Responsible For Everyone

In the article “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Baal HaSulam tells us under what conditions the Torah was given to people. First, it must be a group of people who want to be as one man in one heart. The sufferings they have been through leave them no choice and they see that they must escape, but they must escape consciously. It isn’t a blind escape from pain, because the sufferings come from a special force, from the Creator, according to His plan, and within it there is a specific goal.

The Creator brought about the sufferings on purpose. It says “I have created the evil inclination,” which means I have created Pharaoh who brings the children of Israel closer to the Creator. The evil inclination is called “help against,” since it evokes and pushes a person to know the force that manages him. A person asks himself: “Where does all this evil come from? Why am I suffering?” Eventually the searching brings him to the main question: “What is the meaning of my life?” And further: “What is the meaning of life?” Then a person reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah.

So he comes to receive the Torah and begins to understand that there is a need to change something. Instead of changing the world by trying to “bend” it by himself, a person understands that the world is a replica of his internal attributes. Change yourself and the world will change.

This is what we say to everyone: We should correct the person and not the world. Of course, we don’t talk about the perception of reality, about the fact that the external picture is determined by our internality. This cannot be explained at the moment, although there is already some scientific evidence for that. On the whole, a person already understands that today he has to correct himself. Then he is ready to receive the Torah as a spice “to spice” the evil inclination by this method, so that it will taste good.

Eventually we have to put the form of bestowal on the original desire to receive. If a person is ready for that, he receives the Torah, meaning the method of correction, and begins to work. Then he understands the essence of the condition that he was given: what mutual guarantee means, what general unity is, and what the final goal of “Love thy friend as thyself” symbolizes. On the way to reaching this goal, a person discovers his mission, which is defined as “a kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” In other words, he has to fulfill what it says not only regarding himself, but also being responsible for the whole world. By judging oneself and the whole world to a scale of merit, a person applies his potential correctly for the good of others by doing what he has to do, which means to disseminate the method of correction all over the world.

Then he corrects himself, since he has no need for anything but that. It is enough to live by working for the general correction, which is called “a kingdom of priests.” Priests have no corporeal estate, “God is their estate,” which means the pure level of Bina. A person should also see himself on this sublime level where the good of others is his only concern above all the other concerns, and the only goal above all the other goals. Although different unwanted desires come up and although the interruptions are global, it is all so that above them he can be responsible for the whole world. Otherwise he will have nothing to work on.

By fulfilling the mission of a “kingdom of priests” and “a holy nation,” a person fulfills the idea of mutual guarantee. The point isn’t that we will be responsible for each other and hold on to each other on the way to correction. No, we are advancing towards mutual guarantee with the whole world, we are responsible for everyone, and unless we correct them, our work cannot be complete.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”