Question: How can I control a prayer in the heart when the heart is not corrected?

Answer: If the heart is corrected, there is no prayer! A prayer is an appeal for correction if I feel that I am corrupt, or if I do not feel my own corruptness, then I ask the Light to discern my desires (Kelim) for me, to show me my shortcomings.

Suddenly strangers start telling me that I probably need glasses that I don’t see well. However, I haven’t noticed this before because I didn’t have anything to compare this with.

Thus, I have to ask the Light to show me my corruptness. When I sense it, I will ask the Light to correct me. When I am corrected, I will ask the Light to fill me. The same Light, the Creator, performs all these actions within me. However, He is manifested through different actions in accordance with my appeal.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: I cannot aspire to bestowal since I don’t have the slightest idea what it is. What is bestowal?

Answer: Any spiritual property such as bestowal and love is revealed from the state opposite to it since we don’t know what it is. Actually, if I knew what bestowal is, I would already possess this property.

But I do not possess it. So how can I acquire it? I can do it only by performing mechanical actions: I influence the group, while the group acts upon me. And all these actions have no relation to spirituality, which is the reason we perceive ourselves as presently living in this world.

It is an imaginary reality that contains some desires and even corporeal bodies in it, meaning that they are not, in fact, desires, but rather something that doesn’t possess free will. The spiritual world, however, is full of desires, aspirations, and forces, such as love, hate, and lust, which are manifestations of man’s will. And without this manifestation of will, there isn’t a world; it doesn’t exit.

It is similar to a laser image: I turn on the laser, and the picture appears in the air. If I don’t turn it on, there won’t be one. This is how we perceive the spiritual world as well. As to the material world, it exists even without my expression of will. In this reality, I pass through life cycles, and it transforms me without my being aware of it; it asks for no participation on my part.

Therefore, this reality seems to me so “material.” All changes in it occur without my conscious participation, my strive for bestowal; they simply unfold naturally under the impact of the upper force that pushes everything to evolve.

But when in this corporeal world I reach a state when I want to take an active part in my development, the question about the meaning of life arises in me. And from this moment on, I start seeking the answer.

Yet, it is all so that I start activating the spiritual reality. At the instant I become ready for it, I will discover the part of reality that was activated by me. It is what you can regard as your first spiritual degree.

Hence, all our actions must begin with corporeality, with the idea that I force myself to influence the environment and the environment influences me in all possible forms by using all available forces and capacities, as it is written: “All that you can do, do!”, meaning grab any opportunity, no matter what it may be.

After all, if you perform all these actions in the material form, that is, without the correct conscious participation, you still awaken this reality. This is the way it is built.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/11 on Prayer

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When the created being starts to clarify what free will is, he sees that if the property of bestowal in him is above the property of receiving, then the former leads him to the truth and freedom! Thereby, the created being chooses bestowal since he understands that only bestowal carries completeness and independence from one’s desires, meaning the absolute truth that is above the Creator as well as the creature.

Man achieves such an exalted state. After all, both the Creator and the creature reside in their corresponding properties: those of the Creator and the creature. But man has to make a choice that is independent of both these properties.

It looks like the force of the Creator and the force of Creation stand against each other, whereas man performs a unique act regarded as a “prayer.” He makes a choice that lies above both of these forces. Thereby, his new desire (Kli) is produced in which the property of receiving and the property of bestowal, or the attribute of the Creator and the attribute of the creature, unify as one above these properties.

This is how man receives a unique result: He finds the Creator’s Keter. It is not the Creator’s acts by which man himself is made, but rather His thoughts, the plan that precedes creation. This is an outcome of the middle line that rises above the first two: the right and the left, the properties of the Creator and those of the created being, which reach man in action. But in the middle line, man rises above the beginning of Creation.

Herein unfolds a new opportunity given to the created being: to rise above all existing forces and properties. Indeed, all forces, properties, desires, information genes, everything that exists in the universe and is revealed to us—the matter of reception, the force of bestowal—are only the instruments to bring the creature to more exalted notions preceding the act of Creation.

Hence, in every state where the creature needs to make a correct choice, it feels totally helpless relative to the point that precedes its entire birth. It needs to discern the vessels and the Lights, the desire to receive pleasure that it possesses and the desire to bestow, while the choice lies above both of them.

The prayer is born when the created being realizes that in the state that he has reached as a result of all of his discernments, he does not and cannot have any chance to rise above these equally valuable options and make a decision. Here the Creator has the final say!

We think we need the Creator only to defeat the force of egoism with our own force of bestowal, to dethrone Pharaoh. But there is more to this than a simple confrontation of desires when man stands between the two forces: the Creator and Pharaoh. The essence is not in clarifying who is more powerful and thus will win, but rather in unifying both of these forces as one in the middle line and ascending over them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/11 on Prayer

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Question: What is a prayer?

Answer: The Creator created only the desire to receive pleasure. Desires can unfold automatically, triggered by the inner engine that activates in me one desire after another, by actualizing the sequence of the Reshimot (informational genes). A prayer is methodical work on a desire that unfolds in a person.

Every desire or Reshimo consists of 613 (Taryag) desires. These 613 desires, by surfacing up, paint the picture of the world for me: Each instant in new desires, I discover a new frame of reality, a new world.

But I, myself, can wish to work on my constantly unfolding desires, speed up the development of new Reshimot in me, control how they unfold, and not allow my evolution to take a random course. I can look forward to the emerging of new desires so as to work on them, justify the Creator every moment, advance in adhesion with Him, and see the necessity and purposefulness of each state.

Such work with desires is regarded as a prayer. A prayer is work in the heart, and the heart is a collection of all the desires of a person. Hence, the work with our desires is regarded as a prayer. This is why it is written: “May one pray all day long!” which means let a person constantly work with his or her desires, motivating themselves to corrections.

It radically differs from the opinion of the masses who think that by reading prayers from a prayer book, they perform spiritual actions or anything at all. Our entire history demonstrates to us how pointless and worthless this interpretation of “prayer” is. They are mere external actions that are carried out during preparation for the true spiritual work on ourselves during Kabbalah studies. Only then is the work aimed at the correction of one’s self regarded as the “work of the Creator” since it is done by His Light, Ohr Makif.

Authentic work lies in accelerating desires. I want them to unfold in me as quickly as possible so I could work on them, having prepared myself and the environment: the teacher, the Kabbalistic texts, and the group; so I would always be ready and trigger my own development, “bring on the dawn” myself. It is dawn because each desire unfolds in me as the dark void, while I immediately bring it to the Light.

Hence, a prayer is all our work, and there is nothing but work with desires.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: Do we have to think about others even if we understand that deep down it’s a lie? Do we have to lie to ourselves while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: We lie about everything because we do not have a true connection with one another, but only “play” as if we do. I do not desire to connect with others, but I play at being a “good boy”: I read The Zohar, wishing to change under the influence of this reading, to understand the way in which I am uncorrected, and why I can’t attain the perfect state. I search! In short, while reading The Zohar, I wait for changes for the better. This is called “awaiting redemption.”

Question: I force myself to come back to the intention even though it truly is a war. Does this help our work in the group?

Answer: Precisely the inner war gives us a good result! Without this war a person does not advance because his desires are not renewed. Only on the condition that he wages a war with himself do new Reshimot awaken in him and he constantly feels opposition. That is how things should be!
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11, The Zohar

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Today, in light of the earthquake that has befallen Japan, we see how nature threatens our existence. After all, we are, in fact, living on top of a giant volcano that is boiling deep underground, while we exist on the thin layer of the earth’s crust.

From the depths of the earth we mine oil, water, and minerals, and we use plants and animals which exist on its surface for food, and breathe the atmospheric air. We are entirely dependent on the processes happening in the earth’s crust.

Besides, we are influenced by many other factors: magnetic fields, the force of attraction, all sorts of radiation, the speed of the Earth’s rotation, and so on. But we don’t even imagine that the smallest change in any of these parameters can fundamentally change our lives!

All of the natural cataclysms are caused by the imbalance of forces, which is happening as a result of our incorrect actions. The entire universe is a single system which includes the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature as well as man. The greater part of the universe belongs to the still level of nature: This is the entire universe, including the Earth. Plants cover only its surface, and the animate kingdom comprises even a smaller part of it, and compared to all that, just a tiny fraction belongs to man.

However, in the spiritual dimension what is taken into account is not quantity or mass, but the quality of forces. Therefore, man, who is on a higher qualitative level of development, can change the entire universe with just one thought. Baal HaSulam writes that all of the still nature is equal to one plant, all plants to one animal, and all animals to one person.

In other words, if a person makes any tiny change for the good or for the bad, this changes the entire animal kingdom. The vegetative world undergoes even greater changes as a result, not to mention what happens with the still nature. That is because all of it is a single system!

Therefore, we have to change ourselves and attain balance among one another. Only then will all of these forces of nature that are below the human level—the entire animate and vegetative world, and all of the still nature—will also reach balance.

Question: How can we convince everyone that the world is controlled by our thoughts?

Answer: It is impossible to achieve this through words. We have to bring the world to the inner sensation that thought is the most powerful force in the entire universe. But we have to prove the same thing to ourselves! If I realized that my thoughts influence the whole world, would I allow them to “go with the flow” free and uncontrolled? No, at every moment in time I would check what I am thinking about, where am I directing my thoughts, and what I am influencing. I would constantly control myself!

We just can’t explain this to ourselves or to the world. We cannot measure the power of thoughts, and especially the degree of their influence on specific events. We will never be able to give the world proof of this connection’s presence. So how will we bring the world to balance?

There is just one solution: We, those who understand this and study Kabbalah, have to attract the Upper Light through ourselves so it will give people the awareness “from within” of the fact that everything in nature is interconnected and precisely our desires (hearts) and thoughts (minds) determine the state of the world.

Precisely the Surrounding Light, which intangibly influences everyone, will evoke the inner understanding in people that their thoughts and intentions influence the state of the system of nature, where the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature as well as man with his intention, are united into one.
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From the lesson on Shamati on 3/11/11

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It is said that “all the gates are locked” for man’s prayer “except for the gate of tears.” But what should we pray and ask for, what decision, if we receive two forces and discern their opposition? The upper one provides the force of the Surrounding Light, egoism awakens against it, and we stand between the two forces: the right and the left.

But the property that we need to attain pertains to the Thought of Creation to delight the creature. It is above all outcomes, actions, and forces. This mind, the head of the upper one, is precisely what the lower one, the creature, strives to attain!

It does not have the slightest chance to achieve this alone through its own effort, since there is a difference between the upper thought, the decisions, and their outcomes and actions. And we, ourselves, are the Creator’s acts.

Hence, when man exhausts all of his resources, having done everything he could, he discovers a special property that he has no connection with. It is a decision, a plan, to create the creature, an entire program conceived long before its creation. Man gets to know who the Creator is Himself, who conceived all this, and why He conceived it as it is: the root of the root of the very point from which the creature was born.

This desire is hidden in the tiniest action, and it leads us on from the very start! But we arrive at it only after a very lengthy search, after many actions. And when we reach it, we discover what is said: “All the gates are locked except the gate of tears.”

It is regarded as the “gate of tears” because all the “hair” strands of the Light (Partzufim Searot, the “hair”) that stretch to us from Above downward, from the upper one who is “storming” (Soer) and suffering while anticipating our arrival, are revealed only now as do the “drops of fortune” (in Hebrew, “Mazal,” from “Nosel” “to trickle”), the droplets of Light that trickle down to us. And one can attain their cause, why and how such effects descend to us, solely by getting to know Rosh de Atzilut (the head of the world of Atzilut).

And this can be reached only through the gate of tears or a state when a person gets to know the difference between the “body” (Guf) of the Partzuf and its “head” (Rosh). He cannot attain and comprehend the head of the upper one itself, its mind, but thanks to this prayer, he attains it.

In fact, by studying all of the Creator’s actions, we receive some idea about His mind. As when we look at a table, we can guess what the maker had in mind, so do we, while studying ourselves and revealing within the Creator’s actions, constantly accumulate this burning desire to understand Him and gradually arrive at the gate of tears.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/11 on Prayer

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Question: Do Kabbalists reduce the world’s disasters by virtue of their spiritual progress?

Answer: Of course. Moreover, no one is bigger or smaller in this regard. People think that a great Kabbalist can just pray and make a plague go away. But in reality, it’s the other way around: Precisely the newcomers who have a point in the heart that has just awakened, who are confused and don’t understand anything yet, can do more than the old-timers with their distant, small desire.

Much like a little child who becomes the head of the family, people who have just set out on the spiritual path and who still seem far away from the “real business,” can do more than the “veterans” with their simple desire and their pleas.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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After the breaking, the sparks fell into the broken vessels and the Light is inside the desire to receive this Light egoistically. It turns out that I am inside of this egoistic desire in the broken vessel, and that means I want to use society and the Creator to receive spiritual fulfillment, but for my own sake!

I want to advance spiritually by gaining more knowledge, more sensations, and by becoming closer to my friends in order to receive something from them. All of this is aimed in the direction of the spiritual goal, but with an egoistic intention. That is how I activate my spiritual desires or broken vessels. I act from the broken heart and it is precisely inside of it that I will find the Creator among all of my egoistic desires.

I have to work with these desires without being scared or embarrassed! I shouldn’t run away from the horror upon discovering that I am entirely aimed at selfish reception, and I shouldn’t be afraid to get dirty by touching my impure desires. This is, incidentally, Kabbalah’s difference from the religious approach. I have to activate these desires without getting scared or ashamed.

Yes, I am broken! And it is precisely from the depth of this breaking that I reveal the fact that I can attain the goal. This is the place of my contact with the Creator. From there I organize my work in relation to society. And this society also seems egoistic to me since it is my common Kli that is broken in relation to me.

Don’t be afraid of any revelations of evil! The most important thing is that the evil is being revealed for the sake of the goal! In that case, it is the point of truth from which I will already be aimed at the goal.

That is how I accelerate my development and acquire a point of contact with the Creator from within my broken desires, from this entire filthy egoism. That is how I advance. And the more “sinners” that become revealed in me, the better. I am very happy about it because through them I will be able to advance even more!

I only wish to have enough strength to endure in the face of suffering so I won’t run away, or so I won’t sit with my hands folded in my lap and eat myself up. Some people become consumed in eating themselves up and don’t think of using these states for the sake of their advancement when so many negative qualities become revealed to them.

The only thing that can help here is endurance, the speed of the changes, and the force of the group, which must influence a person and always awaken him, not letting him remain depressed and empty. Everything depends on how we prepare ourselves and how we help all the others who are in these broken desires.

After all, we all understand what kind of egoism we are in, and we are not afraid because we support one another and try to pull every person out of the swamp. This enables us to advance.

There is still a lot of work ahead of us in order to reveal our common state and the personal state of every person, and to come out of them. However, it is important to underline that these states become revealed to us when a person aspires toward the goal. That is, the goal is never to reveal the evil! My goal is always to try to reveal goodness, bestowal, love, and unification, but on the way there I reveal opposite qualities. To the degree I try to reveal goodness, on the way I reveal all kinds of “sinners” inside of me.

Then I rejoice at their revelation inside of me because in the same direction come prayer and correction, and thus I move forward. The first half of the vessel is the revelation of evil, while the second half is its correction to goodness.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/11 on Prayer

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