Question: I understand that we have to love the friend but how do I feel it in my heart?

Answer: If you don’t think about the Light that Reforms while making efforts, if you don’t expect to receive it as a result of all your plans and actions, but rather hope to correct yourselves by these actions, it’s a fatal mistake.

It means that you don’t add the goal, the Creator and His help, the Light that can change you, to your actions. It turns out that despite your efforts, you are still advancing by the “path of suffering!”

The “path of Torah” is called the Light that Reforms that was created in order to correct us. We should focus on drawing the Light with every action that we make so it will come in response to our efforts. If we don’t throw a rod in order to catch and draw the Light, if we have no such attitude towards our actions, then these actions will lead us along the “path of suffering” and not along the “path of the Torah.”
[108109]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/13, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Importance of Friends”

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The goal of the created being is to enjoy all the pleasures that the Creator wants to give him, but what pleasures are we talking about? The Creator cannot give the created being less than His own level since, otherwise, it isn’t considered bestowal and love. The Creator’s attitude toward the created being is determined by the law of “Love thy friend as thyself.” He demands this from you, but you have the right to ask Him, in response, whether He acts according to this law or not. If He does, then there must be such a law in nature.

This law does exist! It is the attitude of Keter to Malchut, to the created being, “Love thy friend as thyself.” Malchut must reach the same attitude of “Love thy friend as thyself” by the Returning Light. This is called mutual bestowal, mutual love. Everything is very simple.

The Creator is whole, He is total love and bestowal and thus, He gives creation all this. Therefore, His attitude is called the four phases of the Direct Light.

However, the created being cannot relate to the Creator in the same direct way and acquire the same form since he only receives from the Creator in the four phases of the Direct Light. In order to relate to the Creator in the same way, the created being must go through the entire process of development all the way to the end of correction.

After all, it is about attitude. The problem isn’t receiving pleasure from the Creator, but is about how I feel it and how I repay Him. There is no problem in receiving pleasure. Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity) received it and it also led to the “first restriction.” The Creator gave it a spark while it was still in phase one of the Direct Light, and it felt that it was obligated to bestow back. It doesn’t want to only receive.

Phase two stems from phase one since otherwise everything would end in phase one. It turns out that the problem is not to receive from the Creator, but the feeling that you must repay Him and you have nothing to give Him! How can you repay Him? You cannot give Him back the Light that you received from Him since it is as if you return to the host the refreshments that He prepared for you so that He will eat it. It is impossible since the Creator Himself stands before you.

He shows you His good attitude and it is revealed as the pleasure that fills all your desires, but what do you value about it? Is it His attitude toward you? Is it His love or the pleasure itself, regardless of the Creator? Suppose I bring you something that you really love and you reject it. Do you reject it because of the food itself or because I bring it to you with such love that you cannot accept it?

If a waiter in a restaurant brought you that dish, you would accept it without hesitation and would enjoy its taste. However, you refuse to accept it from me since you cannot repay my attitude, my love. You restrict yourself with regard to the love. You cannot bear it since it requires mutuality.

You must calculate the love since this is what causes you shame. You don’t feel any shame with regard to the food since you think that, because the Creator has created you, He must feed you and fill you. It is obvious. However, you cannot return His love! So, starting from the “first restriction” onward, you look for a way to cope with this love, examine what this love is, how it is revealed, where it comes from, what is the connection between this love and the pleasure you feel in your desire, and what is its part in all the Light of NRNHY that fills the vessels.

When you reach a state in which you think that you can receive in order to bestow in the world of Nekudim, you are shattered, and this entire shattering is actually because of the love, because you couldn’t take it into account. You still don’t understand its root since it belongs to the Creator. Its love comes to you from Him, and that is His feeling. It evokes in you certain reactions that you don’t understand.

You don’t understand what this feeling means and why you suddenly feel shame, discomfort, and cannot bear it to such an extent that you begin to fight with Him, mainly in order to destroy the feeling of unpleasantness that you feel because of His love toward you.

The shattering of the vessels allows us to establish the hatred against the love, so “Mt. Sinai” was the starting point of the nation. We wouldn’t be able to begin working on it without the preparation in the exile in Egypt and the wandering in the desert. Therefore, as it is written, “Love the Lord thy God with all your heart,” which is the whole essence of the connection.
[107736]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: There are four fundamental interactions known in physics: strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. Is it possible to say that these four interactions are the individual expressions of the integral force (interaction)?

Answer: Yes, at the level of inanimate matter these are expressions of the integral force, which summarizes them at the inanimate level. It’s Keter (Malchut) with regard to the rest of the Sefirot.

Question: You are talking about the four levels: matter, energy, information, and interaction (in the spiritual form, meaning in the form of mutual bestowal, love). At what level does the integral force act?

Answer: The integral force, the Creator, is clothed in your single (summarized) integral desire. You built it from your individual egoistic desires by annulling your individual egoistic desires through the aspiration to the mutual guarantee in order to attain the revelation of the Creator in it.
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Rabash, Letter 40: And should you ask, “What can one do if he feels that he has a heart of stone toward his friend…”

The advice is very simple: The nature of fire is that when rubbing stones against each other, a fire starts… And only when both of them intend for a gift and not for charity, through the wearing out of the hearts, even of the strongest ones, each will bring out warmth from the walls of his heart, and the warmth will ignite the sparks of love until a clothing of love will form. Then, both of them will be covered under one blanket, meaning a single love will surround and envelop the two of them, as it is known that Dvekut [adhesion] unites two into one.

When a person begins to work in a group he doesn’t feel repulsed by others. But as soon as he feels the need to connect with the friends, as it is the means for attaining the goal, the vessel for the revelation of the Creator and through this connection one attains bestowal and adhesion, and only after that are the others called “friends” and not before; this is where the problems start. These people don’t seem like strangers anymore: Everyone takes on a certain color, a form, and becomes versatile and full of different emotions.

The friends summon in him very complex emotions and it isn’t easy to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to hug them and to sit at the same table with them for a meal or to dance together.  Different evil thoughts overcome him with regard to his relations with others and he begins to feel that it’s very difficult to connect with them.

The more he understands the need to connect, the more distant and unrealistic it seems to him. New interruptions are increasingly evoked. It’s about this kind of work that the Torah tells us first in the story of Abraham and Isaac and then about Jacob, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Eventually, this work becomes the exile in Egypt, when a person feels such terrible distance from others that it’s impossible to ignore it and it’s impossible to connect.

The more a person tries to overcome his ego and to connect with others, the less he succeeds. He experiences “seven years of satiety” and “seven years of hunger,” with regard to the connection since the whole war against the evil inclination is only over the connection. Then there are the plagues of Egypt, the plagues of Pharaoh, that force a person to finally understand that only the upper Light can help him.

He decides that he cannot live without absolute love anymore, that will break his heart and the shards of his heart will penetrate the hearts of his friends. This is the only thing he wants and nothing but it. Thus he begins to work on the love that doesn’t immediately turn into true love, but starts from some preliminary connections, but this is at least a certain connection.
[107551]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13

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In the News (from NaturalNews): “An unusual scientific experiment involving the hormone oxytocin sheds new light on the dynamics of relationship. Known as the ‘trust hormone,’ oxytocin is usually associated with childbirth, lactation and bonding. Researchers are now studying the influence oxytocin has on happiness and contentment as well as harmony in partnerships.

“Created in the hypothalamus region of the brain, oxytocin is responsible for a sense of love, connectedness and kindness. Research has also found the hormone to be involved in feelings of fulfillment and well-being.

“Another study shows how an oxytocin nasal spray can help reduce conflict within marriage. Researchers at the University of Zurich observed 47 couples ranging in age from 20 to 50 who were either married or cohabiting for at least a year. Each couple chose an issue where they disagreed. The participants then self-administered a five spray dose of either oxytocin or a placebo. The couples were left alone to discuss the contentious topic while the researchers filmed the interaction. Saliva samples were also taken throughout the experiment to gauge nervous system activity.

“Compared to those who received the placebo, women who were given the oxytocin spray had a significant drop in nervous system activity whereas in men, it rose. Women became more sociable; men demonstrated heightened positive behavior.

“Kavita Vedhara, a professor of health psychology at Nottingham University, comments on the outcome of the study:

“‘What they have shown is that oxytocin appears to reduce women’s emotional and physiological arousal following verbal conflict, but that the drug has the opposite effect on men, increasing both their emotional and physiological arousal. It is not clear if the increased emotion in men was always positive, but it was certainly associated with more positive behaviors during the conflict situation.’”

My Comment: Undoubtedly, it’s possible to produce lots of various hormones that will turn us into zombies with a happy smile for any occasion. But nature aims at correcting egoism that has been deliberately created in us, not at providing pain relief for it. In the end, this experiment will reveal its special terrible consequences, and still nature will prevail and force us to re-educate ourselves in a sober state by means of the Integral Upbringing.
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Question: How can we say at any given moment, in spite of any problems, that “There is none else besides Him” and that “He is good and benevolent” if I feel the opposite at the moment? Do I have to combine the feelings with words?

Answer: We begin to work from a state of total uncertainty. We only hear and read that “There is none else besides Him.” This is how the first article in Shamati begins: “It is written: There is none else besides Him.” This is what Kabbalists say! But these are only words for me that have no meaning. So how do I develop them?

I try to turn these words into actions that will impress me. So I find a group in this world that claims that “There is none else besides Him,” and I am incorporated in it so that it will influence me and convince me that indeed there is nothing else but the upper force. At least they speak about what Kabbalists say.

I connect to that group and subdue myself before them, raising my friends above me, so that the principle of “There is none else beside Him” will be heard more loudly and so that I will feel how important it is. I try to be under the impression of this slogan, which in the meantime exists only on paper for me.

But if I work with my friends, I begin to receive the Light that Reforms through them. This Light is in their words, and to the extent that I exert myself in the group and subdue myself before it by serving my friends, the Light changes this slogan. The Light is dressed in these words and brings them to life. I begin to feel the life in the letters that make up the words “There is none else besides Him.”

I begin to feel the letters as live vessels that are full of Light, and then the vessels, my desires, begin to move together with these letters according to the Light that goes through them. It isn’t just a Light, but rather a “formatted” Light that has taken on the form of these letters. It turns out that I am impressed in different ways by the sentence “There is none else besides Him” and begin to see, to understand, and to feel how it’s expressed in different states and manners. I learn to work with it.

The sentence that used to be dead for me, just a written slogan, gradually begins to come to life. Accordingly I try to fulfill it in different states, the good and the bad. I hold on to it especially in the bad states, since in the meantime I am an egoist. If the uniqueness of the Creator, “There is none else besides Him” and “good and benevolent” is revealed to me in unpleasant ways, it means that I am acquiring vessels of bestowal and that I rise above this pain. I advance towards the state of: “Don’t do unto your friend what is hateful for you.” I hate this state and want to rise above it. I don’t think that the Creator has caused me all these troubles, but rather, I attribute them to my ego. Thus I acquire the attribute of Bina, “to bestow in order to bestow.”

Then, in very unpleasant states, I begin to receive pleasant states, which is much more difficult, since I have to rise above them. It’s already faith above reason on the second level, not only above the desire to bestow, but also above the desire to receive. I already work with AHP.

It’s as if I work against the good and the benevolent, which means that I receive both the good and the evil equally, as the same thing. Thus I reach love, about which it says: “Love thy friend as thyself,” and then “Love thy Lord,” the highest level of this state, Keter.

All this work is done in “faith above reason.” The moon stands for Malchut, which “sanctifies” itself in its darkest state, and by that begins to illuminate with the Returning Light. It has nothing of its own, and it doesn’t need anything of its own either. It says to the sun that it wants to be like it. The more the moon becomes like the sun, the more the earth determines all the appearances of the moon, to the extent that Malchut is adapted to Keter.
[106075]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam says in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” that if the society cares about each of its members, it can neutralize a person’s egoistic desire. 

Suppose I go on a “everything’s included” pleasure cruise, feeling carefree since the service actually includes everything I can think of. I settle down in my cabin getting ready to spend two weeks of sheer pleasure. However, as we set off, I am told that this is going to be a eternal cruise. So, I live, and everything is prepared for me: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are  served right on schedule; my cabin is always made; there is a library, a cinema, the Internet, a swimming pool, and so on. Everything is at my service.

In addition to that, everyone treats me nicely and is very attentive, and there is nothing to worry about. The people around me are ready to help me at any time and in any way. These are the social principles on this boat, and they apply to everyone without exception.

So, how will my nature react to that? Is it possible for the ego to erupt under such conditions? The people around me teach me to annul myself by their attitude toward me, and I don’t look for ways to fill and satisfy myself anymore.

For example, I don’t wander in pubs and restaurants in search for delicacies that I haven’t tasted yet, but rather feel satisfied with simple healthy food. Luxuries don’t excite me like before. There, a buffet of desserts is open daily, and it quickly curbs my demands. After a couple of days, I already restrict my “daily consumption,” and after a week, I am satisfied with a cup of coffee and a biscuit. The atmosphere is full of Surrounding Lights that are constantly ready to restrain and calm my ego.

The main thing here is the example I take from others and the attitude they teach me. I am in the company of people who are satisfied with little. This is what is accepted among them, and that’s it. They actually don’t need more than that. They prefer to enjoy the good relationships that I now take in portions, instead of food. If I feel gloomy and take a portion of “our love,” I am immediately filled with love.

It is because I am in a network of social, human relationships whose message clearly is that I never will lack anything. The feeling itself actually is enough, and nothing else. Initially, by our nature, we depend on environment, and there are no compromises here. So, if the group radiates the right attitude toward me, imbued with tranquility, peace, and good will, then half a day later, I also will feel that everything is exactly as it should be. However, if I find myself in some gang, I also will absorb their principles.

There is a natural inclination within a person to adapt to the environment. I simply have no means and no way to fight this inclination. So, within a couple of hours, I become incorporated in the general atmosphere of mutual guarantee and stop worrying about myself. The people around me are my network of connections and are closest to me. I cannot resist their opinion since I am also part of the general network.

So, when it is my turn to reveal the Creator, the root of my soul, I am brought to a new type of connection, to a group. The same law operates here: The group tells me that there is nothing to worry about and that I will stop worrying about it. But besides that, it has to convey the message that I must connect with the friends and adhere to the Creator. It’s because self-annulment is not enough, I also need the right direction, And I also will receive this message.

My free will is not taken away from me in the group since that simply will suppress me. In spirituality, other people’s opinions are not conveyed automatically. This is another boat that I must choose by myself. The Creator brings me to the ladder, but each step up requires great effort and strengthening along the way. However, do I get stronger? Do I fulfill my free will? Without free will, I never will develop the human within me.

A “human being” (Adam) is only the one who pressures himself to enter the group and be incorporated with the friends. Then, I receive everything else from them automatically since I have no control over it anymore.

In short, we choose only one thing: the environment. The first and main condition is mutual guarantee. If we are connected in mutual guarantee and provide everyone with everything that they need for self-annulment, then there is nothing else that we need for a start.

The second condition is to make sure that everyone has the stimuli and incentives so that they surely will hold onto the friends. This ensures a person’s good fate.
[106511]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 41: Bear in mind that the reality of all the worlds is generally divided into five worlds called a) Adam Kadmon, b) Atzilut, c) Beria, d) Yetzira, and e) Assiya.

These “worlds” are the levels of my internal closeness to the Creator, to bestowal. It’s as if I look through their prism. At the same time, I can accept bestowal on a certain level of Aviut (thickness) from zero to four. On the whole, these are all levels of attainment until full adhesion.

Question: What do we need these worlds, these concealments, for?

Answer: So that we will gradually discover the Creator according to our equivalence of form with Him; it’s a law: Every phenomenon in reality can only be attained according to an equivalence of form. As long as I, according to my egoistic nature, am external to it and am not compatible with it, I cannot feel it. When the point in the heart awakens in me, I begin to feel my oppositeness to the Creator, and then I can grow and increase my point and my closeness to Him. But until then, I am detached from Him by my ego: He is total bestowal and I am total receiving, and I have no connection with Him. This is how the law of equivalence of form works.

Question: Can we say that the levels of equivalence reflect my sensitivity to others?

Answer: Yes. My attitude to others or to the Creator is actually the same thing. The main thing is that the direction is from me outward.

We must understand that we are in one state called the “world of Ein Sof (Infinity),” or “Malchut of Ein Sof.” But we are separated from it by five levels of opacity of the senses. Special Masachim (screens) weaken them like filters that are dressed on the perception of the world of Ein Sof, and as a result, we only feel the “external world” although everything actually takes place inside.

Reality is fixed, but it’s depicted to us in the form of this world. The only difference is in the vagueness, in the dullness of the senses.

Question: How can we sharpen our senses?

Answer: It depends on your sensitivity to others in feeling the other and whether I can feel that he is as important as I am. Therefore it says: “Love thy friend as thyself.”
[104944]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/13, “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Rabash, “One Should Always Sell the Beams of His House:” Rather, I truly want love of others. This is why I was interested in establishing this society, so I would see that each and every one is engaging in love of others, so that through it, the little bit of force that I have in love of others would increase and I would have the strength to engage in love of others more powerfully than I could by myself. But now I see that I have gained nothing because I see that not even one is doing good. Thus, it would be better if I weren’t with them and hadn’t learned from their actions.

To that, there is the reply that if a society is established with certain people, and when they gathered, there must have been someone who wished to establish specifically this “bunch.” Thus, he sorted out these people to see that they were suitable for each other. In other words, 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.

A group is not just a collection of people who gather in order to study together like in a certain course. This gathering is called a Kabbalistic group the moment these people feel a real need for an inner connection, in order to discover the Creator in it and by that to bring Him contentment.

When all these conditions are fulfilled, even in the most initial form, then we may see that a place and the time, the conditions for the birth of the group are formed. Anyone who decides that the main thing he needs in life is the concern for such an inner connection with other people in order to find the revelation of the Creator in this connection is a called a “member” in the group.

Our obligation is to constantly check whether we are compatible with these conditions. If we are not, if a person is not compatible with these conditions and exits the domination of the group, he immediately returns to the level of the animate. But whoever remains connected to others in order to annul himself in order to bring about connection and in it to discover the upper force, the force of bestowal and general love is part of the group when he succeeds in doing that.

Eventually, the collective efforts of the friends lead to the revelation of the system called the “soul.” They build the spiritual system of the ten Sefirot between them, the Direct Light, the Returning Light, the three lines, etc. All the details of the upper worlds about which we study in The Study of the Ten Sefirot will be revealed in the connection between us as the components of the system of the soul.
[104556]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/13, Writings of Rabash

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From Rabash’s Letter 5: … you should do more in love of friends. It is impossible to achieve lasting love, unless through Dvekut [adhesion], meaning that you will unite the two of you with a tight bond. And this can be only if you try to “undress” the clothing in which the inner soul is placed—the clothing called “self-love”…

And when you feel that you are at war, each of you will know and feel that he needs the help of his friend, and without him, his own strength will weaken, too. Then, when you understand that you must save your life, each of you will forget that he has a body he must keep, and you will both be tied by the thought of how to use the enemy.

Love of friends is attained by way of a war for its sake. It is impossible to attain adherence that indicates constant love without striving to leave the clothing of the evil inclination in which the soul is clothed. To leave this clothing of self-love is possible only if you exchange it for love of the other, for the screen and the Returning Light.

This, specifically, is what we must reach. When we begin to search for how to do this, we feel that everything essentially depends on our relationship to the other, things that are so contemptible in our world. All relationships in the world are established according to laws, protecting the rights of the individual, of democracy. However, when we see some of the truth through the influence of the Surrounding Light, we then understand that it is specifically through connection with the other that we realize the entire program of creation.

The other one, whether a friend or the Creator, is the same; there is no difference. If I want to rise above myself and reach the Creator, it is precisely then that I see that I require help from a friend. As long as all the friends have not come to my aid, according to how much I give myself over to them, I cannot do anything.

What we require is mutual cooperation where we depend upon each other. As much as I give myself over to others, to this extent they can help me, and when they come to help me, I stop thinking about myself. In spite of myself, I rise above myself.

However, the friends can come to help me only if I subdue myself with respect to them. With this, I oblige them to be concerned for me. This is saying that everything depends on the work of the individual regarding his environment. The more I subdue myself and am ready to adhere to the environment, to the teacher, to the books, to learning, to dissemination—which is to say, to all means for attaining the goal, trusting like an infant, surrendering myself to the lowest level—the closer I come to my spiritual realization.

I must begin my spiritual ascent from zero. The more I approach zero with my thoughts, desires, and deeds, the more I adhere to the group and oblige it to be concerned about me. I begin to receive the right influence from inside the group. Whatever level on which it is found at the moment is not even important. This influence makes it possible for me to nullify my self-love, departing from the egoistic shell (Klipa), from the evil inclination, and to start the spiritual work.
[104446]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/13

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