Our sages said (Berachot 59), “Rabbi Elazar said, ‘Since the day of the ruin of the Temple, the gates of prayer have been locked. Although the gates of prayer have been locked, the gates of tears have not been locked’” (Rabash, Article 3, “What Is the Difference between the Gate of Tears and the Rest of the Gates?”).

We strive to unite. We hold unity days and other events that symbolize what true connection is. Unity with the Creator is attained through unity among the created beings through a common Kli that we correct by uniting with one another.

To do this, it is necessary to correctly arrange all the components so that a person contemplates the conditions for achieving unity with the Creator, and thereby can clearly define those conditions.

As they reflect on these conditions, they begin to examine themselves: Do I feel a need for unity with the Creator? Do I genuinely want to unite with my friends? Am I willing to bow before them and accept them as the greatest of the generation?

Of course, this refers to spiritual connection and not the corporeal connection of the friends. Although Baal HaSulam writes that it can be helpful to externally lower oneself before the friends, we are not yet ready for that, and doing so prematurely may bring artificiality, confusion, and damage to our inner relationships.

Starting from the final goal—adhesion with the Creator—a person unfolds the stages of the path and evaluates the means. Then they see how necessary the goal is to them and whether it leads them to the gate of tears.

The gate of tears means that a person really wants to unite with their friends but is incapable of doing so.

In that case, there is no point in continuing to seek the path toward unity with the Creator because they cannot even fulfill the first condition. Standing at the gates of tears, one must only search for sorrow over the desired goal in order to reach a point where one can truly weep.

This depends entirely on mutual work in the group: how much the person absorbs the spiritual yearning of the environment and recognizes that there is nothing more important than this. One must feel a burning fire inside from not yet having reached the goal and is torn apart by the intensity of the desire and the pain.

Only the environment can bring a person to such a state. Then their outcry will certainly be answered, it will lead to unity with the friends, to one great shared desire in which the upper force is revealed.

Everything depends on that inner necessity, on the yearning, the raising of MAN, the feeling of the deficiency for unity, for the correction of the shattered state. In the end, everything comes down to that.
[31009]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/10, Writings of Rabash “What Is the Difference between the Gate of Tears and the Rest of the Gates?”

Related Material:
Weep, My Soul
The Group Beyond The External Veil
All Gates Are Locked Except For The Gate Of Tears

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