Question: If a person cannot agree with the external form of the group, the way it appears to him, will he be able to build the kind of attitude where the group will raise him?

Answer: It is erroneous to think that I cannot demand an awakening from the group because it seems uncorrected to me. We are talking about different levels of creation. To my egoism the friends may seem like criminals who do not wish to unite and who are indifferent to everything.

However, on the other hand, why are they here? The Creator is holding them here from Above, even if they are incapable of anything on their own. He chose them and brought them to the group. He knows that they are ready. In His eyes they are worthy of advancing.

And since the Creator gave preference to them in particular, I must accept this. I value the friends for the fact that they are chosen by the Creator rather than for their personal qualities. How dear can they become to me? They can become as dear as my own children. I experience natural, “animal” love for my children, without any connection to their merits. It is the same with the friends: If the Creator chose them, I can develop the same kind of attitude to them as well.

Then the next stage comes, the group becomes stronger, and I begin to “sell” the importance to the friends. Then together, in a mutual guarantee, we can work on mutual realization of each other’s importance. Now I understand: The friends influence me, and for this reason they are 100% important in my spiritual fate. I assign them the uppermost importance, like to a judge who can sentence me to a lifetime in prison.

I no longer despise or curse the friends. They may be unpleasant in my eyes, but they are important nonetheless, and this is already a completely different attitude. After all, I have no choice. The Creator placed the group in front of me. If I manage to get along with it, the Upper World will be revealed to me, and if not, I will be sentenced to life in this world.

Now you decide how you treat a judge. He could be a chief mobster who is set out against you, hiding under a judge’s gown. But I cannot raise a finger to him. Proceeding by faith above reason, I need to justify my friends who are chosen by the Creator. And who knows, they may be completely unlike how my egoism presents them.

If I exert effort, and I am willing to selflessly flow into the group, I will feel that I acquire a special Kli which will allow me to demand a mutual guarantee. Thus, by turning to the friends with a demand, suddenly I will see that, in essence, I am appealing to my own desires which seemed foreign to me. My whole work will turn inward, until my friends and I become one whole.
[23422]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, “Hezekiah Turned His Face to the Wall”

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