Our path goes from hatred to love. After all, we are created beings, which means that we are first of all opposite to the Creator; therefore, we are made up of egoism; otherwise we would be unable to exist. If we had no evil egoistic desire, we would not be created beings. A created being is the one who has an evil inclination. Those who have no egoism are not considered to be created beings, and therefore, inanimate matter, plants, and animals do not belong to the true creation since they are not opposite to the Creator. They have no freedom of choice, feelings of hatred, and rejection; they just instinctively follow the laws of nature.

The hatred in a person comes from his oppositeness to the Creator, to the force of bestowal, love, and connection. Therefore, all egoistic qualities, feelings, thoughts, and desires that awaken in a person are initially given so that he can exist opposite to the Creator.

Evil is only what is opposite to the Creator. All our qualities are divided into those that are similar to the Creator or opposite to Him. Everything that goes against bestowal, love, and connection is evil. On the other hand, it is a great joy to discover the qualities opposite to the Creator because they give us the right to exist as created beings and to be human, not animal.

Animals have no evil inclination. Although they kill and devour each other, they do so only in order to survive. Animals do not want to hurt each other; only humans do. Whenever evil desires awaken in me toward others, I must understand that these are just human qualities, that is, a human being is awakening in me even if shattered, uncorrected, and wicked. Without this, I cannot separate myself from the Creator.

Therefore, we must be happy about all the evil that is revealed, about all the sinners. After all, it is impossible to correct a sin that has not been revealed. The correction of egoism turns into spiritual actions and sublime spiritual attainments. Therefore, our path is from hatred to love. It is impossible to love if previously you did not go through all the stages of hatred. An indifferent person feels neither hatred nor love because a person’s work is to turn hatred into love.

The higher a person rises, the more hatred, the left line, is revealed in him, and the harder he must work to bring himself to love, to the right line. This is how we always exist between hatred and love. When the rejection from the group is revealed again and again, we need to understand that this is a transition to a new degree, which always begins with shattering. This is the only way to move up the degrees of connection and love.¹

The created being always starts with the left line, with the revelation of evil, hatred, and breaking initially prepared by the Creator. He created a perfect system and then broke it. Therefore, instead of perfection, hatred and rejection being revealed to us, and by supposedly correcting what the Creator created, we grow and become smarter. We always keep both lines and move in the middle line, between hatred and love.

The source of love and hatred is in the Creator. Love is the quality of the Creator that comes out of Him directly, and hatred is the opposite quality that comes out of Him as existence from absence. These two bases, the right and left lines, existence from existence and existence from absence, love and hatred, both come from the Creator. That is the way to relate to them.

I should not attribute either hatred or love to myself because I receive them from above. I must always associate myself with the middle line, balancing hatred and love so that they would act as one. They cannot exist without each other. I, as a created being, cannot exist in a single thought, in a single desire, but always in the combination of opposites, between both of them.

You must see a simple system in front of you: the group and the Creator within it. If we reach the first point of connection between the friends, then the Creator is revealed within this connection as its consequence. If we achieve a more powerful connection, the Creator will be revealed even more, and so on. Each time, by revealing the next degree of connection, we reveal new qualities of the Creator through their opposite. I discover hatred and rejection in myself, and by overcoming them, I achieve connection, revealing the qualities of the Creator. In such a way, I begin talking to Him.

At every second, my thoughts, desires, and attitude toward others change, and I thus feel how the Creator treats me and what He wants to say to me. By the fact that I want to bring all relationships to connection and love, I respond to the Creator and talk to Him. This is how our dialogue with the Creator, our connection with Him begins; everything is through the ten, the group, and the connection with the friends.

Therefore, the Creator is within a society, within a group, or within the whole of humanity, depending on the level of connection I have reached with Him. This is how I become increasingly closer to adhesion with the Creator.²

The Creator created nothing but love and hatred. What, then, is the middle line? If there is no feeling of love or hatred, then a person is as if dead, there is no created being.

The middle line is the measure of adhesion of the created being with the Creator. Neither love nor hatred is me. I build myself when I understand that there are two forces and I prefer one over the other because I value the qualities of the Creator more than the qualities of the created being. By connecting two lines together, I build myself out of them both.

This is why I must take care of the balance of the two opposites, not trying to erase or belittle either hatred or love but using them in a balanced way. I attribute both forces to the Creator and I am equally grateful to Him for both of them. I include both qualities and therefore feel that I am independent of them, but I can build a point of connection with the Creator in the middle line, between hatred and love.

After all, both of them come from the Creator. And what comes from me is the ability to connect these two feelings together and attribute them to the Creator. The middle line is built from this. It does not exist initially, it is us, human beings, who build it by our attitude toward the Creator.

We receive two forces from the Creator: the good and the evil force. The evil force separates us from the Creator, and the good force lets us connect together. With this attitude toward creation, we feel that there is a special place called the middle line, and thus we connect with the entire reality.

The middle line is the person, Israel (Yashar-Kel), which means “straight to the Creator,” because it aims me like an arrow directly to the Creator.

The right and left lines are only feelings, sensations, conditions, and laws according to which I arrange myself in equivalence of form with the Creator. However, our meeting with the Creator takes place in the middle line, where there is no hatred and love. Instead, there is a third component that is above both of them, and it is called “adhesion.”

Love is built only above hatred and is inseparable from it. However, adhesion, the middle line, exists on its own, independent of hatred and love.³
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, Love Your Friend As Yourself – From Hatred To Love
¹ Minute 0:25
² Minute 11:50
³ Minute 43:44

Related Material:
Pesach: From Hatred To Love
From Hatred To Love
Is Love Without Hatred Possible?

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