Chapter 8. Prayer, Request and Aim
The Meaning of Prayer
Q: What does a prayer mean from the perspective of Kabbalah and for you personally? Do you pray and observe Mitzvot like any other rabbi?
A: Kabbalah answers the question about the meaning of life, not about the meaning of Mitzvot and prayers. A prayer is a desire one feels in one’s heart; it is what one wishes for.
Perhaps one is dreaming about a vacation or asks for rain - then that is the prayer, what one asks of the Creator. Kabbalah teaches how to tune one’s heart for correct desires, for those prayers will lead to the feeling of the spiritual world, the Creator. Everything that leads to a true request for the Creator is called Mitzva (commandment).
So you tell me, who else apart from Kabbalists truly observes the commandments and genuinely prays?
Method to a Choice
Q: You say that there is a law that rules nature and man harshly, and that the Source of that law is a mighty Force called the Creator. In difficult moments I turn to Him, but I feel that if I want to change something in my life, it means that I disagree with His Actions, that I am not grateful to Him. What is the actual cry of the soul, the one the Creator listens to and answers?
A: You’re right. The one law of creation is what we call “the Creator.” Unlike ordinary scientists, Kabbalists feel that which we cannot, and study the system of creation, having developed an extra sense. That is why they can also tell that the Force that leads everything is rich with emotions, and not that nature is indifferent, as it sometimes appears to us.
But that power has an unchanging aim: to bring the entire system of creation to perfection. As a result, He acts on anything that is not in that state of perfection, and pushes it toward perfection. That process works equally on all parts of creation, and we feel it as pain and agony.
One can compare this to the pressure that parents put on their child out of the sheer desire for the happiness of the child. But while still growing and developing, the child feels their pressure as pain. As soon as the child attains the proper attributes, the pressure disappears, and the child is happy and grateful.
From His Perspective, everything in reality is already as perfect as can be. Yet, as long as we are not perfect, His Guidance cannot be felt as perfect. The Creator formed our initial corrupted situation deliberately, so as to give us a chance to choose perfection as something desirable and attain it by ourselves. How? Through the method called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.”
Nature did not grant us the power to change ourselves. That is why we need not ask Him to change His Guidance, but to change us, so that we can feel His Perfect Guidance. The only form of progress that exists is in turning to the Upper Force for help. When we turn to this Force, we do not break His Law. On the contrary, we perform the one action we can perform.
But the cry must come out of a clear awareness of what it is we’re asking for – is it for myself, in order to satisfy my desires in this world, or is it a cry for spiritual ascent? We now pray to Him because we feel bad, out of an egoistic motivation, and wish to feel good.
To answer your question: Do you condemn His Complete Guidance by that cry? Of course you do!
But the question is, what does your heart feel? It doesn’t matter if you cry or scream or stay silent. The Creator feels what’s in the heart long before we do. When we ask to change us not because we feel bad, but because we suffer from cursing the Creator in our hearts, that is already a request that is not self-oriented, “for me,” but is a true prayer for Him. To such a request the Creator responds at once! After that you can begin to look at a prayer book…
How Can One Discover the Creator?
Q: I can’t ask for myself, much less know, how to ask for the sake of the Creator! Even my suffering seems to be partial. How can I discover the Creator? By waiting for more suffering?
A: Man will certainly never ask the Creator for correction without feeling the need to do so. We see how people pray to God, asking for various things. But that is not the request for correction we speak of, not the prayer, as we understand it. A prayer is a certain desire for correction of one’s properties for reaching the Creator for His Sake.
We arrive at this kind of prayer very slowly, over years. First, we must cultivate it within ourselves. Man originally has the desires of this world, then for the Higher One, for the Creator, directed more and more towards the goal. Man himself constantly changes the definition of the Creator, the goal, and the correction.
Based on the new understanding, man’s prayer becomes oriented differently. As soon as man fully understands the goal, it is reached—the prayer bears fruit and man rises to the Creator. Aspire for it.
Aspirations to Be Like the Creator
Q: What is a prayer?
A: If a person speaks from the heart, then every call to the Creator is new, even though the words are the same. Since the heart has changed, the prayer becomes so new that sometimes the same words seem strange to the supplicant.
We speak not about the Creator but of how we understand His Properties. Hence our notions constantly change. By “our notions,” I mean the ideas belonging to those who work on inner corrections and aspire to be like the Creator.
The feelings in our hearts are the prayer. But the most powerful prayer, as Baal HaSulam writes, is the feeling in one’s heart during the study, the yearning to understand the material, meaning to match it with one’s own properties.
What to Ask?
Q: A person encounters quite a few obstacles in the course of one’s spiritual work. What should one ask for in those situations?
A: Ask for whatever you can ask, anything your mind will let you reach—and the Creator will give you everything, meaning everything that is needed for the attainment of the invocator. Most important, it must be a correct request. One never knows how to act when seeking spiritual truth, but if one wants to grow spiritually, the Creator gives the seeker all that is necessary.
The Heart is Grateful
Q: How should I thank the Creator?
A: The heart is grateful in response to the sensation of the fulfillment of the desire to enjoy -- the essence of creation, its innermost attribute. That response appears naturally in the heart, even before it is conceived by the mind, prior to any conscious analysis of what is happening.
Therefore, there is no place for the question, “How should I thank the Creator?” If there is such a question, then it is alone an expression of gratitude. It is received and accepted by the Creator directly from the bottom of the heart, even before a person processes it mentally.
The question that should be asked is, “How do I come to the state of thanking the Creator?” That state is acquired primarily by experiencing unpleasant situations: lack of faith, lack of confidence, and confusion regarding the Creator. Those feelings are very unpleasant and are typically accompanied by severe descents.
Later on, the sensation of the Creator appears above these as a sensation of wholeness and confidence in the purpose of creation. All the complete and positive feelings are accepted and assessed from within the opposite feelings that preceded them. One who walks shall conquer!
The Aim of the Heart
Q: What is the role of the “aim” in creation?
A: The aim is the one thing that the creature acquires in addition to the desire to delight in the Creator. The Creator made the creature with an inherent desire to delight in Him, in His Light. The creature feels only one thing: the absence or the presence of this pleasure. It doesn’t even feel itself, but only the pleasure and its quantity and quality.
The reason is that one can only feel oneself relative to something opposite the self. Therefore, the creature cannot develop from a sensation of pleasure alone. Such a feeling exists in the still, the vegetative and the animate (including the animate human being).
The ability to sense the Creator is what differentiates man from other forms of creation. It would be more correct to say that one who feels the Creator is called “Man.” In the language of the Kabbalah, Man is the vessel that feels not only the pleasure, but also the source of the pleasure. It is necessary to develop the will to this extent because the still, the vegetative and the animate are different to one another only in the measure of their will to receive.
The measure of the desire causes changes in its quality. The will to receive (that is, beyond the still) brings life with it. A greater will to enjoy creates animals and brings about movement in order to search for the pleasure, the feeling of the self as an individual entity.
Pleasure is possible only on the border between two opposing sensations. The sensation of oppositeness between creature and Creator creates the aim in man. A creature is a desire to enjoy. Only the aim allows for two situations: the aim “for me,” which is the corporeal state; and the aim “for the Creator,” which is the spiritual state, because in that man becomes similar to the Creator.
An aim “for the Creator” is the one thing we need to acquire from the Creator, the Light. The aim leads us to the purpose of creation and makes us equal to Him. Because of that, the Kabbalah is the “wisdom of the aim.”
The Aim -- a Spiritual Act
Q: Does a physical act in this world change anything in the spiritual world?
A: The physical act by itself does not make a difference in the Upper World! It is said that an act with no intent is like a body without a soul, and therefore it is regarded as a “dead” act -- denied of the spiritual intent “for the Creator.” But the aim comes gradually, according to one’s progress in the study of Kabbalah.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is about intents, about how to turn one’s heart to the Upper World. If a person begins studies and cannot add the right intent “for the Creator,” that time is called “not for Her name,” not for the Creator, meaning that at that time the student’s actions are all for self.
But if a person does nothing in order to develop one’s aims, then the person is not even working “not for Her name,” but is simply performing a lifeless act. However, the person should not stop doing it, because at some point the aim “not for Her name” will come, and ”for Her name” will follow. Physical acts are always justified, but you have to aspire not to be limited by them.
The Work of the Heart
Q: Is every blessing uttered a vessel that is built and rises upward and takes in a certain amount of Light? Does this also happen with a prayer from the bottom of the heart?
A: A person cannot feel one’s heart or one’s true situation. It is originally concealed from us, and revealed only gradually, according to our ability to correct our original desires. It is very easy to open a prayer book and read from it, but it is very difficult to attain the situation whereby the feelings in one’s heart will match the written word; when the heart will recognize and live by the words as the veritable truth.
When we study Kabbalah, we extend illumination from the Upper Light. As a result, we begin to feel worse and our spirits drop. But we must understand that this is a state of correction; otherwise we would not have been shown from Above that we are evil. We still don’t feel ourselves as evil, and we are not in a state of the “recognition of evil” within us.
That is why we still think that we are blessing the Creator with a hundred blessings when we pronounce the prayer. Note that it is perfectly alright for now, because otherwise we would stop praying altogether.
But if we begin to study Kabbalah, we will see our true situation, which is characterized by the words “prayer is the work of the heart,” meaning that prayer involves working with the desires of the heart and correcting them. At that time we will begin to understand the true meaning of the words we are saying, and we will know what we have to do.
It will be clear that prayer is the work on the screen over our nature. Only the corrected heart, which feels its two extreme situations--the original condition when it was distanced from the Creator, and its present one, when it is filled with the Creator --only such a heart can feel the blessing of the Creator and bless Him.
Q: If prayer is an inner feeling, what are words for?
A: Your sensation during the study-about yourself and the Creator - is your most honest prayer! That is what the Rabbi of Kotzk wrote in the book, Yosher Divrey Emet (Honesty and Words of Truth). That is why you do not need the proper prayer texts. The most correct thing is how you feel about the Creator.
The texts are needed in order to examine how far off we are from the complete correction. Reading in the prayer book is a study about the link between man and the Creator, the giver of the Torah. A prayer is the work of the heart! You will discern how far the words are from the prayers according to your progress.
Your understanding of the interpretation of the terms of Kabbalah will deepen according to the extent of the new feelings that will arise within you. (For example, you will see that “Pharaoh” is the uncorrected characteristics of man; that “exile” is when one is distanced from the spiritual world; that “freedom” is the liberation from the authority of your own nature, and so on).
You will be able to see that all the prayers in the prayer book and Psalms were written by people who went through those situations, meaning by Kabbalists in high spiritual degrees. That is why we, too, on our own spiritual level can use those prayers as a handy expression of our thoughts and desires.
The Work of the Mind
Q: What is the reaction of the mind to prayer?
A: A prayer is the work of the heart, but the mind does not always agree with that sensation. For example: a person has to pass a very important and difficult test, and it terrifies him. His whole being may cry, “I don’t want that test!” But the mind helps him understand how important it is to pass the test. Therefore, he turns to the Creator with a conscious request to take the test and pass it.
Q: Can we change our feelings with our mind?
A: The mind can help us decide whether or not to make the effort. We can influence it, convince it to obey us. Ultimately, we will make the effort and from Above we will be given new desires and emotions.
Feelings are what I experience in my will. The mind complements, corrects, evaluates and assesses the feelings, and that is why it can change one’s attitude toward them. Therefore, all the things that affect the mind -- friends, group and teacher -- are what determine one’s future. Study the articles of Rabbi Baruch Ashlag about the group.
Kabbalah teaches how to change the way we relate to our feelings so that “true” and “false” will have the power over us, instead of “bitter” and “sweet."
Pleading for Correction
Q: What inner work is done through prayer?
A: A prayer is the request of the lower one for correction, and ascent of the desire to be corrected from the lower to the Upper Partzuf (raising MAN). If the lower one knows what to ask for, knows exactly what it wants, what it wants to be (meaning that inside there is already a sufficiently tormented desire, and only that desire), at that point the Upper One responds and the lower one rises.
This process involves all the worlds, Partzufim and Sefirot from our world (the situation we are in right now) through the world of Ein Sof (infinity; the situation you cannot feel), although you are just as much in it as in our world. This is the total completeness, attainment and satisfaction.
A Contradictory Request
Q: On the one hand, we want to draw away from our own natures and into ourselves. On the other hand, we ask the Creator to bring us near to Him -- a move intended to serve our immense desire to enjoy. Is that not hypocrisy?
A: The answer to a plea of the Creator is the answer of man to himself. Others cannot see inside him, and that is why Kabbalah is called “The Wisdom of the Hidden.”
The test and the proof that one has been answered by the Creator, has equalized with Him and entered the spiritual world, is only in the actual sensation of the Creator, of the Light, of equality and unity. That sensation is always intimate and personal, and it is impossible to convey it to a person who does not feel it. That is why the saying goes, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
As long as one has not acquired a screen and has not felt the inner Light of the Partzuf, called Taamim (flavors), one thinks that one is not drawing away from one’s nature, but rather falls deeper in to it.
Because the Light of the Creator influences one to a greater extent, one regards the remaining attributes (that are yet unchanged) as worse. Thus, one thinks that it is not the Light that is stronger, but that he himself is changing for the worse. But while every step of the way seems to indicate one’s situation is worsening, he who walks the road will see its end.
Multiple Requests
Q: What request does the Creator answer when He brings one into the spiritual world: a request for Light, or a request to resemble Him?
A: You have to choose within you all the possible requests, and only after that will you understand which request is the one that comes from you, which request is regarded as such by the Creator, and which might evolve to become mutual to the both of you. The understanding of the prayer is the search and analysis of the meaning of the universe.
After all, the universe consists of a single thought, a single aim and a single request. There is nothing more that I can tell you about it, it is the language of the feelings. You have to study that language by yourself.
Preparing the Heart
Q: If I spot a negative quality in me, and I suffer from the fact that it is in me, do I have to ask with all my might of the Creator to help me correct it, or is it better to try to ignore that characteristic because “one is where one’s thoughts are,” and think only of the greatness of the Creator, about how everything comes from Him, including that characteristic, and try to see His Guidance in everything?
A: “He created me this way, so why should I correct myself?” The Creator created man opposite to Him in order for man to yearn to be like Him, precisely from that opposite situation. That is the purpose of all requests. Therefore, we should praise the Creator, knowing in our hearts that the attribute of the Creator is the most exalted and perfect.
But if all we do is cry for our misfortune without forming any clear decision that we must be like the Creator at least in something, then our pleas are only for ourselves, regardless of the purpose of creation.
However, man cannot determine what his requests of the Creator will be, or praise the Creator independently, because such requests are directly extended from within, from the heart, even before one knows their meaning. Therefore, praying means preparing oneself to justify any feeling, because only through such a preparation will the reaction that follows be determined.
Man’s effort is required so that the right attitude to the attributes and characteristics of the Creator will consciously and purposely formulate in him, so that he will want to cleave to the Creator. Man is not the Creator, and cannot change anything within him. All he can do is prepare self to want to change. That is the prayer.
Prayer - Ascent to the Upper World
Q: Is there anything in our world that can affect the Upper World, or raise a person to it?
A: Everything begins in the Upper World and then comes down to ours. Our mechanical movements, as well as everything that happens in nature, have no effect on the Upper World, because our world is merely a consequence of it, meaning it follows the commandments of the Guidance that comes from Above.
Anything that happens here in this world is a consequence of forces, commandments and influences that descend from Above.
The only things that rise from our world to the Upper One are the desires of man that come from the bottom of his heart. Only they evoke responses in the Upper World. That is how they influence it.
As a result, they also influence what comes down to us. The desires of a person that come from the bottom of the heart are called “prayer.”
All of man’s desires, without exception, are divided according to their aim into desires “for myself” and desires “for the Creator.” The Creator determines man’s desires and we cannot change them, because the Creator wants us to correct them. When speaking about the correction of desires, the idea is not to change the desire itself, or to suppress it, but to change the preliminary aim from “for me” into the desired aim, “for the Creator.”
The Superior Management exists for that sole purpose – to constantly fuel us with desires so we can slowly digest them and come to realize that they need to be corrected. All spiritual acts are actually corrections of the intent of our desires. In order to delight in the Creator, in His Light, we should change our aim from “for me” (in order to receive) to “for the Creator” (in order to bestow).
Intensity of Thought
Q: It is very difficult to constantly maintain thoughts about the Creator. You can go on trying for a hundred years…
A: You may feel as though nothing is happening, or that your situation doesn’t change. But in reality, if time passes, you have gone through something, because at any given moment there are changes in you.
When the aim is to overcome some part of your preliminary desire to enjoy for yourself, and correct its use, it can only do you good to be immersed in thoughts about the Creator.
Q: It is written: “Know now before Whom you stand” – but when you remember, it happens without your control. Is there a practical way to remember before Whom I stand?
A: You are reminded of the Creator to the extent that you make inner observations, although they are still not in your consciousness. You can speed up the process only through intensity of thought, by reading the essays of Rabbi Baruch Ashlag and the writings of Baal HaSulam.
However, I would note here that your questions already testify to your progress.
Q: What is “intensity of thought” and how do I acquire it?
A: Intensity of thought and power of thought are actually determined by the time you are connected in your thoughts with the object of contemplation. You acquire that by practice, by trying to keep your thoughts impregnable despite disturbances. You must go through all of this yourself, as there is none as wise as the experienced. Kabbalah is a practical method that a person must experience oneself.