We must yearn to actually see the friend as the greatest in our generation, to actually feel it “within reason” as if it were the truth and not as it seems to a person’s desire to receive. The desire to receive always wants to feel good and comfortable and so it instinctively diminishes everything around it so as to be “on top.” The most important thing for it is to rule.

So accepting the thought about the need to connect with the friends as a means for reaching connection with the Creator is only possible in “faith above reason” since we certainly don’t see things as they really are. It’s only according to this minor external condition—that a person yearns for the same goal and is ready to accept all the necessary conditions to advance towards it—that we begin to relate to the other as a friend as a means of connecting to the Creator.

According to these external signs, we decide to start working on our attitude towards that person. If he is ready to work together we dismiss all the other demands of our ego and we get closer to that person and connect with him in order to actually discover the connection between us, not only in “faith above reason.”

To the extent that we actually communicate, we approach the building of the spiritual vessel in which the Creator is revealed. The connection can be “‘above reason” when I don’t see that the friend is “worth it,” but I still connect to him. I use it as a means, which is called the time of preparation when I respect the friends not because I see that they are great. According to my senses I feel that I am greater than them, but I work above my senses and don’t agree with them and imagine that the friends are greater.

In order to transcend from a state of “faith above reason” to the state of “within reason,” which means to truly respect the friends, I have to correct the vessels, my perception. The correction of the vessels is when we begin to work on the connection between us, despite the fact that we know the opposite. We establish a society in which everyone impresses the others with the feeling of the greatness of the group and the goal.

By working together, we draw the Light that Reforms, and eventually we move from “faith above reason to “within reason,” and thus we continue to rise. The next levels are more difficult, of course. First the friends seemed quite average, having some good sides and some bad sides. When I had to work “above reason,” I could easily do it and accept them as equal, as partners along the spiritual path and even as the greatest in our generation. Their goal seemed important, and they seemed great.

But then came the hardening of the heart and I began to see different flaws in them, it became difficult to accept them as great and to see the Creator behind them, to warm myself by the fact that I don’t pay attention to anyone except the friends who become the most precious of all for me. Thus, each time becomes more difficult until I manage to overcome these interruptions and fill my measure.

Then all my efforts of working “above reason” turn to “within reason” and become the right vessel in which the first revelation of the attribute of bestowal takes place, which means that a person is filled with the feeling of the Creator inside him. Thus “faith above reason” is a gradual process, as we ascend from one level to the next, but when we build our vessel we have to yearn to have it within reason as much as we can.
[109091]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 06/03/13, Writings of Rabash

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