Arvut: A Responsibility That Includes the Whole World

Hello dear friends - welcome to our fundamentals course. Together we'll verify all these new terms - internal Israel, external Israel, nations of the world. Please send us your questions throughout the lesson, and may we all reach Arvut right here in this lesson.

We're very happy to see everyone sitting with notepads - coming on time and totally prepared for the lesson. We see how important it is to you and that you understand it's a place where you can attract the light that redeems us to our ideal state. And advance in your spirituality.

We're going to study the article The Arvut - letter 19. Then we're going to watch a clip that made such an impression on us in the morning lesson - we felt the need to feature it again here in this lesson because we feel it has a great deal of depth. It also conveys a message that we feel is very important for everyone to receive. Since the morning we've been thinking about this clip and the friends have been sharing excerpts of it in their tens.

We read Letter 19 (see the source below). It's a series of unclear terms. It's possible to understand each terms in a few ways.

Some of the terms -

Rashbi is Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is the great Kabbalist who wrote the book of Zohar.

His son was called Rabbi Elazar.

Rashbi is talking about the need for Israel to be corrected first, while Rabbi Elazar is talking about all of humanity being corrected. This is the first thing that isn't clear in the source. Another thing is this entire story - as if the Creator went and shlepped the Torah around to each nation. None of the nations wanted to receive it except the nation of Israel. It sounds a bit strange doesn't it? The Creator traipsing around with the Torah - it doesn't sound logical. The third thing is that they're talking about our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Yaakov. Do they mean the actual forefathers or those characters inside us? The last thing is that he's talking about Israel and the nations of the world. We'll watch this clip to try to make order of al this. We think Rav conveys a great deal of spirit here and many vital messages.

You can watch the full lesson here.

Clip: Who Are These Israel That Everyone Depends On?

Question: The last two letters describe a process of clarification regarding who "Israel" is. Who is Israel, are these the sons of Baruch who have already awakened, or who have not yet awakened. Who are these Israel that we all depend on, and without whom we can do nothing?

There are friends here who have been studying for twenty years, and until three years ago I was not here, I was in all sorts of other places. Did they wait until I woke up one morning and then they would depend on me? Are we now dependent on some group of people who are still somewhere else?

Rav: I will tell you a secret, yesterday in the middle of the day I was not "Israel". Then, towards evening, it changed a bit, I arrived in Jerusalem, then I went down to the valley, then I met with the lions, I ascended to heaven, I flew, and today when I woke up in the morning I was an animal altogether. Not Israel, nor the nations of the world, but I was an animal, and you ask who is Israel? "Israel" is called a desire to receive that directs itself straight to God. Do you want to point to some piece of protein and say that it is Israel or not? I don't know. We must first know the will to receive in it, the intentions for the will to receive, and then determine whether it is Israel or not and to what degree. According to the will to receive and according to the strength of the intention, you can say to what degree he is called Israel, right with God. Here sits someone who is, let's say, a Greek, and in front of him sits a Jew who was born to a Jewish mother, but it is actually the opposite, if you look, then the Greek can be a Jew, an Israelite, and the Jew who was born to a Jewish mother is a complete gentile, evil, an animal. It all depends on the will to receive, and under what intention he is.

Baal HaSulam says that there is an order in corrections, of course that what is called "Israel" corrects itself first. How could it be otherwise? If there is a part of me that is "Israel" and a part of "the nations of the world", then of course I first correct the galgalta eynaim, the purer vessels. Now, if we are talking about copying it to our world, then in our world we see, whether we want to or not, that we belong to Israel and must correct ourselves. But spiritually, even though we are Israelis, we are divided into both Israel and the nations of the world. How many "Israels" are there among the Israelis in this world? Let's say maybe a thousand, out of fifteen million or less.

Student: So who are the members of the nation who must accept "as one man, with one heart"?

Rav: Anyone who feels that they are a member of the nation. If you go out into the street and start asking, then I don't know if anyone will identify with the nation. What is a "nation"? It is internal distinctions within a person, it is not what he just blurts out of his mouth, or it is written somewhere, or in his passport.

Student: So last night, as you said before, you were not with the nation?

Rav: No. Last night I was a gentile, this morning when I woke up I was an animal. Let's hope that today will be good for me and I will grow to the rank of "High Priest" which I want to reach. Yes, why not? But before that, I certainly have to fall into such situations, like "Haman" and other wicked people, who will dress me up and I will feel like them, just like these characters, as the Torah describes. The Torah gives us internal pictures, our internal roles that we have to go through on the way to resembling the Creator. I cannot resemble the Creator 100% if I don't first be "Haman", "Hitler", "Pharaoh" and all those. I must be included in them, and I must also be included in the holy characters opposite them. The "holiness", that is, in influence. Because these characters of the wicked are characters of acceptance, and I also need characters of influence, and then I will be corrected. So it's not just waking up like a beast, because that's nothing, it's the opposite, it's outside the game.

Student: There's a certain path here that we're going through, and I'm trying to find some specific path.

Rav: If you associate your path with your body, and with what you see with your eyes, then you are in a serious mistake. Do not see according to the eyes and according to the bodies, but only according to the desires and intentions, exclusively. In all reality there is a will to receive, a will to bestow, and the intention that corrects the will to receive to be as a will to bestow, and you are not. There is nothing else. If you do not look at reality that way, but you recognize bodies, faces, and do not know what, then if it is your business for your beast (body), recognize them in some form, communicate with them, play with them. But if you are talking about spirituality, then there is nothing but these three parameters, light, a vessel, and a screen between them.

You study with us for three years? So the first year you will remember that there is such a vessel, the second year you will remember that there is light, and the third year there is a screen. That's it, there is nothing more to remember.

Question: It seems to me that in these questions that the friend asked there is another question hidden, which is actually, on whom do I depend for my progress?

Rav: This is really a problem, I need to discover who I depend on. For now, I don't. Later, I even discover that I depend on someone, according to all sorts of phenomena that I feel pass through me, but this someone is not identified, so I also make all sorts of calculations with him that sometimes yes, sometimes no, his discovery is lacking. Later, I may reach a state where I want him to be revealed. Not so that he will be revealed - not simply so that I can have something, but because otherwise I will not be a human being. I want to resemble you, I must. Then the Creator reveals himself in some form and changes me, gives me light that reforms me, and then I suddenly discover within myself the quality of bestowal, love for others, suddenly I understand others, suddenly I love them. This is called "discovering the Creator." After all, what is "the Creator" if not love and bestowal? But what else? That is what will be revealed.

So how is He revealed? He is revealed in the light of bestowal, in the power of bestowal within me. What is "within me"? Within my will to receive that wants to make of itself the bestowing one, meaning having an intention to bestow.

Student: We say that we develop our environment within the ten, that the ten is our environment now.

Yes.

Question: The ten is made up of friends, and as you told about the situations you go through, so the friends also go through all kinds of situations, and they are sometimes this way, and sometimes that way. When do I depend on them and when not?

Rav: Always. You depend on them 100%.

Student: But some of the time they are in a not-so-good state, in a state where they don't know what.

Rav: So that also projects onto you, and you too are like, "I don't know what." Where do you think you have thoughts? You decided for yourself once that this is the group, so that's it, from now on you depend on them 100%. Now it's your vessel. Don't think you can break away from them, even if you kill them. You can't break away, that's it. You decided, you have a ten? We're done. You can't leave, "Even death will not separate us," they say. This is what happens, I mean this seriously. You will accept it as if it really has already been signed. They received this document and that's it, it can't be changed. If you get along with them, you will get along. If not, no. That is to say, your spiritual life now depends on the success of the group. Also the physical, because accordingly there will be a copy to the physical.

Student: I depend on them, so this means I also depend on their situations.

Rav: On everything.

Student: But I don't know which friend is in which situation and when.

Rav: It doesn't matter, always increase the importance of the goal for him. Don't get into it. Just the importance of the goal, there's nothing else to work on. It's always as if you're tickling him, so that he'll always be like blooming in the air from the importance of the goal.

The Arvut

19) Rabbi Elazar, son of Rashbi, clarifies the matter of Arvut even further. It is not enough for him that all of Israel be responsible for one another, but the whole world is included in the Arvut. Indeed, there is no dispute here, for everyone admits that initially, it is enough to begin with one nation for the observance of the Torah, meaning for the beginning of the correction of the world, as it was impossible to begin with all the nations at once. It is as they said, that the Creator went with the Torah to every nation and tongue and they would not receive it. In other words, they were immersed in the filth of self-love up to their necks, some in adultery, some in robbery and murder and so on, until it was impossible to even conceive, in those days, to even ask if they agreed to retire from self-love.

Therefore, the Creator did not find a nation or a tongue qualified to receive the Torah, except for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose ancestral merit reflected upon them, as our sages said, “The fathers observed the whole Torah even before it was given.” This means that because of the exaltedness of their souls, they could attain all the ways of the Creator with respect to the spirituality of the Torah, which stems from their Dvekut with Him without first needing the ladder of the practical part of the Torah, which they had no possibility of observing at all, as written in “Matan Torah,” Item 16.

Undoubtedly, both the physical refinement and the mental exaltedness of our holy fathers greatly influenced their sons and their sons’ sons, and their righteousness reflected upon that generation, whose members all assumed that sublime work, and each and every one stated clearly, “We will do and we will hear.” Because of this, we were chosen, out of necessity, to be a chosen people from among all nations. Hence, only the members of the Israeli nation were admitted into the required Arvut, and not the nations of the world at all, since they did not participate in it. This is the plain reality, so how could Rabbi Elazar dispute it?