When The Light Exposes Evil

Question: When will we really reach the level of “love thy friend as thyself”?

Answer: Right now. Who is stopping you? First man discovered this path; the other Kabbalists adapted it for us, and today we have everything that we need. Many have reached the level of “love thy friend as thyself” throughout history. All of Rabbi Shimon’s students were on this level.

Question: But according to their writings, there was burning hatred between them.

Answer: That’s true. In the same manner, the Israeli nation was in the state of “49 gates of impurity” before the exodus from Egypt. So how could it be that they could exit such a terrible state and enter redemption by one leap?

The whole point is that “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than his friend’s.” If I try to reach the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) then my desire to receive becomes bigger and stronger on every level that I reach. The bestowal in me is faced with receiving, with the ego, the shell, the evil inclination each time. This is the reason that the Creator, the King of kings was revealed to the Israeli nation in the “49 gates of impurity.”

On the whole, the children of Israel advance along the middle line. The Light was felt in the shell as darkness and revealed the evil in them (1). To oppose it they asked for and received the Surrounding Light, which is the Light that Reforms, which means the Torah, the method of correction (2). As a result they reached the middle line (3).

This is the whole process: the recognition of evil in the left line, the request in the right line, and the transition to the middle line. Thus the evil grows each time and as a result, the goodness also grows, and then the middle line appears, which is the average of the two (S). So I promise you that the more you advance, the worse you will become. But this is negative side. The left line will be balanced each time by the positive side, the right line.

This is a great problem for a person and it requires great work. First he despairs and doesn’t know what to do; he gets tired of it and doesn’t see that it leads to anything. He cannot justify the advancement along the left line in any way and he doesn’t understand that these new attributes actually have to be revealed negatively. It is because a person corrects only what is in him…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam