Hevruta - Following Lesson 2 - Principles of the Work in the Ten
Hevruta - Following Lesson 2 - Principles of the Work in the Ten
Last week, we began with three principles:
1. We must constantly raise the importance of the spiritual goal and of the means that bring us to it.
2. We must work on building equality in the Ten.
3. We must preserve the character and uniqueness of each friend.
These principles are practical foundations for building the correct environment. The Ten is not just a group of people who study together. It is the place where we receive importance, strength, direction, and example from one another.
Today, we will continue with two additional principles:
4. Personal example is the best way to connect with the friends.
5. "Buy yourself a friend", meaning that each member of the group must strive to acquire the friends.
As always, this clarification is not based on personal opinions or ideas, but on the guidance of the Kabbalists. We will read the sources, discuss them together, and try to understand how they can become practical in our daily work in the Ten.
Short Review of the Previous Principles
Before entering the new principles, it is good to remind ourselves of what we already studied.
The first principle is that we need to raise the importance of the spiritual goal. Naturally, the desire to receive constantly lowers the importance of spirituality. It pulls us toward personal calculations, personal comfort, and ordinary concerns. Therefore, we need the environment in order to renew the importance of the goal again and again.
The second principle is equality in the Ten. Equality does not mean that we all have the same qualities, the same knowledge, or the same abilities. We are different by nature. Equality means that each one invests in the common goal according to the strength, conditions, and qualities that were given to them. In this, we are all equal.
The third principle is to preserve the individuality of each friend. The goal of the Ten is not to erase anyone, but to help each one use their uniqueness for the sake of connection. Each friend has something special that no one else can give to the group.
Now we continue from here.
Principle 4: Personal example is the best way to connect with the friends
Personal example is one of the strongest tools in the work of the Ten.
The work in the Ten is not built on pressure, criticism, or demands toward others. We cannot force the friends to value the goal, to participate, to awaken, to love, or to connect. Spirituality cannot be built through coercion.
But we can show an example.
Through personal example, we show what is important to us. We do not need to preach to the friends or tell them what they should do. Instead, through our attitude, we can demonstrate that the goal is important, that the lesson is important, that the meeting is important, that the friends are important.
This is a very delicate and powerful form of influence. We do not pressure the friend from outside. Rather, we bring into the environment a spirit of importance, warmth, seriousness, and care.
There is also a deeper point here. When we try to give an example to the friends, we also shape ourselves internally.
We try to act according to what the Kabbalists write, even if we do not yet feel it naturally. We try to clothe ourselves in their advice. We try to make our external actions resemble the form of connection that they describe.
In this way, personal example works in two directions.
It helps the friends receive a better environment.
It also helps us build ourselves according to the spiritual form that the Kabbalists recommend.
This is very important because we are always choosing an environment. But instead of waiting for the friends to become a good environment for us, the work begins from the question: how can we become a better environment for the friends?
This is a very practical form of love of friends. We do not wait until others behave correctly first. We begin. We jump first. We try to bring importance, warmth, and direction into the Ten.
This does not mean showing off. It does not mean trying to appear more spiritual than others. A true personal example is simple, sincere, and directed toward strengthening the friends.
It can be expressed in small things: coming on time, preparing for the meeting, participating, listening carefully, speaking with respect, supporting the atmosphere, encouraging the friends, and showing that the path is important to us.
Through this, love toward the friends is revealed, and this awakening can pass from heart to heart.
Sources
"One must disclose the love in his heart towards the friends, since by revealing it he evokes his friends’ hearts toward the friends so they, too, would feel that each of them is practicing love of friends. The benefit from that is that in this manner, one gains strength to practice love of friends more forcefully, since every person’s force of love is integrated in each other’s."
(Rabash, Article No. 2, 1984, "Concerning Love of Friends")
## Discussions
1. Why is personal example stronger than telling others what to do?
2. What kind of example can we give in the Ten without pressuring anyone?
3. How does giving an example also change us internally?
4. What does it mean that we become a good environment for the friends?
Principle 5: "Buy Yourself a Friend"
The fifth principle is: "Buy yourself a friend."
This expression comes from the words of the sages: "Make for yourself a Rav and buy yourself a friend."
At first, the word "buy" may sound strange. What does it mean to buy a friend? We are not speaking about buying something external, and certainly not about buying someone with money. In spirituality, this payment is mainly effort.
When we buy something in corporeal life, we take something that has value for us and give it in order to acquire something else. We are willing to pay because we feel that what we receive is worth at least what we are giving. Sometimes, if what we receive is even more valuable than what we paid, we feel that we made a good bargain.
In the work of the Ten, "buy yourself a friend" means that we need to invest in order to acquire the friend. And what does it mean to acquire the friend? It means that through our effort, we begin to see the others as true friends in the spiritual path.
We pay with our time, our effort, our attention, our care, and also with more internal things: our pride, our criticism, our feeling that we are more important, more correct, more advanced, or more skilled than the others. We need to give up something from this self-importance in order to begin seeing the friends differently.
This is why the word "buy" is so precise. It costs us something. We need to step over our natural attitude, our ego, and our personal calculations in order to see the friends as important and equal.
And through this work, something new is acquired.
It is not that we already feel love of friends naturally and only need to preserve it. Rather, through the work itself, through the effort, we begin to acquire a feeling that was not there before. We acquire the friend. We begin to see that the friend is necessary for the goal, that without the friends we cannot reach connection, and that each friend has a place in our spiritual advancement.
This is also why in Hebrew the expression "buy yourself a friend" uses the word "knei", from the root "liknot", which means both to buy and to acquire. The work is not about external buying, but about acquiring a new relation to the friends.
So "buy yourself a friend" means that we invest in the friends until we acquire them internally as friends, as equal partners in the path
Sources
"Regarding “Buy yourself a friend,” we should interpret that “Buy” means that he must be paid, and through the payment he buys him. What does he pay him? We can say that payment is received in return for exertion. In other words, sometimes a person wishes to buy, for example, a nice closet, which is worth 2,000 dollars. He tells the seller, “Since I have no money to pay, but I heard that you are looking for an employee for two weeks, I will work for the amount that I have to pay you in return for the money for the closet,” and the seller will probably agree. Thus, we see that the payment can be by exchange.
It is the same with love of friends. It is a great effort when one should judge the friends to the side of merit, and not everyone is ready for it.
Sometimes, it is even worse. At times, a person sees that his friend is disrespectful toward him. Even worse, he heard a slanderous rumor, meaning he heard from a friend that that friend, who is called so and so, said about him things that are not nice for friends to say about each other. Now he must subdue himself and judge him to the side of merit. This, indeed, is a great effort. It follows that through the exertion, he gives the payment, which is even more important than a payment of money.
However, if that person slanders him, where will his friend muster the strength to love him? He knows for certain that he hates him, or he would not slander him, so what is the point in subduing himself and judging him to the side of merit?
The answer is that love of friends that is built on the basis of love of others, by which they can achieve the love of the Creator, is the opposite of what is normally considered love of friends. In other words, love of others does not mean that the friends will love me. Rather, it is I who must love the friends. For this reason, it makes no difference if the friend slanders him and must certainly hate him. Instead, a person who wishes to acquire love of friends because of love of others, that person needs the correction of loving the other.
Therefore, when a person makes the effort and judges him to the side of merit, it is a Segula [remedy/power/virtue], where by the toil that a person makes, which is called “an awakening from below,” he is given strength from above to be able to love all the friends without exception.
This is called “Buy yourself a friend,” that a person should make an effort to obtain love of others. And this is called “labor,” since he must exert above reason."
(Rabash, Article 30, 1988, "What to Look For in the Assembly of Friends")
"True friendship, when each makes the necessary payment to buy his friend, is precisely when both are of equal status, and then both pay equally. It is like a corporeal business, where both of them give everything equally, otherwise there cannot be a true partnership. Hence, “Buy yourself a friend,” since there can be bonding, when each buys his friend, only when they are equal."
(Rabash, "Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend - 1")
# Practical Exercise for the Meeting
Each friend can take a minute and answer internally:
What small action can we do this week in order to become a better environment for the friends?
Then, whoever wants can share one practical example.
Examples:
* Come to the meeting more prepared.
* Try to encourage the friends more.
* Listen more carefully when a friend speaks.
* Make an effort to see one friend in a more positive way.
* Participate more actively.
* Try to raise the importance of the goal in the Ten.
The action does not need to be big. The main thing is that it is directed toward strengthening the environment.
# Q&A
Open discussion for questions, clarifications, and examples from the work in the Ten.