Generally speaking, freedom may be referred to as the law of nature, which runs through all aspects of life. We see how animals suffer in captivity. It testifies to nature’s protest against any form of enslavement. Mankind fought in wars for hundreds of years until it achieved some degree of personal freedom. In any case, our idea of freedom is extremely vague, and if we delve deeper into it, almost nothing will be left of it. Before we demand personal freedom, we should presume each person aspires to it. First we need to make sure this or that person can exercise his free will.
We bring our children up to be kind to others because we subconsciously know that being unkind to others eventually hurts the unkind person. We want to give our children security, and we feel that we can succeed only by means of altruistic education. Thus, a person’s confidence does not depend on the individual, but on the environment. Because one’s environment reflects a person’s attitude toward it, all harm comes to us from the environment. However, by promoting altruistic values, we will increase the chances that society will not harm us.
Each society, in each country, throughout history, has wanted to impart altruistic values to its children. Only a very powerful individual, such as a tyrant whose army stands ready to enforce his will, can afford to teach his children to be ruthless, inconsiderate, and merciless. But the children of such people will need great protection to survive. They will have to stand guard against everyone else, and protect themselves through the force of arms.
How does a person in our world know what the truth is? One is unable to feel it. A person can only imagine it. And every person imagines it differently. Where in our world can we find the truth when it is in fact hidden? The truth is the Creator. How can a person picture this for himself? One can only picture it if he tries to create such a condition. By creating a system that works for bestowal within a group of friends, this system becomes the model or the example of the truth for the individual. And it suits a person’s development precisely. It isn’t simply an absolute, ideal, great truth, which one cannot relate to or even assess in any way. What a person creates in the group, and what the group creates within itself, is the kind of truth that is within one’s grasp; a person sees it, understands it, and can work with it. Therefore, everything is created that way.
There is no other truth in our world. There is no possibility to imagine what the spiritual is other than within a properly organized group.
We are “installed” into this life. You find yourself in a family; you didn’t choose the family. And yet, there are all kinds of influences on you. Everything that you are, your character is shaped by the values of your mother and your father, your community, your school, your set of friends, and everything that develops in you in terms of your personality, what you value, what you dream, what you suppose the limitations of things are, they’re all defined for you by that situation. And you may, as a teenager, rebel, but that’s not freedom either because it’s always only in opposition to those things that are presented before you, because you are not creating those things; you are merely responding to the set of choices. In other words, if you are going to have a dream about what your life is going to be, it’s going to be one of a number set before you. It’s like choosing items on a menu. And even when you leave that sort of situation of your school and the heavy influence of your parents, and you step out to make your way in the world, you still find that that organization and pressure of society is still affecting a person.
For the matter of social unity, which can be a source of every joy and success, is practiced only between bodies, and bodily matters in people, and the separation between them is the source of every calamity and misfortune. But with matters of concepts and ideas, it is the complete opposite. That is to say, that because unity and lack of criticism is deemed the source of all failure and the greatest obstacle to every progress and didactic fertilization. For drawing the right conclusions depends mainly on the multiplicity of disagreements and separation, between opinions. The more contradictions there are between opinions and the more criticism there is, the more the knowledge and wisdom increase and matters become more suitable for examination.
The degeneration and failure of intelligence stem only from the lack of criticism and disagreement. For it is plain to see that every basis for physical success is the measure of the unity of society, and the basis for the success of intelligence and knowledge, is the separation and disagreement among them.
I have nothing but feeling, nothing in addition to what I understand. On the contrary, I should not believe anyone; I should not follow anyone with my eyes closed. Do not believe anyone! This is my life! I will believe assisted by something I received from the Creator.
Baal HaSulam writes that a person has to find a group, Teacher, and books. We have the books. Now, I need a Teacher who would teach me, and the group which is lead by him. Each person in the group has to understand that it is necessary to free oneself from egoism and reach mutual love, as it is said “love thy neighbor as thyself – this is the great rule of Torah”. By doing so, we will create Kli, in which Torah, the Upper light, will be revealed. This is why I have to connect to the group where everyone is ready for this.
