Loving The Tough Father

Dr. Michael LaitmanSuppose I hurt someone. Can he love me in return instead of feeling resentment and hate towards me? For what? Maybe I am bigger and smarter. Or maybe he loves me since by the blows I want to bring him to the good, to something special and sublime?

For example, I pressure my little son to study so that he will grow smarter and become a “great man.” He may not like that now since he may want to play, but I oblige him to study.

In response he doesn’t love me, but hates me. However, later as a result of my blows he grows smarter and thanks to the study develops internally. I force him to develop, and with time he understands that I do it for his own good. Yes, I pressure him and force him to follow the hard way, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t love him, as he previously thought. No, I do it this way because I want what is best for him and I suffer even more than he does because of my toughness, but I simply have no other choice.

So, the Creator has no other choice either: This is the only way He can create the created being. Only then, as he develops, he will turn to the Creator not because of the blows or the pleasures that come from Him, but in a different purposeful manner, understanding that the Creator awakens him to exert and to ascend, to reach eternal, perfect life, to come to eternal understanding, and to reach a new, special level.

When he reaches that he already has two types of nature:

  1. The feelings of pleasure and suffering that come from the Creator.
  2. And above them, a new love that he feels for the Creator, instead of the hate he felt before.

This is how the created being becomes independent of his initial nature and receives a second nature.

In this world I sometimes also want people to love me, not because I am nice and good, but that they will love me just as I am, even if I treat them badly. I want you to love me and to appreciate me, although I treat you toughly and I cause you pain. I want to you to love me not because of how I treat you and others, but because of who I am.

It’s somewhat like the game that the Creator plays with us when He establishes direct relations with us and at the same time allows us to focus on another “direct line.” It’s like the relationship we see between parents and children, when the parents love the children although they cause them great troubles and worries. It says: “Love will cover all the sins.”

Thus we can understand the game that the Creator plays with us. All our work involves transcending the body that feels only pleasure or pain, establishing the right attitude towards our Teacher, who teaches us to transcend our “animal,” and appreciating His essence: Why does He do that and for whom? He does it only for our sake.

It says that He suffers more than we do since He has to conceal Himself and to put our “animal” part through different sufferings. He does that so that we will transcend this level and become human beings, sublime, eminent, mature, and developed. He wants us to appreciate His attitude according to its essence and not according to how He evokes us to transcend the “animal,” ignoring the pleasures and the sufferings that He intentionally sends us, and see everything with regards to the goal.

In Kabbalistic terms it means that we perform a restriction (Tzimtzum) on the “animal” feeling of pleasure or pain and aim only at the goal, that is, we perform Zivug de Hakaa (coupling by striking) above all the corporeal pleasures in order to be only in mutual bestowal with the Creator, regardless of all my “animal” pleasures and sufferings. This is already a different, higher level, in which I establish my connection with the Creator according to how much we both think about this connection, about the unique goal, about the special state.

Coming back to the example of the father and son: When the son already understands why the father treats him toughly and forces him to study, he transcends the sufferings and rises to a new level of relationship with his father, as they both worry about his success. Thanks to this they are in unity, in adhesion, and in a common intention; they are connected and understand one another. This is already a spiritual level, the unity of spirit, despite the pain and the limitations that the son has experienced by his father on the corporeal level.

These two levels are essential since otherwise the father and son will not be able to establish a real, personal, inner connection between them. Without the spiritual connection they will be connected only by what they receive from one another, which is on the “animal level,” where the created being is undoubtedly operated by the Creator and remains dependent forever. This example clearly explains the basis of our connection with the Creator.
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From a Talk On Preparation for the Congress in New Jersey, 5/10/2013

Related Material:
Roadmap To The Creator
Unnecessary Sufferings
The Creator’s Game

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