Light of the Infinite: Transformation in the Desert of Darkness

“I never doubt, ’cause doubt is the cousin of death.”

If the commandment is to love others as we love ourselves, and we feel that we don’t have enough love for ourselves, then the only way to keep this mitzvah is to increase the love we have for ourselves and decrease the self-doubt and self-hate. Because if we don’t show ourselves the proper love, how can we properly love others? And truly, the way w

The Zohar teaches: “By (the way one handles one’s) anger, one can recognize who one is. If a person guards one’s soul at a moment of anger and does not allow it (one’s soul) to be torn from its place… this is a person who is as they should be… This is a complete person.”

our task and indeed our purpose is to spiritualize reality by bringing light into our own darkness (prati), and by doing so, to bring light into the world (klali).

Love is a choice, and an action. In this way, the commandment, “And you shall love” manifests through all the ways in which we perform acts of love in the world.

The Holy One created the twin pathways of תשובה/שבת (teshuvah/returning and Shabbat) before even creating the world.

The Zohar teaches: “By (the way one handles one’s) anger, one can recognize who one is. If a person guards their soul at a moment of anger and does not allow it (one’s soul) to be torn from its place… this is a person who is as they should be… This is a complete person.”

Reb Natan explains that demanding is like stealing—both are attempts to take something that belongs to someone else by force, either physical or emotional force.

The Alter Rebbe teaches that when hatred rises in a person’s mind towards another, or jealousy or anger or a grudge, one should immediately remove this thought from the mind and should not entertain it. On the contrary, the person should prevail over their emotions, treating this person with kindness and showing an abundance of love. Not only shoul