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Loving our neighbor and loving God are one and the same.
God is the general force of nature, a single force of love and bestowal. Noting the equivalent value of God and nature, Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) describes that in Gematria, the word for “God” (“Elokim”) equals the word for “Nature” (“HaTeva”).
Upon this fundamental force that governs everything, God, there is another, opposite force that He created—reception.
Why did God do that? It is so that there will be someone outside of Himself, and that this “someone,” who is defined as the desire to receive, will become like God, Nature, or the Creator: giving and loving. That is the greatest delight that is available to man, and God wishes man to enjoy no less than the ultimate sensation of perfection. It is what we need to reach.
We, human beings—not the still, vegetative, or animate levels of nature, but specifically us humans—have a flawed and corrupt sense of others. We wish to exploit them, and we need to shift from this flawed and corrupt perception of others to a positive feeling toward them. In other words, we need to start correcting ourselves.
First, we need to discover how flawed and corrupt we really are. By doing so, such a revelation will continually lead to our correction, a change of ourselves to resemble the general force of bestowal called “God,” “Nature,” or “the Creator.”
That is what it means to come closer to God. We can do so at any given moment by examining whether we are aligned with His quality of love and bestowal, i.e., whether we have an attitude of pure love and bestowal to others.
Based on the video “What Is the Connection Between God and ‘Love Your Neighbor as Yourself?'” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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