Supporting someone means dressing into their desires. We have to feel what the person-in-need truly needs, what they lack, whether it is an ability, strength or knowledge, so that we can fully realize their need. Then, we can try to provide them with the support they need in a way that they will not reject, but that they will gladly accept, with gratitude and understanding.
To begin with, there can be no connection between the person in need and the supporter, because the supporter needs to integrate in the person-in-need’s problems. Then, the supporter builds a model, an inner template of the person-in-need’s problem, and through such a model, the supporter can support the person in need.
Supporting others thus requires building a form inside ourselves of their needs, problems and lacks. In the language of Kabbalah, such an action is called building a “Partzuf.” Only after we build the Partzuf of the other person within us and work on that image, on how to help them, then after building such an inner model, we have a plan of how to support them. We then can approach the person in need to support them.
In such a process, we need to be precise about truly becoming integrated in their deficiency, and to live out their deficiency inside ourselves. The precision is necessary because it is the model through which we can support them.
More generally, the purpose of our lives is for us all to come together, for humanity to unite “as one man with one heart,” and by doing so, we will reach the image of a complete human being. This is not a physical image of a human that we currently perceive, but an inner one of a perfectly-connected humanity. Building that image of the human being—the perfectly-connected humanity—is the essence of the support that we should wish for each other, as such a state is our final destination.
Based on the video “What Does it Mean to Support Someone?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash.
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