Afternoon Lesson. March 19 2023.
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
From the Love of Man to the Love of the Creator - Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #13
1. Rav’s Introduction. (00:20) This is the first stage of us coming closer to the Creator: from self-love to the love of the created beings. And the second stage is from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator, so we are still in the first stage. Let's continue, just understand that without attaining this degree, we cannot continue further, so we need to get to know it, come closer to it, and discuss it as much as possible. This is basically our spiritual work in the meantime. And it is truly the most important degree, without it, within the love of the created beings we can feel the love of the Creator so we need to enter into it and already be in the upper world, to rise from our lower world to the upper world of the Creator and then we will understand and feel all of nature, of creation completely.
Reading excerpt #13. (01:51) “The essence of the Torah..”
2. R. (03:03) Meaning to go from love of others to love of the Creator, it does not demand, it doesn't require a lot of degrees, simply to pass through it, meaning if I don’t reach the love of the created beings immediately after that, the next degree, the next stage is the love of the Creator. And then I am adhered to Him, I identify with Him and by this I reach adhesion with all of creation from beginning to end. Let's read it again.
Reading excerpt #13 again. (03:45)
3. R. (04:07) The Mitzvot between Man and the Creator.
4. S. (05:01) Why is love your friend as yourself the final aim after all loving the Creator is the final aim, adhering to him?
R. But we have no chance to jump to that degree but only by acquiring a love for all of creation in general and then when we reach this then we pass to the degree of love the Lord, your God.
S. All of our work that we are getting accustomed to do, all of the work of being in None Else Besides Him, just like we are learning now in Passover. Seemingly from this excerpt this is not the direction at all?
R. Why this is not the direction, this is exactly the direction, this is the goal. That we need to reach the quality of love to everyone, to everything without any limits which is the Creator’s quality, the general quality of the Creator is love and this is what we need to reach in order to reach this then, a Kli was created called Adam HaRishon and this vessel was shattered into many parts. In this vessel we were adhered to the Creator from the start but then one point and in order for us to reach this in understanding and recognition and in our own efforts and then this vessel shattered. And we need to work in order to know, to reach all of the shattered vessels and through us connecting with them, we unite them together and return them to Adam, into one desire, as one man in one heart. And by this we reach the internality, this effort this Mitzva, this action is the love of the Creator.
S. When a person gets some kind of disturbance, resistance, rejection, just like we are learning about now in all of this work in Egypt, so he tries all of the time to see that this one that is disturbing him is the Creator to adhere to the Creator, There’s None Else Besides Him?
R. Yes.
S. Where is love your friend as yourself here? When I am trying not to adhere to the Creator here?
R. The Kabbalists tell us the best thing is to build a group, a ten and in the ten we will work with our friends such that all the time we will develop towards them the quality of love more and more. And after we reach this, as much as we come closer to loving them, then we will also be able to understand what is this general eternal love. It's not talking about people that are around us but there are all types of people and we feel from them, in general we feel negative responses from them. We are not turning to them with love but we feel within our love in the ten, we also feel from their inability to love every person and to reach the complete love, complete love is that I love everything the still, vegetative, animate and speaking and gradually this is developing in me and I know this is what is called Ahavat Olam, it is eternal love. And in that love I feel that it's root is the Creator and then I feel closeness and then adhesion to Him.
S. This difficulty is always to connect these two thoughts from love of friends and the Creator, to None Else Besides Him?
R. Through the love of friends I reach Him, I start to love Him, to come closer to Him, to adhere to Him, to feel Him. Gradually, this happens gradually for me.
S. Here the principle is clear, it's clear that we reach gradually but in these concrete situations that a person gets the work is generally to add the Creator to this picture, None Else Besides Him, the Good that does Good and the friends are maybe on the side somewhere?
R. No, I would say that the friends, that very same place where I attain the right attitude of love to the Creator. Well in the meantime we can feel it this way or that way but the main thing is that I depict to myself two states: love of friends and in it, the love of the Creator.
5. S. (11:15) It is written in this excerpt that love your friend as yourself is the final aim of the Torah after which one immediately obtains an adhesion with the Creator. How through this commandment, through this action of loving the friends will we immediately reach adhesion with the Creator?
R. I would say that this is a result of us aspiring to loving the friends. Thanks to this we reach the love of the Creator with such a feeling develops within us and which we start to feel, what is it, what is the source of everything that exists, the Creator, we start to feel Him specifically in the center of the group. This is why, to the extent that I give myself to the friends and want to be with them in one heart, in one aspiration, in one desire, to that extent I come closer to the Creator and start to feel a connection with Him.
S. These qualities, these desires of the friends, is that the friends with which I connect this feeling, this connection, is this the Creator Himself or is it something else?
R. We are actually not speaking of the Creator Himself but of the revelation of His quality. There's a root to everything that exists which is the Creator and how it relates to us out of love. We need to reveal that love when we develop in it as the same feeling of love for the friends and through them, from that it evokes, it develops the love towards the Creator and by this we also start to discover Him more than love, we don’t discover Him, as more than love, we do it through the love. We don't describe Him as more than love but we do it through the love, it is impossible to depict it in words but we work on this later on as well.
S. I'm interested in now from our love that we build in the ten between us that from there's a bridge to love of the Creator?
R. As a consequence, as a collection of all of our feelings and then we reveal the love as the root; as the Creator.
S. But do we need to continue this thought every time from the friends to the Creator?
R. It will appear, it will appear such between us and we will begin to feel it and aspire towards it.
6. S. (14:58) It’s a place where we meet, the center of the group, where we all meet in our desires. Can you detail it a bit, what is a meeting place?
R. A place where we are aspiring that we want to be connected together in one desire, that's the center of the ten and there and we discover our mutual aspiration to the Creator and then we start to feel him as our source.
7. S. (15:38) To love the Creator with the whole heart and soul, this means that my heart is a part of the soul of Adam HaRishon and until I love everyone it won't be the full heart and soul?
R. Well, we don't feel this in the meantime but it's enough for us, it's enough to realize ourselves in the ten.
S. But this word of with the entire heart?
R. It's with the entire heart that you have now with all of your feelings and opportunities now.
8. S. (16:25) I wake up in the morning and I see no change and I want to hold onto the Creator, I want to adhere to get His qualities but there is always something that is pulling me apart, that does not let me do it. What is that thing and what should I do about it please?
R. By you getting a rejection and difficulty to feel the Creator, to think about Him, to come closer to Him through the ten or even without the ten, all of these tendencies, these feelings come on purpose in order to aim you correctly, exactly through the center of the ten to the Creator. Until you reach the center of the ten you won't be able to aim at the Creator.
9. S. (17:45) What does it mean, the words that you are feeling your second nature?
R. We have two nature's: an egoistic one, an altruistic one. When in the group we are engaging in coming closer to each other, wanting to become a single whole, in one desire, then we gradually ask from our personal egoistic desires into the desires of the ten, altruistic ones.
10. S. (18:30) Yesterday we had a meeting with the whole world Kli, the Russian-speaking Gathering of Friends and we are always proud of the friends of Tbilisi, that they are the greatest. But yesterday, for the first time, there was a feeling that I saw the friends of the whole world Kli as so big and it was not even a game, this was in truth that I am just so small. What is this new feeling?
R. It's because you became a little better so then you started to feel them as bigger and better.
11. S. (19:23) Is love revealed right away to all of the friends or gradually, first to one friend and then another one and then everyone?
R. It's not revealed equally but it is continuous for a while but then in a certain degree you start to relate to everyone as to a single whole and this is already the second stage of love of friends.
12. S. (20:15) It's not the love of friends that I can reach but it's the group we can get together meaning if love of friends grows in me?
R. Yes.
13. S. (20:45) When you are talking about the strength in the ten, are you talking about one desire, the force of the Creator, the desire and the Creator in everything: can you explain that please? Thank you.
R. You are speaking about the Creator which is within the desire of the ten.
14. S. (21:28) It is very easy to love the world around us, vegetative and animals and the friends as well. Gradually we are beginning to love them, and come closer to them but how do we learn to love all of the people in the world? It is so difficult?
R. You don't need this, in the meantime you need to be concerned with loving your ten, this is the main thing. Don't get distracted with the whole world.
15. S. (22:05) It seems like, it sounds like we don't just need to decide that we are ready to love the Creator but that we need to study and we are in this process for a long time. It turns out that loving the Creator in general, we need to learn to love in general but to practice loving the Creator, it doesn't work out for me, only because when I open up and I'm meeting with Him, that He fills me with so much of His love, that I stopped differentiating myself in this process and this ability to practice disappears since I can't differentiate myself in this process?
R. This is because you didn't prepare your vessel, you're not engaged in the connection with the friends in the ten, you need first of all to attain between you such a connection which can be called love and then out of it to turn to the Creator. Otherwise this is all false and a lie, it's not correct.
S. In other words to practice the relations to the Creator?
R. It's impossible from the start, it's impossible, it's untrue; these are your illusions.
16. S. (24:00) My amazing ten are filled with this feeling of love and I feel myself in it and I love myself and all these friends and I feel it in me but how to glue us together or in other words what is tying us all together inside of me?
R. This common goal is gluing us all together, this common source, so the beginning and end point of our path are set and we throughout this entire path, from today's points to the end, we need to be concerned only of our connection.
17. S. (25:05) We feel your love for us everyday and it seems to us the greatest example of what you were just talking about. The question is: what is the role of purification for the desire to receive for ourselves towards us loving the whole and therefore, love of the Creator but how do we feel it in ourselves?
R. This is exactly like you are saying yes, this is how we need to do it from the love of the other to the love of the Creator. And we need to dedicate all of our forces and thoughts to that.
18. S. (26:10) Now a few friends in the ten are experiencing all sorts of states: physically tired, sick, lacking a desire and we remain in this general embrace. What is lacking for us in order to succeed, to go through this stage and to reach connection and also a balance between the friends?
R. What's lacking is one thing: prayer, prayer. Together, everyone together needs to ask of the Creator to bring you to unity, to connection, that you will feel that you are one heart in one feeling and that the Creator will fulfill this heart. But you want to come closer and to connect to one heart and the Creator will feel this heart for you to feel Him there. Meaning you are building a vessel, a place where the Creator will be felt and this is all from your love. If we love each other we connect to a state called a Kli [vessel] and then out of the love between us we obligate the Creator, we draw him to enter and to fulfill this common heart of ours.
19. S. (28:28) It turns out that the Creator for us is only that those feelings, that those relations towards the friends in the ten and to increase this feeling, can we fight with the ego directly in this or just to work with the light which grows it for us?
R. It's better not to fight with the ego, it's pointless. The best thing is to develop love in the connections between us.
S. What happens basically when we connect and create this form? What happens to this feeling that separates us? It remains after all it doesn't disappear?
R. You will see afterwards you will see it afterwards you just need to aspire to connection and love between you and from you to the Creator and everything will work out.
20. S. (29:46) The relation of the love of the Creator is when we place our dressings into His?
R. Well, it's not so clear but let's say yes.
21. S. (30:10) By praying for the friends in faith above reason for the Creator we are influencing each other correctly and then we start to correct our Kli and then the deeper we feel these things to the friend, you feel something from the external world, something magical, things that weren't working out suddenly work out, are these just fantasies?
R. There's a bit of fantasy in this but in general it is so.
22. S. (31:01) How do we reach mutual love in the group, to the ten, to the friends, if the heart feels that it is completely impossible?
R. From the feeling of it being impossible ask of course it's impossible but we ask and the Creator answers our prayer.
23. S. (31:33) If we love our friends and we really know we must in the right way but how can we do it if our quality of love is impure?
R. As much as we can and the rest the Creator Himself will correct. That's how we do it, is that clear?
24. S. (32:28) A friend who we work together with and there's this reciprocity in a certain experience that we are obligated with an importance to always increase love even if there's criticism. There is always work towards connection and we are always trying not to fall but there are friends that I feel, certain friends that when I see a friend, right away there's criticism towards him and I feel the ego is jumping from the inside and with these specific friends that I feel this, it's just way over my head, how do I work there?
R. I understand you, as the Creator is arranging exercises for us all the time and we have no choice, we need to pray to the Creator in order to correct our feeling, our attitude to them especially. Ask the Creator that your attitude to such friends will change, that the Creator Himself will change it since you are incapable. And you will see that this actually helps.
25. S. (33:56) How can we succeed in connecting all the parts of my body that are separated?
R. By the actions of connection with the friends and through a prayer to the Creator: we have nothing else.
26. S. (34:38) What is this common heart, what is it built out of, what is it?
R. The common heart is built from each and everyone's point in the heart.
S. Why is it something common?
R. Because it's a desire to bestow this common one which we reveal between us.
S. This common heart is already a feeling of love or just a Kli?
R. Yes, it's already something from the general love.
27. S. (35:25) We have a great friend who's 3 months already sick to the point that she can't even breathe when she speaks. She justifies the Creator and everything that is happening to her and as a ten we want to help for her to strengthen to be connected to us. Can we also make a decision to take certain tasks away from her and how much she needs to participate so she has more strength?
R. You can do everything in order to make her sick state a little easier and try to pray for her to feel better and ask of the Creator to send her full recovery. We need to do this daily.
28. S. (37:00) It turns out that the ten is this minimal unit in which the light can enter and less than that it is impossible to all come together into one little ball. But this Kli needs to be ready for the light to enter into it, to be similar to it and the only quality is love of friends when we are aiming from one to another and when this love on the inside, this attains a certain degree then this equivalence to the light and to the Creator happens and it connects the ten?
R. Yes, yes.
S. It turns out that there is no danger without attaining something, that there is nothing to be afraid of. We just need to increase the love between the friends and ask the Creator to give the strength for each one for this, it turns out like this?
R. Of course, we just need to discover the true state in which we are in.
29. S. (38:25) What is the purpose of creation, is it love for the others or the happiness of the creature or the happiness of the Creator?
R. The purpose of creation is to return all of creation to adhesion with the Creator the complete One, period.
30. S. (39:10) A little while ago we talked about the stages of love and I wanted to ask about love that evokes jealousy. Can we say that jealousy is the next stage? That I am jealous of someone in the ten, when someone comes away from the ten I feel like a jealous wife? How do I start using this for the benefit of the ten?
R. According to this be concerned for the connection of the whole ten into one whole. It's good that you can already feel this way.
31. S. (40:10) What's stopping us from reaching the love of friends is not feeling enough importance, not seeing how important it is for us and what can help us to feel how important it is to come to the friends?
R. Love towards the friends is the most important, the most important, like it says, ‘love your friend as yourself,’ is the great rule in the Torah. Why do we need the love of friend's? In order to reach a common love which is called Ahavat Olam, love is eternal love. It is when we view the entire love which is in all of reality and we start to feel all of reality, everything that exists only as a feeling of love. Is that clear?
32. S. (41:27) How can we pray from the depth of the heart if we don't completely receive the Creator?
R. Only to that extent where you feel the love for the other can you feel the love of the Creator and in that feeling once you feel everything that exists, all of nature.
33. S. (42:32) How can I internalize the need for love of friends and what does it mean to invest into the friends?
R. Investing in the friends is that I show them how much I love them or at least that I want to love them.
Reading excerpt #14. (43:20) “With respect to a person..” twice.
34. R. (45:28) It's talking about this written story that there was 2000 years ago, a sage
lived who was called Hillel and a person came to him, just a person from the street, it didn't matter who he was. Turkish, Latvian, Russian, it doesn't matter who, and he asked them how can I know what is the Torah as there are a lot of books. Hillel told them, it's not a problem, if you carry out love your friend as yourself, then out of that you will know all of the Torah besides that you don't need to learn anything. How will you know love your friend as yourself? Then go and carry it out. You live among people, turn to them with the force of love and then from that, through that you will start to know all of the laws of reality which are called the Torah. And this is how it happened and the Torah tells us about this.
35. S. (47:15) Recently you said that for a sick friend, we are asking if complete adhesion in general and in prayer we are afraid of going against the Creator and want the Creator to do exactly how He wants to be but nonetheless, we still need to express our desire, that my desire is for her to be healthy for all of us to be corrected?
R. Use that to express that desire.
S. Thank you, so regardless of the fact that the Creator can invert everything and do things differently?
R. That's His calculation and this is our calculation.
36. S. (48:15) I want to feel these things out more to understand it. How does it happen that we can base everything on love, if you can go a little deeper here?
R. This is impossible to explain. You simply need to develop the quality of love within you towards others, at least within the ten.
37. S. (48:53) This connection of love to the friends, there needs to be in each one despite that I don't love everyone in the same way that I need to relate to each one or in a general way to the whole ten?
R. To the ten you need to relate like as much as possible in a way that is equal to everyone, let’s say that these are all your children.
38. S. (49:40) In the excerpt it says about the nature of creation but in the meantime what is it talking about?
R. It's talking about the ego. The nature of creation is the ego and the nature of the Creator is altruism.
39. S. (50:20) We as a ten, when we see the problems and disturbances of another ten can we join them in our thoughts?
R. You can in your ten pray for another ten but it's only when you can connect in your prayer.
40. S. (50:50) Can we say that the nature of man is not capable of love if he doesn't receive the benefit of love directly?
R. Not necessarily. This is not the condition we can start to love if we get support from the Creator this is called the reforming light. And then we can love and it's without any connection if in exchange for that we get some kind of love from the outside.
S. We feel the upper love, let's say I am with a friend in my ten and I feel this rejection from the friend. How can I love him, to the friend when I feel the love of the Creator? When I feel that direct light towards me then I can generate the mercy and love for the friend but if I do not feel behind the rejection of the friend, the upper love, I am not capable, this is my question?
R. I'm incapable but I'm asking the Creator to make me capable of loving a person who I don't love from the start, why because through him for sure I reach the love of the Creator. If I hate him now and he is from my group and all the more so if I turn the hater into a lover then I reach the love of the Creator.
41. S. (53:14) Love for the friends in the ten, through the border in the ten, they start to get, they start to disappear. There's a certain friend that say, you don't love but then you feel the whole ten as one whole soul maybe and at the same time love for the ten becomes love for the Creator. How do we connect these two loves since you are always turning to the Creator for help and the prayer? I want to connect these two, to understand this love to the Creator and love for the ten?
R. Try and the main thing is pray, ask and then it will all come together.
42. S. (54:27) I have this question from me to excerpt, that many times I've heard it but today I hear that a person is standing on one leg, gaining some knowledge while standing on one leg. Is this an indicator of wanting to receive it quickly or is there a meaning behind it?
R. The meaning is that the situation is enough for me in order to ask.
43. S. (55:07) What does it mean that it’s demanding, that love of the friend it's better, it's near, it's revealed faster because the mistake is proof in the demanding?
R. It's because I am together with the friends and I want to reach connection with them and I then want to reveal the Creator in order to bring Him contentment. Which is why I use the love of friends as much as possible for us to adhere to one another and to build the vessel for the Creator. That's it.
44. S. (56:26) Can we think so much that love for the friends it's an examination of my attitude towards the Creator?
R. Everything is clear, everything is clear, yes you can say that way.
S. And in this way we are tested if we are ready to love the Creator as well, He gives us these friends?
R. It's impossible to reach the love for the Creator if previously we do not attain love for the friends. Otherwise it will just be falsehood.
45. S. (57:21) A friend invests a lot of actions and time in society but she finds it difficult to open up to receive from the friends. What could help this friend and also what would be her internal work to be able to receive from the society?
R. Only connection towards the society, connection. This is the work, our work is in changing our nature from hatred to love, from rejection to connection.
46. S. (58:14) How do we get help from the ten in order to attain this measure of love of others?
R. Ask and pray, ask of the friends and pray to the Creator.
47. S. (59:26) Is it correct to understand that any effort to love the Creator and to build an individual connection with Him outside of the ten is our biggest mistake?
R. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
S. Can we not fall into that or is it a necessary stage?
R. It is possible not to fall into it.
48. S. (59:55) Hillel said go and do it, meaning any person who has a desire for the Creator can come to the group and reach such a desire?
R. Yes, yes, the group can be a bridge for any person to the upper force which will start to correct and reform in him and bring him to the good end result. That's it my dear ones, be well and I hope until tomorrow, goodbye.
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