The principle of loving your neighbor as yourself summarizes and includes all the principles. We carry out the principle of fear and the principle of love through unity by annulling ourselves before the group, and through mutual guarantee by receiving the Light that Reforms. The Light brings us the state of fear and then love.

All of it together is called “carrying out the 613 commandments.” This is talking about the correction of desires. Every desire neutralizes its egoism and acquires a screen, the intention of bestowal.

I don’t see the steps of the ladder ahead of time. I build them myself through self-renunciation, which enables me to hold on to the group more and more strongly. That is how a single Kli forms inside me, aimed at the single Creator. This requires the principle called “single corresponds to single.”

All of our efforts and corrections are aimed at building this unity. A person discerns it by aspiring toward it and suppressing everything else. Who does he unite with? With the group, which he evaluates using just one criterion: the goal. He joins just this point of the goal which is present in the group, and not anything else inside those around him. He bows down before unity, focusing on it.

Then he is single and he unites with the single group, discarding everything else in his desire in order to reveal the single Creator who is Good and Does Good: the quality of bestowal. Thus, through love for others, a person acquires love for the Creator.
[25156]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/10, “According to What is Explained Concerning Love Thy Friend as Thyself”

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On the spiritual path, there are two extremely serious obstacles or two questions raised by the Pharaoh himself:

1. “Who is this Creator that I should listen to Him?” In other words, what is so important which is hidden in the property of bestowal for me to bow to it?

In fact, this rebellion of our nature helps us because by overcoming it, we can keep exalting the importance of bestowal over reception in our eyes. The growing egoism continuously denies the importance of bestowal, and we have to keep strengthening our connection with the group so that under its influence, we start aspiring to the realization of the properties of bestowal within ourselves again.

2. "What is there for you in this work?” Egoism shows us that we are weak and incapable of achieving what we desire. “What do you have to do with it? Your goal may be beautiful, but who are you to reach it?”

When we are overtaken by these two weaknesses, it should be understood that a person can’t break free from imprisonment by himself. The only chance to do so is for the friends to come and save him. I will find strength to advance only in the group, in the connection between us. There, I reveal my nature and realize that it lacks bestowal.

Then, I experience distress between the two poles: On one side, there is the importance of bestowal and on the other, my pettiness. And I acquire both these factors thanks to the environment.

Now everything is organized correctly: I am low, the goal is exalted and profound, and I have the means to reach it. At this point, there comes a feeling of certainty that we call the Arvut (mutual guarantee). After all, I know that through the group, I will receive all the necessary strength.

How do I know this? In fact, the correct environment is a structure created by the Creator and infused with His attribute. Therefore, if we draw closer to each other through the bonds of love, then bestowal begins to rule among us.

It turns out that in reality, I am not using the power of the group, but the property of bestowal that is hidden in our interconnection. It doesn’t belong to any one individually for it is the force of the Creator, which becomes revealed between us. This particular force is the one that does all the work.

Hence, the Pharaoh’s heart lies in the hands of the Creator. The Pharaoh is the force of reception created by the Creator for us to build the form of bestowal exactly above it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/20, “He Who Strengthens His Heart”

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Question: Is the Light that Reforms our compass in the group, or rather, is it our unity?

Answer: Unity cannot be a compass since I haven’t achieved it yet. A compass aims me at the point where I reside. This point is unification between us, and I have to attain it. Therefore, everything I am doing at the moment, by exerting effort in the environment, in the group, by being impressed by the friends, receiving the importance of the goal from them and realizing how small I am; all of this is done so that I can now read The Zohar feeling and understanding that it is describing to us true, exalted, spiritual states that I have to feel and attain.

We are now allowed to forget that the Light is the phenomenon taking place within the will to receive (desire, Kli) and is a form of desire. We study, feel, and discuss only matter and the form clothed in matter. Matter is our collective will to receive that we wish to unify as one and to give it a form of connection between us regarded as Arvut or mutual guarantee.

Arvut per se, if it comes true, will be the Light. After all, we are talking solely about the form that characterizes the will to receive (desire, Kli). I don’t’ know what electricity or light is as such, but I do know what phenomena derive from it in matter.

Therefore, I yearn only for the form clothed in matter. This form is the Creator (Bo-Reh, “Come and See”), the Light acting in its various manifestations as the Surrounding Light or the inner one, “Nekudot” (points, dots), or “Taamim” (tastes) and so forth.

Finally, I have to strongly convince myself that there is nothing but our desires connected in the correct manner, and this is what is called “the Light.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/10, The Zohar

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We have already reached the state where we can attain the mutual guarantee, now we only need to work harder. It might be beneficial to imagine in great detail how much we will lose if we do not attain it. Imagine that we were unable to turn the November convention into anything more than a colorful festival and did not bring the point of unity into this action. What will happen to us if we do not advance in reality?

We have decided that we must reach unity this year, and we need to remember that all the time during the preparation for the convention. There will be no problem reaching unity if all of us together are absolutely serious about it. People that are less advanced than us are capable of doing it.

Our group has gone through a very serious preparation. We are simply facing a psychological barrier. The greatest problem is that we are unable to imagine this notion, this goal. We need to constantly think about it so that the loss in relation to the gain and our actual loss will become more obvious.

We are already connected in the common system; we only need to reveal it from our state. Beside this relative revelation, nothing else happens. Everything is already here! This is also relevant to the entire world, but we have more because we have gone through a great deal of preparation.

The spiritual system has become closer to us; we have drawn closer to it and pulled it towards us. It has already started to “surface” from the depth and come closer to us. Now we just need to work harder to reveal it. It will become much easier to work after the first revelation. The hardest part is rising to the first degree.
[23800]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, “From My Flesh Shall I Know God”

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You can impact the spiritual system only by entering it through the relationship of a mutual guarantee because then you will uncover your connection to the system. And if you exist in it simply as an observer, then you are there as a “beast” (angel).

Your actions aim at restoring your connection with this entire system, and it depends solely on you. And then, through this relationship, you will see how the system gets renewed. It is written: “You will eat what has long been laid in store for you.” There is nothing new! You only need to discover your connection to the system thanks to the mutual bestowal.

Only the group can help us accomplish this. If you can’t demand help from the people that you are familiar with and connected to, then how can you demand it from the Force that you don’t know or feel? We have to build between us a system of relationships that will constantly shake and push us.

The group must not accept indifference. Everyone has to feel that he depends on all the others, in happiness and grief, in corporeality and spirituality, in everything!
[23803]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/10, “From My Flesh Shall I Know God”

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Question: I am worried. We just read about the state at Mount Sinai and different types of concern. Soon, I will turn 60. You once said that people’s age in the story of the giving of the Torah was from 20 to 60 and emphasized these numbers. Does it mean that I am going to be thrown off the train?

Answer: It isn’t up to us when we will awaken to spirituality, to the awareness of the importance of Arvut (mutual responsibility or guarantee), to worrying about our spiritual state and about switching from caring about ourselves to caring about others, about the Creator. All these spiritual degrees are concealed and depend on the development of many souls. We cannot say yet why everything occurs the way it does.

Next to you sit twenty year olds. Later, you will discover that according to the root of your soul, your current state is the optimal state for your spiritual development. The fact that right now you are concerned about going in the right direction and about the purpose of this world means that it is the most beneficial state for you and it cannot be otherwise. Now, everything depends on you, on how you will realize the calling from Above by exercising your freedom of will.
[23796]
From Kabbalah for Beginners, “What is Mutual Concern” 10/13/10

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Question: What is the difference between “love others as I love myself” and “care for others as I care for myself”?

Answer: “To care for another as I care for myself” is the level of concern and caring, while “love thy neighbor as thyself” is fulfillment. When I am at the level of the former, it is regarded as “bestowal for the sake of bestowal,” when I have nothing to give.

When we ascend the degrees of spiritual correction, then from a period of preparation, we transition to the period of fear (worry or concern) in which a person learns to care for the others. He can’t fulfill them yet and only worries about them. A space, a desire to care, gets created. Then, the degrees of love follow, and then it is already clear how to fulfill others.

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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “What is Mutual Concern” 10/13/10

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Because of its nature, egoism doesn’t feel rewarded by sacrificing something for the sake of others. We are unable to imagine that by doing so, we will feel good. I may imagine that I will profit from the mutual guarantee, but I don’t see the need to annul myself before the others.

This is the mistake that the communists made: They wanted to use the law of Arvut (mutual responsibility or guarantee), but without the Creator, the force that implements this guarantee and unification. Everyone rises above himself, loses egoism, and annuls himself, but then, the energy to do work disappears.

Therefore, in order to ascend and unite, we have to attach the force of the Creator to ourselves from the very beginning. After all, no one but He will establish a connection between us because this connection manifests above egoism.

The Creator created laws that He implements. We can act solely from the consideration that He is the third participant who determines the final result and is present in every action. This outcome is always in His favor, and you always annul yourself in relation to Him. Then, the third component that you usually don’t think about takes the central position: He is the First, the Last, and the Defining One.

At that point, my goal changes: I want to aspire for this partner and do anything for Him. The system is for Him; I am for Him; the friend is for Him. This is how we ascend to the level of complete bestowal since the Creator is the property of bestowal that we attain between ourselves.
[24046]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Arvut”

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We are fed up with what we call “preparation for preparation.” The time has come for true, practical preparation to enter the spiritual world.

All the texts have been thoroughly, repeatedly studied. The books have been published. Conventions are gathering one after the other. No matter what the group does, if it doesn’t begin the practical realization, we will begin to descend. Without an authentic, inner action, we will only be making cosmetic modifications which will backfire on us.

We are no longer alone. We have gained many “children,” groups in Israel and around the world. We must feel responsibility for them, and we have to attract the Upper Force in order to correctly take care of them, to set an example for the whole of mankind by demonstrating what its spiritual center is.

All of this can be achieved solely by means of the force of mutual guarantee between us if we make the decision, “We shall do, and we shall hear.” We need to realize unity, and, as a result, the Upper Force will manifest in it.

The next level seems too exalted and too distant to us, but, in truth, it is even more exalted and more distant than we imagine. It is opposite to our nature. However, we have to accept its condition and, with all our might, try to accomplish it with one unified powerful attack.

Therefore, now, we are preparing ourselves so that we may accomplish this at the congress. There will be neither allowances nor indulgence for this. After all, we have delegated the responsibility for the multitude of groups. You don’t yet see and feel what a serious, actual, ideological, and loud issue this is. We have plowed the soil, and now our seeds are growing deep, powerful roots. So, let’s do what needs to be done.
[24031]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Arvut”

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Question: How do I know when I start to feel the system? What are the first sensations that a person experiences?

Answer: Responsibility! Just as it is in the family, I start feeling that there is a certain system for which I have to take responsibility. It isn’t accidental that a family is established in the corporeal world and a person has to take this responsibility seriously. Family is the foundation of society, life.

In our case, we must feel as if we are in a “spiritual family” where we all have to reach similarity to the Upper One. In accordance with nature and the law of root and branch, we have to meet the condition of the mutual guarantee and implement it first in the group and then in the entire world.

The whole world, as Baal HaSulam describes, is one family, and nature will force us to learn this law.
[24081]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, “The Arvut”

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