The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson (Morning) May 21, 2024.

Part 2: Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]

Reader: (00:04) We're studying the article Matan Torah, the Giving of the Torah. You can find it in the writings of Baal HaSulam, and you can find it also on all our sites.

Reading: (00:18) Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]

Rabbi Akiva says, “This is a great Klal [collective/rule] in the Torah” (Beresheet Rabbah, Chapter 24).

1) This statement of our sages demands explanation. The word Klal [collective/rule] indicates a sum of details that, when put together, form that collective. Thus, when he says about the Mitzva [commandment] “love your friend as yourself,” that it is a great Klal in the Torah, we must understand that the rest of the 612 Mitzvot [commandments] in the Torah, with all their interpretations, are no more and no less than the sum of the details inserted and contained in that single Mitzva, “love your friend as yourself.”

This is quite perplexing because you can say this regarding Mitzvot between man and man, but how can that single Mitzva contain all the Mitzvot between man and God, which are the essence and the vast majority of the laws?

M. Laitman: (02:02) Is this clear?

Reader: (02:16) Item 2.

Reading: (02:18) Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah], Item 2.

2) If we can still strain to find some way to reconcile their words, there comes before us a second saying, even more conspicuous, about a convert who came to Hillel (Shabbat 31a) and told him, “Teach me the whole of the Torah while I am standing on one leg.” And he replied, “Anything that you hate, do not do to your friend” (the translation of “love your friend as yourself”), “and the rest is its commentary; go study.”

Here before us is a clear law, that in all 612 Mitzvot and in all the writings in the Torah there is none that is preferred to the Mitzva, “love your friend as yourself.” This is because they only aim to interpret and allow us to observe the Mitzva of loving others properly, since he specifically says—“the rest is its commentary; go study.” This means that the rest of the Torah is interpretations of that one Mitzva, that the Mitzva to love your friend as yourself could not be completed were it not for them.

M. Laitman: Questions?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:16) I heard a conversation you had with a friend about the stages, of the vision, that humanity is going through. The stages, one step after the other, and you talked about these five stages. The first ones are, first of all, the recognition of evil, the recognition of the ego that really, to what extent that we hate, and we can't get along. From this should be, what should emerge is that you don't do to others what's hated upon you. How does this transition from this to that happen? Why, if a person feels bad with himself, with his ego, he suffers, he has problems with his surroundings, why does this give birth to that?

M. Laitman: Well, he's looking for a reason because he can't get rid of that feeling that he feels bad. And then he has nothing else to lean on but only hatred of others, or love of others.

Student: Bringing that hatred to the others, that's clear. Why not do to others what you don't like on yourself, meaning what you hate? There's some kind of changing here in understanding.

M. Laitman: He sees that the way he relates to others, to everyone, he relates to them badly, right, and certainly it is against love your friend as yourself. So, this is how he reaches the point where he has to keep love your friend as yourself.

Student: Why, because he was told so or does he feel it?

M. Laitman: No, he sees it. That the relations between people is what determines if they feel good or they feel bad. And so, this is required of him.

Student: Then what, to not do bad to others?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It doesn't mean that also others won't do bad to him. It doesn't assure that others won't do bad.

M. Laitman: No.

Student: Why should he avoid doing bad to them?

M. Laitman: He's looking for how to behave correctly in the world so that he doesn't suffer.

Student: What drives him, this thought about himself, the thought about others?

M. Laitman: About himself. Everyone is born with a will to receive for themselves.

Student: By not doing bad to others, will he prevent suffering for himself?

M. Laitman: He begins, yes, in this way to move away from the suffering.

Student: It won't bother him that others are doing bad. That they're exploiting him, that they're using him?

M. Laitman: He understands that the correction will also come from the environment upon everyone.

Student: He's saying, no, I won't do bad to them and then they also will reach it?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Meanwhile, can you live this way? Or I'm not doing bad to them, and when they understand, they'll understand?

M. Laitman: He has no choice. He has no choice. He needs to begin according to his understanding to bestow to others.

Student: Meaning all the other alternatives are just worse?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:39) Do not harm others, is that already a spiritual degree?

M. Laitman: Not to harm others is already a spiritual degree.

Student: Without the help of the Creator, a person is not capable?

M. Laitman: Specifically, because of that, the evil inclination constantly warms up the person so that it's worthwhile to harm others, this way or that way, in a certain form.

Student: Why in this explanation do we concentrate on loving others, when the first degree is probably not to harm, it's also easier to understand.

M. Laitman: That is true.

Student: Also, to understand, also to feel, there's also benefit from it?

M. Laitman: It's true, you're right.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:46) Why does Baal HaSulam decide that it's the article, The Giving of the Torah? He says it's time to do and he wanted to come out with the wisdom of Kabbalah on this topic of love thy friend as thyself. What else is there to add here?

M. Laitman: It's the main law of creation.

Student: Yes, it's kind of like a topic, he wants to start the wisdom of Kabbalah, love thy friend as thyself, what's his meaning here?

M. Laitman: It's the main law of creation, he's going for the whole thing.

Student: What secret is there, in this matter, that in love thy friend as thyself, or the relation between people? It's something that, no one believes in relations between people, that can do something, then he actually enters into this. What is he trying to open up for us?

M. Laitman: He wants to explain to us that if we will keep this law, love thy friend as thyself, it includes within it all the laws of creation.

Student: What is this law, the relation between people, what is this law?

M. Laitman: That you need to love others as you love yourself.

Student: That's it?

M. Laitman: That's it.

Student: It's something that?

M. Laitman: Is it clear or not? It's clear, so keep it.

Student: It's something that people, they're somehow realizing it, to some extent?

M. Laitman: No, people are the complete opposite of this law.

Student: It's kind of like redundant, kind of like that. Everyone already knows what love thy friend as yourself is.

M. Laitman: Well, that is the problem.

Student: That's specifically where he wants to enter?

M. Laitman: Yes, he tells you that we're not keeping it from the beginning to the end. This, our law is very broad, it is spread over the whole of creation.

Student: What's his addition so it doesn't sound like ethics or something like that, love your friend as yourself. Everyone loves their friend as yourself. What's the addition that Baal HaSulam is giving here?

M. Laitman: The addition is that we need to know that this is the law of creation, and any moment that I'm not keeping it, I'm seemingly destroying creation.

Student: What is really that law of creation that you keep emphasizing, what is it?

M. Laitman: That the whole of creation works or stands according to this law.

Student: For example?

M. Laitman: We can't see it, but if we could see it, then we would see to what extent each and everything is related to everything else. Each and every part, each and every element to the whole of creation. If there would be no connection between the parts of creation then the world would fall apart, the world would fall apart. And what is holding it is the fact that every part feels itself, somehow, connected with all the parts. And that its right to exist stems from the fact that everyone exists and holds it, sustains it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:14) If love your friend as yourself is the main means, what do we need other commandments for?

M. Laitman: In order to keep, love your friend as yourself.

Student: The rest of the commandments between man and the friend and man and the Creator, it's other expressions of love your friend as yourself?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: If a person only works in love of others, only in his intention and inner relations, that's not enough for man?

M. Laitman: I guess not.

Student: Why?

M. Laitman: I don't know, I don't know, and I don't want to get into it. If I accept it as a law, as the common law of creation, it means that according to this law, there is a connection among all the created beings and all the parts of creation. And besides this, there's nothing that connects them.

Student: Love your friend as yourself isn't enough, meaning there are more things that have to be done?

M. Laitman: No. No, everything is included in it, contained in it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:32) Love your friend as yourself, there's three questions: First of all, what does it mean to love?

M. Laitman: From the simplest thing to the most complex.

Student: I'll go to the end. As yourself, who am I? What am I?

M. Laitman: Like you, like yourself.

Student: Who am I?

M. Laitman: I don't know, the way you understand, the way you feel, according to all your qualities. You have to try to advance toward knowing this law.

Student: It's something that's supposed to be in feeling, not in my brain?

M. Laitman: You have to observe it in your feelings.

Student: Who am I? We're learning that the self is a desire that develops. There's something beyond that because I'm supposed to come out of myself.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: What is this I, that self, what is that as others?

M. Laitman: As you, he explains it there: As you can depict to yourself how much you love the other. Or you would like to, to love the other, so you should advance toward such a state, toward such a relation.

Student: It's on my relation towards what's outside of me.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: In order to feel what's outside of me, what are the first actions I need to do?

M. Laitman: Now, you're talking about how to implement this law. Implementing it can be something that we can't even imagine, how expensive it is, if it contains all of creation.

Student: How will we do it?

M. Laitman: We will implement it bit by bit. The important thing for us is to begin with it.

Student: What to begin with?

M. Laitman: With having to love anyone who is other.

Student: Who is it? My friends in my Ten, or something more general?

M. Laitman: Everything besides myself.

Student: Everything besides me.

M. Laitman: Yes, this is called other.

Student: Love your friend as yourself means, it's the first interpretation of to leave self-love?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Then I lose myself, no?

M. Laitman: No, instead of self-love, I want to acquire love of others.

Student: Sorry for insisting, that's only in my internality? Or is it in actions I do towards the outside, too?

M. Laitman: It pertains to your actions toward the world.

Student: Only in what I'm doing external to myself.

M. Laitman: Probably.

Student: What happens with my internality that moment?

M. Laitman: It's not written.

Student: It doesn't matter what I feel, what I think.

M. Laitman: No, it's not written about it, here.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:30) The final goal is love your friend as yourself?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: We're not naive. We know that to love someone requires great work, to love another. You can't do good deeds to someone else before I recognize as much as I can't do good deeds, as much as I have evil inside.

M. Laitman: Perhaps, could be.

Student: That's why he says that the proselyte that comes to Hillel and he tells him what to do. He says at least in the beginning, don't harm the others.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: That's like the middle of the road, or part of the road.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It also has to do with the previous article, that you have to go through the Klipot. Through the recognition of evil, through the corporeal lusts and only then he can start working as Israel and Jacob. It's the same line.

M. Laitman: Probably, if it's a great rule in the Torah, the general law of reality, it's a law that contains within it, everything.

Student: It contains all the details in it, it also connects, there's a song where he says, that stay away from the bad and do good. Before you stay away from bad, you can't do good?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:12) All the laws in the world, you can check. You do an action, and you see a result, how it comes back. Love your friends as yourself, when you say that it's a law, it's a law of belief. You can't, you can't explain to people how the law works, you don't see, you don't get feedback?

M. Laitman: He wants to say that it's the law of creation, and all of creation exists on this law, and thanks to it.

Student: Yes, I understand it, how can we pass such a thing to humanity when you can't prove it, you don't see feedback?

M. Laitman: That's already a different problem. How I convey it to humanity, how I accept it this way or that way. But if I'm told from above, the sages who already attained it, and live according to it. And see according to it what is happening throughout, to all of reality. If I accept what they said, then for me the problem is not that it's not good, or that I don't want it or something. But how I come to a degree, to a state where I accept it and uphold it, observe it.

Student: How can you say that it's a law?

M. Laitman: This sage probably reached this conclusion.

Student: I do accept this sage, and the whole world Kli accepts this sage. But in order to pass this to all of humanity, here's the problem, I think. It's the biggest problem that they're searching for prove it, that this law works. Because for us, we understand it's a law of faith, of belief, it's not that you do an action and see a feedback. You have to believe in this law above reason, in faith. How can you pass that to humanity that it is a law? For me, it's clear, and for everyone here.

M. Laitman: If you want to keep learning from the sages, you have to accept it. Accept love your friend as yourself as the first and primary law of creation, of nature.

Student: I know, and I said to me it's clear, and all the people sitting here, it's clear. We need to keep it, and we know it's a law but how do we pass it onward?

M. Laitman: That's different, how to convey it, don't be confused between the two. The main thing is that we learn what Baal HaSulam writes, and he writes it in the name of Rabbi Akiva, Old Hillel, and others like him.

Student: Can we summarize it that whoever has a point in the heart does acknowledge this law? Whoever doesn't have a point in the heart can acknowledge this law?

M. Laitman: I don't know. It's not written this way.

Student: That's why I was asking.

M. Laitman: And I cannot answer otherwise.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:14) In love your friend as yourself, it's taken into account, is it taken into account that a person changes? If a person is entirely in self-love, let's say, he keeps this law. He wants everybody to also be in self-love, and that they will have pleasures like he has them. If a person goes through a state, he's already rejected from self-love. He understands that there's a greater pleasure in bestowal, so he wants from his own love of the others that they also have bestowal. In which state does this law take place?

M. Laitman: I don't know, I know only what he's saying now, that's it.

Student: He says that Rabbi Akiva says that it's a big law in the Torah?

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: Sometimes he says, and the evil inclination tells him to do this. Sometimes it's written somewhere that he's told that he has to believe. A person has a lot of forces that tell him what to do. A person's supposed to stand in the middle, and like a judge, or to choose, now listen to him, tomorrow listen to him. How can a person know with all those voices in his head that say all kinds of things that contradict each other?

M. Laitman: That's a very difficult question because a person doesn't know from where he's hearing his voices. If he's hearing them from all kinds of places, directions, or he's hearing what he hears in his mind, in his head, which can already be a psychological problem. I don't want to argue about these things, these vague things, it's written, simply.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:37) Maybe we can summarize that don't do to others what you hate for yourself. You can somehow explain it, and there's also proof, but love your friends as yourself in our nature, we can't attain it. It's a concealed law, can we say that? We don't see a cause and effect here, in our nature, in our egoistic nature.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:00) We learned that in spirituality, there's two degrees, bestowing in order to bestow and receiving in order to bestow.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Where does not harming the others get in there?

M. Laitman: Through both of them.

Student: Is it a degree that comes before bestowing?

M. Laitman: No, it's an intention, an intention. An intention to preserve the benefit of the other.

Student: It has to be on two degrees?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: In the group, what is the greatest damage? What does it mean not to harm the others in the Ten, what are we harming? What's really damaged, how are we harming?

M. Laitman: It could be in anything. From evil eye, which is unfelt, and up to the biggest, worst actions.

Student: When you look at our Tens, and what do you see? Is there something in general?

M. Laitman: No, I think that you are not really paying attention to observing, love your friend as yourself.

Student: What exactly are we not paying attention on?

M. Laitman: You're not paying attention to observing it, to upholding it, to love your friend as yourself. You're not asking yourself: Am I in a measure of love toward this and that, the Tens, the world Kli, men, women, children. Do I care for them, how is the love expressed?

Student: Before love, first of all, I don't want to harm the Ten. What am I not paying attention to and I'm harming? That if I'd recognize it, I wouldn't do it, obviously, but I don't recognize it. Can you say what I'm not recognizing?

M. Laitman: Perhaps a person does not identify, does not notice how indifferent he is to others. How he is contemptuous toward them, how much he even thinks about them. He very easily moves himself from side to side, doesn't pay attention to them.

M. Laitman: What does it mean to love? It needs to include in it all of your relation to others.

Student: What can help me recognize this?

M. Laitman: Attention. That, Rabash also writes in this way and explains it in several articles. That the main thing is that a person begins to see the others as greater, more important than himself. And from here stems his relation to others up to love.

Student: The most important is to recognize because once you recognize that it's bad, so you reach prayer and so on. To recognize it, it's just paying attention?

M. Laitman: This is why it comes as a command that you have to come to love others. And out of your duty, your obligation, then you have the group, the society, all the things that are in front of you.

Student: The attention, if I didn't get that attention so how do I know that I'm ever going to reach it?

M. Laitman: The attention depends on a person's desire to the extent that his desire opens. And then according to this he begins to check, is he operating in that desire or not?

Student: So how does the desire open?

M. Laitman: The desire opens through persistence in the thought.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:06) There's an expression that the friend's corporeality is my spirituality.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Why is it like that because it contradicts spirituality. Because I'm filling his corporeal desire, so he supposedly falls even deeper to corporeality.

M. Laitman: Well, I don't know, I'm not going to explain all these nice axioms or phrases, but I guess there's something to it.

Student: What does that mean? Can you explain it?

M. Laitman: No, I can't explain it because I don't learn these things, and I don't work according to them.

Student: About being concerned with the friend's corporeality?

M. Laitman: With your concern for the friend's corporeality, you can attain his internality, even his spirituality.

Student: The friend's internality?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (WomanTurkey8): (34:19) In the article it says, go study. Where will a person learn from, where can he find the forces?

M. Laitman: This is what Hillel said to the one who asked him. You need to learn, and then through learning, in the process of learning, you gradually begin to feel where you should invest yourself more and more.

Student: Should a person complete all his corrections in order to keep love of his friend?

M. Laitman: I don't know what it means, all the corrections, but he invests all of himself.

Question (Women Moscow): (35:21) Why is this world existing with so much hate?

M. Laitman: This world, for now, exists because of the Creator's promise to bring all the created beings into a good connection between them. Reader, please?

Reader: Number three.

Reading: (35:59) “...Before we delve into the heart of the matter…”

Before we delve into the heart of the matter, we must observe that Mitzva, since we were commanded: “Love your friend as yourself.” The word “yourself” tells us, “love your friend to the same extent you love yourself, not one bit less.” In other words, you must constantly and vigilantly satisfy the needs of every person at least in the Israeli nation, no less than you are always vigilant to satisfy your own needs.

This is utterly impossible, for not many can satisfy their own needs during their daily work, so how can you tell them to work to satisfy the wishes of the entire nation? And we couldn’t possibly think that the Torah exaggerates, for it warns us to not add or subtract, indicating that these words and laws were given with utter precision.

M. Laitman: Questions, I don't see any questions.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:57) What does it mean, to stand guard?

M. Laitman: That you are constantly standing like a guard, like an officer. Trying to find, to grasp where each one can come off of this, get off of this law.

Student: He says, to satisfy the other's needs because most of them can't satisfy their own needs.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Even the ones who can't satisfy their own needs have to stand on guard to fill the others?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Can that even work?

M. Laitman: Those who can't provide anything for themselves, I don't know, don't ask me to give you a general map of the whole country or something. But we can see that the direction is that everyone cares for everyone and tries to come to a state where everyone has what they need.

Student: That's also in the corporeal matter, I understand.

M. Laitman: Yes. yes.

Student: It seems pretty complex in our world, even though there's all the abundance.

M. Laitman: I don't know, we're not getting into practical details but to what is clear to us that has to happen.

Student: What's clear, we're speaking about a spiritual level.

M. Laitman: No, no, I don't know, also, on the corporeal level, we live in this world. So, we need to sustain ourselves in such a way that each one has what he feels is necessary for him.

Student: How to do it?

M. Laitman: By everyone wanting, agreeing, and beginning to discuss what do we really need if we all share what we have. And what more will each one need?

Student: How do we do it? Because we have the experience with the Kibbutz that they tried to work in such a method, and it didn't work. You have to pass a method to the world that each one…

M. Laitman: You need to give it to them along with a study, with learning of what is the human ego, the will to receive, how much everyone wants everything for themselves. How it harms him, himself, and others, how in any relation between people, it is impossible to maintain human society unless we follow this rule of love your friend as yourself.

Student: When we explain it to people, they understand it in their mind. When it bumps into their true desire, they become righteous, and they can do it. How can we pass them the ability that the heart will let them do it? Like, sometimes my heart won't let me do it.

M. Laitman: Clear. How to do it on a corporeal level, I don't know.

Student: In spirituality, so it ends by prayer eventually, right?

M. Laitman: In spirituality, it's prayer.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:48) It seems that the question is not how to do it in corporeality because also Baal HaSulam says it's impossible. What he says here, he writes it himself, that it's impossible.

M. Laitman: So?

Student: You can feel that nothing corporeal is, it just we are programmed completely opposite.

M. Laitman: So then, what?

Student: I'm just trying to understand, maybe he didn't reach a solution yet. When you look at all what's happening in the world whether it's a political idea, or vegetarians, or people that are worried about the environment. What's common is that someone else is guilty.

M. Laitman: That's because of our ego.

Student: Where will somebody get a strange thought, including me, that something's wrong with me, that I need to change it? It's a weird thought that doesn't exist.

M. Laitman: Yes, you're right.

Student: Then what?

M. Laitman: Know, what, we learn what is written. In the meantime, we haven't reached it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:13) I see that the closest thing to what's written here are our Congresses. The system we put here during a convention, the mutual concern, is something that I haven't seen anywhere. Is that right, that it's close to implementing this thing?

M. Laitman: I don't think so but I'm not getting into arguments and scrutinies about anything except, I don't think this is the implementation of a Congress. It's not an implementation, we've chosen some people who work in something in order to provide us with what we need. There are people who are in charge of it, no, I'm happy that you're saying that it feels at a Congress that people have this relation to each other. But not yet, we'll have to work some more.

Student: The feeling when you're here is that you're in a system that wraps you from every direction, I don't know anything closer than this. We forget about it really quickly. Maybe it's still a starting point to show people that it's even possible to create such a concern that is very simple. Whoever's here feels that wrapping.

M. Laitman: Thank you but we will learn how much more we're still lacking.

Student: I have a question: What example do I have to love? As yourself, I know what it is to love myself because I'm born with it. It seems the whole process here is to look at what I already have, this self-love, I just have to see how I do it towards the others. Is that the process here, as I'm trying to do it for the others, I can also discover what it feels like when you do it.

M. Laitman: Okay, that, too, we can check.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:57) On the spiritual path, what does it mean to advance?

M. Laitman: That I understand the law of creation more and more. And I come closer and closer to keeping it.

Student: When I try to keep this law, I see that I can't, I can't keep the law.

M. Laitman: Okay.

Student: I only discover the same thing again and again. That I can't love, even if I put an intention before an action, whether during the action or after the action. I see that everything was in the wrong direction.

M. Laitman: Okay.

Student: What's the advancement then, just recognition of evil?

M. Laitman: Recognition of evil is the first phase, yes.

Student: When will I come to something closer to this law?

M. Laitman: I can't tell you, we scrutinize from day to day, more and more. Item four, right?

Reader: Number four.

Reading: (47:35) “...And if this is still not enough for you…”

And if this is still not enough for you, I will tell you that the simple explanation of that Mitzva of loving your fellow person is even harsher, for we must put the needs of our friends before our own. It is written in the Tosfot in the name of the Jerusalem [Talmud] (Kidushin 20a) regarding the verse “Because he is happy with you,” said about a Hebrew slave: “When sometimes he has but one pillow, if he lies on it himself and does not give it to his slave, he does not observe ‘Because he is happy with you,’ for he is lying on a pillow and the slave, on the ground. If he does not lie on it and does not give it to the slave, as well, it is Sodomite rule. It turns out that, against his will, he must give it to his slave while the master himself lies on the ground.”

M. Laitman: This is an example of loving your friend as yourself. Just as you contemplated lying on the pillow, now you are giving it to the slave, to the servant.

Reading: (49:08) “...We also find that the same rule is in the verse about the measure of loving others…”

We also find the same rule in the verse about the measure of loving others, for here, too, the text compares the satisfaction of the friend’s needs to the satisfaction of one’s own needs, as with the example of “Because he is happy with you” regarding the Hebrew slave. Thus, here too, if he has but one chair and his friend does not, the law is that if he sits on it and does not give it to his friend, he breaks the Mitzva, “Love your friend as yourself,” since he is not fulfilling the needs of his friend as he fulfills his own.

If he does not sit on it and also does not give it to his friend, it is as evil as Sodomite rule. Therefore, he must let his friend sit on it while he himself will sit on the ground or stand. Clearly, this is the law regarding all the needs that one has, and one’s friend lacks. Now go and see if this Mitzva is in any way feasible.

M. Laitman: In other words, he doesn’t tell us, go there and see, go there and see what it is like, but simple things. As much as a person cannot think of the benefit of others because it is close to him. It is not like he does not understand such things, just how incapable he is of observing. So, is this law a law for us, is it a command for us? This is why he is asking if this commandment is in any way feasible. Of course, if we see it in its true expansiveness, then we will see that we are all unable to observe it. Item five.

Reader: Item five.

Reading: (52:16) “...We must first understand why the Torah…”

We must first understand why the Torah was given specifically to the Israeli nation and not to all the people in the world equally. Is there, God forbid, nationalism involved here? Of course, only an insane person would think so. In fact, our sages have already examined this question, and this is what they meant by their words (Avoda Zarah 2b): “The Creator gave it to every nation and tongue, and they did not accept it.”

But what they find bewildering is why, then, were we called “the chosen people,” as it is written, “The Lord has chosen you,” since no other nation wanted it? Moreover, there is a fundamental question in the matter: Can it be that the Creator came with His law in His hands to negotiate with those savage peoples, or through his prophets? Such a thing has never been heard of and is completely unacceptable.

M. Laitman: Why did we get this commandment, love your friend as yourself to keep and not someone else, a different nation, why? Item six.

Reader: Number six.

Reading: (54:07) “...But when we fully understand the essence of the Torah and Mitzvot…”

But when we fully understand the essence of the Torah and Mitzvot that were given to us, and their desired purpose, to the extent our sages instructed us, which is the purpose of the great creation that is set before our eyes, we will understand everything. The first concept is that there is no act without a purpose. There is no exception from this rule except for the lowest of the human species or infants. Therefore, it is certain that the Creator, whose exaltedness is inconceivable, would not act—be it a great or a small act—without some purpose.

Our sages tell us about that, that the world was created only for the purpose of observing Torah and Mitzvot, meaning, as our sages explained, that the aim of the Creator from the time He created His creation is to reveal His Godliness to others, since the revelation of His Godliness reaches the creature as pleasant bounty that is ever growing until it reaches the desired measure.

By this, the lowly rise with true recognition and become a Merkava [chariot/structure] to Him, and to cling unto Him until they reach their final completion: “The eye has not seen a God besides you.” And because of the greatness and glory of that perfection, the Torah and the prophecy, too, refrain from uttering even a single word of exaggeration here, as our sages implied about this (Berachot 34b), “All the prophets made their prophecies only for the days of the Messiah, but for the next world, ‘The eye has not seen a God besides you,’” as is known to the knowledgeable ones.

This perfection is expressed in the words of the Torah and the prophecy and in the words of our sages in the simple word, Dvekut [adhesion]. Because of the widespread use of this word by the masses, it has lost almost all its content, but if you reflect on that word for even an instant, you will be overwhelmed by its wondrous stature, for if you picture the exaltedness of the Creator and the lowliness of the creature, you will be able to perceive the value of Dvekut of one with the other. Then you will understand why we ascribe that word the purpose of the whole creation.

It turns out that the purpose of the whole of creation is for the lowly creatures to be able, by observing Torah and Mitzvot, to rise ever upward, ever developing until they are rewarded with Dvekut with their Creator.

M. Laitman: Questions?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (58:51) What is adhesion, how can we depict such a sublime concept?

M. Laitman: I can tell you: Adhesion means to be in qualities like the other. Hold on to it in all conditions.

Student: How is the commandment of loving your friend as yourself, how does it bring him closer to adhesion?

M. Laitman: That commandment demands to be, as yourself, that's why it obligates adhesion.

Reader: If there are some questions in the world Kli, we can continue to item 7.

M. Laitman: Or what do we have for a third part, none?

Question (Turkiye 1): (01:00:38) Can you explain, what is the Sodomite rule?

M. Laitman: Sodomite is opposite of what the Torah demands. We'll talk about it more later.

Question (Hadera 1): (01:01:11) In the process of loving your friend as yourself, this yourself ,is revealed more and more in its lowliness. Then you have more exaltedness of the Creator and this is how we come to loving the Creator and adhesion with Him?

M. Laitman: Could be, yes.

Question (Moscow one): (01:01:44) What is really the secret, if we put ourselves into a place where there's no difference. The Creator gives all the states and then we acquire the quality of the giver?

M. Laitman: I don't exactly understand what you're asking about.

Student: I wanted to ask this: What's the right way to direct myself so that between a specific individual and all the qualities and states that exist in the world. There's no difference and I can compare to all the states in the world?

M. Laitman: No.

Student: The second option is that we depict ourselves that the other is always me? What's the right way to direct myself?

M. Laitman: It's also not clear what it means that the others are myself.

Student: You teach us that instead of the Creator, creation, it's all really the Creator. We're not meant to distinguish between the Creator and the friend.

M. Laitman: Let's wait a bit with this scrutiny.

Question (Holland): (01:03:18) Concerning love your friend as yourself, it says, as yourself, it looks like that yourself is a reference. What sort of reference is yourself to bring us to Dvekut with the Creator?

M. Laitman: Just as you love yourself, love the others, that’s it. It'll be like yourself.

Student: Is it a growing value?

M. Laitman: To actually implement, of course. All of these commandments that we've read about or heard about, they are all commandments to do.

Student: What does it mean, let's say, to annul, let's say, this yourself?

M. Laitman: That I implement these commands that are demanded, that's it.

Question (Turkiye 2): (01:04:52) What is the connection between the giving of the Torah, and the conditions of love your friend as yourself?

M. Laitman: In the giving of the Torah, there was also an obligation to take upon themselves, that group that received the Torah. Had to take upon themselves, more or less, the same conditions, the same laws as in what he's saying here, love your friend as yourself.

Question (Woman Hebrew 1): (01:05:46) How in our days can I make sure, I have very hard examples, and the environment affects? How do we, how are we not affected by the environment and keep love your friend as yourself? How to make sure that I don't fall in corporeality and spirituality?

M. Laitman: You have to try.

Question (Women English 1): (01:06:20) The law was given to Israel and not the nation of the world.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: Why was it given to Israel and not the nation of the world?

M. Laitman: Because it was a small group that was. on one hand, they were a small group, on the other hand they were developed more than the others, in somewhat. That's why they received it, he explains it somewhere that from them being in exile under the influence of the nations and were tortured, and they got beaten. That's why they were worthy in receiving the Torah.

Student: If the Israel, if Israel doesn't do this law, how does it affect the nation of the world?

M. Laitman: It's bad for everybody because, first, Israel has to receive this law and implement it. And afterwards the nations join them, and together we all implement this law. This law is for everyone.

Question (Kyiv 1): (01:08:14) What does it mean that the whole nation takes upon itself to observe the commandment of loving others as itself, and that qualifies them to receive the Torah? I can imagine it with the friends but with the whole nation?

M. Laitman: I don't know, that's what he says. Eventually everybody understands that it brings us to keeping that main law of nature. That's why all people must gather together and connect between us. And have such an agreement like a covenant, and then knowing the Creator will expand from the top to the bottom.

Question (Moscow 6): (01:09:29) I can't fully understand what it means to love your friend as yourself. Meaning I disconnect from my own will, and I try to engage, to work with the other's desire? Can you put it this way?

M. Laitman: To love your friend as yourself means to love your friend as you love yourself, there's nothing to add here. The rest can only be scrutinized from the conditions that we exist in, and we have to come closer to one another. Reader,

Reader: Item 7

Reading: () “...But here came the sages of the Zohar and asked…”

But here came the sages of The Zohar and asked why we were not created in this high stature of Dvekut with Him to begin with. What reason did He have to burden us with this labor and burden of creation and the Torah and Mitzvot? They replied, “He who eats that which is not his is afraid to look at his face.” This means that one who eats and enjoys the labor of one’s friend is afraid to look at his face because by doing so he becomes increasingly humiliated until he loses his human form. Because that which extends from His wholeness cannot be deficient, He gave us room to earn our exaltedness by ourselves, through our work in Torah and Mitzvot.

These words are most profound, and I have already explained them in my book, Panim uMasbirot on The Tree of Life, Branch One [and in the book, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Histaklut Pnimit, Part One]. Here I will explain them briefly to make them understandable for all.

M. Laitman: Questions?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:12:19) Why did the Creator arrange it so there would be shame?

M. Laitman: Shame, it's something very interesting, animals don't have shame, only humans. Also, not all humans, but from some degree of development and onward, let's say children obviously don't have shame, little children. They even demand and cry that they deserve something, why did you give it to someone else and so on. We need to reach a state that we feel shame. And shame will feel from who we are, from the way we exist, where is our ego. And then we start attaining as much as we're small, lowly, that we exist in a form that we can't exist in. That we are willing to resist it, that’s what we need to attain.

Student: Why is shame necessary to realize the goal of doing good to His creation?

M. Laitman: Shame must be felt, in every step we take, if we do it not according to the laws of spiritual nature.

Student: This advances me to His creations?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Why?

M. Laitman: Because that's His nature.

Student: Without it, I wouldn't be able to do good to His creations?

M. Laitman: No.

Student: Why?

M. Laitman: To give to you?

Student: Yes, He could arrange reality in such a way that it would not be a matter of shame.

M. Laitman: His whole purpose was to reach that state as He is.

Student: Why is it not possible without shame?

M. Laitman: Shame here is the means, the main means. That through it, you shorten the distance between you and the Creator.

Student: How does it contribute, why is it necessary?

M. Laitman: It doesn't let you steal, it doesn't let you do all kinds of actions that distance you from the Creator. That’s all shame, the feeling of shame is the feeling of the gap on all degrees. Five degrees, another five, another five, that's a recognition of evil.

Student: Without shame, it would be impossible to do good to His creations?

M. Laitman: No, how can you feel you're different? How much do we need to speak about it so it'll be just a bit more clear? Shame is the main thing, that’s it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:16:54) Why is shame not given to people who are not developed?

M. Laitman: I don't understand.

Student: If shame is so important, why is it not given to undeveloped people?

M. Laitman: They can't be in such small discernments, they feel that it's like under a microscope, so you see a big difference between two things. And if you don't have such an instrument, so in regular eyes, you can't see it. Shame is something very great, very important.

Student: There's an example by Rabash in one of the articles that talks about a dark room. Where if the person lights a candle, he sees a little bit of dirt, with a flashlight, he sees more and there's more light, so he sees more dirt. In our whole process, we're going to see the big light so in the end we see that the whole room is dirty? What are the results?

M. Laitman: What do you mean?

Student: The room is dirty, but what do we do with it?

M. Laitman: We clean it up from all the alien thoughts, from all the actions that we don't want, that they will take place in us.

Student: If I understand correctly, it turns out that the more a person advances, the shame only grows, the recognition of evil only grows. When a person is really advanced, he has a huge recognition of evil, unlimited maybe, no?

M. Laitman: If you would see it, you wouldn't recognize it at all.

Student: That's to continue what was asked, why is it not given to small people because they can't deal with it. On the one hand, he has a huge recognition of evil; on the other hand, what holds him to keep coping with it and even wanting to reveal more recognition of evil, to approach adhesion?

M. Laitman: There's already a commitment from the previous degrees, that's why when now he bumps into something that shocks him. As much as he's in the evil, so on the other hand, it won't let him forces to run away. But he is able to pray and cry in order to get those forces he needs in order to hold on and to be before the Creator.

Student: In other words, the recognition of evil is a necessary means for building the prayer. Without recognition of evil, there is no prayer. His desire to reveal more and more is in order to be able to pray more and more to the Creator.

M. Laitman: Correct.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:20:24) I have no problem giving a chair or a pillow, but it only makes me proud, and I also spoil the friend. I can't do anything that actually helps the friend, even just by breathing, I'm taking someone else's oxygen. How is this connected to love?

M. Laitman: Your question is that you don't see any of your actions that does any good to the friend?

Student: Exactly.

M. Laitman: Then what can you do?

Student: Give up, give up.

M. Laitman: No no, you're only shown half the path. That in order to not disturb the others, that you can't do good to them, so, get out. Leave this world, don't disturb them. That's not good, that is not good.

Student: Is this an advice, what should I do?

M. Laitman: What should he do? Keep going ahead and carry him with you.

Student: Who is he?

M. Laitman: The friend.

Question (Haifa 3): (01:22:14) It's written in the article, go study. Does it mean to study in the Ten how we can love each other, the Ten as a laboratory? Is this where all the studies should be done, in the Ten?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Women PT 11): (01:22:47) From where do we, as a Ten, from where do we begin? What's our next step to bring us closer to this quality?

M. Laitman: Again?

Student: What's our next step as a Ten to practically implement loving others?

M. Laitman: Try and put such a system of relationships between you that you will always, each and every one, be able to rise with the help of other friends. And in this way quickly reach, go upward to the purpose of creation.

Question (Women Unity): (01:23:54) Can it be said that adhesion allows us to observe love your friend as yourself in completeness because I accept that everyone is doing this toward the others.

M. Laitman: Again?

Student: Can it be said that adhesion allows us to observe love your friend as yourself in completeness? From the perspective of adhesion, I can observe the commandments of love your friend as yourself to the fullest, if I feel that everyone cared for the friends.

M. Laitman: You can say that.

Student: Basically, the essence of feeling, this network of relations, is this my goal?

M. Laitman: How do I know what your goal is?

Student: Does the adhesion exist now through the feeling of the friend, of all the friends, all the qualities?

M Laitman: No, adhesion takes place in the Creator.

Student: When I turn the adhesion toward the friend, do I feel all the friends, not only a specific friend?

M Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:25:18) You said after the Congress, our only duty is to give gratitude. Before I leave, I need to fulfill my duty to give gratitude. First, I believe that, here, all the friends you don't even know where you are, how high you are. You climb the mountain like Mount Hermon, giving an environment that is not seen anywhere else in the world. I know because I came from the valley, and the Creator allowed me to land here to taste your beauty, your compassion. Your way of including the friends, this is unique in the whole world. Please accept my deepest gratitude for the Haverim. I need to give thanks to you. I had many teachers before but how I receive you with your wisdom, you not only have the wisdom. You have such an open heart to each of us, you are so passionate and so calm. You allow us to develop, for me, I can say you are my Rav because not of all of this, because not of your wisdom. It is easy to love you for your love. I feel you said we will all fly on the wings of an eagle, and I can feel that you want us to fly on the wings of an eagle. This is the biggest gift I ever saw, toda Raba!

M Laitman: Well, after such words, I cannot teach anymore!

Reader: (01:28:26) We’ll end with a song.

Song: (01:28:28)

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