Learning Community - Lesson 34

Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him

Selected Excerpts from the Sources

1. RABASH, Article No. 13 (1984), “Sometimes Spirituality Is Called ‘a Soul’" 

"We must always awaken what the heart forgets, what is needed for the correction of the heart—Love of friends—whose purpose is to achieve love of others.

This is not a pleasant thing for the heart, which is called “self-love.” Hence, when there is a gathering of friends, we must remember to bring up the question, meaning everyone should ask himself how much we have advanced in love of others, and how much we have done to promote us in that matter".

2. RABASH, Letter No. 40

"Through the friction of the hearts, even of the strongest ones, each will bring out warmth from the walls of his heart, and the warmth will ignite the sparks of love until a clothing of love will form. Then, both of them will be covered under one blanket, meaning a single love will surround and envelop the two of them, as it is known that Dvekut [adhesion] unites two into one".

3. RABASH, Article No. 9, 1984 "One Should Always Sell the Beams of His House

"Baal HaSulam gave an allegory about a person who had complaints and demands of the Creator that He wasn’t granting all his wishes. It is like a person who is walking on the street with a little child, and the child is crying bitterly. All the people on the street are looking at the father and thinking, “How cruel is this man who can hear his son crying without paying any attention? The child’s cries make even people on the street feel sorry for the child, but this man, who is his father, doesn’t. And there is a rule, ‘As a father has compassion on his children.’”

The child’s cries made people go to his father and ask, “Where is your mercy?” Then his father replied, “What can I do if my son, whom I keep like the apple of my eye, demands of me to give him a pin so he can scratch his eye because he has an itch in his eyes? Can I be called “cruel” for not granting his wish, or is it for mercy that I will not give it to him so he will not poke his eye and remain blind forever?”

Therefore, we must believe that everything that the Creator gives us is for our own good, although we must pray, just in case, that the Creator will lift these troubles from us. However, we must know that the prayer and the granting of the prayer are two separate issues. In other words, if we do what we must, then the Creator will do what is good for us, as with the above allegory. It is said about that, “And the Lord will do that which seems good to Him.”

4. RABASH, Letter No. 24

"You must always stand guard, all day and all night, when you feel a state of day or feel a state of night.

We say to the Creator, “Yours is the day, and Yours is also the night.” Thus, the night, too, the darkness of night, comes from the Creator to man’s favor, too, as it is written, “Day to day utters speech, and night to night expresses knowledge” (See the Sulam Commentary, Part 1, Item 103).

It follows that you must awaken the heart of the friends until the flame rises by itself, as our sages said about it, “When you mount the candles.” By that, you will be rewarded with awakening the love of the Creator upon us."