Since initially we lack the aspiration to bestow and we need to gather, form, and organize it ourselves, we are given work in the group to help us achieve it. In the group, we work with other people whom we, as it were, see before us as “help from the opposite side.” And essentially, instead of working with people and desires which appear to be foreign to me, I work with my attitude towards them. I need to learn to treat them like myself.

In working with them, I see opposite relationships: rejection, hatred, and alienation. However, at the same time, I must reach attraction, love, and closeness instead, and this helps me to rise above the animate degree, to the degree of the Creator.

This is because there are only two kinds of relation to others: reception and bestowal, which are opposite to one another. Hence, I can test myself only by my relation towards my neighbor and try to build, form, within myself a need to come closer to another, a need for love—above all the hatred and rejection that are being revealed to me towards the others.

The revelation of evil can only be discovered in one’s relation to one’s neighbor. This also involves a lot of learning which can happen under the condition that I want to become closer to him, and I use all my strength for this. And then I discover that I am moving in a completely opposite direction; I get further away, reject, and hate. These are the qualities I refer to as the “evil inclination” since I understand that union, proximity, connection, and love are the “good inclination,” the quality of the Creator (if it becomes revealed to me).

Everything is attained through one’s relation to his neighbor. And this is why this world has many people. If I were to regard the entire world and everything in it, meaning humanity, the still, vegetative, animate nature, my life, my relationships with other people, commerce, family, relatives, and other people, either near or distant, as a means for attaining the quality of bestowal, I would be using this world correctly. Then I could say that everything is there to serve and help me, and I am there to serve the Creator. The entire world is created for me.

If a person agrees that the entire world is created correctly from Above, and everything is arranged to properly suit and help him arm himself with an aspiration, to allow him to make an effort and use it to acquire the desire to bestow above the common desire to receive pleasure (which was given by the Creator), he will succeed. The law of “I labored and I found” or “I labored and did not find, do not believe” states that everything is already in front of you, everything is there, and the rest only depends upon you.
[47899]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/2011, Shamati #117

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