On Love

When there is love between people God rests upon them, and that begins the process of the ultimate redemption. The whole purpose of creation was that God should have a dwelling place down below. When He sees truthful holy love he it so to speak causes him to desire to place his presence in the lower world.

The ideal form of “love of Israel” is a love not at all dependent on any “thing.” We see many people who gather together and form fellowships, yet their connection to each other is dependent on some “thing.” They may have recognized something noble or new in their friend which they want to connect to. But the second they discover that their friend has his problems, or that he may not provide them with which they hoped to receive, they immediately leave him. That is a sign of a love that is dependent on a “thing.”

True love, like the love of David and Yonatan, is not dependent on a “thing.” True love is when people truly feel the Divine soul in each other. When building connections with a person it should not be based on his exceptional characteristics, rather on the Divine connection. If God set it up that you have some sort of connection with another person that means that they must be a Divine connection between the two soul. This is an essential kind of relationship, like the way people love their children unconditionally, merely because they are their children, not basing their love on how their children act. True love is experiencing the other as a Divine revelation.

One needs to keep in mind that whenever there is a relationship between people, this relationship is tested from on high to see whether it a real connection. Is it based on external factors or is it a Divine and essential connection? So all sorts of difficulties arise to test the strength of the bond.

In the language of the Kabbalah, the first stage of a relationship is called “Back to Back.” Namely, that the connection is grounded on external non-essential aspects of the other. Then comes the test, and that is called “The Sawing.” That is when one friend stops receiving from the other what he used to get from him. He is being tested to see if there is a true and internal bond or not. Unfortunately, most people fail at this point and let the relationship fall away.

But if one strengthens himself a little bit, ignores the lessened usefulness of his friend, and tries to get in touch with the internal connection he can succeed. He should contemplates on the thought that; “Ultimately, we are one soul. The whole reason why God arranged that I would receive from my friend up to this point was only in order to bring me to a deeper truer connection.” This causes the essential unconditional love to be revealed, “Face to Face.”
(In the Kabbalah it is taught that the creation of this world goes according to this pattern. First, Adam and Eve, which are each a different spiritual sphere, begin with the immature stage of back to back, then comes the sawing that separates them, the ultimate goalbeing that they turn to face each other and unite face to face.)

Adapted from the discourses of Reb Itcha Myer Morgenstern one of the great kabbalists of our generation. (For a photo of him see http://www.the3ms.co.uk/images/B70.pdf)