However, there is a natural law that there is none so wise as the experienced, and before one tries to actually do all he can do, he is utterly incapable of arriving at true lowliness, to the real extent, as said above.

This is why we must toil in Kedusha [holiness] and purity, as it is written, “Whatever you find that your hand can do by your strength, that do,” and understand this for it is true and deep (Baal HaSulam, Letter 57).

While working on unification in order to form a vessel for bestowal, a person falls into despair. Then a genuine request arises in him in response to which the vessel arrives. In other words, the correct need for unity also comes from above. We ourselves are unable to attain it.

No matter how much we try, no matter how much we desire it, we are only preparing ourselves for a cry, and the Creator gives us the desire. In this world, a person does not have and cannot have a need for unity, no matter how hard he tries. Efforts are needed only in order to ask.

I revealed this truth to you only so you would not weaken or give up on mercy. Although you do not see anything, for even when the measure of labor is complete, it is the time of prayer, but until then, believe in our sages: “I did not labor and found, do not believe.”

When the measure is full, your prayer will be complete and the Creator will grant generously, as our sages instructed us, “I labored and found, believe,” for one is unfit for a prayer prior to this, and the Creator hears a prayer (ibid.).

Overall, the result of our work is to reach the right request. And then the vessel arrives, the correct desire for unity.

As a rule, in this world we wait for fulfillment. But in spiritual work, fulfillment is the effort. If I can work for bestowal, make efforts, that itself is my fulfillment. And therefore there are no restrictions or limitations on it.

However, in my current state I am unable even to consider such a thing. After all, all my efforts are needed in order for me to want to perform bestowal to others, not even to begin bestowing, but to feel a need for it. Is this possible? And yet, this is precisely the spiritual vessel.

That is why in our work we go through several stages of preparation. Kabbalists have written about this more than once: in spirituality, what seems to us as a reward is in essence work, and what seems to us as work is actually the reward.

However, as a result of our efforts, that very vessel is revealed to us, the correct desire.
[71937]
From the Congress in the Arava, Lesson 6, 2/25/12

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