Looking For Love

On the next degree, an even greater lack is felt: the lack of love. The need for love is a treasure and I suffer from the fact that there is no love in my heart.¹

The need to love is a new Kli. In our world love withers because we receive what we desire and enjoy it. How can we enjoy love in such a way that it would constantly continue to grow? I must feel the need to love and enjoy not by using my loved one for pleasure, but in the yearning for it.

This yearning is my Kli and the only joy that I desire. I don’t want to reveal the Creator, but I am fulfilled by my yearning toward Him, by the greatness of the one that I fulfill. Such love never withers. If such love existed in our world, there would never be any divorce. We must work on such love.

We change our attitude toward unity. Our Kli becomes different, we gradually approach it from a new angle: instead of wishing to reach the goal, I enjoy my desire for it. I want to remain in this yearning and receive fulfillment from it like from my first love, from romantic thoughts, from the fact that I enjoy looking at the subject of my affection, from hearing their voice. The Creator gives everyone such an example in life, from it one can understand how this works in spirituality.

We can live in the pleasure of striving for the Creator. Then we will no longer be deceived as before when we wanted to reveal Him and enjoy this love. This is a lie, and this is how we kill it. Love can be enjoyed only if you go above your egoistic desires. Any relationship below this level destroys love.

Therefore, the spiritual and the corporeal are two different worlds. In corporeal life, we love the way we can, but in spirituality, love must be built on faith above reason.

Baal HaSulam, “Letter #19”: “This means that, during the preparation, the beauty and grace appear and the essence of perfection that one yearns and longs for. However, at the time of correction, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” then, “I shall see an opposite world,” because only fear and longing are the essence of the desired perfection. Then one feels that, during the time of preparation, one was lying to oneself.”

Indeed, in this manner, our spiritual vessel is not limited, we can feel eternity in it—the Creator. The need to love is pleasure: joy from yearning, desire, and longing. It is in this very yearning that love is achieved, not in receiving it and satiating oneself with it, which destroys it all. We see that such love ends and turns to ruins. The desire to love is not a void, but a fulfillment that never ends. Each time you can increase it, like love for a baby that never ends, it is there for life.

The goal of the Bulgarian congress is to learn how to love, to reveal a genuine desire toward the Creator, and to make the greatest leap toward the first spiritual degree. Genuine love is realized in the group, in unity for the sake of bestowal that the Creator can dress into. It means that the Creator dresses into His creations.

Everyone experiences their first love in their youth; it is given to us from above as an example of selfless platonic love. But we understand that it is impossible to achieve perfect love in our corporeal desires except under the condition that we rise above them. That is why we are given an example in our childhood of enjoying not the physical relationship, but the dreams of our beloved.

This is the attitude I should have toward the Creator: enjoying my yearning for Him so that it would completely fills me. I am content just thinking about the Creator, dreaming of bringing Him joy. This is a limitless Kli that can always be expanded further. This is not the romantic desire we felt in childhood but a desire to bestow, which is very deep and serious. It is more important than this entire world and all the desires to enjoy.

Inside, there are many different properties, wars are waged not for life, but for death, and all about this relationship: for the pleasure of striving toward the Creator. This means bringing joy to the Creator. What else can we give Him; what can we add to His perfection? Only our aspiration to Him.

It is said: “Beware of reaching out for love.” I do not want to receive what I want because this would destroy my love, weaken it, and it would immediately vanish. Therefore, I only need the aspiration.

This originates from the beginning of creation, from the four phases of direct light. The quality of stage four (Behina Dalet) is restriction and yearning. I do not want to receive anything, because I felt shame and understood that I am destroying the way the Creator is relating to me, and in this case, nothing can ever happen between us. It is good that I have developed a feeling of shame, a warning about my inability to love. Therefore, I restrict my desire.

How great it is that I found a solution: the restriction after which there is only the reflecting light, only the yearning toward the Creator. The restriction stays between us, I do not reveal Him, because this is called the disclosure of nakedness. We cannot do that. I always remain in love above reason, and the romantic love fulfills me completely.

I cover the source of my love with a screen so that I will relate to it above my animalistic desires, above the desire to enjoy.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/19, Preparation to the Europe Convention