For this reason, when a person comes into a descent, he should not be startled and escape the campaign. On the contrary, this is the time to make a heartfelt prayer (Rabash, “What Are the Four Qualities of Those Who Go to the Seminary, in the Work?”).

Question: What kind of advice is this? If I were able to offer a true prayer from the depth of the heart, I would not call it a descent.

Answer: I do not know how you define ascents and descents. A descent is characterized by your distancing from the Creator; an ascent is your drawing closer to Him.

So what is a descent? It is when you see your true state: your Kelim have become coarser, your desires have worsened, and your mood corresponds to that. If you weigh all this, you see yourself as such. And this is the time for prayer.

And when else can you ask? Can you really turn to the Creator in a state of ascent?

Comment: When I am in a descent, I cannot ask Him for anything.

My Response: Why? You feel yourself in a descent, but Him, you feel as exalted and powerful.

Question: But it is said that when I fall, everything around me falls together with me?

Answer: That too is a kind of descent. And when can you raise a true prayer?

Comment: When I am just beginning to descend, maybe something can still be done, but not when I have already reached the very bottom.

My Response: If you are at the lowest point, then nothing can be done. In the lowest descent, a person has no strength at all. He must go through this point as if by inertia.

During a descent, when you cannot pray, you must try to do something, seek some means of exiting it. For example, when I work on a book, there are periods when I cannot write. Then I edit existing texts. If I cannot work with the text, I answer questions, do some simpler work. If I cannot do even that, I go and engage in something distant, unrelated to writing the book.

In order to find a means, one must use everything possible. Any means by which you wish to advance is called a prayer.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/26, Rabash, 1988 “What Are the Four Qualities of Those Who Go to the Seminary, in the Work?”

Related Material:
How Can You Recognize a Spiritual Descent?
Get out of Descents
Descent Is Disconnection from the Creator

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