1. RABASH, Article No. 544, "Man Is Born a Wild Ass" [Donkey]
“Man is born a wild ass.” The reason is that a beast means that it cares only for itself and has no feeling of others. When one is born with the will to receive, he has no passion to change his ways.
Hence, what he has in the end, he also has in the beginning. But man is not so. Although “A man is born a wild ass,” in the end he will achieve the degree of “man,” meaning with sensation of others. By this he will come to feel Godliness, which is called “Know the God of your father and serve Him.”
2. Baal HaSulam, "Introduction to The Book of Zohar", Item 38
The human species, which is phase four of the will to receive. It is the complete and final measure, and its will to receive includes the sensation of others, as well. And if you wish to know the precise difference between phase three of the will to receive, which is in the animate, and the fourth phase of the will to receive in man, I will tell you that it is as the value of a single creature compared to the whole of reality.
This is because the will to receive in the animate, which lacks the sensation of others, can only generate needs and desires to the extent that they are imprinted in that creature alone. But man, who can feel others, too, becomes needy of everything that others have, too, and is thus filled with envy to acquire everything that others have. If he has a hundred, he wants two hundred, and so his needs forever multiply until he wishes to devour all that there is in the whole world.
3. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 115, "Still, Vegetative, Animate, and Speaking"
We see that each animal has its own characteristic; they are not enslaved to the environment and each of them has its own sensation and characteristics. They can certainly work against the will of the landlord, meaning they can work in bestowal and are also not enslaved to the environment. Rather, they have their own lives, and their vitality does not depend on their friends’ lives. Yet, they cannot feel more than their own being. In other words, they have no sensation of the other. Naturally, they cannot care for others.
The speaking has virtues: 1 – It acts against the will of the Landlord. 2 – It is not confined to its contemporaries like the vegetative, meaning it is independent of the environment. 3 – It also feels others and can therefore care for them and complement them by feeling and regretting with the public, and being able to rejoice in the comfort of the public. Also, they can receive from the past and from the future, while animals feel only the present and only their own being.
4. Baal HaSulam, "The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose"
The crass, undeveloped person does not recognize egoism as bad at all. Therefore, he uses it openly, without any shame or restraint, stealing and murdering in broad daylight wherever he can. The somewhat more developed sense some measure of their egoism as bad and are at least ashamed to use it in public, stealing and killing openly. But in secret, they still commit their crimes, but are careful that no one will see them.
The even more developed sense egoism as so loathsome that they cannot tolerate it in them and reject it completely, as much as they detect of it, until they cannot, and do not want to enjoy the labor of others. Then begin to emerge in them sparks of love of others, called “altruism,” which is the general attribute of goodness.
But that, too, evolves gradually. First develops love and desire to bestow upon one’s family and kin, as in the verse, “Do not ignore your own flesh.” When one develops further, one’s attribute of bestowal expands to all the people around him, being one’s townspeople or one’s nation. And so one adds until he finally develops love for the whole of humanity.
5. Baal HaSulam, "Introduction of The Book of Zohar" Letter No. 39
This purpose does not apply to the still and the great spheres, such as the earth, the moon, or the sun, however luminous they may be, and not to the vegetative or the animate, for they lack the sensation of others, even from among their own species. Therefore, how can the sensation of the Godly and His bestowal apply to them?
Humankind alone, having been prepared with the sensation of others of the same species, who are similar to them, after working in Torah and Mitzvot, when they invert their will to receive to a desire to bestow and achieve equivalence of form with their Maker, they receive all the degrees that have been prepared for them in the upper worlds, called NRNHY. By this they become qualified to receive the purpose of the thought of creation. After all, the purpose of the creation of all the worlds was for man alone.
6. Baal HaSulam, "The Freedom"
The Torah and the Mitzvot were given only to purify Israel, to develop in us the sense of recognition of evil imprinted in us at birth, which is generally defined as our self-love, and to come to the pure good defined as “love of others,” which is the one and only passage to the love of the Creator.
7. Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]", No. 22
The impression he gets when engaging in Mitzvot between man and man, since one is obliged to perform all the Mitzvot Lishma [for Her sake], without any hope for self-love, meaning that no light or hope returns to him through his trouble in the form of reward or honor, etc. Here, at this exalted point, the love of the Creator and the love of his friend unite and actually become one.
8. RABASH, Letter No. 40
There is a prayer for it—that the Creator will help him by making him feel the love of his friend and make his friend close to his heart. Thus, through the deeds, he is rewarded with the aim, as well.