Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 92

How Can We Reach the Prayer for the Deficiency to Bestow?

The way to reach the prayer for the deficiency to bestow is called “I have labored and found.” We ourselves cannot pray for the deficiency to bestow because it is contrary to our nature. We have no way of finding such a deficiency within ourselves or in our reality. We can, however, only pray for the desire to want to bestow. This is called “from Lo Lishma we come to Lishma,” when we make a request but do not know what we are requesting.

Why is there concealment? Concealment exists so that we would ask for the desire to bestow. If we could see what it means to bestow, we would not ask for it. We are thus prevented from knowing what it means to bestow, and we then become ready to make a request. But how can we ask for something that we do not know? After all, a vessel is called “the knowledge of the vessel,” the awareness of what is lacking, and only then can we ask. We are told that it is even possible to ask for Reshimot from afar, without any true desire, and yet come to “from Lo Lishma to Lishma.”

Why should we strive to do that? If we were originally made only of the desire to receive, we would be unable to do it. But because inside us is a spark of the desire to bestow—a corrupted desire while in captivity to the desire to receive since the shattering of the vessels—we can seemingly say that we want to bestow. We feel suffering, and this lets us prepare ourselves until we are given the strength to bestow, which is called “crossing the barrier (Machsom).”

However, all these states play out on condition that we do not know what it means to bestow. Accordingly, we can understand the need for concealment. Without it, we would never reach such a desire. Concealment enables us to request doing what appears to be the most dreadful acts, the most opposed to our desire, which we perceive as actual death.

Why would we do that? First, concealment lets us do this. Secondly, within us there is a spark of bestowal that pushes us to desire it. However, in the realm of this world, everything is false, and we exist in this falsehood called “the time of preparation.”

Why does such a stage exist where everything is vague and fake? Why did the Creator create this state? What does it contribute? This stage does not exist so that we push forth to reach the truth. It exists so that from this falsehood, we perform intentional sins and mistakes that we can later use. In other words, we have no need for the good deeds we have done here, such as praying, working, and giving, but to commit sins. After the accumulation of enough sins, the Creator sees that we have struggled and failed enough times, and then He helps us cross the barrier.

We need these intentional sins. Other than the evil, we do not take anything with us to the next world. So if that is the case, what should we pray for?

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 91
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 90
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 89

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