Know Whom You Are Calling Upon
We should understand what it means when we say, “We have no other king but You.” It implies that when we praise the Creator that “We have no other king but You,” then we are not like the nations of the world, who have many gods, while we have only You as our king (Rabash, “What Is, ‘We Have No Other King But You,’ in the Work?”).
Question: What does it mean, “We have no other king but You”? Does this mean that, in reality, there are other kings besides the Creator, and that we choose Him rather than the others? But isn’t it written, “There is none else besides Him”?
Answer: The point is that a person can only turn to the Creator, establish a connection, contact, and relationship with Him only through similarity of qualities. If a person acquires even one of the many qualities that belong to the Creator, they immediately enter into connection with the Creator through that single quality, through this similarity to Him. This is called “Emet”—truth.
That is why it is written that a person must know whom they are calling upon and must cry out in truth because contact is possible only through a quality that is shared by both.
In other words, I must somehow discover what qualities the Creator has, deeply desire them, and acquire them, starting from those that are easier to implement within my desire to receive, moving to qualities that are more distant, greater, and more difficult to realize. I must continue until I become like the Creator in all my qualities. This state is described as, “The name of the Creator is proclaimed upon you.”
This is what we learn in relation to raising MAN, a prayer. What is MAN? It is a need (Hisaron) for correction so that my qualities become like His: “Make your desire like His desire,” and so on. If my desire to become like Him has not been corrected, if it is fundamentally flawed, in other words, if I am still hold a mistaken conception in my understanding of who He is and what He is like, then I am not calling upon Him truthfully. In that case, this Hisaron is not called MAN and is not perceived by the upper one.
It is like the example given by Rabash: a child is ill, and the doctor says that he may be given certain things but not others. The child cries, screams, and demands only what he wants. If something the child asks for is among the things prescribed by the doctor, the mother gives it to him; if not, she does not. The same applies to our MAN. It is a request to which there can be a response only if my desire corresponds to His desire. “Make your desire like His desire,” that is, make His desire your own.
This general correction, so that our requests are for things that are true, is called faith. My request to the Creator cannot be genuine or correct if it is for my own personal benefit. It must be for His benefit, for the sake of bestowal. It doesn’t even matter what particular form this bestowal takes. The main thing is that, first of all, my request and my direction must rise above my desire to receive and above thoughts about myself.
Our requests must be for the acquisition of desires directed outward, toward bestowal upon another. The quality we acquire that allows us to think, not about ourselves, but beyond ourselves, that is, ultimately about the Creator, is called faith.
As a rule, the strength of faith comes from above and gives a person the ability to rise above their desires and stop thinking about them. But until a person acquires the ability to believe, that is, to rise above the demands of their body, they do not truly turn to the Creator at all. They turn only to themselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘We Have No Other King But You,’ in the Work?”




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