If you look at all the desires created, a person is just a single point. Everything depends on how much he can connect with the others, whether with individual desires or with a group. If he has a yearning to unite with others, this means he is digging the ground for the foundation of a building. After all, he doesn’t dig into himself; there is nothing to dig there, he is merely a point.
His body remains on the outside and has nothing to do with this; it is an animal body. And the point is the human, the beginning of the soul. The extent to which he can connect with the others is how deep he is digging. He receives desires from them, material, then sees how capable or incapable he is of accepting them, and from the desires he manages to take in, he builds the structure of his soul with the help of the light.
Each of us has no more than a single point. I try to connect with others and discover how opposite I am to connection. But I am willing to endure it, I annul myself in relation to the desires of the friends with whom I want to unite, perceiving them as a mother, as a womb, which is what the group truly is.
I annul myself before it, and then I receive all this material of desire that has joined me. I then unite with this formed place and gain “volume.” But as I do so, I overcome my resistance, and therefore, in annulling myself, I ask for correction. And then comes the surrounding, upper light that returns to the source and actualizes our connection—between me and the group.
This is my first connection with the group on the zero level of Aviut (Aviut Shoresh), in which I feel the light of Nefesh. And now I am called a “spiritual embryo” (Ubar). I have reached my first spiritual degree!
Then my egoism in relation to them grows, and I suddenly feel a great heaviness of the heart—the first level (Aviut Alef). On this level, I already had my “living space,” the place where I united with the group as one. But with regard to others, not yet. Now I want to encompass an even larger area through my connection; this will be called “the neighbor” for me. I consider it my mother, my group, and I work to become an inseparable part of it.
And again: study, the reforming light, self-annulment, and so on, until I acquire all this shared desire in addition to what I had, and this entire area becomes mine, level “1,” Ruach.
And so, I continue further. That is, I dig ever deeper into the group, penetrate them, and take their “material,” desire. I have nothing of my own apart from the point and the animal body that desires only material pleasures. With this single black point, I enter spirituality, and the rest of the vessel of my soul is built from others’ material.
Therefore, it is said: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” meaning, connect the others to yourself. This is the fundamental spiritual rule, the main tool (common vessel) for revealing the light within you. That is why all the work takes place in the group and depends on how deeply we manage to dig into it, to annul our animal body that remains behind, to enter the group and acquire its desires, intentions, thoughts, strengths, and the importance of the goal. All of this is there, along with the upper light and the Creator. And it is precisely in the place of penetration into the group that we build the structure of our soul.
[42990]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/11, Writings of Rabash “What Is the Foundation on which Kedusha [Holiness] Is Built?”
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