Question: Besides my ten, whom should I consider close in order to love as myself? It is very difficult to understand how to relate to the people closest to us in the physical world, the members of our family.

Answer: We must perceive all our relatives and in general all the people we sense in the world as parts of our desire, and respond correctly by accepting them as part of ourselves.

The world is my reflection. If I see something flawed in it, it only indicates that I am not corrected. If I were corrected, I would see the world as absolutely kind and good, in complete bestowal and love. And if I see it otherwise, it is because everyone who judges does so from his own uncorrected state, from his egoism. This is the first.

Second. I must treat my relatives as one should treat family in this world: husband, wife, children, parents, and so on. That which I am obliged to do for them in this world, I have to do.

This is very difficult, especially when they start demanding precisely because I am studying Kabbalah. Then I limit them, saying, “This is what I can do, but no more.” After all, the soul—our eternal component—is something I cannot compromise, even though my parents, who have done everything for me, are very dear to me.

But if I do what is necessary for my soul, I will be doing the very best for them. The very best! If they knew how great the work I do for my soul is, they would definitely support me.

But since they do not know, do not see, and do not understand, they do not support me. So what can I do? The Creator created everything in such a way that I still have to give them what I can on the corporeal level, but I alone am responsible for my soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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