To Draw Near to HaShem Is to Learn How to Love

What does it really mean to come closer to the Creator?

We often imagine closeness as a matter of distance. If HaShem is somewhere “above,” we imagine that becoming closer means somehow reaching that place.

But HaShem is not far away.

“There is no place devoid of Him.”

The distance is not between us and HaShem.

The distance is within us.

It is the distance between our natural desire to receive for ourselves and the quality of love and bestowal that we call the Creator.

To come closer to HaShem, therefore, does not mean traveling somewhere.

It means becoming more like Him.

The Nature of the Creator

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches that the Creator is the quality of absolute love and bestowal.

Our natural inclination is different.

We instinctively ask:

What do I need?

What will make me happy?

What will I gain?

What will I lose?

How will this affect me?

Even when we appear to care about another person, the ego can quietly calculate what we will receive in return.

This is the nature we were given.

And we should not hate ourselves for it.

We need to recognize it.

Because the moment I begin to see how completely my perception is centered on myself, I can begin to ask for something higher.

Moving the Center of Attention

Imagine that my entire world revolves around one point:

me.

My happiness.

My fears.

My desires.

My future.

My needs.

My losses.

Everything passes through the question, “What does this mean for me?”

But something extraordinary begins to happen when I genuinely turn my attention toward another human being.

Not because I want something from them.

Not because I want their approval.

Not because I want to feel like a good person.

But simply because I want their good.

For a moment, the boundaries of “me” begin to open.

I begin to live not only inside myself, but inside my relationship with another.

And this is where something of the spiritual world begins to become perceptible.

The Secret of Eternity

Why does Kabbalah connect love and bestowal with eternity?

Because our ordinary sense of existence is tied to the self.

I feel my body.

I feel my thoughts.

I remember my past.

I worry about my future.

I experience myself as a separate being moving through time.

But when my concern becomes genuinely directed toward another, my sense of existence begins to shift.

I am no longer occupied only with the limited story of “me.”

I become connected to something beyond myself.

The body remains within time.

But love does not have to be confined to the body’s boundaries.

In this sense, eternity is not simply living forever in the same physical form.

It is entering a quality of existence that is not governed by the constant calculation of self-benefit.

The more we live through love, the less our sense of existence is confined to ourselves.

This is why the sages speak of devekut—cleaving to HaShem.

To cleave to HaShem is to become similar to His qualities.

The Ego Shows Us the Distance

But how do we get there?

We cannot simply decide one morning to stop being egoistic.

Our ego is deeply embedded within us.

We discover it whenever we become jealous.

Whenever we resent another person’s success.

Whenever we want recognition.

Whenever we feel the need to control.

Whenever we love conditionally.

Whenever we ask, consciously or unconsciously:

“What am I getting out of this?”

These revelations can be uncomfortable.

But they are necessary.

We cannot correct what we cannot see.

The revelation of the egoistic inclination gives us the contrast by which we can begin to recognize its opposite.

If I never experience selfishness, how would I understand selfless giving?

If I never encounter hatred, how would I recognize love?

If I never feel separation, how would I appreciate connection?

The darkness reveals what the Light must correct.

We Do Not Destroy the Ego

The purpose is therefore not to destroy the ego.

The ego is not a mistake.

It is the material upon which our spiritual development is built.

We rise above it.

The desire to receive remains, but we gradually learn to place a different intention over it.

Instead of:

“What can I receive?”

we begin asking:

“What can I give?”

Instead of:

“How can I benefit from this person?”

we ask:

“How can I benefit this person?”

Instead of:

“What does HaShem owe me?”

we begin asking:

“What can I do to become more like HaShem?”

That change in intention is the beginning of closeness.

Every Relationship Becomes a Door

This gives an entirely different meaning to our relationships.

Every person we encounter can become an opportunity to practice this movement beyond ourselves.

Someone irritates us.

Can we rise above the irritation?

Someone disagrees with us.

Can we remain connected?

Someone needs something.

Can we help without immediately calculating our reward?

Someone succeeds.

Can we rejoice in their success rather than comparing it with our own?

These moments may seem ordinary.

But they are precisely where spiritual work happens.

We do not need to escape the world to come closer to HaShem.

The world itself becomes our laboratory for learning love.

Even the Difficulties Have a Place

This does not mean that suffering is good or that illness, tragedy, conflict, or loss should be romanticized.

Pain is painful.

But Kabbalah teaches us that the revelation of our egoistic nature—and the suffering that can accompany our resistance to correction—can awaken us to the need for a different way of living.

The question becomes:

What can this revelation teach me about the distance between where I am and where I want to be?

Every time I discover another layer of self-concern, I have an opportunity to ask for its correction.

Every time I rise above myself for the sake of another, I take another step toward HaShem.

The Path Is Simpler Than We Think

Perhaps we make spirituality too complicated.

We search for hidden worlds.

We look for extraordinary experiences.

We imagine that coming closer to the Creator requires leaving ordinary life behind.

But perhaps the path begins with something much simpler:

Care about another person.

Then care a little more.

Give without demanding something back.

Listen.

Forgive.

Help.

Make room for another person’s existence.

And when the ego protests, notice it.

Do not hate it.

Rise above it.

Then do it again.

And again.

Until concern for another is no longer an occasional act but begins becoming a quality within us.

This is how we begin to resemble HaShem.

The Distance Disappears

The Creator has never been distant from us.

We are the ones who experience distance because our consciousness is enclosed within ourselves.

As we move beyond that enclosure, something changes.

We discover that love creates a space larger than the self.

In that space, the boundaries of “me” and “you” begin to soften.

We begin to experience connection.

And within genuine connection, we begin to touch something that is not measured by the body’s years.

Something beyond time.

Something that feels eternal.

This is what it means to come closer to the Creator.

Not to travel upward.

Not to escape the world.

Not to become someone other than ourselves.

But to transform the way we relate to one another.

Every time we rise above self-concern and choose love, we take one step toward HaShem.

And perhaps the greatest secret is this:

HaShem was never waiting for us somewhere far away. He was waiting for us to become capable of recognizing Him in the love we learn to give.