Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 186

What Is the Root of Hatred?

The root of hatred is the breaking of the screen; there is no unity, each one feels only their own will to receive, and we feel alienation toward a will to receive that is different from our own. There are many degrees. We love ourselves and care only about ourselves because our nature compels us to do so. As RABASH writes in an article: a wolf that devours a deer does not do harm to the deer; the wolf’s nature demands that it fill itself, and the Creator created it so that the deer is its fulfillment. The wolf eating the deer is a correction for both the wolf and the deer. To us it seems terrible, but it is not. It is nature.

He also continues and writes that there are animals that harm other animals, not because they need to, but out of an ancient habit that was necessary for survival in the past and now is no longer necessary. Therefore, even though the need for its actions is not understood, the ancient habit seems to exempt it from punishment because it is not to blame for having become accustomed in this way, since nature accustomed it to act in such a way. Here we are speaking only about the animal degree, the degree of the still, vegetative, and animate. Therefore, these degrees have neither good deeds nor transgressions, and they are not judged as good or evil according to their behavior. They only have nature.

Human beings are required to deal with their relationships. The question of what we need for survival and for the fulfillment of our basic needs is not asked. Usually the state ensures that each person has a secure piece of ground under their feet. The more corrected the society is, the more it cares for its members. Our self-examination begins at the degree above survival.

Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation” that at the end of correction, in the last generation, there will be a universal religion for all the nations. What will that religion be? It will be to not receive more than the least unsuccessful person receives from society. He calls this “religion.” The rest of the nations, he says, can maintain their religions, customs, and traditions, and will not interfere. This indicates Baal HaSulam’s attitude toward the entire animal degree. In other words, I make an account of what is necessary for me according to the last unsuccessful person, the one who truly receives less than everyone else. If I receive more than that person, then I receive luxuries. This is what Baal HaSulam says. This is the ideal, the religion of the last generation.

However, necessity has many degrees. There is a degree in which we relate only to ourselves and our needs, and there is a degree in which we already begin to take others into account.

What does it mean “to take others into account”? We have animal desires that animals also have: food, sex, shelter, family, which are all necessities. “Necessary” is what we do only for the needs of our body. When we already begin to look at what others have, it means we no longer consider only what our body needs, but we think about how we will appear in the eyes of others. Suddenly we need a five-story house, which means that we begin to calculate our needs, not according to our body, but according to the eyes of others.

RABASH recounts that in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20^th century his family had one room. In the corner of the room there were mattresses, and at night each person would spread out a mattress and sleep on it. The wealthy parents of his daughter-in-law had two rooms. The entire family lived in one room, and they rented out the second room. This was normal and this was how everyone lived. Today, necessity is that each person has their own room, their own private corner.

When we begin to take society into account and to measure what they should receive from it according to what we see around us, this also affects essential needs such as food and a house. We choose our food and our house according to the variety offered in the supermarket and according to the houses that others build. These all turn from a basic bodily need into a need to have what our neighbors have. This is no longer a necessity but a relationship to the environment. When these needs are compared with what society consumes, they already receive another character and are no longer called necessities but luxuries belonging to human desires: money, honor, and knowledge. These are desires influenced by society, even though they are seemingly connected to the body. In fact, the body does not need them.

In human desires, desires that relate only to society, there is a thought about what we want to contribute to society, opposite to the thought about what we want to receive. However, we want to receive: do we want others not to have what we have, or that they will have it, and perhaps together we can make it good for everyone? In human desires, there is an entire spectrum of shades, from a good attitude toward others to hatred of others.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 185
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 184
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 183

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