Question: Everyone recognizes and respects the principle of love for the neighbor as yourself. But in the new era, how can we turn people to love instead of hatred and separation?

Answer: To do this we gradually transition from the egoistic intention to the altruistic one. Every person wants to be loved the way he is. In other words, love is above all calculations. Someone appears handsome to me and someone else appears ugly. Someone appears good in my eyes and someone bad. Yet, if I love someone, then I love them as I would my own child, no matter what he is like.

It’s just that we love our children naturally, whereas here we need love that towers above our nature. It is written, “Every person denies others according to his own defect.” If you see a defect in someone, it means that defect is inside of you.

However, we are initially incapable of attaining unconditional love because by our nature we hate one another. I always look for flaws in others because this makes me feel better and higher than them, which is already pleasant by itself. When searching for self-gratification, I have to see flaws in others that put them beneath me at least in some regard. If someone appears higher than me and I cannot justify it, then I fall into depression.

So how can we attain love? First of all, “loving” means being imbued with the desires of the neighbor and being ready to fulfill them. Right now I am ready to use and exploit the neighbor, but I am told, “Use yourself in order to fulfill him.” Yet this is completely opposite to my nature. I can never climb up that wall.

That is why Hillel the sage made the challenge easier by putting it this way, “Don’t do to another what you yourself hate.” Be neutral, give up hate and love for the neighbor. By carrying out this condition, you will overcome the first half of the path.

You will thereby detach from your egoism, from the previous desires. You will give up the ill-intended plans and intentions. From now on you no longer want to harm your neighbor, either by mistake or deliberately. You don’t want to use him because it always harms him. And even though you still think that you can profiteer off your neighbor, you already begin to understand that you will end up a loser yourself. What’s good for him is good for you, and what’s bad for him is bad for you. You already see that both of you are connected together by a global network which is becoming revealed in the world today. That is why you have no other choice but not to harm one another, at the very least.

This is the first phase: You turn off your Malchut and raise it to Bina, to the small state, Katnut, Hafetz Hesed. And then you have to continue on the path to love.

All of these phases are actualized on the condition that you advance “from Lo Lishma to Lishma,” if in your egoism you nevertheless aspire to the altruistic goal. “It’s worthwhile for me to treat my neighbor well,” you reason. “After all, we are interconnected and there is no other choice….” And eventually, as you tread this path, you evoke the Light that reforms, which corrects your mind and feeling.

And then you understand, “I have to love others, but not because I will feel good and not because we are in one system, no matter how global and integral it may be.” That is not what matters. You are simply enchanted by the quality of bestowal in and of itself. You don’t know what makes it so good, but you feel that besides bestowal, you don’t want anything else. You do not fulfill yourself and do not anticipate pleasure. You bestow out of awe, reverence, greatness, out of recognizing bestowal as such in the pure form. Now it is everything to you.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/27/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: An incident occurred in Tel Aviv where a woman saw a homeless man and decided not just to give him money, but to help him for real. She found him a job and took care of him, and then he killed her….

Answer: She took away a life of freedom from the vagabond. He sat on the street to his heart’s content, not worrying about what time of day it is, whether it’s morning, afternoon, or night, and not thinking about what was and what will be. He was above time and space, above all worries.

People will always throw some coins into his purse or give him something to eat…. The homeless are a special breed – they do not want to depend on anyone or anything. This is a wonderful feeling: I don’t care about anything.

“Where do you live?”
“On earth.”
“Do you have to get somewhere or get something done in time?”
“I don’t even have a watch. I don’t care what time it is.”
“But maybe you owe something to someone? Or someone owes you something?”
“Nothing of the sort.”

And now take a look at yourself: You have a million things to get done at the office and thousands of circumstances. People are calling you, expecting things from you, and your family is also demanding its share…. You simply have no idea what it’s like to be homeless. “Without a home” means without boundaries. I wish you could experience this careless sensation at least once in your life.

This is not a weekend or a vacation when you are also burdened with cares as well. A homeless person has everything tidy, he has no cares in his head and no boundaries, as if he is already floating in the clouds of the world to come.

And now someone comes and brings him down to earth, closes him up within four walls and forces him to live by schedule: wake up, wash up, shave, brush your teeth ,get dressed…. What kind of life is that?

We don’t understand these people, yet they live in a sensation that raises them above matter.

Question: How can we help these people?

Answer: To help someone does not mean to indulge yourself like the way people in Israel are who are trying to house Bedouins in apartments. The Bedouins don’t want to live within four walls and end up setting up their tents again right across the newly built neighborhood. Even if you give them a ten room apartment, they still won’t want it since they have their own ideas about what a household is.

When helping someone, you have to follow their desire rather than yours.

Question: So we should’t help people living in these conditions?

Answer: No. A person has everything he needs and he does not need anything more. If he needed housing, he would arrange it. But he does not want it. For him, setting up “his own corner” is already a restriction. It puts pressure on him. He likes sleeping any place that turns up and not worrying about the next moment.

Compared to him, we do not understand what freedom is. We are slaves while he is a master.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/27/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
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The principle of love for the neighbor as for oneself is known to all, yet there is a lot of confusion surrounding it. Eveyrone agrees that they have to love one another, although some are wiling to exterminate a large part of humanity out of their love, thinking, “Those wretched people! Why should they suffer?” And it’s even more surprising how vaguely this principle is reflected in different religions.

As a result, we are cooled, and we are not worried about not loving our neighbor. Our upbringing and environment have completely neglected this question. Therefore, it is time to stop and think: Is it really that important? Maybe it’s enough to give moral teachings to children and to show elementary respect among adults? Or should love for the neighbor nevertheless be the goal of life at every moment for every person and everyone together? Should we live just in order to attain this quality as fast as possible?

This question we face is extremely important. If we are talking about the meaning of life, about the attainment of the goal for which we came into this world, then why do we neglect this principle so much? In essence, we are extremely far from understanding the fact that this principle is the universal law of the universe and of nature. All other laws which we know, and especially ones we do not know, rotate around this axis.

If we want to understand ourselves and the world we are in, then we have to attain the general law of creation. Without attaining love for the neighbor, we won’t be able to find out who we are and where we are. This is the key allowing us to see the whole picture correctly, to understand it, to feel it, to become included in it and to use it for total self-realization.

By acquiring love for the neighbor in practice, we attain the quality of the Creator. All other laws are just facets, partial expressions of this fundamental law of reality. It’s similar to how the law of gravity can be expressed in different ways, but as a whole, it always determines how one object is attracted to another.

There is a general phenomenon and there are particular cases of it. There is a law of universal bestowal, and for us it is first and foremost expressed as the social principle, “love your neighbor as yourself.” By realizing this principle in society, we carry out the universal law. It controls us, and if we want to arrange our lives well, we have to aspire to realizing it.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/27/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
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Question: How can a person check whether his request is clarified and correct?

Answer: If I can perform what I am asking for, it means that my request was correct. I discover deficiencies in me and ask for them to be corrected, and then I see that after some time (since it takes time in our world), I actually understand, want, aspire to, and can do it.

All the previous discernments now become much clearer. I suddenly agree with and desire all the actions and opportunities to get closer to others, which at first seemed totally unrealistic, undesirable, and repulsive to me.

I criticize people less and am able to get closer to them, understanding that spirituality can be felt only in the connection between us. I perceive the spiritual concepts more correctly and understand that we talking about the inner connection between us because this is where the spiritual world is revealed, while the concentration of the attributes of bestowal is the Creator.

I understand that spirituality is attained by practical deeds in this world, which was especially created in a way that enables us to perform certain actions even without any desire or intention for it. We can compel ourselves to do it, just as we can do many other things against our will: We go to work and fulfill different obligations in life.

This is impossible in the spiritual world because there is only pure desire there. In our world, however, the corporeal body clothes the desire, and hence the body can perform different actions even against its will. Thanks to this we can get closer to others in situations that contradict connection totally. This is the wonderful attribute of this world!

So in order to acquire the next, new level, we always have to fall into this world, which means to fall under the authority of our body. We aren’t talking about the physical body, but the desire detached from spirituality, which enables us to perform different actions even without a desire for it.

I begin every spiritual level by a physical action, with the egotistic desire, the intention for myself, and with an aspiration to profit and to receive reward. Having started this way, I can proceed to spiritual actions.

This happens in every level, until the end of correction. This is why this world must exist. Otherwise, we won’t be able to approach every new spiritual level independently.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The upper governance always arranges the present state for us and illuminates the next state a bit. If we overcome the present state, we can ask to be brought to the next state.

The next state doesn’t seem to be desirable because otherwise, we would strive for it out of our egoism, without having free will or being independent in any way. Therefore, the next state is always opposite to our egoism. It follows that I can always receive support from the environment, the books, and the teacher in order to ask to be raised to a state that doesn’t seem desirable, good, or attractive.

In other words, I mobilize all my energy and increase the importance of the higher degree. And if I really have a strong aspiration to it, sufficient to overcome the potential obstacle that separates me from the next state, then I attract the Light that Reforms, and it changes me. This is how I am born in the next degree and become its son.

Of course, “there is none else besides Him,” but He arranges the present state and the next one, opposite to it, as well as all the opportunities to reach the latter. I have to understand that these means are special, necessary, and thought through to the smallest detail.

Nothing is redundant in me or in the world around me, in every internal and external condition. Everything is arranged ideally so that I will mobilize my will power and rise to the next state. If I can’t do that, it means that I still lack the necessary attention to what is happening to me.

Therefore, we have to justify the Creator in advance for that bad, uncomfortable, and unpleasant state in which we discover ourselves. After all, it is a good sign and great help, which directs me and compels me to look for a way out of this situation.

The present unpleasant state helps me. However, as a person grows stronger and reaches higher levels, he begins to feel good in the state he has achieved. And yet, he must rise above it. He must do extra work in order to see the defects in his present situation, and this isn’t simple at all.

Now we are in a state when we feel bad. The future state seems quite dark as well, although it isn’t that dark because we can somehow imagine the next state as desirable and grow stronger thanks to the environment and the books.

We have been given everything in order to reach the demand to rise to the next level. A person must believe this from the beginning. After all, every moment in life we have everything: the present state, the next state, and the means to reach the next level from my current situation. There is only one thing that is always missing—our attention.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: This weekend our friends all over the world will go out to the streets to distribute materials to millions of people. How can we prepare for this internally?

Answer: First of all, we should understand that everything that is happening in the world is happening for us. We must see the Creator’s guiding hand in every action. He gives us a chance to perform corrections in the light of external activities of different organizations, the intentions of which aren’t always the purest.

One of the major principles of our development is “it swallowed abundance and spew it out.” We constantly get zero results, as if pressing the gas pedal to the floor while in neutral gear. The Sitra Achra (the other, impure side) seems to swallow all our work, preparing itself to control and to rule. Eventually, however, it spews out everything it has swallowed. Everything that has accumulated in it suddenly comes back to us.

This is because we don’t have the vessels to accumulate all our efforts, to “store” the results of our activity in the world. Millions of newspapers, lots of books, the Internet, television—everything seems to be going into a bottomless pit. But later we will get it back, according to the rule of “it swallowed abundance and spew it out.”

Even today different forces in the world, with greater and lesser degrees of purity, offer us an opportunity for dissemination. We don’t have to take them into account, but rather we continue our own way, without developing any relationships with them. We are only in contact with people who are pushed out of their homes by these forces. They take part in the demonstrations chanting slogans, and in the meantime we give out our materials in silence.

Our materials will do their work. This is because in every leaflet that we give people there is a connection with the Light. The Light will flow through the letters we printed and will do their job.

We can already see the results all over the world. Our friends are amazed by how quickly people connect to our message and are ready for more. Even professors come with their students to study this phenomenon that contradicts common knowledge.

So we only have to prepare lots of materials that convey our message and to talk less, especially outside Israel, where our forces are limited. Baal HaSulam says that it is even possible to hire people to advertise our message of unity, but the content must always be ours.

All our friends must go out to the streets tomorrow. It is this kind of work that can truly connect us. This is a great opportunity for all of us. No one should stay home. There are people who haven’t been coming to the group for years because they aren’t happy with it. But now is not the time for hard feelings.

If you really want to advance towards the goal, if your spiritual life is more important to you than your pride, step on your pride and come. Start connecting with others for this cause. Take a pile of flyers and give them out. Even if you go home afterwards without speaking with any of your friends, the external action will have its effect. After all, without connection you won’t reach the goal.

So, we go out to the streets in order to distribute our materials to the masses. Less talk, more circulation of flyers. Now is not the time to talk to people. It’s enough for them to receive leaflets with our Internet address. It is a rare opportunity for us, and we shouldn’t miss it.

Everything will change in the future. We have to find the ways to disseminate our message on the Internet as widely as possible. One way or another, everyone uses the Internet today. Moreover, people gladly leave us their e-mail addresses and even telephone numbers and are ready for further communication. Hence, in the future, the emphasis will shift to virtual space and communication.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/2011, “One Commandment”

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Writings of Rabash “Concerning Love of Friends”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts),” “Six Degrees of the Sitra Achra,” Item 429, Lesson 18
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 8, “The Eser Sefirot of Olam ha Atzilut,” Item 6, Lesson 4
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings,” “That Which You Hate, Do Not Do to Your Friend,” Lesson 2
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Question: Recently I took part in a conference which among other things discussed the alternative to the current system of graded matriculation exams. The previous methods are outdated, but still, don’t students have to be evaluated somehow?

Answer: Let’s get right down to the essence of the problem. The only thing we want from a person is for him to be able to correct his soul. This is why people are born and why they live, and if they don’t achieve this, they continue in the next life cycle. Therefore, a child’s recommendations or record should be written only from this standpoint.

What’s really important is not what grades a child receives in physics, chemistry, history, biology, and other subjects. Maybe he’s not very quick on the uptake in these subjects, or maybe he has the qualities needed to be a circus performer. Some people are drawn to music but aren’t very good at math.

Yet we put children into a classroom and stuff them all with the same material instead of developing their uniqueness and individuality. We place everyone under one standard, pack them into one stencil, and the press of the education system churns them out without any analysis.

This system was necessary 100-200 years ago to reforge simple farmers into factory workers. But today we are entering a new era. Production and agriculture will require just a few percent of all humanity. We will divide this burden between us, but mainly we will focus on the inner work. The time has finally come to develop man as an individual, to enrich his inner world. The level of attainment in various “external” subjects cannot be a criterion here. We are all different and this approach is simply incorrect.

As for the grading system, it has discredited itself completely. It forces a person to make bitter pittances, “Here’s what you need. Take it, choke on it, and leave me be!” After all, it’s not me developing, but others forcing me to demonstrate my knowledge orally and in writing.

A person’s formation cannot be approached by the common standards. It requires an individual approach. Therefore, the main subject should be the development of the individual: an understanding of life and interpersonal relationships. Who am I? What kind of world am I living in?

A person has to find out about this through conversations and discussions. His eyes have to be opened, showing him the pieces of the general puzzle and explaining their essence. It’s time to stop sitting children down with textbooks that give them knowledge but not understanding. This completely stupefies and disorients them. In the future people won’t be able to tear themselves away from the TV and will continue to live as if under hypnosis. Maybe this would be good for the authorities, but at the end of the day, there is nothing good about this.

Thus, grades have to be revoked. Every instructor and educator will provide his own response about a student. Classes will turn into groups and will take a joint path of study, unification, mutual activities, and most important, upbringing. A person should not be worried about grades, but on the contrary, if you have prepared him, then he checks himself by the right values, understands what he wants in life, what he belongs to, what he is capable of, what he can enjoy and how he can make others enjoy.

Then he will choose a profession that he is drawn to and in which he will be successful. After all, you teach and raise him ahead of time. You take him on trips to different places and show him life in its diversity and unity. During the school years he can already try his hand at different things and find his calling.

In the past people started learning a profession from childhood and learning from the adults’ experience. There has to be personal contact with professional instructors, rather than the formal relationships that exist today.

When people learn to find a profession that suits their personality, the number of people entering universities will decrease, and the universities will change as well. Today many people choose an academic profession by mistake or out of necessity, and then they suffer their whole lives. The education system has to give people more freedom. We are being destroyed by dry grades and study programs that are not adapted to modernity. From childhood they pressure people and limit their development.

Yet a person has to develop towards society and the environment, transitioning from self-evaluation and self-analysis to an analysis of the world. By harmoniously entering the world and society, he will feel that he is an absolutely integral part of it. This is the correct result of upbringing. A person will simply feel, “I am responsible for the world and the world is mine!” He will feel good in the world and the world will also recognize and value his contribution.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”: “…a great rule in the Torah” … the verse of “Love thy friend as thyself.” It is difficult to understand how such a statement can contain the sum-total of all the Torah? At most it can be the rule (the collective) of the part of the Torah and texts that relate to the relationships between man and man. But how can you include the greater part of the Torah, which concerns work between man and God in the verse, “Love thy friend as thyself”?

We do not know how to use this principle. Everyone is sure that they love their neighbors. As for specialists in the humanities—philosophers, political scientists, social scientists, and psychologists—they also reason about love for the neighbor as if it were easy to implement.

In general, the notion of “love” only confuses people. They cannot separate it from the natural, instinctive, hormonal attraction that is inherent to the animate and even vegetative kingdoms. In man, who has an evil inclination, this attraction acquires even greater scope, yet it still bears no relation to real love.

“Loving the neighbor” means fulfilling his desire while not receiving any direct or indirect benefit from that. It is aimed entirely at the well-being of the neighbor, while I am like an external part of the universe, a “tube” coming out of a power station that generates all the pleasures. This tube is not part of the action in any way. It does not need anything for itself. It is just a conductor.

But how can I become such a selfless conductor if I am entirely imbued by feelings, if I want to enjoy myself? After all, unlike a tube, I have my own life.

Moreover, I am told that this rule is “the general principle of the Torah.” That is, there is nothing but this principle in the Torah. Yet the Torah describes the most diverse areas of life. Could it really be that they are all connected to the neighbor?

If so, then how can I bring all of the facets of my reality, including my relationship with the Creator, into my relationships with other people? Won’t I be narrowing things down too much? How can the entire world with all of its diversity be squeezed into several psychological models?

Question: So how is it possible to love the neighbor in the modern, global world?

Answer: In reality, there is no means in our world that could allow us to correct our egoism. Only the Light that reforms is capable of that.

After all, only the Light and the vessel exist in reality. The force of bestowal (“existence from existence”) created a point of reception (“existence from absence”), and there is nothing else besides them.

Next, the force of bestowal influences the force of reception, leading it to altruistic actions until these two forces become equal to one another: the force of bestowal gives, while the force of reception receives in order to give. In the end, they end up in unity and adhesion.

But that is not enough because the state of Malchut of infinity was created by the upper one. It was simply “lowered down” to creation. The desire that was created by the Light received the “full package” from it, including the altruistic intention, and it lives to its content in union like a “dummy.” Having emerged from absence, it cannot make any independent action and it looks into the mouth of the giver: “Do you want altruism? Go ahead. Do you want egoism? Go ahead. You can have anything you wish.” That is how the matter of creation is built.

But in that case, it cannot be called a full-fledged creation. After all, the Light performed all the actions to it. So who is unified with the Creator in the end? For now—no one. An independent being did not emerge yet. So how can it be formed?

For that the receiving desire has to be brought to total opposition to the Creator in every regard, and then it has to be given the opportunities and the means to attain itself separate from bestowal and to acquire the forces for correction. A very great preparation is necessary to make creation, and it begins precisely here, from our world. This is why the spiritual worlds descended and why the material development unfolded until the earthly evolution brought us to modernity. And now, we are starting to gradually gain awareness of ourselves and our state.

This is the source of self-awareness, whose criterion is the Light, the Creator, the human society that is already demonstrating its global, integral facets. This causes you to experience discomfort: “Something here isn’t right. Something doesn’t make sense.” That is how the realization of evil emerges, opening up the path to correction before us.

We won’t understand what is happening and what we are facing right away. Humanity is only stepping onto this path. However, this also does not involve anything more than a combination of two forces: reception and bestowal. Within their mixture we must always look for the operating mechanisms. Like inter-atomic actions, they will show us what kind of unity is possible at this stage and which qualities are inherent to it.

You are learning to connect two forces and you must always reach the right formula of their balance. If you attain balance, it means you are on the right path and you are forming yourself in the right line. In reality, all of the scientific formulas describe equivalence of form. That is what we study and attain in nature: similarity and balance of all of its parts.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: How can a person balance the upper governance in reward and punishment?

Answer: A person can’t do anything by himself. One can only give the Light the best opportunities to be influenced by it. The upper Light is in concealment. In order to invoke its influence upon ourselves, we have to conform to it in the best way possible, meaning to unite between ourselves as much as possible.

The more strongly we get connected with heart, soul, mind, desire, thoughts, and inner intentions into one whole, by that we awaken the upper Light, obliging it to be revealed inside of us and take care of us. Apart from that, we can’t do anything. This is our only action that prepares us for correction, and the actual correction is done by the Light.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

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