If we were to bestow to the Creator due to the desire that He had instilled in us, could there be love more superficial than that? Essentially, we would love Him because He made us love Him. Love is possible only if the desire originates in us.

That is why it wasn’t an option to create us with a ready desire to love Him, for that would have been disgusting. Love must be completely genuine in its root, it must blossom in an empty space, absolutely selflessly and independently of any received pleasures.

How can we attain such an absolute, pure, and eternal love, utterly selfless without demanding any reward? How can the creature attain the same attitude toward the Creator as He has for it? This desire, the need for bestowal, must be developed by us. Herein lies our entire development from this world and to the World of Infinity: to attain the need for love.

Because we develop it within ourselves, this need for love does not disappear. We hold on to this lack, thanks to which we can love and bestow. For this reason, the spiritual vessel can never be overfilled. It cannot be filled; we merely cover it from Above, as it is written: “Love will cover all sins.” The act of covering only increases the lack. We cover it, but it keeps growing, continuing to blaze brighter and brighter.

That is why the process we undergo cannot be any different, as it stems from the end goal. Indeed, if the Creator wishes to bring us to mutual love, the same love He has for us, then there is no other choice. The entire spiritual ladder has already stretched from the end point to us, to the beginning of the path, and we must continue our journey all the way to the end.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/10, Article “Matan Torah”

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A question I received: I came to the science of Kabbalah, the science of reception, in order to receive. But suddenly I see that it teaches about how to increase one’s desire. Where is the reception here?

My Answer: This is reception. I receive a special force from the Creator called “love,” which is something completely unknown to us. With the help of this force I attach all the desires existing in reality to myself. They all become my desires and I receive them along with their fulfillment.

This is called the science of Kabbalah, which is about how to receive desires full of goodness. They are all yours. All you need is to feel love for them. Then you will discover that they are in the state of the End of Correction, and all of it is yours.

When you acquire the force of love, you start to feel the desires of your neighbor better than he does, and you then fulfill him according to your sensations. It’s like a mother feels what her child needs.

In spirituality the Upper One knows best what the lower one needs. The lower one simply screams, revealing his desire to you. But you know all the components of his desire, even though he does not. That’s because you are the upper one. If you are the one who bestows and you fulfill him, then you are the upper one in relation to him and you know more about him than he does.

This is the law of upper love, which does not have anything in common with the notions we attribute to the word “love” in our world.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/10, “Matan Torah”

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Rabbi Akiva said, “Love your neighbor as yourself; that is the great rule of the Torah!” Why is love for one’s neighbor a great rule, the foundation that categorically divides us into two halves: animate and human? If I love myself, then I am an animal, and if I love my neighbor, then I am human. As an animal, I only feel this material life, but when I begin to love others, I feel the Creator and the spiritual world.

Spirituality is felt inside the force of love that is called my spiritual vessel or Kli. Right now my vessel is egoistic love, the desire to love myself. The world I feel today is felt inside this desire. In this egoistic reality, I reveal only that which is good or bad for me.

I reveal the world and the entire diversity of its shades only in relation to myself. All of the colors and sounds in the world depend on what is useful to me and what is harmful. I am afraid of one thing and I desire something else. I repel one thing and attract something else. Every influence is revealed inside my senses, which operate in relation to my love for myself. Therefore, I don’t see anything that does not pertain to my self-love; I simply don’t perceive its existence.

The fact is that I am facing infinity, but I don’t feel it. In relation to me it seems not to exist at all because it does not make me feel good or bad. Egoistic love determines the volume of the universe that I feel. Thus, out of the entire World of Infinity, I feel just a tiny sphere, my world.

When I start to come out of myself, then in my previous desire I feel what is good for others. In other words, I start to love my neighbor. This is called the Upper, spiritual world. When I reveal it, I reveal an entirely different universe.

If I tune out of egoistic thoughts about myself, even in a purely material sense, and start to think about my friend, then I will feel a completely different world, with completely different problems and solutions. When I reveal what is good for someone else, then in relation to me it will be called the Upper, spiritual world. That person will see the same thing as his material, egoistic world, but when I desire to dress into his reality and reveal his world from within him, it will turn into my spiritual world.

This exercise enables me to come out of myself and feel the Creator. I will feel Him inside of you, as it is written, “The Creator dwells inside His nation.”

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/10, “Matan Torah”

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A question I received: You say that if a person has a natural inclination to help the needy, this is not the same as loving others. Can you please explain what “loving others” means then?

My Answer: “Love of others” is a special quality that comes to a person during the correct study of Kabbalah. This quality enables a person to sense the interdependence between everyone and the need to fulfill others through himself. It is similar to a lover who wants to fill the object of his desire.

“Love of others” begins from its opposite – the revelation of hatred, rejection and separation from others. This is how one first feels when he reveals his complete dependence on others. It is as though the faucet that dispenses the air you breathe is under someone else’s control. One reveals that he is completely and utterly dependent on the whole world, and everyone is dependent on his kind behavior toward them. He reveals that he is the only one who determines his state by having good or bad relationships with the world.

Every day, this sensation of dependence grows and one becomes more reliant on others in order to receive basic necessities such as water, bread, work and security. This is how the global, integral system is revealed to us, and we start seeing the Butterfly Effect in action. At the same time, we also reveal our hatred toward each other and that our egoism produces this hatred in all people of this world!

The image of utter interdependence among all people that is being revealed to a person makes him desire to “open the faucet” for everyone. And this is what “love of others” is.

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Hate for the fellow man is not expressed as the sensation of hate, but as the desire to use him for your own good. This is the feeling we have until we turn it into love – the desire to fill the other instead of myself.

My teacher Rabash used to say: You can picture yourself as a zero and your friend as a one, or you can see yourself as one and him as a zero. This depends on your desire – whether you desire to use him for your benefit, or to use yourself to benefit him.

To the extent that you desire to fulfill the other, the Light of bestowal and love will fulfill you.

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A question I received: If people learn to live in our world according to the law, “love your neighbor as yourself” and will defeat their egoism, then what will our world look like? After all, corrected souls do not return to this world.

My Answer: The entire corrected humanity will rise as one whole to the state of the World of Infinity.

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Two questions I received on love and relationships:

Question (from a woman): Why is it that before we find our match, we have to go through so much pain and disappointment?

My Answer: It is because you use the wrong criteria to look for a partner. Your spouse should be someone you understand, someone similar to you, with a similar upbringing and childhood, and you should remind him of his mother. Everything else will fall into place throughout the process of living together. Mostly it will happen when you forgive one another and compromise with each other.

Question: There is a couple starting out their relationship. Both study Kabbalah. They now have the opportunity to create the right connection between them. How should this occur? How can they aim their relationship toward the goal?

My Answer: Tune into the studies together, discuss them, and read articles together. This is what Rabash advised for couples.

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We have reached a state where it is essential for us to unite. However, we mustn’t unite in order for each one of us to feel better, but because by doing so, all of us together will feel better.

In the past, we were drawn to each other because of the benefits we received from collaboration. This is why we have developed a global connection among all the people in the world. We produce something in one part of the world, sell it in another part of the world, receive something else from a third part of the world, and all of this affects yet another part of the world. This is how people fulfill their egos, their individual desires to receive pleasure.

Now, however, it is time for us to switch from the egoistic connection between us to an altruistic one. We mustn’t do this in order to profit, but in order for everyone to benefit. We have to shift from a connection that’s “for the sake of receiving” to a connection “for the sake of giving.” We have to unite for the sake of the opportunity to bestow.

Of course, this sounds absolutely unrealistic, but Nature will oblige us to attain this kind of unification. Therefore, we will be better off if we take initiative and learn Nature’s law of universal bestowal and love. This law is a result of the fact that all of Nature is a single body. If we will, at the very least, begin to talk and think about this, then our thoughts will do all the work!

The science of Kabbalah explains that none of us has the power to attain spirituality on his own. Alone, we cannot attain and become filled with the quality of bestowal, and thereby acquire peace. Rather, we can only accomplish this by creating the proper connections between us. And to do this, we should understand that by reaching the correct kind of unification, each of us will receive all of the common force. And this is something that can only be accomplished through love.

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The more we repeat the phrase, “love your neighbor as yourself,” the less we understand it. It is written that this is the general rule, the law of all reality, and we must act according to it. And whoever thinks that individual parts of the universe do not observe it, is mistaken.

We observe this law because we have no other choice, since we live in one dimension, in one sphere. This law affects us, but we observe it unwillingly. The suffering we perceive is precisely this absence of desire to observe this law. This is how we feel the difference between the present state and the more advanced state.

If we pay attention to this, we will be able to discern the most important thing: that this law is mandatory for us. It affects us and we purposefully exist in a state that’s opposite to it, where we don’t want it. This is done in order for us to realize its importance, splendor and universality. We will then observe it willingly, with our free choice.

The fact is, we all serve the Creator (or Nature). However, some of us do it unwillingly, while others do it willingly and consciously.

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A question I received: How can love between people be a law if love is about a person’s feelings?

My Answer: Desire is the material of creation. Desire is a force – a force of attraction and a force of repulsion. There are laws in the world that are obvious, and we obey them involuntary. Other laws are still concealed from us, and thus we do not obey them yet. But if they do become revealed, it is best for us to learn them quickly and start obeying them.

What is “love” in our world? It’s when something awakens a feeling in me that I might get pleasure from it. I then aspire to this thing, to this spark of light. I want to get closer to this light and connect to it, so it will fulfill me. The pleasure can come from food, sex, family, money, power, or knowledge. But what do I really connect to? I connect to the spark of pleasure that enters my desire for pleasure. This is what “love” in our world is.

In Kabbalah, “love for your neighbor” does not mean that you like someone’s face, personality, or status, although this is exactly how people interpret love for one’s neighbor in our world. The latter is not love for him, but just a feeling of attraction to something that fulfills you.

True love is when you fulfill the desires of another as if they are your own. This means that you love your neighbor rather than yourself. It is when you work with and fulfill his desire. This is love for one’s neighbor.

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