that this convention I could feel the feeling of bestowal of the friends, each cared for the other in a way that you could truly be delighted with the joy of each friend and this joy, I felt just like what the friends felt, I felt the joy the friends, so what’s the meaning of all this, of feeling the joy that the friends felt?

R. Because the vessel is much wider and much more complex, that’s why we can feel compared to what each individual feels in a much more powerful way, more intensely.

44. S. (01:12:44) You said to a friend that he cannot come out of his state, you should take your power into your hands and start working. What is the foundation of this force?

R. The power of connection as much as you can connect with others from this subtotal of this force you should work with it.

45. S. (01:13:30) You said that to feel the other like yourself, what is the yearning of the friend?

R. The yearning of the friend is the yearning of the connection where they will discover the Creator. It exists in everyone whether it’s concealed or half concealed. Sometimes it’s revealed even in a minimal way, otherwise he wouldn’t find himself between us.

46. S. (01:14:24) If I’m trying to feel the heart of my friend and I sense or I feel more of an attitude in my friend and I can’t sense the heart of my friend, what does this mean? Does this mean that my heart is a stony heart? How should I understand this?

R. Yes, whichever way you can undress your heart and bring it closer to the friends and glue it to the friends, then you can feel the truth.

47. S. (01:15:18) I get the importance of the goal from the Creator or from the friends?

R. From the Creator through the friends.

48. S. (01:15:35) What does it mean to feel the others as myself? I heard we need to depict to ourselves how the friend feels. The fulfillment of that commandment is quite elementary because, meaning I feel that the friend undergoes similar states to what I do and afterwards I understand a friend is different than me and responds differently out of his own root. The question is how do I not get confused, how do I not err, how do I make that replacement to not look at the friend in how I feel, is that the correct direction?

R. You can. That’s why first you need to love the friend, when you love and want to feel what he feels and not yourself in him, then you will have the correct combination between you, a mutual compensation between you.

S. A long time ago the expression what’s written that they teach children, women and common people. I heard once from you that it’s not about ages or genders, it’s about my desires. Can I look at it from that perspective?

R. Yes, you can. It doesn’t mean women or children or men or old people, we’re only speaking of degrees of development.

49. S. (01:18:00) If I heard correctly, it’s speaking about that in which we first come to bestow and then to love? How do we bestow firstly if there’s still no love?

R. As much as you can.

S. It’s unclear what we bestow?

R. A good attitude, a good relation, a smile. That still is not love and not even a friendly relation, but still it’s something.

50. S. (01:19:16) I wanted to scrutinize the matter of the heart understands, that I make the heart go in the direction of bestowal that’s good and this acting mind that Baal HaSulam writes about, can we open that concept? If that’s clear?

R. It’s not clear.

S. How to understand that I make my heart go in the direction of bestowal is good so then I also act according to that acting mind, that’s according to the truth that Baal HaSulam writes? Can you open that and how this intellect also gets along with the emotion?

R. That I can work out of my feelings and can work out of my mind and it’s desired that they work together, that’s it.

S. How do we get along with this work because it’s artificial work?

R. It doesn’t matter, that’s how we’re built, that the habit becomes a second nature.

S. From the nature comes the habit?

R. Until you get up and get it someone else will.

51. S. (01:20:50) You said that the entrance to the Arvut, the feeling of the other is a gradual process within the friends in the ten. How does a friend feel? How does a friend help another friend enter this feeling according to each shall help his friend?

R. I did not understand you.

S. I heard in the lesson that the process of entering this love of the Creator is through a gradual process of helping their friend, so how can a friend help the friends reach that feeling of the others?

R. First of all examples. Let’s say you have a ten and your ten has a few people that really yearn for connection, so try somehow to come close to one another. Try somehow to adhere to one another, be close to them, along with them you start with all kinds of corporeal actions then it’s in qualities and so on.

S. Does this desire that each shall help his friend turn into being harmful to the one who feels that he’s coercing himself, that he brings harm to others?

R. I don’t know that depends on you there’s a lot of states here. I’m not getting into all these scrutinies.

52. S. (01:23:00) I have a desire to connect with a friend and each and every friend they’ve such a deficiency. When we connect in that mutual deficiency to bestow, do we find the Creator or through that point do we connect with Him?

R. Connect with Him.

S. Is it an intention?

R. It’s an intention and an action. Let’s say that we finish this part. I think to continue in it we will just be chewing what we already did.