The states in which we progress should be aimed only at bestowal, and not for self-benefit.
Our state is very interesting regarding our spiritual path. On one hand, we are alone and the whole world is inside us, as it is written, “A person is a small world.”
On the other hand, all of our inner desires appear as characters existing outside of us. The same applies to our like-minded friends: it seems to us that they exist outside of us, and we later gradually start seeing that they are all inside us.
“Neighbors” refers to these like-minded friends of ours.
To spiritually progress, i.e., to discover our connection with the Creator, we need to process their desires, which are called “wives,” from a spiritual degree, i.e., a degree of bestowal. This means that we need to dress into these desires and work on them for their benefit, and not for self-benefit.
This has nothing to do with genders as we understand them in our world. The female part represents desires to receive, the fundamental matter of creation, and the male part represents the desire to bestow, which is the nature of the Creator.
Therefore, by working to benefit the desire to receive, and not to use it for self-benefit, we act at a spiritual degree, like the Creator Himself, and we thus implement the commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” In other words, we operate at a degree of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The Ten Commandments are located at the level of the ten Sefirot. The commandment “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” is the most serious of all the commandments because it deals with the lowest internal egoistic quality, namely using the desire to receive in order to receive for self-benefit alone.
The prohibition on such an intention lets us fully apply an intention to bestow upon our desire to receive, so that we can enter into a mutual connection among each other at a higher spiritual level, where we are not divided by gender.
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Based on the TV show, “Spiritual States” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 26, 2019. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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