Shavuot – a Holiday of Love and Giving

When the force of love is not passing through us to the world, we experience hate in the form of anti-Semitism. 

Starting Our Connection with God

Shavuot is a very important Jewish holiday because it marks the beginning of the connection between man and the Creator. We come out of hiding, and receive an invitation from the Creator to connect. We reach a state where we are standing in front of our true nature, called Mt. Sinai (the mountain of hate). This is what differentiates us from the Creator. We are reception, and the Creator is bestowal. We agree to ascend this mountain to gradually connect with the Creator, to identify with the attribute of bestowal above our given nature.

The Condition For Israel’s Existence

It is important for us to understand that without correcting ourselves in this manner, Israel will not be able to exist. We are not like the nations of the world that can simply exist in their nature. ‘Israel’ is a special people, and anyone who wants to join is welcome. We are people who have an awakened urge to know the Creator, just as we were awakened in ancient Babylon, in each of the 70 nations.

Throughout our history we can see how the moment we receive the method of connection, we are capable of implementing the force of love, and building a nation. However this is only on the condition that we start working with this light, the Torah that redeems us.

This is precisely how it will awaken today. This group called Yashar El  (straight to the Creator) according to its inclination, can only truly become a nation if it gets the upper force to help. So we cannot simply go about this with our ego leading the way, but rather with this special spark we possess – our attraction to the Creator.

We have both forces within us: the ego (more than others), and the force of attraction to the Creator. We need to receive a special force from above to develop this spark — this attraction to the Creator, and merge them in love, bestowal and connection. To the extent that we succeed in this, we can build a nation in Israel.

Rising Above The Ego

We can only build our nation by rising above our ego and connecting through a desire to ‘love thy neighbor as yourself’. Meaning to be in bestowal, which makes us similar to the Creator.  Only on this condition can we build a people. Throughout our history we can see how the moment we receive the method of connection, we are capable of implementing the force of love, and building a nation. However this is only on the condition that we start working with this light, the Torah that redeems us.  

Since we didn’t continue on this path, the country and people fell apart, and went into exile in Babylon. The Second Temple was built when we returned and connected to a certain extent, but we fell into baseless hatred. So the temple was destroyed.

Our role in the world is to transfer the upper force through us to the nations of the world, by connecting to and attaining this force. If we don’t receive this force of love and pass it on to the world, we receive hate in the form of anti-Semitism.

The Path To Peace

Our mission and the entire purpose of our existence is to bring the nations of the world to connect, and we must make this connection happen. Through this connection, they will reveal the next stage of our evolution. So we can expect the hatred toward us to continue until we fulfil our mission. As long as we withhold the key to peace, the hatred toward the Jews will increase all over the world.

Everyone is talking about a peace plan for the region, but we won’t be able to live here in peace until the people of Israel truly connect, according to the principle of ‘love thy neighbor as yourself’.  We can’t come to love unless we bring everyone to that same stage of love. We have nothing to give the Creator. Our only act toward Him is our willingness to provide the nations of the world with the code.   

If we really want to use our vessels to bestow, we must use the vessels of the nations of the world to reflect the light of hasidim on them, and then the light of hochma. We can see by how they relate to us if we are in the right direction or not.

Holiday of Love and Giving

Shavuot is a holiday of love and giving, and we must accept this condition of enabling a good connection between the citizens of Israel. Throughout history we only persevered when we were united. We are the only nation with this unique attribute. The nations of the world don’t have a condition to be as ‘one man in one heart’.

The relations between Jews is a reflection of a person’s struggle with his ego, and actually with the Creator as well. Our history as the people of Israel has always been about our internal struggles.

What can we do right now? We need to begin thinking about the right education for bringing us to connection and love.  Otherwise we will go into exile again, until we really see that we have no other choice. We must take this opportunity to rise up as the people of Israel, in the land of Israel.

Since Shavuot is the holiday where we receive the method of connection, this is the true beginning of our existence – Israel’s birthday in a way. On Shavuot we receive the beginning of the path to spiritual development.

The Torah is for Connection

According to the method of connection, it is precisely through using the force of the Creator – the upper light — against our excessive ego, which is against all other people. If we attract the upper light (Torah) to work against our excessive ego, it corrects this great egoistic desire to love and bestowal. Then we can live here according to a set of rules that we should have been using all along.

In this special week of Shavuot we want to remind Israel to embrace a new national education based on the method for establishing connection. This is precisely what we received at Mt. Sinai –  the Torah, meaning the force of connection between our hearts.

Revealing The Force of Love

By connecting and attaining the upper force, we are influencing people who want to connect. People must be divided into groups of ten (as stated in the Torah), in order to reach connection as ‘one man in one heart.” We demand the force, and it is then revealed and connects us.  

The law of love is achieved by connecting ourselves. Our expression of love for the Creator is expressed by taking the desires of all creatures and filling them.

The time has come to demonstrate how we are an educated people, with so much to offer the world.

(Based on the words of Michael Laitman)