Baal HaSulam, “The Love of the Creator and the Love for the Created Beings”: If we can somehow reconcile the above text, here comes Hillel’s statement to the foreigner who came before him and asked to be converted, as it says in the Gemarah, “Convert me so that you will teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one leg.” He told him “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.” This is the entire Torah, and the rest means just go and study. We see that he told him that the entire Torah is the interpretation of the verse, “Love thy friend as thyself.”

We can correct all the corrupt desire to receive just by the right attitude toward the environment. I have all the necessary means that allow me to understand exactly what I am doing, to control and to adjust my attitude toward the friends, to get the right signs from them to check myself, and through them to get all the positive and negative forces that I need. In short, a person can correct all of reality by implementing the principle of “that which you hate, do not do to the other” on everything that the Creator has created. We don’t need anything but that.

Hillel’s condition is divided into two parts. One part is “negative,” which means that it requires self-discipline so as not to cause others harm or do evil to them. The other part requires the opposite: to guard the good of others. If another has a chance to attain something good and I prevent him from attaining it in some way, it means that I do unto him what I find hateful.

Thus, Hillel’s principle doesn’t only spread by actions that I initiate when I am full of love, trying to do my best to do something for the benefit of others.

The moment I begin to fulfill the condition of “that which you hate, do not do to your friend,” I immediately enter the business of the spiritual world, and it all becomes clearer to me. I begin to discover the connection between the different parts of reality, the general network, and in it, I discover the mutual relationship we study about in Talmut Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot). I learn to restrict myself and how to connect with others so that I can influence every state as much as I can.

I discover my connections with others, restrict myself in order to establish the right relationships with others, choose attributes I can use, and establish a balance of forces, thus reaching the union of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.

This is how Hillel actually demands that I do the spiritual work. It isn’t about giving charity or some gift to others, but about inner calculations regarding their true benefit.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/02/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “The love of the Creator and the Love of the Created Beings“: The immediate phase after “love your friend as yourself” is adhesion. 

The commandment of the love of others brings us to the level of the love of the Creator. It is a safe path with all the opportunities, states, and means that we need. It is impossible to escape it by different excuses like saying that we didn’t know or that we couldn’t act since everyone has received what he needs.

The correction of “love thy friend as thyself” includes all the other corrections and is the most hateful one because it is opposite from our nature, yet we have no choice but to understand that it is our only basis. As long as we don’t discover the need for this correction, we cannot get on the path that leads to the goal.

Question: How can we bring contentment to the upper one by treating others well?

Answer: Essentially, it is the same thing. Imagine that all the created beings, all the people are the “Creator’s sons.” This is what it says in the sources. So if you do good to the son, you certainly bring the father contentment.

Once the Creator said to Jonah the prophet that He cannot just abandon the great city of Nineveh with 250,000  inhabitants despite their sins. The message is clear: “If you treat them with love and save them, you will bring Me contentment.”

The Creator has no vessel (Kli) to receive contentment from us, so the means for that is the entire reality that spreads between us, between each of us and the Creator. And in this reality other people come first.

So the dissemination of the method of correction and worrying about the whole world are the most precious actions that we were allowed to perform and we have to focus on them. Of course we first have to correct ourselves in order to know how to relate to the world.

The calculation is as follows: “I do everything in order to bring the Creator contentment. I express this desire by worrying about the world or more accurately, by worrying about people. The still, vegetative, and the animate levels of nature will also join their correction. In order to take care of people, I have to correct myself and so I have to start by correcting myself.”
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/02/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: We already have a large world group; there is a teacher and primary sources. Why is so difficult to realize the law of love for others as for oneself?

Answer: Indeed, it may not be so burdensome to hear about it, but the problem is with its realization. We initially need to understand and to become aware of the fact that the two different parts, the “plus” and the “minus,” must be connected with each other. In the physical level of nature, everything is simpler: There from a higher degree, the Creator obliges various elements to become connected and in general they build the atomic structure.

What is it? Why do the particles not scatter from each other? The fact is that there are some forces that oblige them to interact in spite of the opposition between the two. The negative forces repelling them from each other belong to matter to the “vessel” (Kli), and these are the forces of rejection, hatred, and polarity. The positive forces necessitating them to be together are the forces of love. That is why it is said, “Love will cover all transgressions.” It’s love that covers the gap between the opposites.

We observe these mechanisms in atoms and molecules where things become much more complicated due to calculations of the previous and following stages of development, etc. Either way, calculations are always done according to the same principle, becoming more and more difficult with time.

It’s worthwhile to view the entire universe in this light. No one teaches us to love; we are talking precisely about the law of nature. Once, Abraham discovered it; it’s said that while looking at the sky, he asked questions about who created the world and for what. He was prompted by that era’s escalating conflicts between the Babylonians. Mutual hatred was growing and Abraham tried to understand: Why? From where could the power of unity against the forces of separation be taken?

Internally scrutinizing the still, vegetative, and animate nature, he realized that the entire creation, except for man, is imbued with the law of unity that obliges all the parts of creation to be together. That is why they live and develop. People are another thing: The confrontation between positive and negative is constantly increasing in them. Where then is the opposite force of connection and love at the human level? How could it be brought into action?

Apparently, Abraham understood that the Creator had entrusted this work to man. We ourselves must add this part and complete creation. That is why it’s said that the Creator starts and the righteous finishes.

So, if we don’t start to work on love for the other, the connection between us is severed. For example, in Europe today, the process of unification does not continue in the right way and the continent is torn apart. The absence of “additions of unity” everywhere leads to the growth of opposition and eventually to explosion. This is the perspective of humanity at all levels, be it that of the family, raising children, etc.

That is why we must work on correct unification, meaning above the “plus” and the “minus.” Don’t touch them because everyone will remain with his inherent properties. Work only on “love covers all transgressions.”

We need to understand that the positive and negative cannot live without each other. Conceptually, there is no Creator without the created being and there is no created being without the Creator. They can exist only jointly. In this case, the two opposites always repel each other, and then the third force resolves their contradictions, strengthens their bond. This mechanism gives rise to development, life.

For many years, scientists have been struggling to solve the mystery of the emergence of life. Where did living cells come from? What gave them birth? An excess of love gave them birth. The force supporting the still nature out of an excess of love begins to develop additional desires and then we demand more. I don’t settle for mere existence, I want to understand, to feel, and to comprehend all of reality, and this need gives me life that began with corals and has evolved to the most complex structures.

Ultimately, it’s the Creator who slightly illuminates the still matter, and it becomes vegetative. A little bit more Light, and it turns into animate. Just a little more, and the human degree emerges.

Thus, covering the positive and negative, the “plus” and “minus” with love, I form from them a system, an atom, for instance. If I add a greater power of love to it, then I affect the positive with negative strongly and thus cause imbalance. There is seemingly a surplus of energy and besides saving the relationship, they “think” about something greater. The spark that I have brought prompts them to search; the excess of strength draws them forward. This is their life force.

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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Rabash, “What to Look For in the Assembly of Friends”: …that a person should make an effort to obtain love of others. And this is called “labor,” since he must exert above reason. Reasonably thinking, how is it possible to judge another to a scale of merit when his reason shows him his friend’s true face, that he hates him?

It turns out that we must exert ourselves when we don’t want to. I don’t feel any urge to work, have no desire for it and no interest in it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be considered exertion. I am not attracted to love the friend and value him. Perhaps, I actually must look for such states when the friend doesn’t interest me, and I don’t enjoy being with him, and I feel that I am opposite to him. Then, I can see to what extent I can love the other and can check whether it obligates me to exert myself.

Sometimes, during a big convention or a special event I am impressed by the general spirit that is shared by everyone. Then, of course, I feel fine. However, the moment I leave this external influence, I immediately fall. This means that I don’t wake up by myself. I don’t feel like thinking about the love of friends and about connection. The greatness of the goal also disappears, and I pass the time aimlessly until I feel another awakening from above again.

However, it is during this time when we feel lifeless that we must exert ourselves since when I am revived from above, I have nothing to add of my own, and I am totally operated on from above. It seems that I operate myself, but I am totally operated on from Above and am under the domination of the upper. Therefore, everything that I do is not on my account at all.

Only when I don’t feel the spirit of life and I obligate myself to exert myself is it considered on my account. Then, it is called exertion, a prayer, an intervention from below that draws the Light that Reforms. This Light will make me feel attracted to others, to love the friends, and this will now be on my account.

This is all true provided that I have brought about the intervention from below, in response to which there is an intervention from above, which is the Light that Reforms that I have drawn. Thus, my correction also will be mine. When I feel distant from the friends, low and uncaring, I revive the spirit of life. The problem is only in how to exert myself, how to yearn for the love of friends in times when one feels totally lifeless.

Thus, as it is written, “Everything that is within your power to do, do.” You should think about this, discuss it, and consult one another as to what needs to be done. This is actually considered our exertion.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/13

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Rabash, “One Should Always Sell the Beams of His House”: Each of them had a spark of love of others, but the spark could not ignite the light of love to shine in each, so they agreed that by uniting, the sparks would become a big flame. Hence, now, too, when he is spying on them, he should overcome and say, “As all of them were of one mind that they must walk on the path of love of others when the society was established, so it is now.” And when everyone judges his friends favorably, all the sparks will ignite once more and again there will be one big flame.

The goal of creation is to reach the force of connection, the force of love in which everyone feels the deficiencies of the other and fills them. But it’s impossible to do that alone, since a person doesn’t have the power for it. There is only one tiny spark in him that pushes him towards the goal and he doesn’t even understand what he is drawn to and why.

This is why we must connect, so that everyone will receive the power of the spiritual connection: the power of the collective desire, the power to connect the hearts, the power of love. This is why we come into this world in which we connect physically by our bodies, by different external actions. These physical actions draw the Light that Reforms upon us which connects our tiny sparks into one strong general flame.

Each one receives this general force and only by that can he feel it and use it. This Light obligates us to unite all our spiritual sparks and to be inclined to mutual bestowal. Then, by the general force of bestowal that is now in each of us, we can begin to work and to perform spiritual actions of bestowal and to ascend.

It turns out that by using our physical bodies and the corporeal work that is a result of egoistic intentions we evoke the Surrounding Light that connects our sparks into one spark, into a flame, that becomes the force of general bestowal, love, and connection. Then each one receives this force. We don’t split it up like loot, but rather use it together, by being in the middle, within it as one whole, as a group of ten, for example. Then each one can use this force and thus begin to perform spiritual actions and not corporeal ones. The first stage is called the stage of preparation and the second stage is the stage of correction: first “to bestow in order to bestow” and then “to receive in order to bestow.”

A person who doesn’t operate in order to connect with the friends in a group of ten doesn’t actually use the only means to attain spirituality, which means that he is not in the stage of preparation. The stage of preparation is when we use all the means we were given in this world, on the corporeal level, in order to reach the force of bestowal, the force of connection.

The phase of preparation will not be over as long as the group of ten doesn’t fulfill itself and becomes as one man by the Light that Reforms. The moment we connect and acquire the general force of connection that is enough for fulfilling the actions of bestowal, it means that we transcend the Machsom (barrier), the border of the spiritual world.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/13

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Question: How can I constantly see the friends as greater than me?

Answer: The friend is great especially because I depend on him! The goal I want to attain depends on him, and therefore he is so important to me. Second, he is great since it’s the Creator who has brought us together, and has given him to me as a means to attain the goal.

Third, I respect the “Godly part from Above” in him, since the Creator is in it, evoking him and leading him towards the goal. So this is what I respect, the Godly part and not his corporeal attributes. We will gradually discover what the concept of a “friend” actually means. When we begin to see the truth, we will see what it is.

I don’t value the friend himself, but the Godly part in him that gives him a great weight and makes him the greatest in our generation. It’s not an exaggeration and not just nice words. Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma undoubtedly saw his students as the greatest in his generation and greater than himself.

In order to not see the deficiencies in the friend, I have to awaken the love in me. Therefore, it says “love will cover all the sins.” You shouldn’t consider who is more clever, you or the friend. Love should come first.

The lesson should start when each of us sees himself sitting among great people. You should feel that you are like a tiny baby who luckily happened to be in the company of great Kabbalists, trembling with excitement before their greatness. This is actually the way it’s felt, and I am not exaggerating.

This is what the inner feeling should be, while externally we can show disrespect and play an opposite game. Just like the Creator conceals His love and shows us the opposite attitude, so can we show him the opposite external attitude. We will later learn this game when we grow stronger, but in the meantime it’s still too early to play this game since we will be attracted by the disrespect.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend-2”: After he has bonded with a group of people who wish to achieve the degree of love of the Creator, and he wishes to take from them the strength to work in order to bestow and be moved by their words about the necessity for obtaining the love of the Creator, he must regard each friend in the group as greater than himself. It was written in the book, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah, p 143), that one is not impressed by the society or takes their appreciation of something, unless he regards the society as greater than himself. This is the reason why each one must feel that he is the smallest of them all, since one who is great cannot receive from one who is smaller than himself, much less be impressed by his words. Rather, it is only the smaller one who is impressed through appreciating the greater one.

This is the major law and rule to opening the spiritual world. If we follow all the instructions that Rabash gives us, then there will be no obstacles along our way. We have to be ready to take these steps since the world needs it. The Creator not only gives us a chance to establish the spiritual group by ourselves and to bring Him contentment, but He also gives us a much greater mission.

He lets us understand that the only way to bring Him contentment is by correcting His world. Therefore, He brings this world to the verge of collapse so that we can prepare the world for the revelation of the Creator, and thus bring Him contentment.

So when we work in order to become more united, we must remember that eventually we have to draw the whole world into the group and thus bring about the complete revelation of the Creator to the created beings. As Baal HaSulam says, these are the “days of the Messiah,” the end of correction.

So we have to keep the laws of connections, self-annulment, and self-concession very seriously to mutually support and strengthen one another in order to attain the spirit of life and confidence, and to be filled with hope by the fact that everyone is impressed by others. In order to do that, everyone has to see the others as great, and being impressed by them, should give them the power to work on our connection and unity.

We have to ask for the force from above to connect us and we will make a covenant between us, mutual guarantee, mutual support, and the impression and being mutually incorporated in one another until we finally reach the collective power, the small spiritual force with which we turn to the great big world. Then we will see that when we have a collective spiritual power, even the slightest one, the world will be practically spread before us; it will be ready to receive from us, since the Light will pour through us unto the whole world. We will succeed wherever we go.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/13

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Question: Baal HaSulam explains that if parents treat their son with absolute love, the son will inevitably begin to hate them instead of returning their love since he won’t worry that the parents will stop loving him. What about the Creator: Will we also begin to hate Him when we discover His absolute love for us?

Answer: We have to reach absolute love towards the Creator in our spiritual work, meaning regardless of whether we receive pleasure or punishment from the Creator. Our spiritual growth is based on developing love while feeling a growing feeling of repulsion until it reaches absolute hate, meaning feeling that the Creator hates us more and more while we develop a growing absolute love towards Him, in order to work in faith above reason.

Thus we can understand why the Creator has created in us desire in which we feel pleasure or pain. But we have to rise above that in a new feeling of bestowal, and then our attitude towards the Creator becomes totally independent of His love since we establish our attitude above the feeling of hate, according to the principle “love will cover all sins.”
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Question: What is so special about the love of friends that allows me to cover all sins?

Answer: Love of friends covers all sins. After all, if we work on connecting our sparks in the group, then all the other desires surrender to the Light of love despite the fact that they are so opposite from one another to the extent that they actually hate one another. This Light operates on us from above, from the upper level, when it covers us with one blanket, one umbrella, a Sukkah of peace, and obligates all of us to unite, although internally we remain very different.

Question: Do I choose the friend once or anew every day?

Answer: I don’t choose according to corporeal criteria. In the meantime we don’t know why we have been brought into one group from above, he and I. It depends on the root of the soul, on the sentence of the souls, which we will learn about later. But because we are in a group we have to fulfill our freewill and to connect into one system, one group.

Choosing a friend means being loyal to him despite the repulsion and the doubts. I shouldn’t feel any difference between him and me. Every moment the thought and the desire change in me, I have to choose him in the exact same manner, I examine myself and him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/13, Writings of Rabash

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“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” Rabbi Akiva said this is a great principle of the Torah.

We must understand that a “great principle of the Torah” is the fundamental law of nature encompassing the entire universe. With a correct preparation, we see that everything exists only thanks to this law of love for the other like for oneself.

The relationship between anything is possible only by means of a special power, which allows and even requires various, even opposite parts—be they particles, fields, elements of living cells or people—to unite. This external force—the plan of creation—influences them, obliges them to communicate, and as a result, parts do not move from each other but gradually get closer, jointly building more complex systems of the still, vegetative, animate, human, and then spiritual nature.

All this together is the rule of the Torah, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Torah” is the essence, the system, existing between the Creator and the created being. And its law is love for the other as for oneself.

The “other” is the one who is diametrically opposite to me, just as we are opposite to the Creator. Nevertheless, the law of love works in the system obliging us to establish connection between each other because we cannot exist without each other at any of the levels.

This law of stage-by-stage integration is realized without the participation of the created being, by evolutionary processes in the still, vegetative, and animate nature, as well as the similar levels of human nature. Here, the universal law determines and dictates everything, and the created being is under the “press” of development.

However, at the highest level of human nature, the created being begins to adopt and take upon himself the realization of this law. He finds out that the principle of love for someone else or even the opposite is the law of life. After all, there would be nothing without the connection between the created being and the Creator. Being aware of the importance of interconnection, defined as “love for your neighbor,” the created being begins to realize it on his own accord, although at the beginning he discovers that all the other parts are not like him, are foreign and opposite to him.

In general, our entire work is to realize this law. But first it is necessary to study it, to see how it acts in creation. After all, beginning with the Big Bang, all our development, although it seems to us as the process of disintegration and disagreement, is in fact a gradual linking of all the parts of creation, until matter is compelled to realize the fundamental law of nature and perform it on its own accord.

Thus, the created being identifies himself with the Creator, and then they both will come to the basic principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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