Question: How did Kabbalists of the past keep up the importance of the goal
and support each other?

Answer: Just as we are doing today. I need the support of the group because otherwise I cannot attain desire for spirituality. I advance only with the desire I receive from my environment, from society. Therefore, I need a suitable environment.

I must pressure them, flatter them, love them, literally dust them off, all in order to obtain from them—in a positive or a negative way—the enthusiasm and importance of the goal.

It is with this enthusiasm that I can turn to the Creator. Therefore, I need an environment that is on the same level with me as a source of desire with which I turn to the Creator. And from there, I receive the force that corrects and elevates me.

Question: But there were times when Kabbalists laughed at each other and at themselves, for example, stuffing crumbs into their beards. What for?

Answer: They laughed at themselves. This was all special self-irony about the state they were in. Yes, that happened.

In general, humor, satire, and self-mockery are inherent in the nature of the Jewish people. Actually, all the jokes about themselves they create themselves. This is a necessary condition for self-control and analysis, which helps them move forward.

Question: You say that the group as if intentionally pressures a person, creates numerous obstacles for them. Yet at the same time, it gives him the importance of the goal. Why is such a path necessary? Why get on each other’s nerves?

Answer: The thing is that we initially consist of two parts. I consist of one part that is egoistic and wants to use everything for itself, and the second part, the point in the heart that desires to aspire toward altruism, bestowal, adhesion with the Creator, that is, toward equivalence with the properties of the absolute in bestowal and love.

In accordance with these two parts, I perceive the surrounding world in a dual manner. Therefore, I always experience this imbalance, difference, dipole, both plus and minus within me. Moreover, I see plus and minus in everything around me: there is no good without evil and vice versa.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Support in the Group” 6/13/10

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