Love of Friends in Bnei Baruch

Love of Friends in Bnei BaruchA question I received: Looking at Bnei Baruch, it’s clear that you practice “love for thy neighbor.” However, you do so only inside your group, and not toward the whole world. Why? Isn’t that similar to a cult?

My Answer: The Kabbalists of the past, our great teachers, provide us with strict and detailed instructions on how to arrange our studies, our life, and our attitude to ourselves, our friends, society, and the world. Naturally, we study and need only their advice, because besides them, no one else understands the Creator, the world in which we live, and the path that we are to walk.

And about the accusations that we’re a cult: some people benefit from it, and are thus ready to tar our reputation in any way possible. These are especially people who feel like they’re losing their stable grounding, because they’ve discovered that regular religion is inadequate, but they are still unwilling to replace it with Kabbalah.

Today, people aren’t the simpletons they once were, and as such, the attitude displayed by our critics only shows their ignorance in understanding the Creator’s Plan, and their rejection of the Torah as the method to correct man’s egoism. Could you show me anyone, besides Bnei Baruch, who also explains the necessity of “loving thy neighbor as thyself” as the main principle of the Torah? What other society have you seen that educates people according to this principle?

As for displaying an attitude of love only for our friends – we have the same attitude to anyone who’s moving toward the same goal; this is what makes a person our friend. And as much as every person will want to move toward the same goal, then anyone who wants to will be included in this principle and in our attitude of love!

Baal HaSulam. Igeret (Letter) 49 (1927). Pri Chacham: Igrot (Fruit of Wisdom: Letters).

I am giving you assignments, obligating you to carry out all my instructions in the observance of Torah and Mitzvot [1] properly and with dedication. I direct you to dedicate all your strength to loving others as yourself, to suffer when your friend suffers, and to feel happy when your friend is happy.

As for the love between you, I am talking precisely about the love between friends in our Kabbalistic group, since it is written, “to love thy neighbor.”

[1] Baal HaSulam considers love for one’s friend, for the sake of attaining love for the Creator – to be the main precept in the observance of Torah and Mitzvot.

2 Comments

  1. Sir,I shall try my best to be friends to all as myself. Today we all are Billion Islands and at least we can try to make bridges to these Islands to meet, greet as friends wish each other well and share happiness and if possible listen to their grief.

    I look forward to many friends and specially Kabbalist.

    Thanks

    All Luck

  2. actually the mayans organized their society according to this principle
    funnily enough called

    in la’kech

    also meaning ‘i am another yourself’, it was their greeting

    c:

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