New Life 812 – The Jewish Prayer
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

People have always felt insecure and turned to nature’s forces with different requests. A person’s inclination to turn to the upper force is natural and you can already see it in small children.

The proper appeal to the system of nature is called a prayer. A prayer includes self-examination with respect to the plan of the creation; that is, a person’s examination of how he uses his desire in relation to nature. Instead of using everyone for his own benefit, he should use himself for the sake of others, for the sake of the Creator.

When a person turns to the system of nature it is called a prayer. The three daily prayers correlate with the three spiritual phases and they begin as a new egoistic desire enters the system and starts to operate in it. The awakening of a new desire in a person, a corrupt desire, is called evening.

From a spiritual perspective every day begins in the evening when a person refrains from using the new desire that has awakened in him, the morning comes, which means that things become clear with the understanding of how to work with this desire. The phase of working with this desire and the incorporation in the system is called noon.

There is a state in the system of nature called the end of correction, Gmar Tikun, toward which we are advancing. In Gmar Tikun we have to reach a state in which we are connected in one system in absolute love.
From KabTV’s “New Life 812 – The Jewish Prayer,” 1/17/17

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Question: What does a Kabbalist feel when he looks at a letter? What kind of information is carried in it?

Answer: In one of my first books I gave an example of a page from the Prayer Book of Rabbi Shalom Sharabi.

It is possible to see what a Kabbalistic prayer book says, which is how a person can influence the higher management from below so that it will influence him in response. This is a prayer book or instruction manual for the management of the higher system.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/17/16

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Question: You always emphasize the importance of prayer. I think that there isn’t a person who doesn’t pray in one way or another. Humanity has been praying for ages. What is a true prayer?

Answer: This is something we should learn. A prayer should include:

• your current state, the expected future state, and the way to fulfill it;
• turning to a power source, thanks to which you fulfill your request, your prayer, your dream; the One you turn to; and
• how you receive this force, how you fulfill it in practice, and what you will do in order to achieve your goal; what you pray for.

If you don’t follow these steps, you are just like a child crying “I want!” and that’s all. Who will pay attention to that?

If you want to receive the power, the reason, and an accurate wise plan of your development, of attaining the goal, which will not just lead you anywhere, you must plan all of this internally and in advance, and then it will really turn into a prayer. This means that a great deal of work is required before entering a state called prayer.

Question: They say that even a cow mooing in the field is praying.

Answer: Yes, she is praying. Being in a beastly state, she understands what she needs, so she moos strongly since, after all, her udder is full and she needs to be milked. She is suffering.

Question: And what if a person suffers?

Answer: A person should understand what he needs and what he must do in order to get it.

He should understand his next state. We don’t know that. A cow knows exactly what she needs because she is on the animate level and has instinctive desires, while we can feel that only on the level of attainment.

So, in order to discover the right future state and from whom we can demand its fulfillment, we must study the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/31/16

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Question: If there is suffering in life, must I relate every condition to the Creator (and that it is for the best) and then the situation will no longer be felt as bad? How can one constantly hold onto the intention that “There is none else besides Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35)?

Answer: Don’t lose the thought that everything comes from Him. Hold onto that all of the time! And, if you cannot, ask Him for help.
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Question: Why doesn’t the Creator hear a person who cries and asks for His help?

Answer: The Creator doesn’t hear anything. The Creator is a system and it has no feelings toward us.

If we relate to the system properly, we receive what we need from it because our request is correct. But if we don’t relate to the system properly, we get a response that corrects our impact on the system.  We feel it as a negative response that operates in the opposite direction.

Therefore, there is no room for crying, begging, praying, etc. here since it is all empty and meaningless. A prayer is creating the right desire inside you into which the Upper Light, which is all around us, enters. It is only though our correct desire that we can discover it. At the same time, the Creator doesn’t change. He remains the same as He has always been, filling all of reality. Only when we have the right desire do we discover Him inside us.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/19/16

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Question: What is “a prayer for the Creator?”

Answer: To pray for the Creator means to do everything with the purpose of giving Him the opportunity to be revealed within the creatures. This is what He wishes and the reason He created a single desire, i.e., the entire universe.
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From the Convention In Moscow, Day One 5/2/16, Lesson 3

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Question: Can the a person’s life be lengthened if he studies the wisdom of Kabbalah and is particularly concerned about not having enough time to attain spiritual perfection in his lifetime?

Answer: That shows an absolute lack of faith!

First and foremost, one needs to free himself from concerns, because if he is under the control of the Creator, and besides Him there is no force, nobody besides Him, and He is good and benevolent, there is no reason for questions of this kind about what will happen to him in another minute and will he achieve something or not.

The condition, “There is none else beside Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35), the absolute good, completely prevents a person from having all kinds of egoistic questions. He is left with only one single question: How can a person become His associate, helper, guarantor to carry out His will in the world? Because I can implement them because I am in this world. We need to ask for only one thing: for the Creator to dictate His desires to us and that we will bring them to all of humanity. This is the function of a Kabbalist or, if you will, a prophet.

Question: Which is to say, a Kabbalist cannot ask for good health for his relatives and for himself?

Answer: If this is imperative, he can ask, but what is the use if the Creator is responsible for it?

If the Creator did that so that a person will ask Him, then he will ask. In other words, it is up to the person to search and understand why all of this is happening and to request to be directed toward the Light and correction.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 5/15/16

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The only correct prayer is a prayer for the society, meaning for the ten, while the state of a prayer for myself should be crossed out within my “I.”

A person who raises a prayer for his ten becomes its representative and is the first one to be awarded leading the merging with the Creator.

It is precisely the one who, through his ten, can appeal to the Creator that is called a creation, an individual, a human being. The rest of the nine people represent a matrix through which he appeals to the Creator.

The acceleration of spiritual advancement boils down to enlarging the society that can become closer to the prayer. It means that when you raise an appeal, you can take the biggest desires from this society and direct them toward fulfillment, toward the common merging. This can be accomplished through dissemination and education.
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From the Convention In Moscow, Day One 5/2/16, Lesson 3

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Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 7:26: Nor should you bring an abomination into your house, lest you are to be destroyed like it, but you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is to be destroyed.

“Bring into your house” means to bring it into your desires and into your heart. Beware that your mistakes and impure desires won’t become habitual to you. Try to stay above them and to control yourself all the time.

After all, what is the difference between a pure and impure person? Only the intentions are different. He kills, curses, hangs, destroys, burns, and rapes, he does everything that we can imagine as the most terrible acts, but does so only for the benefit of others.

It is unclear. But here we mean that all this is done inside a person over his desires. Naturally, such a person can’t harm others externally; he can’t kill, rob, or rape them.

However, it needs to be said that there are many actions that don’t harm others but with which we allegedly can’t agree. He performs them the same way from both pure and impure sides, but we can’t figure this out. Therefore, Kabbalah is called a hidden wisdom because it talks about things that are not visible to others, about a person’s intentions.

Comment: Let’s say there is an ordinary looking person in front of us, but inside him are wars, violence, and murders.

Answer: Yes, but not only that. Even outwardly he can be very abrupt. The problem is that his internal actions are hidden from others.

Question: For example, you told us that your teacher Rabash once said to you, “I was everything.” And for people around him he looked like an innocent person. Is this what he had in mind?

Answer: Yes. Kabbalists go through absolutely everything within themselves.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/27/16

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Torah, Deuteronomy 6:4: Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one. For example, my name is Michael. So I have to say, “Hear Michael, the Lord, your God, meaning the upper force that controls you, is one and only. Therefore, what you are saying now is said to you, Him speaking within you. What you are wishing at the moment is Him wishing within you. What you are thinking about yourself and Him, and about anyone else is also only Him.

And where are you? You are this point of examination that says that everything in you, apart from the point itself, is the Creator.

And then what is your work? It is to make sure that this point of examination as well is fully connected to the Creator and you will become equal to Him.”

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:5: And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your means.

All my desires, no matter what level they are, how I graduated them, and what qualities and directions they have, I must realize are only in order to demonstrate love for one’s neighbor. And from the love for the neighbor I will come to the love for the Creator. The Creator here is a collection of all my relationships to others.

Therefore it is said, “You shall love the Lord, your God.”

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:6: And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart.

In all my desires, that are called “heart,” will clearly be felt the quality of bestowal and love. It is they who will command the heart.

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:7: And you shall teach them to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

In all my states I must constantly revive the Creator in me, not forgetting that there is no one else besides Him, and He is the quality of love. I must remember it when I “lie down” and when I “rise up,” in bad states and good states, and also in future states that are called “sons.” To “lie down” means to be in a weakened state. To “rise up” and to “walk” means to go forward by the spiritual degrees.

Question: What does it mean “…and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way…?

Answer: “And speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk on the way,” i.e., in the state when I am inside my heart and in the state when I feel that I am exiting it. The heart of a person is called “house.”

“When you walk on the way” is a state when I change my desires all the time, correct them, and rise above them. They appear in me, but I am not a master of this. I must constantly have only one idea, one goal, and one basis of existence: everything that happens to me comes from the Creator.

I am in absolute connection with Him, no matter what happens to me, even if I am in a catastrophic condition! After all, it comes to me so I will find absolute connection with the Creator in it.

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:8: And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for ornaments between your eyes.

It means to tie a “knot in the memory” (Tefillin – phylacteries) on the left hand that is connected to the heart. And Tefillin on the head should be “between your eyes” so that words will remain in the heart and in the mind.

Everything that relates to the heart is the level of Bina. Eyes are the level of Hochma. It means that the Creator will always control your desires and thoughts so they will be directed through two Lights, Hassadim and Hochma.

Question: If I tie a knot on the hand and a knot between the eyes, does it mean that I connect Bina and Hochma?

Answer: It is not just a knot. In the upper form there is a connection between the desire and the Light, creature and the Creator, in it. I want such a connection so it will spread now in my heart and in my mind.

Torah, Deuteronomy 6:9: And you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.

Gates and doorposts are an entry to yourself and an exit from yourself, when you exit into new desires that are not yet developed and corrected by you, and then you enter back, i.e., place them inside yourself. In both cases you must constantly control and check yourself that you are filled only by the Light of bestowal and love.

You must always be with the Creator, with the Light of correction that acts on all four levels of desire, Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey. Therefore, in both the Mezuzah and Tefillin are four so-called texts, i.e., four qualities.

The prayer “Shema Israel” – (“Hear, O Israel”) became the main prayer of Israel. There is nothing except it. All other prayers are as though additions, expansions for various special cases.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/30/16

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