Rabash, “Concerning the Importance of Friends”: Concerning the importance of the friends in the society and how to appreciate them, meaning with which kind of importance everyone should regard his friend. Common sense dictates that if one regards one’s friend as being at a lower degree than one’s own, he will want to teach him how to behave more virtuously than the qualities he has. Hence, he cannot be his friend; he can take the friend as a student, but not as a friend.
And if one sees one’s friend as being at a higher degree than his own, and sees that he can acquire good qualities from him, then he can be his Rav, but not his friend.
This means that precisely when one sees one’s friend as being at an equal degree to one’s own, one can accept the other as a friend and bond with him. This is so because “a friend” means that both parties are in the same state. This is what common sense dictates. In other words, they have the same views and thus decide to bond. Then, both of them act towards the goal that they both wish to achieve.
It is like two like-minded friends who are doing business together to achieve a profit. In that situation, they feel that they have equal powers. But should one of them feel that he is more competent than the other, he will not want to accept him as an equal partner. Instead, they would create a proportional partnership according to the strength and qualities that one has above the other. In that state, the partnership is a thirty-three or twenty-five percent partnership, and it cannot be said that they are equal in the business.
It is impossible to feel equal to your friend because you are constantly in states of ascents and descents. There are no equal states in nature, yet there should be a desire for equality.
By wanting to be equal to his friend, a person forces efforts to rise higher, descend lower, and thus, gradually achieve the state where they unite in a complete mutual connection, fulfillment, reception, in a state of mutual communication. The sum of both states leads to the right connection.
We are talking about the communication of different qualities that must be both fulfilling and receiving from each other, like a system in a connected state.
Such communication between all parts of the broken soul naturally requires that one be higher in something than the other and in something lower than the other, and so on. We can never be equal because we are all different! Therefore, there can be no comparison between us except in our efforts to achieve the common goal.
If I connect with the others in order to achieve adhesion with the Creator, which is our common goal, then we find ourselves to be absolutely equal inside Him. Here, no one is big or small, it is irrelevant what qualities each of us happens to be in. The main thing is that we are all driven toward the same goal. Thus, in this goal, we achieve the middle line.
That is why it does not exist. Only when we reach the Creator can we obtain the middle line in Him and the equal connection between us.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 5/9/18
Related Material:
Equality Is A Gift From Above
What Is Equality?
Connecting With Friends Is Connecting With The Goal
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Question: How should I treat a friend who annoys me because he is constantly late for class and sleeps during the lesson? How can I justify him? Can you give any advice?
