I’ve Got Your Back
March 20th - March 26th, 2005
Kabbalists have long maintained that world unity will one day be a physical reality. And the way this will happen is when enough individual’s live by the motto of ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’
Rav Yehuda Ashlag, the original founder of The Kabbalah Centre in 1922, discussed the importance of unity in his book The Gift of the Bible. He wrote that the words, “as thyself” tell us that we should love our friend in the exact measure that we love ourselves - and not any less. This means that we must constantly desire to be sensitive to the needs of each and every person we come in contact with.
Imagine a world where we cared for others they way we care for ourselves? Would you have to obsess over your worries if others were looking out for you? Absolutely not. All your needs would be met by others watching over you.
But let’s face it - this is a seemingly impossible feat. Most of us spend our every waking moment zeroed in on tending to our wants and nursing our real and imaginary pains. And we are definitely masters at feeling our own pain. We learn it from day one, crying for attention when we get bruised or scratched, holding onto the pain to get more love and affection.
Making that giant switch to feeling someone else’s pain requires an entirely different set of muscles.
And if we are to strengthen this part of ourselves, we need to begin to internalize how we’d feel in someone else’s shoes. When we take ourselves out of the picture and stretch our desire to honestly know what the other person is going through, we start to feel their pain. And it is at this point that we can love them as we love ourselves.
But this doesn’t mean to just give and give without thinking, or to feel sorry and pour on the sympathy. No. What this requires is empathy.
For me, it helps when I meditate on the miracle of conception and birth. Think about it, how amazing is it that we all start out as a single cell? One undifferentiated cell that then differentiates into different frequencies of Light according to our individual tikkune. Yet our essence is the same. We are all the same!
So, when we are having trouble relating to a person who has had a completely different life experience than ourselves, we first must remind ourselves that deep down we are all the same. And then we need to do our best to remove our experiences and preconceived notions of what we think he or she is feeling. Only the Light inside of us can open our ability to truly feel the other person’s pain.
This week, make a commitment to go out of yourself and seek opportunities to connect with at least one other person and really feel his/her pain. Force yourself to be a pure channel by being open and caring. The Light will do the rest.
Have an amazing week!
All the Best,
Yehuda Berg