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

Daily Lesson (Morning) January 5, 2025.

Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah].

Reader: Hello, we are reading in the writings of Baal HaSulam, in Hebrew it's page 385, the article “Matan Torah” [The Giving of the Torah]. The study materials are available in Sviva Tova and in the Arvut system. You can also send us live questions through the websites.  The article “Matan Torah” [The Giving of the Torah] in the writings of Baal HaSulam. 

Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah].  

Reading: (00:31) “Love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)

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: We talked about this so much that it's difficult to add anything. But him says that it is a rule in the Torah, a rule constantly requires elaboration, it needs to be looked at from every angle, it never ends. The same way the Torah includes within it the whole of creation, so this rule includes within it everything that you can possibly attribute to people, to connection between them.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:01) These concepts of your friend, and as yourself, these concepts are a bit blurry. What is me, what is the other, how do we reach these discernments? 

M. Laitman: Well, more or less, it's clear in some way to each person, who he is and who others are, opposite him, and how he should relate to them. 

Student: When we truly delve into these concepts of your friend and yourself, many questions come up.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, how to correctly work with these questions? Because as Baal HaSulam is asking, to whom do I delight, etc.? Many questions come up, and then suddenly, these simple words, love your friend as yourself, become not so clear. 

M. Laitman: Yes, that is also true, but we have no choice. The whole of the Torah exists only to explain how to observe this condition of love your friend as yourself.

Student: So, how can we feel… Let's say now, we're heading towards a Congress. So how can we feel your friend, myself, as yourself, towards the Congress? How do we arrange these concepts correctly?

M. Laitman: Towards the Congress, we need to start feeling the extent to which we have to be ready to accept, to receive all the friends who are coming to this gathering. We need to feel them like I feel myself, in essence.

Student: Could it be that these concepts have already become mixed for us, your friend, yourself, that there's already a mixture between these concepts? 

M. Laitman: Yes, we've engaged with them in many different ways, but with that, the words, as yourself [Kamocha in Hebrew], it's a very demanding word, a very lofty word. A person needs to rise above his nature and to connect with the nature of another, and the other, that's all people who are outside of him. And then, he's on the path towards discovering what the Torah is and what it demands of the person.

Student: It's just how to focus these concepts so that we can truly feel them, because today, from this whole path, a person already, it's not that before he could feel himself, feel himself very strongly, and he felt successful. Today, even in feeling myself, there's no taste. It doesn't feel like it leads anywhere. So, maybe the sharpness in these concepts disappears, that's why I'm asking. How to truly feel the power in this rule?

M. Laitman: The power in the condition of love your friend as yourself, we gradually discover from the article itself. Let's continue, and add everything that we discover. It's all included in that condition of love your friend as yourself. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:50) You said in the beginning of your words that we should constantly expand this rule. How do I take it and expand it each day, make it greater, broader in our work? 

M. Laitman: The more we develop as human beings, becoming capable of sensing the whole of humanity, rather, who are with us, together, then to that degree, with that attitude, we need to relate the whole of humanity to us. And so, to try to incorporate everyone into a single people, a single group, a single system, as we lack nothing, but to feel the whole of humanity as one.

Student: I want to talk about the Ten for a minute. The inner place of work, where we prepare ourselves for a new state, or even before we are in a new state, to bring that new state to us as quickly as possible. So, we say, love covers all crimes. This point, where we are told that love covers all crimes, at that point doesn't the Creator expand for us each time the vessel, as we should call it, maybe? 

M. Laitman: Yes, because we keep changing, and the connection between us changes; and the ultimate goal is for us to discover that love. And so, it follows, that we need to discover it in all created beings. And I don't think about them, I don't even take them into account, but that doesn't mean that I agree, rather, my nature cannot see them. It doesn't place the whole of humanity before me, as an expecting humanity, a humanity that needs this. And so, love your friend as yourself, and that speaks of every individual, in particular, and the whole of humanity. 

Student: What should be the thought about the friends, so that I will feel every day that I'm increasing the love, that I'm not letting my ego pull me each time to the other side, that I'm truly increasing the love between us?

M. Laitman: The entirety of the Torah and the purpose of life are all included in love your friend as yourself. And if you hold to that as the foundation of the whole of humanity, then we understand that the closer we get to incorporating ourselves with all created beings, building our desire, our vessel, making it encircle, envelop all created beings, by that we will observe the rule of love your friend as yourself more and more. 

Student: As far as I'm concerned, the Ten can be a Kli [a vessel], with which I can say, that's all the created beings. This is where I can keep this rule.

M. Laitman: Yes and no. With that rule of love your friend as yourself, we received a Ten, and we have to make sure to observe love your friend as yourself within the Ten at first. After that, we have to emerge, we have to expand our attitude, this attitude that we have towards the Ten, we have to hold the same attitude towards the whole of humanity.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:50) How should I feel the friend next to me, or the whole of humanity? If I feel them, how would that bring me to feel the Creator? 

M. Laitman: All the rules and conditions that the Torah sets before us exist only in order to open up, awaken all of our senses in such a way that we'll be able to feel the Creator and be as close to Him as possible.

Student: How does love your friend as yourself open up the sense in which we feel the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Love your friend as yourself tells me that I need to love everyone the same way I love myself. And here too the condition is obscure, not clear at all. That's the first thing.  The second thing is, how can I even relate to all people whom I've never seen? I don't feel them, I don't sense them. Billions of people who are, you know, living. The Creator gave them life. He gave them life, He is the Creator. But how can I, or how do I need to reach a state where I love them, so that my love for them will envelop them and bring them to being as one humanity, together in one society. And all that by me enveloping them with my love. 

Student: What for? Why should I love the whole of humanity like that, with love and such a global embrace? What for? 

M. Laitman: He's only explaining to us what love your friend as yourself means. It's that way, that I need to relate to all people in the world.

Student: Where's the Creator revealed in love your friend as yourself? 

M. Laitman: There's a promise to us that He'll be revealed.

Student: So, this whole principle is? 

M. Laitman: This whole principle the Creator gave to us, as the created beings. He gave us this law, this condition, this demand, and this is the way we have to exist.

Student: So, this whole principle, as I understand it, is because the Creator commanded it, it's a commandment. 

M. Laitman: Yes, of course.

Student: And I do it not because of love but because the Creator commanded it. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Okay, so what does the Creator want from me then? The effort that I'll put in, the effort, what is He expecting of me? 

M. Laitman: The Creator wants me to reach love for everyone.

Student: Am I really capable of reaching love towards everyone?

M. Laitman: If the Creator made you, then certainly He made you capable of doing certain things, by nature. 

Student: And how about the love of the Creator, what about that? 

M. Laitman: I don't understand.

Student: Love your friend. Here he's speaking as though the Creator is only expecting him to love others, the whole world, the whole of humanity, but what about Him? 

M. Laitman: The Creator? 

Student: Yes.

M. Laitman: Of course, that too. Because in general, the love that I develop towards all created beings ultimately reaches the Creator, returns to the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:11) Also in this statement, love your friend as yourself, and also, do not do to your friend that which is hated by you, there is a relation to myself. I feel also, from the writings of Rabash and also from our work, that we do not relate to what I am, who I am, we don't take ourselves so much into account when we speak about love towards the friends. And here this text forces me to relate, to make a comparison between how I think of myself and love myself. So seemingly, I need to look at myself, but we speak about losing myself when we try to bestow it. Seemingly, you need to bestow and lose yourself completely. So why does the text say, as yourself? What does this relation mean? 

M. Laitman: That is true, the question is well placed. Like you, that's based upon a person's love for himself. From that, he can carry the foundations over into what it means to love others, but no more than that. Meaning, to the extent that a person discovers his force of self-love, to that extent he can love others. 

Student: So, in the work, we should always discover the attitude that I would have expected towards myself, I should relate to this, should it become revealed to me?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And then on top of that, or upon that, I can rise.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:26) Can we reach love your friend as yourself, which is the sum total of the 612 commandments without explicitly feeling each and every individual Mitzva from that sum total?

M. Laitman: I cannot tell you. 

Student: Okay, are there degrees in love your friend as yourself? 

M. Laitman: There are degrees, and the same as in any commandment, any Mitzva, you have degrees. But the extent to which these degrees are connected to the understanding of the commandments, we will learn that. 

Student: Each degree of love your friend as yourself, it's always all of the commandments together? It's a degree that includes all of them? Can I just keep it theoretically… I'm asking that I can keep two commandments, and that is for me, love your friend as yourself, or should it always be all of them together?

M. Laitman: A person advances and develops through the reforming light and comes to feel the reality in which he is more and more, and which he needs to unite with. And therefore, his work in Torah and commandments brings him to a state where he feels in all his organs and tendons a connection with others, and that connection must ultimately be a connection of love towards the other. The other, means all people in the world. And we need to be in that, to dwell in it, to accept it, to be immersed in it, and to scrutinize and see what else the Creator wants of us.

Student: Another question. In the work in general, is there even a point in engaging in these 612 details, or is it simply revealed by itself? We should reach love in general, and… 

M. Laitman: If we yearn for love your friend as yourself, then all the details are revealed to be the details of love your friend as yourself. 

Student: As a result, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:06) Love is in the intention, or in practice, in action? 

M. Laitman: The intention is the situation, the state, the intention is the state. If I love someone, it's a sign that all my desires want to connect with him, and care for him, and guarantee the past, the present and the future for him. 

Student: The reason for my question is because the way I relate to myself in general, it's love for myself, but my desire is to receive pleasures and things like that. But many times, this is not what is best for me. I have a big belly, I smoke. So, how should I analyze what is the best thing for my friend, if I don't even know what is best for me? Or, if I do know what is best for me, I still don't have the strength to do it, I want something else.

M. Laitman: You need to yearn to reach a state where it becomes clear to you what your connection with the friend is. And to the extent that you love yourself, you need to love others, that's what you need to reach.

Student: If I don't love myself in a good way, I don't love myself in such a very good way in truth, so how can I love others in a good way? 

M. Laitman: That is something we need to learn. It's clear that on this path, we'll learn what self-love is, what a good love, proper love is, and what is the love that is flawed, disqualified. And it's all through keeping this commandment, because this is all that we actually have to do. Love your friend as yourself, that is all. Everything else, those are additions, details. Clear? 

Student: Yes and no because I think that love is a result, or is it a source, the origin? The origin of my action towards the friend, or is it in the result of the relations between the friend and myself?

M. Laitman: Love is the outcome of all the relationships between us. I weigh those with my desires, and I reach a state where truly there is love between us. 

Student: Is there a difference between taking care of someone and loving someone?

M. Laitman: Yes. Caring for someone, that's an action, loving is the outcome.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:59) Self-love is all that a person has, but he doesn't know even that. I don't even know how to love myself correctly, so I also don't know how to love others, for sure.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, from where does he start? How does he learn to love others, and later on  myself, or seemingly, it's possible that maybe I first, as some people say, I first need to love myself, then I'll be able to love others. But here, it's different. I first learn to love others, then I even understand what it means to love myself, so… 

M. Laitman: Everything starts from love, self-love, which is clear and understood to every person, even little children. Instinctively, they love themselves. Now, with respect to others, love becomes clear when you try to be attentive towards someone and do what he wants. Like a mother for example, with respect to the baby. Same way between people.

Student: So, now we start to distinguish, he wants it because of his ego, or he wants it because of his desire towards the goal. Should we make such a distinction or not? Whatever he wants, we should do for him.

M. Laitman: In general, no, you don't need to divide these things with a thousand different conditions and so on, no.

Question (Moscow 8): (33:15) How will we actually feel the nature of the other, directly in our feeling, or is the feeling of others just a metaphor?

M. Laitman: The more we think about others, the more, gradually, we’ll build his image within ourselves. And then, according to that image I have within me of the other, I'll be better able, I'll be able to relate to him in a more accurate way. I don't relate to another as though he's outside of me. I don't see him as outside of me, I see him in the form I have of him, the way I'm impressed by him, the way I recognize him to be. And so, the Torah says, love a friend as yourself, the same way that you love yourself. In that same way, try to love another. The difference is that you accept yourself in a certain way of your own, and another you sense through a filter, a sieve. That's how you can build your attitude towards others. 

Student: So, this image that exists inside of me, does it matter if it truly matches the friend, or it doesn't matter, the friend, his desires of the image that I built inside of me? Maybe I built the friend's image, but he doesn't really need those things that I felt in the image that I built within me.

M. Laitman: That you cannot know, but what you can hope for, what the Torah promises to you, is that through your work, you will gradually begin to know the friend as you know the Creator. And then, it turns out that from love your friend as yourself, you gradually come to the love of the Lord your God. 

Student: Exactly about that, two friends from two different Tens are asking about that. Where does this fine line pass between a direct connection with the Creator, versus correction through others? 

M. Laitman: To the extent that you know how to connect with your friend, above these conditions that the Creator awakens between you two, to that extent, you can be connected with the friend and the Creator.

Student: Do I need some addition, beyond wanting to feel the friend, do I need to intend in some special way in order for this to also become a connection with the Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes. The more you are open towards a connection with the friend, to the same extent you are open for a connection with the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:27) Every person can love the other to the extent that he feels good about it, right? So, what's the difference between me feeling the Ten to be a certain way, and I love them to the extent that I manage to do so, because it's good for me? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, what from here? 

M. Laitman: What's next from here on, we need to bring you to a state where you won't judge out of your desires, but rather you will reach a state where all the friends that you  seemingly want to unite with, that they will be in a state where each one is by himself, and then when you try to get closer to them, you will have to come out of yourself and connect with them. And in such a state, you will have to find the common point between you and them.

Student: What leads me towards that form of love, which is beyond the kind where I just feel that it's good for me to love them?

M. Laitman: Because that is self-love. 

Student: Yes, but what will cause me to want to love that part of them that you just described, the part that isn't open to me? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: What brings me to even look at it? 

M. Laitman: Because in that there is the possibility to connect with them, become incorporated with them, in a way that is independent of your will to receive. 

Student: So, towards what, in relation to what do I measure? How much closer can I get to the friends beyond that? I mean, up to the point where I identify in the natural egoistic way, and I can invest and want to love them, because I measure it against myself. 

M. Laitman: With respect to yourself, means you haven't yet come out of yourself.

Student: Right, so when I come out of myself, when I want to come out of myself, in relation to what do I measure? How much I can love them, how much I have advanced in wanting to love them? When I'm at the zero point, then it's clear that it's coming from self-love, but when I want to emerge from myself to love the friend, where's that limit, that boundary that I measure towards, the new boundary?

M. Laitman: I don't quite understand you.

Student: So, an example: if I now move in some direction, I measure in relation to where I was. So, what is the new place, the new point I want to reach, the new place in which I love the friends? What is that place? 

M. Laitman: The new place that you want to reach is to become incorporated in the Creator.

Student: So, what is that feeling of the Creator? That isn't clear from the beginning because He doesn't write, love your friend, love my friend like me. As the Creator loves the other, so you need to love the other. 

M. Laitman: He can't write that for a few reasons. How can you feel what the Creator feels? 

Student: That's true, that's also a question, because what I feel all falls under self-love, and what I don't feel, I don't feel. 

M. Laitman: That is also self-love. 

Student: So, how do we advance in that condition of love? 

M. Laitman: The fact that you come out of yourself and you want to start to feel the general reality, like the Creator, this brings you to a state where you are not dependent on anything, you're not dependent on anything. And then from that point you begin to see every friend, every state in a new way. Because this point that you have attained, is seemingly a point that is hanging in midair. And so, in such a way, you then measure each and everything, and you ascribe each and everything, you give it some weight, you give it some intensity, some number.

Student: We have the basic feeling, and we can say this is the love of the Creator, the feeling of the Creator, and we want to advance towards the friends in that way. 

M. Laitman: Where do you have that?

Student: So, I'm asking, what gives me the direction that I can follow?

M. Laitman: The Creator Himself.

Student: But if I don't feel Him yet, then how can I follow Him? 

M. Laitman: We will have to go back to the beginning again and determine it.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:25) I just want to put things in order, because it's a bit confusing for me, the concept of, like yourself. You gave an example, and you always give the example of a mother caring for her baby, all her thoughts, all her concerns; she's entirely consumed by this concern for the baby, but she's herself, she didn't emerge from herself, it's the natural part of her. And that's where you begin. So, the question is, either I now work on wanting to feel the friend as a part of me, and in that I don't come out of myself. I just want to feel us, from me to us, as we used to say, that we are one vessel, it's a part of me, it's natural, and I didn't emerge from the self. Now, if I emerge from the self, it's not like me anymore. I forget about myself, and I think about someone else constantly. How can it be that it's not part of me if I emerge from me, the self? Do you understand the difference?

M. Laitman: No.

Student: How to direct myself properly if I want to relate to… do I want to expand to more people more, or should I emerge from the self? 

M. Laitman: You can't come out of the Ten. You can't.

Student: Like you, that word Kamocha, like you, as yourself, you told the friend that love your friend as yourself, that's a state we need to get to. Now, in that, as yourself, do I remain in that state, do I exist, do I still love myself? 

M. Laitman: As much as you remain.

Student: Or does nothing remain of me? And I no longer feel that there's anything separating me and others. 

M. Laitman: Ask me, tell me, what is it that you want? 

Student: I want to understand. The ego has its limits, has boundaries, right? I can love someone if he's a part of me. I love my children, they're a part of me. It's not love the same as love your friend as yourself, right, or is it? Baal HaSulam writes that you need to love the family first, then people in your close circle, then your village, and then…and so on. You expand the boundaries of love. And the way you love yourself, that's how you need to love everyone. You expand until you encompass the whole world. Or should I forget about myself, emerge from my boundaries, and picture something which is unnatural for me?

M. Laitman: Well, well, yes.

Student: So, how to orient myself correctly?

M. Laitman: The first one is correct, let's say. 

Student: And then naturally, you reach those discernments? I mean, not naturally, but the commandments done with that intention bring about a force, some of the force which influences us, and then we understand what it's all about.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (48:53) I heard you say that tending to someone, caring for someone is an act, and then the outcome of that is love. Let's say I tend to the Ten, take care of the Ten and dissemination, so does this care lead to love? 

M. Laitman: That too.

Student: Caring for someone, you can do that without love, without intention rather. 

M. Laitman: All right, for the benefit of the one that you're taking care of.

Student: Right, because of the intention, I can see that I can often perform actions of care, but the heart isn't always there, and our heart isn't always calibrated towards love of friends. So, I'm asking, do these actions build within the person that attitude gradually? Because I feel that I don't have any way to change that attitude.

M. Laitman: So, for the time being, just actions without your heart being in it, as we call it. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:25) I have to continue in that thing. When a person wants to apply love your friend as yourself, how should he define his self with respect to others? How does he establish himself? What is the self? What is me with respect to others?

M. Laitman: In what state is he in love your friend as yourself? 

Student: He wants to love the others, he wants to practice such an action of love of others. How does he define himself with respect to others? 

M. Laitman: That he came out of himself, and he wants to love the other, and he asks the Creator to give him the power to feel the other, to unite with him. 

Student: There are two options. I can either define the other as something separate to me, and I love him. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Meaning, I copy myself, I transfer myself to him. Or, I define the other as me, myself, and I love him the same way I love myself.

M. Laitman: What did you do by that?

Student: It's not a matter of what I did, it's a matter of how do I define the action of love in a proper way, a practical, realistic way, and not something that's outside of the rules of creation?

M. Laitman: When can you say about others, that you are in a state of love your friend towards him? 

Student: When I annul myself, first of all, and I replace myself with him, with his desires, with him. And if I picture the act of love, if I imagine that, then I need to imagine something where the Creator gave me a simulation, showing me how much I love myself, how I love myself, and now I need to use that with whatever I replaced my self with. 

M. Laitman: But this nevertheless, is not loving others.

Student: All right, so that's why I'm asking. How to define the others with respect to the self?

M. Laitman: I can't quite find the words, but to truly love others means that following your expression towards him, nothing remains in you. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (53:45) We now understand better, that love your friend as yourself, in that there is a certain relation, attitude, towards the friends. There’s  an action which relates to how a person relates to his friend. The principal action that we all take on our path is the morning lesson. I wanted to ask, what is there to this action that can change my attitude towards the friends? 

M. Laitman: That you connect in the morning lesson, and here there is a question, what does it mean to connect? Because on the one hand, you are different, on the other hand, you are carrying on some common action between you. From the third side, when you are all performing a single action, you don't end up with a single image, a single feeling, a single point, you don't get that. But rather each time, in each one, there will be a certain number of such images. And so, in the meantime, to start loving others as myself, we haven't reached it yet. It will come, maybe soon. But for sure, today, we're not going to succeed with that.

Student: My question is, you know, each person makes his own calculations, before taking any action there's a calculation that takes place. So, before the act of the morning lesson, should someone have it as part of his calculations, that he's performing this action in order to advance in terms of how he relates to the friends?

M. Laitman: I mean, it's a, why not? It's a, it's a commandment that stands on its own, and it's great, and it creates. It includes within it, possibly many people, created beings. It also includes within it, the actions of the Creator. 

Student: So, the morning lesson is an aid, right? It's a means, which assists us greatly in coming closer together, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Like a Congress. It's also a powerful means by which to come closer together. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: One last question. How can the people of Israel, who don't have the morning lesson, how can they come closer to this? Because we know that ultimately, the people of Israel are obligated to reach, love your friend as yourself. 

M. Laitman: So apparently, what we're going through in our small framework will open up for them. It will expand to the whole nation. 

Student: And that also has to be something that happens here, between us, on the screens, a concern for the people?

M. Laitman: Don't ask me about the reality that we will reach, I don't know. But clearly, it has to be in all the senses.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (58:24) This attitude of love your friend as yourself isn't something you're born with. You need to learn it, right? To acquire it through mutual actions.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Now, many times you see that you turn to a friend, and you think you're turning to him in a way which he likes, and you find that it's the absolute opposite, he hates how you behave with him. And so, you try a different thing, and we try many different ways. Where to get the proper guidance, so as not to make mistakes, or to truly reach a state where you do to the friend what he wants, and not what you think he wants? 

M. Laitman: This is all in order to keep, as yourself, that word, as yourself. Kamocha [as yourself] is here, undergoing a test, so that a person needs to care to implement it exactly as it is within himself. And in that already, he gets closer to others. 

Student: Just for example let's say, I love it when someone criticizes me, gives me comments so I know how to do a certain thing well. And the friend doesn't like that, he wants to be accepted as he is, and not to be criticized. I like smiling at a friend, saying hello, but he hates smiles, he hates it when I smile towards him and so on, there's no end to his hatred. How can I understand what he truly wants, what will be good for him? Because if it's me, well, people aren't like me, they're the way they are. So, where is this, as yourself? 

M. Laitman: You haven't reached it yet, love your friend as yourself. You need to see the friend, that you relate to him in the same feelings that you can demand from yourself. And then you and him can be in one state. This is called yourself.

Student: As myself. But I like being respected, let's say, I like being treated well, I like being caressed. He hates being touched, so how can I know if... Well, it's clear to me that what I like, he hates, he doesn't like. Now, from trial and error, maybe I'll try to touch him and he'll say, no, it's not pleasant, and I won't touch him anymore, right? So, I'll learn through trial and error that he doesn't like this, when I like this, and there's a difference between us. So, it's not like myself, right? It's like he is. 

M. Laitman: Yes, but with respect to the Creator's actions, you are similar. He loves the feeling and you love the feeling. He runs away from the darkness and you run away from the darkness, and so it's the same.

Student: So, I need to look for whatever reminds him of the greatness of the Creator, that's the search? It's not like yourself, as yourself, according to your nature, but according to our shared goal.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:03:00) You said earlier that we come to the morning lesson, we're different, we perform a shared collective action, but we don't get this feeling of this collective emotion, collective sensation, picture. Each one has his own. So, how do we compose this collective image? 

M. Laitman: Through the actions that you perform together towards the Creator, so that each one receives from the Creator. Each one receives from the Creator a certain awakening. And you connect in the Ten, and you study together some stories, some states, a spiritual state. And in this way, if everyone with respect to this story wants to actualize himself, it turns out that each one who actualizes himself, inserts his action together with all of the actions in the Ten, and eventually they reach the common point. In that common point, the Creator already arranges for them their state of life.

Student: What turns all these images of that story, of that state that we yearn for, that we want, what turns them into a single image? What there turns those into a single common thing where we all see the same picture? 

M. Laitman: When everyone sees the same picture, that doesn't come to them immediately. This comes to them by searching. And when they advance more and more in that search between them, it turns out that each and every one of them concedes a certain part of his reality, and in such a way, they begin to feel themselves as one man in one heart. That this form they reach is the general form for all of them, but each one of them…well, that will already be in the next lesson.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:07:56) You said earlier that after an expression of love towards the friend, you have nothing left for yourself. That’s the state of love of others where nothing remains for you. So this expression of love for the friend, is it something inner or external?

M. Laitman: It depends on how it comes out.

Student: Is it not a matter of your inner intention towards another, so that everything is good for him, in the same way that you'd like to have for yourself? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And you said that it simply vanishes, right? There's some expression, manifestation, which is inner or external, which vanishes, but it needs to be something constant, continuous, right? Something, where you're always like a conduit towards another. Now, the other, that's corporeal, and the Creator lies beyond, right? I can't relate to the Creator in an external way, only internally through equivalence of form.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So how does this transition take place? From the other to the Creator, and where we're both in equivalence of form, me and the other, because he needs to act the same way as me ultimately, the other, the friend. 

M. Laitman: But the image of the other and the image of the Creator get closer to each other. 

Student: And then comes a certain point where the other and myself are in equivalence, and then we both feel the same thing? 

M. Laitman: That too will happen.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:10:21) You talked about two concepts which I'd be happy to delve into a little bit. You said that when a person emerges from the self, is that the same as where a person thinks, there he is? Meaning, he thinks about the others, he thinks about their benefits, generally thinking about the friends.

M. Laitman: Next.

Student: Okay, and you also talked about the common point, to look for the common point, and that's done by a person giving something up, conceding something. And if a person thinks about others emerging from the self, he finds that there's ego, there's boundaries, a different attitude towards different friends. And to find the common place, does he need to simply ask for that? Does he need to make an effort by himself, of his own? What exactly happens here? 

M. Laitman: Again. 

Student: I can ask differently, maybe the question itself is a bit confusing, I'm sorry. You said, or so I heard, that you accept yourself as you are, while others you see through a filter. Now, to connect to others, do I need to invert that, to accept the others as they are and to place the filter on myself, on my will to receive, to place some filter on it? Is that the work, or am I just trying to... 

M. Laitman: No. 

Reader: Maybe we should continue to the next part of the lesson? 

M. Laitman: Yes, I think we've exhausted that.

Reader: All right, so let's continue to the next part of the lesson. Before that, let's sing a song. 

Song: (01:13:07)