The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning), July 9, 2024.
Part 3: Equal As One: There Is No Strong Friend, There Is A Strong Society, Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #3
Reading: (00:05) RABASH, Article No. 14, "The Need for Love of Friends"
There is a special power in the adhesion of friends. Since the views and thoughts pass from one to the other through the adhesion between them, each is incorporated with the powers of the other, and by that, each one has the power of the whole society. Therefore, although each person is an individual, he has the power of the whole society.
M. Laitman: Again.
Reader: Again, RABASH, Article No. 14, "The Need for Love of Friends"
There is a special power in the adhesion of friends. Since the views and thoughts pass from one to the other through the adhesion between them, each is incorporated with the powers of the other, and by that, each one has the power of the whole society. Therefore, although each person is an individual, he has the power of the whole society.
M. Laitman: That's very nice. We don't really feel that each one of us is incorporated from everyone, right?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:57) What is adhesion between two friends?
M. Laitman: That two think as one.
Student: But he writes that their views and thoughts pass from one to the other. So, there are thoughts and views in someone that the other one doesn't have.
M. Laitman: By them being as one; so, it passes from one that has it to the one who doesn't have it. And then they both have it.
Student: So, it's as if they both connect into one current, I’m really trying to understand, in the direction of bestowal? It sounds like I have a double work, two-fold work: Both to pass my thoughts and ideas to the friend and also open something in me to receive from the friends. How to open myself to receive from the friends, how to feel what the friend wants to give?
M. Laitman: How to open myself to what the friend has. Make him as a beloved, that you love him, so you'll want to take from him, you'll be sensitive towards him, that's it. So, by each one relating to everyone in this way, so each one will have the forces that everyone has. And then he has the forces of society. Well, one more, and that's it.
Reader: Excerpt #4 RABASH, Article No. 17, Part 1 (1984), "Concerning the Importance of Friends". Rabash writes,
Reading: (04:03) Precisely when one sees one’s friend as being at an equal degree to one’s own, one can accept the other as a friend and bond with him. This is so because “a friend” means that both parties are in the same state. This is what common sense dictates. In other words, they have the same views and thus decide to bond. Then, both of them act towards the goal that they both wish to achieve.
M. Laitman: Again.
Reader: Precisely when one sees one’s friend as being at an equal degree to one’s own, one can accept the other as a friend and bond with him. This is so because “a friend” means that both parties are in the same state. This is what common sense dictates. In other words, they have the same views and thus decide to bond. Then, both of them act towards the goal that they both wish to achieve.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:29) Sorry for being a pain, I want to understand. What does it mean that the friend is on the same degree as his own? Because as his friend is his teacher, he’s a great one, he is coming to give him or he said he is giving to the friend, and then he is a teacher toward the friends. What special state is it that he is on the same degree as the friend?
M. Laitman: They both want to give, they both want to receive. They both understand that they can help one another. And that's why they feel themselves as friends. So, once one has a question, then the other has a question.
Student: So, it's not a specific point in time where he doesn't feel that, he feels that one of them is the Rav. Is it an accumulation of actions, operations between them?
M. Laitman: All in all, yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:35) I wanted to ask what it means to look at the friend with a favorable eye, a good eye.
M. Laitman: That you wish him good.
Student: That's it?
M. Laitman: Yes, what do you mean, that's it? That's not enough?
Student: It's enough.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:09) To feel on the same level as the friend, we have criteria in the society. To be in the morning lesson, to pay Maaser, Tithing, to take a role, a duty. We have like these ten commandments or so; now, if we aspire to meet these criteria and this is one of the biggest problems here. Some do meet them, some don't, so, if in my Ten, I have maybe one or two or three or four friends with whom I feel on the same level. And with some, I don't feel it, how do I work toward them?
M. Laitman: You need to scrutinize whether you really can be like them. And if so, so you have to awaken it.
Student: We set an example, we come every day, we try to take our roles to show the friends that this is the way. And some friends are just being dragged on and they just meet, I don't know, maybe say two criteria out of all the ten.
M. Laitman: So, you have to discuss it and see what to do.
Student: Yes, we said before that we talk about these things on Sundays. So, maybe, we should understand what is the relation toward friends with whom you don't feel equal? Or you don't feel that they are in mutual responsibility with you, or that they are not on the way to defeat the evil inclination? We are here in order to defeat the evil inclination.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But if we're not fighting together and there's no feeling of togetherness, that everyone is for everyone, one for all and all for one. If we don't even come to feel this, in the corporeal sense, how do we come to it in the spiritual sense?
M. Laitman: You're right, we need to decide and what will you do as a result, as a decision?
Student: Exactly, so we need to hear both.
M. Laitman: What, to divide the group into those and those?
Student: Yes, exactly, that's the problem. What do we do, how do we do it in such a way that we…
M. Laitman: That's something we have to discuss.
Student: Exactly, because we are here building an army, the Creator's army. And if friends want to be soldiers that are not in combat. They want to serve to be in the army at home and not work in the temple, then what?
M. Laitman: You're right. We'll make you responsible.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:03) I'm not really connected to the announcements. What I wanted to say was that what the friends brought up, these are problems many tens bring this up, both in Petah Tikva and elsewhere in Israel. There are social teams that are supposed to take these problems and help them. Maybe, we should make known who these social teams are. And that's their duty, I'm sure they will get answers. That's it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:54) Event Announcements