“SHLOMO ON LOVE”

Transcribed
by Rivka Haut
for Connections Magazine.

    Listen to me, sweetest friends. Just to talk
about loving people, loving G-d, about healing
people, you touch the center of the world, the
center of life. Because, what is the most G-dlike
thing you can do to another human being?

  How does G-d give us life? Rav Nachman calls it
“noam elyon” - high sweetness. There is nothing
sweeter in the world than loving somebody. Even
in this world, it’s sweet. Rav Nachman says that
heavenly sweetness is coming down into this
world every second, every billionth of a second.
It’s flowing down. The only thing is, you must
have the sense to pick it up.

      There are two kinds of love in the world.
can you imagine, I am walking down the street,
don’t feel any love in my heart, not hatred,
not love - nothing. Suddenly, I meet a very
beautiful girl and I fall in love with her.
That means, I needed something to touch me, to
bring about that I suddenly have felt love.  This
is the love after Creation.

      The Torah says, in Psalms, “olam chesed
yebaneh” - G-d created the world with love.
That does not mean that there is a world, and
G-d loves that world. That is already the love
after Creation. It means, G-d had so much love in
His heart that He had to create the world.

  Let’s talk about children. There are two
kinds of love you have for children. There is
a love of after they are born; they’re born, they
are your children, and you love them. But, you
only created them because you have so much love
in your heart. This is like the love of before
creation.

  Imagine, some people just get together
without loving each other, and children are born.
They are so angry, because they are missing the
most important part - you only create with love,
because G-d created the world with love.

    Now, I want you to know the deepest depths.
Remember, when G-d made a covenant with our
father Abraham, Abraham circumcised himself, and
on the third day, he was really in pain. The
Talmud says that the third day is somewhat dangerous.
So, the sun came out very strong, and there
were no guests. Abraham sent his servants to find
him a guest. How can one live without guests in
his house? But, there were no guests. So, three
angels came.

    Abraham was welcoming guests all his life,
the kind of guests who really needed to eat and
to sleep. The Torah, however, does not record
that. The Torah records that he took in three
angels, who really didn’t need to eat. The
Talmud says that they just pretended they were
eating.

    Abraham, after he entered the Covenant with
G-d, didn’t need a poor man to bring out the
love in him, which is the love after Creation.
After he entered the Covenant with G-d, he was
so G-d-like, he just had to do good, like G-d.
He was not in a state where, if you see a person
you love them, you see a poor man and want to
give him food. He was looking for a poor man.
He was looking to love somebody.

    The Talmud says that G-d came to heal
Avraham; that means that G-d came to give him
the secret of healing. Because, if you remember,
the Covenant with Noah was only that the world
will always exist. Noah was not concerned with
how many people will live and how many will die -
as long as there will always be a world, there
will be survivors. The Covenant with Abraham was
that some day the world will be fixed, some day
the world will be healed, the world will be cured.
So, after G-d made the Covenant with Abraham
G-d came to give him the secret of healing. The
secret of healing is like creating the world

    There has to be not the kind of love there is
after Creation. There has to be the kind of love
before Creation.

  G-d has many names. G-d has the name
“Hashem”, and the name “Elokim”. “In the beginning,
Elokim created…” This is basically the
name of justice, of sternness. There has to be
“Elokim”, there has to be order - day is day,
night is night, winter is winter; there must be
order in the universe. when candle-lighting is
4:20, there is nothing you can do about it
that’s when it is. You cannot say, listen, I will
be able to feel Shabbos better if I rest now and
kindle the lights later. You cannot change when
Shabbos is. You cannot say, “I am living by the
name of “Hashem”, I am infinite.” You are not
infinite. Don’t kid yourself. G-d is infinite. The
world is not infinite. You are not infinite.

      But again, the other side. The finite people
are so disgusting, Gevalt, are they disgusting.
They are murderers. You can kill somebody. You
can say, “This person is a thief - put him in
prison. He did this - shoot him.” No mercy.
The deepest secret of life is that you have
to keep both together. There has to be Absolute
order, and also the infinite. Both together.
When it comes to educating children, you
have to be “Hashem Elokim”. You teach them Day
is Day, Night is Night. But, on the other hand,
if that is all you teach them, you cripple them.
You kill G-d’s name, “Hashem”, inside of them,
that infinite name of G-d. You have to teach
them both.

  G-d forbid, if somebody is sick, he is
sick. Have you ever heard people whisper that if
somebody is sick, he probably deserves it?

  People have excuses, people give lectures on why
the six million had to be killed. Who are these
people? They are murderers! They may not kill
people, but they have murder in their hearts.

    What is their problem? They are not connected
to G-d’s infinite name.

    Sometimes, we love somebody in a measured
love. We want to know how much money her family
has, how many degrees she has. This is not love
in an infinite way. This is not the love before
Creation. Before Creation there was nothing,
except for G-d’s infinite love. There was nothing
else. Only the infinite.

    When you want to cure somebody who is sick,
you cannot cure a person with the love of after
Creation. When somebody is in pain, somebody is
crying, and you tell them they are wrong, you
think now is the time to educate them? Especially
little children.  The adults say: “Why are you
crying? Your father hit you? He was probably
right.” Sure, he was right.  But, if I talk this
way to a child, I can’t cure her. I make her
sicker. You have to connect them with G-d’s name
that existed before there was anything in the
world. When I want to cure somebody, it has to
be on the level of before Creation. There is
nothing there - and there is everything.

    I want to talk about healing with hands.
Basically, our hands are finite. How much can
you do with your hands? Everything you can do
with them is finite. True? No, it isn’t true.
words are finite. Imagine, I tell a girl I love
her very much. So, I told her, with finite
words. But, imagine, if, while I tell her, I
hold her hand. The hands have the power of
giving over something infinite.

    The Talmud says that G-d created the world
with His hands. There are the hands of before
Creation. The hands of before Creation don’t
know of any limits, don’t know of anything finite.
The hands of before Creation don’t do anything
wrong, It’s impossible. on such a high level,
evil doesn’t exist.

    If I love a girl very much, and I find out
she is not so good, and I decide I won’t see her
anymore, the problem is not that she is bad, but
that I don’t really love her so much. If whatever
she did wrong can destroy my love, then my love
wasn’t so strong! But, if I really love her, and
someone says; “Listen, she is a terrible girl”,
I would say: “I don’t care.” It doesn’t mean that
I don’t care for her being wrong, but that her
doing wrong doesn’t reach the place where I love
her. My love is so high, that the wrong she did
remains lower, and doesn’t reach the love.

    So, there are the hands of before Creation,
and there are the hands of after Creation, and
there are the hands of Mashiach. “Mikdesh Hashem
Koininu Yadecha” - “The Temple of’G-d, Your hands
will fashion.” The first two temples were built
by us, by human beings. The third temple, for
which we are waiting, will be rebuilt just by
G-d’s hands. Suddenly, it will appear.

    There is a kind of healing and there is a
kind of love, which takes time. G-d created the
world in six days. In six days! But then, sometimes
G-d’s hands heal in one second. So, there
are two kinds of healing. There is the healing
of the six days of Creation. With all the being
infinite, it still took six days. When the
Messiah comes, the hands that will rebuild the
holy temple will do so in a second.
When you love somebody very much, you can
hold their hand and they will sense if it is the
hands of before Creation, or the hands after
Creation, or, are they the hands of Mashiach?
Of the third temple? Children are carried in ones’
hands; they are so connected to hands. Some children
grow up with the hands of after Creation, and some
grow up with the hand of when Maschiach is coming.

    Have you ever seen sometimes when a child
is crying, and you pat her head and try to
soothe her, and she still cries? Sometimes,
you put your hands on her head, and she stops
crying. It doesn’t take any time - she is
suddenly smiling. It is Mashiach’s hands. It
doesn’t take any time.

    Some people do not have even a taste of
the Infinite. Do you know who are the lonely,
broken people? They don’t have a taste of the All.

    Some people don’t have the All, but, for
once in their lives, they had a taste of the All.

    Imagine, I love my wife very much, and I
buy her an apartment in New York one in Paris,
one in Israel. I give her a lot of things. One
day, I was praying at the Holy Wall, and, while
I was praying, a little stone fell down from
one of the Holy stones. I picked it up, and I
brought my wife that stone. This is All. So much deeper.

    Sometimes, I give my child many things. But,
where is the All?

    The Talmud says that G-d’s presence, the
Shechina, is above the head of a sick person.
This has millions of meanings. When a person is
sick, what do they need? They don’t need little
things. They need the All.

    When it comes to words, you can only utter
one word after another. When it comes to hearing,
you can only hear one thing at a time. The
Gemarah says, “Trei Kolei Lo Nishmaain” - two
voices cannot be heard clearly at the same time.
You can hear only’one word after another, one.
voice after another. But, when it comes to see-
ing, you can see many things at once. Seeing
is connected to the All.

    When do people cry? When I miss particulars,
I don’t cry. When it touches my All, my eyes,
then I cry. When you love somebody very much,
you look in their eyes. You don’t look at their
ears, only their eyes. Eyes are so deep. With
some people, when you look at their eyes, you
see only dollar bills. With others, when you
look in their eyes, you see G-d’s presence.

  This is an Ishbitzer Torah. Animals eat
exactly what they need - they don’t overeat.
Why is it that we human beings don’t know limits,
not only in food, but in everything? Why is that?
Because, spiritually, I can reach beyond myself.
What is so special about this world? In this
world, everything is open. So much so that
yesterday, although I was the lowest person in
the world, today I can reach the highest level.
fight with someone. Today we can be great friends.
This world has something that is not finite. If
you ever thought that heaven is infinite, you are
mistaken. Heaven has the finiteness of heaven.
Heaven is also finite. You know what really is
infinite? This world! Right here, in the chair
we are sitting on - this world is infinite.

    There is a Torah from the Jikavor. The
Jikavor says, the soul in heaven, before I was
born, when I was dwelling in heaven, was
beautiful, but - who needed me? Nobody needed
me, and I didn’t need anybody else. In heaven,
who needs friends? Friends can’t do anything
for you. But, only in this world can you be a
friend to somebody, and somebody can be a
friend to you. Some days, I can walk on the
street and hear somebody cry, and you know
where I can reach in one second? Beyond myself.
Let’s assume if I work hard, I can reach
a certain spiritual height. Let’s say I’ll be
a million miles high. But then, there can be
one moment when I am eternally high - beyond
everything. So, the Ishbitzer says, every
person has an absolute drive to reach beyond,
to be infinite. The only thing is - if I don’t
know how to handle it, I want more food, more
money, more clothes. You have this drive. The
question is, there is “le-eiteh” - stuffing.
What are you stuffing your self with - to be a
better friend, to love people more, or are you
stuffing your self with yet another good time?
So, he says, what Hashem did was to take a
Tzaddick, a holy man, and put him in charge of
“le-eiteh.” What are holy people doing in the
world? To let the world know, don’t put your
drive for the infinite in stupid things. You
should be searching for that absolute stuffing
yourself, reaching beyond yourself, every second.

    When somebody is sick, they get in touch
with the deepest depths of their life. What
are they missing? If you ask a sick person if
he wants to live, he’ll say yes. Why does he
want to life? He is crying, why didn’t I reach
beyond myself? I had such an opportunity, why
didn’t I do that? Why wasn’t I infinite?

    What are friends for? What does it mean to
love somebody? It means that that person puts
me in touch with the Infinite, to reach beyond myself.

    A wedding begins when the groom covers
the face of the bride. That means he is telling
the bride that, because of her, he is becoming
infinite. The eyes are infinite. I can reach
even beyond the All; what I thought was All, is not.

    When somebody is sick, the Torah says, our
holy fathers had “Ba kol mikol kol” - they had
the All. You know what Avraham taught the
world? Before Avraham, there were a lot of holy
people, but they taught the world that you can
reach beyond yourself. Avraham is “bakol mikol
kal”, deeper. If you have the All, you are so
full. If you have everything in the world, but
the All is missing, qevalt are you empty. You
are aching.

  I have seen people who have everything -
family, money. But, they are broken. I have
seen people who have nothing, no money, but
they have the All, they can reach beyond themselves.

  When Jacob had a dream, he dreamt that
there is a ladder going up to heaven. A ladder
is finite - it has a beginning and an end.
Even heaven is finite. But, then he saw “Vehenei
Hashem Nitzav Alav” - G-d was standing above him.
Do you know what he saw? That you can reach beyond
yourself. You can do one thing, and
suddenly, you are something else.

  When we see people crying, at that moment
they are open for the All. At that moment, they
are ready to reach beyond themselves.
When the Holy Temple was destroyed, it says
“Aynai, Aynai, yorda mayim” - my eyes can’t
stop crying. What is the Temple all about? How
can G-d be limited to one place?

    There are many people who say, “I am infinite
I cannot limit myself to one religion.” What’s
their problem? Between Infinite nothing and
Infinite something, there is such a thin line.
Gevalt, is it thin.

  You know, when you love somebody very much,
you sit under a tree for an hour, and you know
what you experience? Not the infiniteness of
heaven, but G-d’s infiniteness, which is only
in this world. You can do a favor to one person, just be
close to one person, and see what you experience;
G-d’s infiniteness, which is only in this world.
Esau comes to us and says, let’s face it,
you know what G-d is all about? Do this, do that.
He is holding a stick over us. I can’t stand
G-d’s stick. G-d makes me so finite. In order
to get out of it, I stuff myself.
You know what to answer him back? You want
to be infinite? When you pass by a street, and
see one poor man dying from hunger, give him
all the money you have. Be Infinite - just one
person. When you pray to G-d, don’t look at
the clock. Be Infinite.

    When you have a chance to heal one person,
you are not healing just one person. It’s not
finite. At that moment you can reach beyond
yourself, reaching that love of G-d which was
before Creation. Infinite. When you walk up to
a person and give them a good word, when
someone is heartbroken and you give them a good
word, when you utter some words - sometimes they
are your words, sometimes they are Mashiach’s
words. In one second, you can cure that person,
you can give him back his self-confidence.

    The world understands today that you cannot
cure the body without the soul. What does
that mean? You cannot cure their finite parts
if you also cannot cure their infiniteness.

    What is my soul? My soul has this deep
longing, because my soul knows that I am here
in this world to reach beyond myself. I want
something so deep, so glorious.

    You know friends, sometimes children are
so angry at their parents, because all their
parents talk to them about is the finite part
of them - be a doctor, make money, have two
cars. Children feel, how come you never talk to
me about something deep, something holy? Where
is the Infinite?

    Sometimes, parents and children have those
moments that are just Infinite.

    You know, it is possible that somebody
gives me a million dollars. I like them. But,
one person gave me one handshake, and I love
him forever, because, the million dollars was
finite - the handshake was infinite.

    You know, sweetest friends, the closer we
get to Mashiach’s coming, the stronger the desire
gets to reach beyond ourselves.

    Basically, medicine is the most finite
science in the world. Somebody’s body is sick
you cure the body. if the feet are sick, you
cure the feet. Now, something is happening to
the world. They feel that if the feet are sick,
the pain is felt not just in the feet, but al ,
over. The whole person must be cured, not just
the feet. I can walk with my feet two blocks,
and I was finite. I can walk with my feet to do
somebody a favor and I was Infinite.

    You know, friends, sometimes a person needs
just a finite friendship. Sometimes a person
absolutely needs an infinite friendship.
Sometimes children come home from school
and they need just a peanut butter sandwich.
Sometimes, they need an infinite peanut butter
sandwich.

    The deepest secret of life is, if you are
connected to a person only on the level of after
Creation - you don’t get it. If you are connected
to them on the level of before Creation, you
have a Covenant with G-d, you are like Avraham
Aveinu.

  Before Abraham entered the Covenant with
G-d, Covenant meaning I am completely given
over to G-d in an infinite way, to serve G-d
every second - before Avraham entered the
Covenant he knew that if he saw a poor person
he had to give them food, and a place to stay.
After the Covenant, he had a different kind of
welcoming guests. He knew that if a person has
no home, he needs more than a place to stay.
He knew that a person who has nothing needs
everything. Suddenly, Avraham Aveinu realized
that a person who has no home, nothing, has
vessels to receive everything. And, when the
angels who were greeted by Avraham told him
that he will have children, suddenly Avraham
realized that a child needs everything, everything.

    I want to bless you and I want to bless
all the people who heal people. We are all sick.
When a person is, G-d forbid, a little bit sick,
when things go wrong in our lives - at that
moment, we have a vessel for everything. It
says of the Holy Land: “Eretz kol be” - a land
that has everything. We were 2,000 years in
exile, and G-d didn’t give the Holy Land back
to us. You know when we suddenly had vessels
for the Holy Land? When we walked through gas
chambers. We had nothing any more. There was
nothing left. Nothing. We have to see the Holy
Land - G-d should give it to us completely. We
still think we have something, we think we have
Western civilization, we have the U.S.A., - we
really have nothing. We have only G-d. The moment
we have nothing, we become a vessel for everything.

    When I have Shabbos, I don’t want a little
Shabbos, I want the All of Shabbos - “Yom
Shekulo Shabbos” - a day that is All of Shabbos.

    We don’t need friends just to say hi to.
We need friends who are infinite friends. Today
we have a chance. G-d opens gates to us. We
can reach beyond ourselves.

    Remember, Rav Kook says, the sign that
mashiach is coming is that our children are so
beautiful. The children coming down from heaven
now are so beautiful, so special. We have to give
them All. I want to bless you and me. There are
so many children running around in the world,
whose parents don’t have the faintest idea what
All is. You and I have to be G-d’s messengers.
We say, “Refaeinu Hashem Venerafeh” - “G-d, heal
me.” I want to be healed on a G-d level. When
something hurts me, I don’t want just to cure my
body. I want to cure my life.

    A lot of times, we have these infinite
moments. But, we are still living in a finite
world. There is day, there is night, I have to
make a living. I have to go to work. The saddest
thing is, we don’t incorporate these infinite
moments into our finite lives.

    Many people stand by the Holy Wall and cry
their eyes out. At that moment, they are infinitely
Jewish. But, when they come back, they go back
to the way they were. Their “Elokim” and their
“Hashem” don’t work together. Because we are
finite, G-d created a finite world. G-d wants
something more from us, even deeper. Mashiach
is coming. G-d’s name that will be in the world
will be “Eheye asher Eheye” - “I will be what I
will be.” This means, not finite and not infinite.
It’s deeper than that.

    I want to bless you and me and all of us,
when we are learning, we learn one page, but let
that page be infinite. But, I want to hold the
page in my hands, it’s finite, it’s one page,
but it’s infinite. A love letter is just a page
but, it’s really infinite. It’s everything.

    The world is so broken. The world has
vessels for the unbelievable things that are
happening. If only all the doctors, all the
psychiatrists, would have enough sense, and maybe
some day they will, to fix the All, really to
fix, to give people the strength to reach beyond
themselves ... Children want to reach beyond themselves.
If you don’t tell your children that they are the
most beautiful in the world - don’t talk to them.
Then you’ll tell me, but, what about my neighbor’s
child? She is also beautiful. Ah, on a finite
level, it’s a contradiction, but on an infinite
level, my child is the most beautiful in the
world, your child is the most beautiful in the
world, for G-d, every human being is the most
beautiful in the world. Maybe one day we shall
know that all of us, every single one of us,
is the best in the whole world.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

You meet sometimes people who love each other, and you watch
them. Do they make each other whole? Do they break each other’s
heart? Ahh, then it’s for real. And if they don’t break each other’s
heart anymore, if their heart doesn’t stop beating in each other’s
presence, then it’s meaningless.

Once a year there was a collection for the sacrifice of the Holy Temple.
And everybody was giving half a sheql, a broken sheql, and this is what
kept the temple going. You know what we’re telling each other. It
breaks my heart to know that I can bring something to the Holy Temple.

* * * * ** * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * *

Love cannot be taught. All we can hope for is that we should unlearn
all the hatred. Because hatred is taught. Love is from heaven.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  *  * * * *

In Psalms it says, “G-d created the world with love.” That doesn’t
mean that there is a world, and G-d loves the world. It means that
G-d has so much love, that G-d had to create the world. Imagine
some people just get together without loving each other, and then
a baby is born. Why are they all so angry? Because
they are missing the most important part—you only create
with love because G-d created the world with love.