Morning Lesson July 21, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 6 (1984). Love of Friends - 2
Reading Article. (00:15:00) Love thy friends as thyself. Twice.
1. S. (00:29:23) He says here, now we have to understand that these three above-mentioned rules prepare us to start to understand what's going on here, what's going on in the work. It says here-what does it mean we have to understand first the goal to do good to his created beings, that we must have confidence and certainty that we can also reach it meaning all of us. Where do we take the force for all of this to even understand that the Creator is the Good that does Good to all created beings. As he says here, like you're just starting out, you don't know/understand. Where do you take the force? What is he talking about here?
R. You have to start from something in order to discern these things. You have to start somewhere and then you can see whether your assumptions are correct or not. Without those assumptions, you can't start to investigate, understand, grasp the whole matter. That's how we come to it.
S. It says here though that we have to see the Creator as the benevolent and good to His all created beings and we don't see this exactly, right? We see people dealing with their life. Maybe we will see later?
R. We're not talking about what you can see. Leave your perception for a second. We are rather taking on this assumption that the Creator is Good that does Good for everyone.
S. And where do we get that from?
R. From what the sages tell us.
S. From what the Kabbalists say?
R. Yes.
S. What the Kabbalists say?
R. It's like a little child that has a lot of claims to his parents and they tell him that they want what is best for you. He doesn't understand where he is supposed to take this from, but they say if you take on this assumption then from that you will be able to come to the truth. Because life is constructed in such a way that the world is made in qualities that are opposite yours.
2. S. (00:32:45) In the article we see that love clothes in fear and fear clothes in love. But they are tied to one another and it turns out that together they bring us to love of the Creator? Until I won't have love of others I can't make, wait for each one still working on the other, right?
R. It is the Creator behind the scenes that's connecting between all these distant definitions and discernments.
S. The summary of the article, he talks about the order of the love thy friend and that brings us to fear and then to faith. Over the course of the article he spreads these different hints that this order is dynamic, that it's interchangeable. That suddenly we can have faith before fear? He wants us to be confused or what?
R. He wants us to be incorporated from everyone, from faith, from fear, from, ‘love thy friend as thyself.’ From all those, so that we will include ourselves from all of those and eventually come to one point.
S. Is there a point to try to understand? Let's say Friday, I'll say to myself, I need to begin from love thy friend and tomorrow I’ll say to myself, I need to begin from faith? I need to be dynamic inside?
R. Try. Yes. At least you'll understand one of the three from those three main ones.
3. S. (00:35:07) How do we reach fear? How do we reach fear? It is amazing how Rabash just sews together and stitches together the entire path for us. We've learned this article many times over the past years and somehow today something new here has sensed how we connect what we do between us between fear and faith. Just a huge thanks.
R. Wonderful, thank you.
4. S. (00:36:07) It seems like his explanation for faith is almost like the masses like, just believe that the Creator is Good and get confidence from that and we always talk about this that faith is bestowal, so I wanted to ask: Is faith equal to bestowal or does it bring us to bestowal or does bestowal bring us to faith?
R. I won't answer you. You need to understand this from this article and maybe some other articles. The questions are his questions. It's a sign that he needs to study more until he understands the answer. To give an answer for him in place of him investigating and examining himself it's like you're taking the whole mechanism of scrutiny and questions and discernment with the Creator and with himself and with the group.
S. I've asked this question several months already.
R. Very well, may it be even a few more months as long as you do it. Pray to the Creator.
5. S. (00:37:40) Hopefully my goal is to reach love, right? I don't want fear or faith at all, I don't seem to understand why we need it?
R. I hear what you're saying but.
S. I don't understand why you need fear or faith or faith even I especially don’t understand it.
R. Oh, the fact that you don't understand that's different, so you don't understand why you need faith.
S. The goal is love right? That's what we are learning about. So, we come here, that's the end of correction, equivalence of form?
R. That's how you're deciding it.
S. Will you explain?
R. I have nothing to explain. You need to scrutinize these matters, you need to scrutinize, you need to ask, you need to subjugate yourself and that's what a person needs to do.
S. I'm asking for love, praying for love. Is there something else, right?
R. I don't know. There's an article before you and not one, but at least this one. Try to open it and by it resolve a certain problem.
6. S. (00:39:07) You recommended to us in this work to go according to certain assumptions which I want to understand. An assumption is something I determine so I can continue to investigate like or is it like an axiom that I never investigate or get into?
R. We do have several such assumptions which are: I received the first condition which is the Creator- that He exists, that He's Good that does Good, that He planned everything for the created beings to come to this and the created beings need to find by which way, by what rules will they come to that good. That's it. Along the way a few other conditions were added and through this we acquire the Torah, through the Mitzvot and we discover it, this network of rules.
S. If I have a formula and there's a few variables, I could take one variable and say it's a constant, right? And then work with the rest, and then at the end I can check the last variable or there's another approach and I can say, there's an axiom here and I never investigate it, I never get into it, I never figure it out. So which one is the correct approach?
R. What have you seen from the article?
S. From what I got in the article it says that first I need to stabilize this love thy friend, then take my body and annul before the friends and then somehow things will begin to work. That's more or less what I got.
R. Well, let's say yes.
S. So this matter of the Creator as being the good and the benevolent, is this something that I have to scrutinize or is this an axiom until the end of correction?
R. No, that’s not an axiom. That may be an assumption at the beginning of the work, but later not. As it is written: “Return the people of Israel, all the way to the Lord, your God and know thy Lord.”
7. S. (00:42:10) What is in this action of love of friends that gives birth in a person, in a ten to something that is above the nature, love of the Creator, like he says that faith is the vessel. It's confusing?
R. Yes.
S. So what is here in the connection between us that we're working on, the ten, that gives birth to love of something that is above us?
R. We begin to feel that there is a quality above us, yes, above us. That this quality is above our nature. How can we define it, develop it, recognize it? That's the question.
8. S. (00:43:10) What's the connection between love, fear, faith and love of friends?
R. That through being in the society and you developing with them special recognition. The development of these relations become clear to you what you need to do in order to advance toward the concept of the Creator.
S. So we can say that love of friends is the last will, that by which we could reach all the previous ones?
R. It could be but if not, later, we can change it. You are in a study, a research.
9. S. (00:44:21) Before that there's nothing that will give us fuel to exit self-love?
R. Yes.
S. So what exactly is this love thy friend which gives us the fuel?
R. Love thy friend is considered that you are coming closer to the other as you are to yourself.
S. So what's the emphasis here? It gives you forces?
R. The emphasis here is that you start to get to know that you are missing; the force of bestowal. Just like for yourself you're willing to bestow with all your might as much as you feel the necessity for this. That way, towards your friends, you start to feel that you have the need to operate upon them the force...
S. Where do you take the force to get closer to them?
R. From necessity, from the need that you discover.
S. Which just turns out that if you don't get into love thy friend, then your work doesn't even start? That there's no work on the vessels?
R. Yes.
S. So what motivates you here? How do you start yourself up into love thy friend to start living the friend as you live yourself?
R. You start to understand that you're living in the society, in the system and only this system is what draws you, pulls you, explains to you. And it all together depends on the extent in which you open in you the life of the system.
S. In the moments of recognition that this is how our life should be, how do you then start using fear? What is the fear?
R. Fear is where I will be able to process my relations to the Creator, my relations towards the friends, the way I relate to the great ones drawing tears and for me losing that importance I leave this path.
S. Clear. Why do you need faith ultimately? What will it give you?
R. Faith is called that you are already connected to the upper force that's above you and it gives you the ability to connect to it. The force that you receive from him is called faith.
S. And love thy friend you're still not tied to Him through that? Love thy friend, ‘in that work’ what are you finding there? The Creator is still not in the picture yet?
R. In love thy friend as yourself, you are finding the force of connection, the contact, the connection, the dependency, the love. That's what you are establishing.
S. Why do you need faith, too? What addition does faith give you on that connection that you have formed, established? Why doesn’t it end there with love thy friend? Why do you need this addition of fear then faith?
R. Without the force of faith you cannot come to that form of connection. You can't come to that connection, the complete connection both with the friends and moreover with the Creator.
S. So love thy friend is only regarding, only working on importance and faith is more in action?
R. Let's say for the time being.
10. S. (00:49:40) What do we actually mean with the word love? We can see it as, ‘love thy friend as thyself,’ love thy Creator, repentance of love, so what does the word ‘love’ mean in this context? Now it is seen as a basis and otherwise it is seen as the highest degree is love.
R. That's all correct because there are many states and degrees in love, conditions, but actually love is called that I feel the other like I feel myself. That would be the simplest way. That the second one is as important as it is to myself.
S. So, I need to feel the Creator as myself?
R. Eventually, yes. Yes, of course.
S. It says here, ‘love thy friend as thyself,’ is a basis and not an end to come to the love of the Creator?
R. Why? I received this world, the friends, the big group. Hundreds of people that are drawn to that same goal like me and then I try to build for myself a certain structure. How do I come to bestow, to love, to connection, commitments between us. I have everything ready for this. I can shuffle the cards on how to come to Dvekut, to adhesion with all the friends in such a way between us. No one who is not important but actually all of us together, we build the image of the Creator through mutual bestowal. Meaning I have here the power of the friends and if we bestow upon one another we come to the bestowal that the Creator has for us. Meaning that we are building from us the Creator.
11. S. (00:53:40) Each of these steps: love, fear, faith, it's already, each one is a very big height. Out of this experience in efforts to love the friends and this yearning, what stage do we then reveal the fear and then faith? How does this happen?
R. Gradually. To the extent in which we discover between us more distances that we need to close down, we come closer that way. Each and what he sees in the structure of his soul. Yes? Clear?
12. S. (00:54:40) Fear is the main demand of a person that the, as an objection to Rabbi Akiva that says fear is included in ‘love thy friend as thyself.’ What is this contradiction that they don't know who's right? According to what is written here by our sages, fear is the main thing and then there's a dispute between him and Rabbi Akiva who says fear is included in, ‘love thy friend as thyself.’ What's the reason for those differences? What's the dispute here? What's the reason for it? And who’s right? How do we decide? And what's happening here?
R. It's truly in this commandment of ‘love thy friend as thyself,’ is everything included? Or is there something additional that's not included in it?
S. Yes, but what's the answer, I don't..?
R. The answer is that you have to ask and get the answer.
S. So it's on me to decide and define and discern between these two approaches?
R. Yes.
13. S. (00:55:56) What is the faith to give contentment to the Creator? Is it the need to bestow upon friends?
R. The faith that must be to begin with is faith in the sages and the Kabbalists who wrote the material for us by which we can advance. Faith that they told us that we need to connect in the group and faith and principles of, ‘love thy friend as thyself’ and all these that are written in the Torah. These are the elements that we need to accept and find ourselves upon and upon them afterwards we develop ourselves onwards, too, on the intention to bestow.
14. S. (00:57:18) The closer we come to equivalence of form, just like love is being revealed also can we say that new fear is revealed? If so, are there different forms of fear that belong to the Creator and we need to equalize our form to Him in that? The more we come closer to the Creator, to reveal love, we also fear and love. They use the same word to use fear and awe. So are there different forms that we need to realize to make equivalence a form with them to…?
R. Yes, very nice.
15. S. (00:58:08)The work in faith is actually work on love of others. How can we love the other if we are a vessel of reception that is egoistic? If we are actually just an egoistic vessel of reception?
R. That's what we're learning, how to rise above the self love to love of others, or from reception to bestowal. That's what we're learning. So how is this done, this inversion in us? That instead of thinking about myself, I think about the others and then instead of receiving, I think about how to give, to bestow. That's clear?
16. S. (01:00:00) It seems like there is something that there's part of the question from the friends that there is something that repeats itself because we usually are inside of self love, and we know and that is the reason we are here, that we have a goal to come to love of others. There is something that repeats itself here because how do we do it if we are here? Also, I think that only to come to the understanding that that is the goal, that is the first stage of ours, it is a gift from above because…?
R. In order to invite this gift so it will be given to us from above. You're right that of course, Lishma needs to come from above, any intention to bestow it comes from above, everything comes from above, we’re only invested in the will to receive. But in order to invite this gift to come to us, we need to work for it.
S. What's our work?
R. That's what we are scrutinizing.
S. He said here that we are working here and then we come to here and then like that but how to do the first degree? Because all of a sudden, how to cause, let's say I can come, I don't have the words, I'm sorry, with complete fear to love of others, that is the goal. That is it. That is everything and I need to work on that, everyday, all the time? How can I come to that if I am inside self-love?
R. Self love, so that is done by the light that reforms. That you do all sorts of actions and by this, you awaken, influence a bestowal of the Creator upon you and this influence is called the light that reforms. The light that reforms you to bestow and then you change.
S. I don't want to be annoying. I'm sorry but to even make that work, to make the effort I need a little conviction, that this is the right way.
R. Be convinced that it's the right path, that is given to you to begin with. From above is called 'the point in the heart', that draws you or pushes you to the purpose of creation, the purpose of life. But to continue with it, to go from the small push that you get from above and then to make some motion from your present state to the end of correction, meaning each time to invest forces each step by step.
17. S. (01:04:02) A friend from the Ten is asking what is the place of annulment towards the Ten in these three things? Does this symbolize the beginning of the fear?
R. Yes, of course but the need of annulment before the Ten, each one in the Ten must ask himself, what do I do now, what am I doing today in order to strengthen the Ten? To give it a structure of Ten so that is as complete as possible. The person who is sitting at home and asking this question through the phone, maybe he can't connect otherwise, it's something else. First of all, presence to strengthen the Ten. That each one should think how I now embrace everyone in the Ten and hold them together as much as possible.
18.S. (01:05:28) My friend is sitting here, he just can't walk, he has a problem with his foot.
R. Okay.
S. That the foundation of the rule, love thy friend, if I don't have such a desire, is that the first the
request to love the friend to proceed the request to bestow to the Creator?
R. Of course, from love of the created beings to love of the Creator, without getting close to the friend you cannot get close to the Creator, and only in the extent that you get close to the friend, can you get close to the Creator. One is dependent on the other in a clear strong manner, there is no other way.
19. S. (01:06:00) Can the state of fear be a root, true deficiency for a prayer to the Creator?
R. Yes.
20. S. (01:07:02) What daily exercises can we awaken in us, fear, love and ‘love thy friend as thyself’?
R. We read it in the articles, I recommend reading the article a few more times. The article of today, yesterday, the day before. It's really helpful.
21. S. (01:07:33) Is spiritual work beginning after the acquisition of faith or the attainment of faith shows that we are working on coming closer to the goal?
R. Yes, the payment of faith shows.
22. S. (01:08:03) There is the fear that I won't be able to bring contentment to the Creator based on free will?
R. Does he mean free on his part? I don't understand it.
23. S. (01:09:00) He writes there is one counsel but if several individuals gather, without this small force that it is worthwhile to emerge out of self-love, but they don't have the strength and importance for the matter of the soul to be able to be independent without helpful outside and all those individuals each nullify before each other and the action of nullifying himself before the society?
R. We take people in five, seven, ten, it doesn’t matter and determine that each one will annul himself before everyone. Yes, before the general, everyone. Let's say we have ten, and each one of the ten wants to annul himself before this ten. Yes? Now what will we feel? We will feel that we are annulling ourselves for self annulment, and we will connect between us in order to carry out the force of annulment and fulfill it. What will we receive in this form of annulment? That we have annulled our force of reception, each one out of himself and we want to develop instead the general force of the ten for the others; each one for the others.
S. Annulment is describing the result of the annulment?
R. Yes, and what is the annulment showing himself? What does he want and what does he want to reach?
24. S. (01:10:38) He talks in the article that after we annul between us, love of friends is created then love of friends and love of the Creator and then from love of the Creator, we move to fear. It is not clear how that transition takes place, we are connecting between us?
R. We connect between us, and best, a lot of forces in it, prayers, actions and out of this that we give efforts, then we obligate the upper force to make upon us the action of connection, not that we ourselves do it. The upper force performs an act of connection upon us and then we feel in that same structure that we have already become by Him not by us already, right, and just obligate them to perform an action upon us and then we turn into ‘as one man’ in something and this already, inside the entire reality is a new reality that did not exist beforehand, each one had different desires, different manners, how to say? How do you save this growing motion? Random? Like we have in the air or in liquids?
We have then one motion, which includes everyone, and each one according to what he is and according to his nature participates, but the intentions are the same intention. They accumulate and then this intention is what operates and the Creator accepts it. Then clothes in it, so what is important for Him is our intention. It's like a baby, he’s not demanding that he will actually do something but just that he will make an effort, that he wants to do, that he's doing, and that's all that’s required on his part. That's what we need.
S. But after that, he all of a sudden says that fear awakens?
R. Yes of course, but if we grow and gather our efforts then we can feel additional phenomena. Are we capable of it? Are we doing it ourselves? Is there a force that can help us? Meaning, we already have a sense of the others, because we connect. Out of connection between us, we also have the sensation of connection with the Creator, there is something in someone that comes to us and gets closer to us and is doing common actions with us. And this is how we start taking strides forward.
S. This fear sounds like not to lose this connection, he writes not to lose the bringing up contention, how does this fear of not bestowing to the Creator develop from here?
R. We constantly ensure that we grow using the power of connection between us and from the power of connection how do we connect to the Creator?
25. S. (01:15:18) Are we connecting with our intentions upon the exertions of each and everyone?
R. Yes.
S. Are the actions themselves less important as long as they’re towards the friends?
R. But your action is expressed through your intention.
S. That's already if we are dealing with intentions?
R. As much as we can, even if we make mistakes, in the heavens they accept everything just like you are with a small child.
S. Where to start acting towards the friends?
R. Start from being certain, it is written that the Creator will finish it for us. Meaning, what I wish to start and to do some actions, incorrect or correct, the Creator will correct it and we will do it.
S. What actions can we do? Let's say there are friends that are preparing a meal for later, so it's something they're doing during the lesson in action. What do those who are sitting in the hall here or on the internet do?
R. Everyone connects in their actions, intentions, everyone. After all, they do one kind of work.
S. How do we renew the sitting at the table and in every moment in the lesson so that this intention will be held up in the air?
R. You need to renew it, you need to renew it. There is nothing more to say.
26. S. (01:17:27) How to give up my entire reality in order to open the fear of the Creator? So that in every state I'm in, I will look and feel that the Creator is there, or the Creator is here?
R. How to annul towards the Creator?
S. Yes.
R. Only through prayer, when you wish to connect with all the friends, and all of us together, we’ll annul towards the Creator, will be incorporated and included towards the Creator. It is written, “Return all the children of Israel, to the Lord, your God.”
27. S. (01:18:45) How can we see in the Ten that we are acquiring the desire of giving and that this is not our imagination?
R. Because we are in a group, a ten, in a greater group and all kinds of actions, so we see how capable we are of being together in one heart, one desire, one action. We can see it from our life.
S. After this we arrive at the force of the faith?
R. Yes, yes.
28. S. (01:20:53) Did you notice that the word ‘world’ is from concealment, in this whole thing was done? [Not fully translated.]
R. You are correct. You are correct, that is the correct approach. But the world is from Olam, from concealment, and we have to relate to Him in this way and reach revelation in the work with Him.
29. S. (01:21:10) How can we come to such a fear that in our physical meetings it will be like our virtual meetings? We had a meeting yesterday, how do we do this virtually? How can we do this in a virtual state?
R. I'm certain that through virtual connection, you can reach the same intensity of connection as in a physical meeting, even more. Later, we will see if we are trying to feel the internality of the friends and not their externality, it will help us greatly to be connected in one heart.
30. S. (01:22:40) I don't understand the plans of the Creator. I don't even love this concept of the Creator. But I certainly want to love powerfully, my friends, is that enough to advance on our path?
R. No, you have to strengthen yourself in coming closer to the Creator and from that you want to come close to the Ten. In the Ten, we reveal the Creator. Yes.
31. S. (01:23:28) The teacher on the possibility to ask, there are three rules here, the first rule of ‘love thy neighbor as thyself,’ we can implement it only in the Ten in order to reach true fear, so it turns out that fear and faith are an outcome of this group work and not of my individual work?
R. Correct.
S. Only in that way can we reach complete faith?
R. Yes, it is not a condition whereby they cannot feel the essence of each and every definition and spirituality because the spiritual world is built out of the connection between us; between friends. All kinds of forms of connections, these are spiritual forms.
32. S. (01:24:12) There is a whisper in the theater so that he whispers to others so that he won't forget their lines. If a person who studies Kabbalah and he is before this fate and he doesn't know what to do, can the Creator whisper to him the correct decision or help the person through some kind of inner voice or does that take free will away from the person?
R. No. The Creator works in many channels and in the revelation and concealment inside of us. He doesn't let go of us even for a moment.
33. S. (01:25:56) If we don't succeed together with all of our Ten at our meeting, what should we do in order to increase our desire and yearning for bestowal among us?
R. You have to try and nevertheless to assemble together as much as possible, and several times a week, gather, all of you, gather. What is the big issue here? Days off, evenings, breaks, all kinds, try. Each one has a phone I'm sure, a mobile phone. You will be able to connect somehow. Don't look for excuses, look for ways to nevertheless be connected.
34. S. (01:27:11) Annulment, is that when I feel the part of my desire to receive that annuls within myself?
R. Yes.
35. S. (01:27:33) We are here at the Arava after a long time off, we haven't met. Today at the Yeshivat Haverim friends came from far and there’s a very strong feeling of connection and as a result of that they have the feeling that fear that we won’t lose such an attitude to the goal to the Creator that exists between us. Firstly, is that fear that protects us and how do we use that properly until the next day so that it won’t disappear?
R. Pray, pray that the connection your building remains, ask the Creator to keep it, maintain it.
36. S. (01:28:33) I have read this article several times and today for the first time I felt that I actually heard something. I mean in a direct connection with the deficiency that was created yesterday in this article. I understood how the problem is that these inner barriers that we have, they don't let us hear anything, and the strongest barrier is self-love, and a person studies alone, he only strengthens that barrier, that wall. Here, Rabash explains perfectly that if we connect our forces, then that barrier does not break, then it becomes less of an obstacle. The question is, in the article of the introduction to the book of Zohar, Baal HaSulam writes the fourteen Mitzvot, fourteen commandments and there is a classic organization, can you say that Rabash gives us this order from above downwards according to our state, and there in the Book of Zohar it is below upward?
R. I'll think about it, we have a lot of people here, a few women.
37. S. (01:30:36) This article invoked a lot of sensation, it seems like there is a formula for self discovery of the evil inclination in order to start the process of correction to reach connection with the friends and connection with the Creator. I also feel like there is a part of it that is like some separation and intersection that overlaps between the ‘love thy friend as thyself’ and the fear and the faith and we need to feel it. For me, I don't feel the fear yet of the Creator. How do I get to the point where we truly feel the fear of the Creator as the Governing force, as the Mightiest of the mighty in this world. If you put a lion in front of me, I will run because I fear the lion, but I don't wake up fearing the Creator, so what needs to be done in order for us to feel the fear of the Creator?
R. Whatever you need to do. There is fear as the Zohar writes that when a person fears the Creator, corporeal lust, whether or not he will receive them, work, family, health, and so on and so forth. There are greater and greater fears until he comes to a spiritual fear, whether or not he can bestow to the Creator. This fear, whether or not he will be able to bestow to the Creator, he will insist on it, this is his main concern. We have to think about it and understand that according to the spiritual fear, whether or not he can bestow to the Creator, this is my fear and I care about it. I care about realizing it.
S. The question is to me is that we need to pray for us to feel it so that we can reach the end of correction? Otherwise we talk about it, but we don't feel it.
R. All of our work, all of our prayers are to reach correction even the end of correction. But in that direction, you are correct.
38. S. (01:34:14) They fear the opportunity to connect with their friends, is the root of that fear in love?
R. Yes, it's a very good fear, excellent. It's worth developing and it is a positive fear.
39. S. (01:34:34) Continuing the friend, it is written that it is from Ten people, so that is ten times more force than an individual. When you feel that in the heart, when you feel that in the Ten, and you are afraid to lose the Ten, is that an egoistic fear?
R. Yes, that is an egoistic fear, but it is a correct fear. We should be fearful of losing it and we should continue to develop it.
S. The next degree needs to be that I continue fearing not bestowing?
R. Right now I'm just fearing losing the force.
S. Only afterward can I shift over to fear?
R. Yes, yes.
40. S. (01:35:59) How can we work with our ego? Everything that connects me with myself is only evil. And I have an ego that tells me that I do not want to find myself and my evil, it ruins my life. And if I don't want to be in my evil, and I want to continue and progress, is that also an egoistic inclination?
R. Yes, always. From our side, we have the egoistic inclination but the Creator responds by correcting using His light, correcting it to a spiritual action.
41. S. (01:37:05) Does the screen remove the fear?
R. Yes, there is a different kind of fear, the fear of the Creator. How can I bestow more and more to the Creator?
42. S. (01:37:35) The Creator is unfelt, can’t feel Him. He is distant. How can we reach fear toward something that is not felt, not sensed? In the Ten, I feel the fear that someone will leave, and then I feel that as some tragedy but the Creator is distant. How can I feel this towards the Creator?
R. We need in each and every moment to think about our connection with the Creator until the light influences us and gives us this feeling. That there is no existence for reality except together with the Creator.
43. S. (01:38:34) Do I go to cause the Creator to say, ‘My sons have defeated Me,’ through my intentions?
R. Yes.
S. Second question: Is love created through my exertion? Since I exert on the process, then I acquire a very strong fear and in the end can we call that reception in order to bestow?
R. Yes. All of these qualities come to us from the Creator.
44. S. (01:39:46) I've read earlier that if you said we start feeling the internality of the friend and not his externality, it will help us very much to feel ‘as one heart.’
R. Of course.
S. What is the advice to feel the internality of the friends. How do we do that?
R. To adhere to him with your heart and soul, as you say, if the two of you are aimed at the Creator and you wish to scrutinize what does it mean exactly to be aimed at the Creator, and how with that you can unify all the details in you, all the individual parts in you and then in this way, you and the friend connect.
S. How do we connect all these details into one?
R. The upper light does it as a result, as an outcome.
S. How common scrutiny will let us enter into the internality of the friends?
R. Yes.
S. That’s something that each one does within himself?
R. Yes.
S. These two different works?
R. Yes.
45. S. (01:41:04) You spoke about incorporation if it's in the intentions that a person needs to do with the friends that the Creator will dress upon that. Why is it so important to do it simultaneously, precisely in the morning lesson because apparently I could, maybe not go to the morning lesson, get up, put on a recording and connect because it is a single system.
R. Nope, if you want me together with everyone, it will not be the same intensity and it will not be the same action.
S. Why do we need to do that everyday?
R. Everyday? Because that's how you live. Everyday we have to renew our lives. Later, you will feel how the work is different on Sunday to Monday to Tuesday. It’s different each and every day.
S. Do we need to be at the same time with all the friends together?
R. Yes.
S. Otherwise it won't…?
R. Yes, otherwise, meaning group connection or death.
46. S. (01:42:36) This article is very important to me. In the wisdom of Kabbalah Rabash determines an order which is very determinate and final that brings us to love of friends and then to the rest of the things. If you look at the history of Kabbalah, they reveal fear and fear seems to be the first thing that they start with and work from. I will make it more concise and ask. Is there a difference between the extent of bestowal and the fear of.. the other side of love of friends?
R. Again.
S. The form or the extent that a person reaches, is there a difference that he acts from an approach of fear being before everything? Before all the Mitzvot that I do them out of fear? Or, if he starts them out of love of friends and then that gives him some special edition to his fear that brings him to different or higher faith? Is there a difference between those two approaches?
R. It appears as if seemingly there is a difference between the two approaches because with love of friends, we first come to bestowal, connection, but eventually there is no difference. You come to the same result. We will talk about it soon. The types of souls, the approaches and the attitudes. You know that there are people with a certain special attitude toward the Creator, toward the friends, there are a few types like in the Sanhedrin, choleric, phlegmatic, so we also have these four qualities in us and we left it to consideration.
S. In your opinion does Rabash determine this approach maybe for our generation, and it's first love of friends, and then we reach the rest of the things?
R. I don't see a difference between Rabash and all of the Kabbalists two-thousand years ago and more.
S. There is a saying that you have to keep all the commandments and then you have to.. and then Rabash brings this matter of faith that fear is the entire matter of creation and then we see that the entire Kabbalist who work on the side of fear that they will not be alone and study, they will develop fear of the Creator and then from that they will acquire faith, attainment.
R. It says there are many paths to the place so I cannot speak of those who I do not understand or don't feel. I saw in my lifetime a few real Kabbalists, true Kabbalists, who have different approaches but I can see that ultimately there is a different attitude. One who reaches true connection with the Creator cannot have a different attitude. He has to reach a connection with the force of bestowal, the force of faith, through connection with people, and that's at the heart and the foundation of the entire correction,' love your friend as yourself.' What else do we have besides Rabbi Akiva?
S. Rabash takes over and says at the beginning and the opening of the article that it gives fear, faith and love.
R. Yes, of course there are many ways. Well, not many, but three or four ways you can say. If at all, I don't know. Say I spoke to people who are seemingly all the different approaches and they have some access to spirituality but it was not an approach that brings one to opening up the eyes.
S. Maybe that's the answer to my question. In relation to fear, generally, it is as if we miss out when we study this sentence, “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.” That from love of friends we immediately open the love of the Creator. Here the word fear, which is the vessel. How much do we need to pay attention to open fear and not love or through when I work on love of friends, how much of that turned into a search of fear of the Creator inside of me? Is that they're in our work? Is this matter of fear toward the Creator, in our work inside of us?
R. In our work, of course, there is spiritual fear.
S. Where is my work and the work of the friends? Where we read Rabash and we work on this annulment, where does this matter of fear need to come into expression and that service?
R. First of all, fear, spiritual fear relative to the Creator. Am I taking steps in order to bestow contentment to Him? How do I attain it? By giving contentment to the friends. How do I connect and unify them? Each one from himself. But I am for myself. How do I aim them, direct them, guide them towards approaching the Creator, connecting with the Creator
S. I need to seek through these actions how I carry out the desire of the Creator?
R. Of course.
S. Is that an active part in the action itself?
R. Yes.
47. S. (01:50:41) Speaking a lot about love today, I am happy to hear love, love all the time and now what? I want to tell you that I don't, first of all, what is, ‘love thy friend as thyself?’ How am I supposed to love the friend as it is written here? On the contrary, I'm sitting in the Ten and instead of loving him, I can’t stand him, can’t stand how he's speaking, his behavior, and then you are saying, love your friend as you love yourself. I feel that I am getting worse and worse, that I can’t tolerate the friends more and more, that I don’t love him. That he is still sitting a kilometer away from me, not next to me at all. How can I progress to love thy friend as yourself?
R. Okay, you’re simply explaining to us that you are still developing.
S. That’s called the process of development?
R. This is called the process of development because your ego is still developing.
S. You trust that there are people here in our Tens?
R. I don't believe it, I know there are such people here who already feel. How much this thing is bad and it’s revealed in us, so we will turn it into good.
S. As I remember that, you said that you cannot reach love if you don’t have hatred and you progress through it.
R. Yes, yes, that’s correct
S. But how do we do this here?
R. As much as you’re drawn to love, attracted to love, the more and more you reveal the hate.
S. Oh, so that’s what I’m speaking to you about. So how do I overcome that hatred? So I'm just revealing that I can't tolerate him more and more and more and then maybe, I'll love him once and then I can’t tolerate him even more and more.
R. More and more and pray until the Creator replaces your hate with love.
S. There’s no more hatred, you just love him?
R. Take a look.
S. Not the work itself, only love? There’s no hatred? It just disappears?
R. Disappears.
S. Really?
R. Gradually.
S. It disappears?
R. Yes.
S. Because once you said that the hatred never ends until just like Rabbi Shimon.
R. This is something that you hear from yourself.
S. You said that after 121 degrees, Rabbi Shimon fell all the way to the bottom?
R. I don't understand. I don’t wanna hear such nonsense.
S. We spoke about that, it doesn’t matter.
48. S. (01:53:27) Faith is simple, faith that I believe that everything is good and that there is a Creator or is faith, seeing with your eyes but that there is a Creator?
R. Yes.
S. The second one?
R. Both. We start with the first, where we just talk about it and gradually we begin to discover that yes, the upper force that arranges the whole world, that determines in us the degree of connection in Him.
49. S. (01:54:15) One question in relation to the example that you gave at the beginning of the lesson in pertaining to a child who has…They say that he is acting towards his parents. I remember that I suffered because I did not know what the teacher was doing was for my benefit, but I also remember the attention and the embrace, despite that the Creator seems to raise us only through blows, as if He is very aggressive, intolerable with His children. Why does the Creator not show softness in this embrace towards us? What should we do about this?
R. In order to give us an opportunity to rise above our feelings and to determine a different attitude toward Him compared to what was established through His direct actions. We are able to discover love in His blows.
50. S. (01:55:46) Can we make it more precise that I heard that when we sit together, it is a greater force. If I have two options, to sit at home through the Arvut system, or to sit here, then I will ask for your commands? I would not have doubts?
R. What do you mean by doubt? We went through all those things during Covid, which is coming back to us again, by the way. We spent time at home, now we have the opportunity to come here and of course we should. There is no question about it. It is more powerful when we sit together, now we're incorporated together physically, emotionally and spiritually.
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