Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee” (abridged version): Mutual guarantee means that all of Israel became guarantors for one another.

“Israel” means “straight to the Creator” (Yashar El). This is every person who has a spark of spiritual desire given to him from above. Besides the desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, power, and knowledge, he feels one more desire, which belongs to a higher dimension. This desire sends him off to search for the meaning in life, its source and essence. If a person has this spark above the material, earthly desires, then he aspires “straight to the Creator” because this urge directs him toward the source of life and of all reality.

If people want to grow their spiritual desire, they have to unite. After all, this urge can only be developed by means of bestowal, by ascending above the material desires in which only our material reality is felt. Standards of food, sex, family, money, honor, power, and knowledge form the picture of this world for me and require the fulfillment of the corresponding desires, whose various combinations differentiate people from one another. However, the spark of the upper desire develops according to the opposite tendency: above the material desires and in spite of them.

The “bestowal” to which this spark aims us is just a term, underlining that here we operate differently, not the way we do in the earthly desires. We have to rise above them and satisfy them only on the level of vital necessity, while in all other regards we develop the spark, the embryo of our soul, the part of the Creator from above.

Thus, a person who has such a spark is called “Israel,” and the means to develop it is called “mutual guarantee.” That is why all of Israel are initially guarantors for one another in the upper system. And in our world we have to realize this state, but we are invited to do this by our own desire, without anyone being forced to do anything.

The Torah was given only once every person from Israel agreed to accept the principle of love for the neighbor as for himself.

People who are able to unite their desires get together, having awakened to the source and purpose of life. In their unity, they must attain love for the neighbor as for themselves. Previously they wanted to satisfy their own desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge, but now to the same extent and in the same form, they take care of their neighbor, wishing to provide him with everything necessary for spiritual ascent.

This means we have to take care of every friend’s vital necessities, and in all other regards—of his spiritual path. I build all of the support systems for him and provide him with all the means which allow him to attain what he desires.

As a result, everyone takes care of one another’s vital needs and of each other’s spiritual needs. I wanted to provide myself with the necessities, but now I take care of the friend the same way. I naturally wanted to fill my soul, but now I care only about the friend’s soul. I looked for personal profit in everything and used others for it, but now I have to make a 180 degree turn with regard to my friends and switch to their vital needs, both spiritual and material.

Thus, by means of mutual guarantee, all of Israel have to attain love for the neighbor as for oneself. That is how they form a single, whole vessel to the extent of the desire that becomes revealed in them, and according to the equivalence of form, they feel the general bestowal, mutual love in that vessel. And above that love they feel its Creator—the source of the level on which their vessel with the Light filling it is found.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/11, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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