241. Call Upon Him When He Is Near

“Call you upon Him when He is near” (Isaiah 55:6). We must understand what “when He is near” means since “The whole earth is full of His glory”! Thus, He is always near, so what does “when He is near” mean? It would seem that there is a time when He is not near.

The thing is that states are always evaluated with respect to the attaining and feeling individual. If one does not feel His nearness, then nothing will come out of it, as everything is measured according to one’s feeling. One person may feel the world as filled with abundance, and the other will not feel the goodness of the world, so he cannot say that there is a good world. Instead, he states as he feels—that the world is filled with suffering.

And the prophet warns about that: “Call you upon Him when He is near.” He comes and says, “Know that the fact that you are calling on the Creator is because He is near.” It means that now you have an opportunity. If you pay attention, you will feel that the Creator is near you; it is a sign of the Creator’s nearness.

The evidence of this is that we must know that man is not naturally qualified for Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator since it is against man’s nature. By creation, man has only a desire to receive, while Dvekut is only to bestow. However, as the Creator calls upon man, it creates a second nature within him where he wants to revoke his own nature and adhere to Him.

Hence, one should know that his speaking words of Torah and prayer is only from the Creator. He should never think of saying that it is “My power and the might of my hand,” since it is the complete opposite of his might. This is similar to one who is lost in a dense forest and sees no way out of it to an inhabited place, so he remains despaired and thinks that he will never return to his home. But when he sees a person from afar or hears a human voice, the desire and the craving to return to his origin will immediately awaken in him, and he will begin to shout and ask of someone to come and save him.

Likewise, one who has lost the good way and entered a bad place, and has already accustomed himself to live among beasts, for the part of the will to receive, it will never occur to him that he should return to a place of reason of Kedusha [holiness]. Yet, when he hears the voice calling him, he awakens to repent.

But this is the voice of the Creator, not his own voice. But if he has not completed his actions on the path of correction, he cannot feel or believe that this is the voice of the Creator, and he thinks that it is his power and the might of his hand. This is what the prophet warns about, that one should overcome one’s view and thought, and believe with complete faith that it is the voice of the Creator.

Hence, when the Creator wishes to bring him out of the dense forest, He shows him a light from afar, and the person gathers and musters the remains of his strength to walk on the path that the light shows him in order to obtain it.

But if he does not attribute the light to the Creator and does not say that the Creator is calling him, the light disappears from him and he remains standing in the forest. Thus, he could have now shown his whole heart to the Creator, to come and save him from the bad place, from the will to receive, and bring him to a place of reason, called a place of the sons of Adam (people), as in Adameh la Elyon [I will be like the Most High], meaning the desire to bestow, in Dvekut. Instead, he does not use this opportunity and remains once more as before.