About Love and Hate

Question: What does it mean to "love your neighbor as yourself"? What do I actually have to do?

Dr. Laitman's Answer: Loving your neighbor as yourself means that our entire world (the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, as well as humanity) and our entire universe become an integral part of you, "as one man with one heart." You connect everything to yourself and perceive it as your "self." Otherwise, you don't exist!

Our egoism separates us, but above it we must receive a force from Above, the desire and ability to feel every person as myself and even more than that. I have to feel that this is all me. However, this "me" is not an egoistic feeling because the hatred between us remains and even grows. I unite with others precisely above this hatred, and in that case they are called my "neighbors," or the people close to me.

A "neighbor" is a person whom I hate, but at the same time I "love him as myself." "Love will cover all sins" means that the previous hatred remains, but love is added above it.

In our world everything is driven by one egoistic desire, whether in reception or bestowal. In the spiritual world, however, we find ourselves between two opposite forces: bestowal and reception. Egoism grows, but the quality of bestowal emerges parallel to it. These two qualities enable me to reach the sensation that I am standing before a mountain of hatred (Mount Sinai, which comes from the word Sinah - hatred). However, prior to that I have to go through "Egypt" - the slavery of egoism, the Pharaoh. I have to come to hate it and then run away from it, searching for the force to correct it.

When I stand at the foot of the mountain of hatred toward my neighbor, I have to say whether I really am ready to unite with others, to love them above my hatred, and to become as one man with one heart. If I have gone through all the blows and plagues of egoism (Pharaoh) and I feel that I have suffered sufficiently, then I agree to it! That's because I hate my egoism even more than I hate my neighbor.

I agree, thinking that this will enable me to reveal the Creator. Eventually, however, I understand that love and bestowal to my neighbor is what fulfills me. I no longer demand anything but this. This action in itself fulfills me, and that is how I become equal to the Creator.

From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/10, "The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings"

The Creator’s Hollywood

Question: What is the difference between perceiving The Zohar and Talmud Eser Sefirot?

Dr. Laitman's Answer: They use a different language. It's impossible to understand The Zohar unless you discern the right picture behind every expression in it, with the picture being clothed in your desire or intention.

If I read an exciting novel that talks about the discovery of new lands, then I already have ready-made internal images of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature. Out of these forms I create a picture that the author describes, and the pictures we imagine are similar.

On the other hand, The Zohar describes adventures we have never experienced taking place in a world unknown to us. If I don't have these spiritual forms (qualities and actions) inside me, then I don't even know what I am reading about, as if it were written in a language unknown to me.

In contrast, Talmud Eser Sefirot describes more concrete qualities, actions, and events, where there are only two operating forces or desires: "for" and "against." In essence it is talking only about two qualities: bestowal and reception, which exist in different interactions with one another. We can imagine them as forces of attraction and repulsion, as well as their interaction.

Of course, this is simpler and less confusing than the descriptions of The Zohar. Talmud Eser Sefirot constantly shows us the need for the screen, the force of bestowal, whereas The Zohar projects pictures of the Upper World onto our matter (desire).

It's as if there is a movie playing somewhere very far away and I cannot make it out. As I try to see it, I ask myself: Which instruments or tools do I lack in order to bring this picture closer and feel it? This aspiration evokes the influence of that far-away picture upon me. If my aspiration is magnified many-fold through my environment (the group), then I really feel this picture coming closer.

Yet, the redemption comes from The Book of Zohar because it contains the most powerful Light that Reforms.

From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot