The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Part 2: A Prayer Lishma - Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #1.

Reader: We are reading selected excerpts from our sources on the topic of Prayer for Lishma. Number one, Baal HaSulam writes in Shamati.

Reading: (0:11) The need for man’s work in order to receive the Lishma from the Creator is only in the form of a lack and a Kli [vessel]. Yet, one can never obtain the filling by himself; it is rather a gift from the Creator.

However, the prayer must be a complete prayer, from the bottom of the heart. This means that one knows one hundred percent that there is no one in the world who can help him but the Creator Himself.

Yet, how does one know this, that no one will help him but the Creator Himself? One can acquire that awareness precisely if he has exerted all the powers at his disposal and it did not help him. Thus, one must do every possible thing in the world to attain “for the sake of the Creator.” Then one can pray from the bottom of the heart, and then the Creator hears his prayer.

M. Laitman: Questions please.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:12) He writes that a person invested his forces, and it didn't help. If we see the state of what happened yesterday, and we have PT3 here. So, our friend that was with us for 27 years and invested all his forces, it didn't help him, and he left. So, the response from the Ten, what's in our hands to do? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. I'm not in that society. I didn't hear about it. I have no answer, no response.

Student: The platoon didn't notice that a soldier is gone, and the train kept going. Is that a healthy attitude on our behalf? 

M. Laitman: I don't know to what extent this relationship is correct relationships, but this is what we have.

Student: So, what's our duty now on our behalf? 

M. Laitman: Your role is, you should know what your role is. To unite among you, to accept the people at the center of this event, to take them into your circle and work on them so as to connect, unite correctly. 

Student: To pretend nothing is happening and everything is okay would not be a very good way to deal with it. 

M. Laitman: No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the opposite. You do need to do. 

Student: Is it action from the whole group, or is it only PT3's job in that table, and we shouldn't get into that? 

M. Laitman: Everyone. Everyone, and then all of you will learn from this incident so that it doesn't repeat itself.

Reader: Maybe we should read it again? 

M. Laitman: Again? Read.

Reader: Baal HaSulam writes in Shamati 

M. Laitman: Are there any more questions?  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:58) He writes that I need to do the maximum efforts on my behalf, and then I can be rewarded with a gift. On the other hand, it's not in my vessels to measure this. I need to reach a gift, and at some point it's decided from above whether I get it or not. So, why do I need to reach the maximum efforts every time? Why is that the demand if anyway it's decided from above? 

M. Laitman: Did you hear what he said? Do you understand what he said? Do you want to ask about it? Yes, Gilad.

Student: He is asking if anyway it's decided from above when and how a person gets an answer. So, supposedly it seems that all this exertion on man's behalf, he can exert and exert, and until it's not decided from above to be given to him, it won't be given. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: That's how I understand this question.

M. Laitman: Okay, yes. What do you want us to do? Take a vote? 

Student: No, you asked what he... 

M. Laitman: Let's raise your hands, all those who think that Gilad is right. Oh. Five people out of the whole, out of everyone. Okay.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (9:01) I want to ask about the excerpt. There are a lot of conditions for the Creator to hear me. To invest all my forces in the world. A prayer from the bottom of the heart, and only then He hears the prayer. I thought the Creator hears everybody's prayers, in any state, in any condition?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: He puts a lot of conditions to hear the prayer. 

M. Laitman: Ah, yes. So what do we do? 

Student: What's a whole prayer? 

M. Laitman: For the sake of the Creator, 

Student: Why is my simple prayer a desire, a tendency? Even if I don't understand what I want, I have this tiny tendency.

M. Laitman: You still don't understand what you want. This is why you're not getting an answer. 

Student: And I have to reach what state? That I know everything for sure? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: He won't bring me to this, because he says that the fulfilling is a gift from the Creator. And the vessel? 

M. Laitman: The vessel too. 

Student: So everything comes from Him. Also the vessel, also the light, it's all a gift.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And from me? 

M. Laitman: From you, the demand depends on you. 

Student: And the demand has to be very precise.

M. Laitman: Well, as much as you can. 

Student: But I see that it's not enough. 

M. Laitman: Keep going.

Student: In what condition does the Creator hear my prayer? Does he receive it? 

M. Laitman: He hears a prayer that comes from a person's bottom of the heart. And he wants by this to reach the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:40) This point, the bottom of the heart, that a person reaches, it's critical. There's also an article where he says that a person runs from the exile and loses his mind there, or he feels the exile and works with it.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Like, two people reach that point, one leaves, comes out of the exile, and one runs from it, and just loses himself. So, what did that one do right and the other one didn't? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. We have to research. The best is to ask the Creator. 

Student: It's as if two reach despair. You see this black will to receive. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: One agrees that he just isn't suitable for spirituality, and the other cries.

M. Laitman: Yes, and then what? 

Student: So why did this one run away, and this one reach the right state? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. This is from above.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:10) We read that everything depends on the environment. And here he writes that there's no one who can help except for the Creator himself.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Is it two different paths? How to connect that? 

M. Laitman: Why different paths? 

Student: Because if everything depends on the environment, a person is in the environment, develops, and everything is up to the environment. But if eventually he reaches a state that it all depends on the Creator, so it seems that it's like two different things.

M. Laitman: So, the question is? 

Student: The question is... Is it only through the environment you can reach this state or will the state come anyway? I don't really know how to ask this. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:28) The Creator does everything, that's what he writes. And what's given to me is to reach a deep prayer. But until the prayer comes, I feel that what I'm supposed to do is just agree with what the Creator is doing to me. Through the society, through the Rav, through the Ten, through everything. How to hold on to this agreement. Because inside a lot of struggles come. So, how to hold on to that agreement?

M. Laitman: Probably through the environment, the society, through the friends. Through connection with them. 

Student: You just heard that a friend after 27 years left.

M. Laitman: I don't know what friend, there are many like that. Do you believe me that I too have some experience? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Well, so... What do you want all the time? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:48) I have one question. How do you cleanse the temple? 

M. Laitman: When the time comes, it will be cleansed. 

Student: Thank you, I got your answer.

M. Laitman: Good.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:15) A person has a desire that he got. How does he turn that desire into a prayer? 

M. Laitman: What's the difference between a desire and a prayer? 

Student: It seems that there is a difference, because not every desire gets realized, but a prayer from the heart, a whole prayer, does get realized.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So how do you turn the desire that awakens in you, that you want Lishma, for instance, how do you make it a true prayer? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. The defficiency for it is already very big.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:10) How does a person reach the feeling that he did all the deeds that can be in the world? You always feel that you can add more exertion. 

M. Laitman: Of course. 

Student: So, what's that feeling that I did everything and that I'm worthy for a complete prayer? 

M. Laitman: Even when you do come to it, sometimes, then you ask, what's next? Is that it? Where is the goal that I want to achieve? Etc. In short, a person sees that he didn't do sufficient labor in quantity and quality. 

Student: So, what is the state that he did all the deeds in the world? Is there such a state that a person feels that he did everything? 

M. Laitman: You can ask. I'm sure several people will tell you they did everything.

Question (Moscow 7): (18:38) We just read about my prayer to the Creator, my personal prayer. But we have an option to put together a prayer from the Ten. We do it at the end of every lesson. And yesterday, we scrutinized what the purpose of that prayer is. Every friend valued it a bit differently. Meaning, there isn't the common understanding on how our prayer should be. After what we just read, it's felt that we have to do all the deeds, but we do them artificially. Maybe in order to reach this point, let it all end. I wanted to scrutinize with you what is the role of a common prayer that is kind of dry and tasteless. 

M. Laitman: In the end, we have to come to a prayer for all of us to be incorporated together. All of us will be incorporated together. Where is the translation? 

Reader: He has the translation. He hears Russian. 

M. Laitman: Okay. And that's it. This is what we need. 

Question (Hadera 1): (20:30) The Creator hears every prayer. The doubt is with us. Now, there could be a doubt in the exertion I have invested, or a doubt in my true desire to get an answer for my prayer. Which one of those doubts rejects the answer of the prayer more? 

M. Laitman: This you need to scrutinize.

Question (Woman PT 38): (21:43) How can we help each other to reach the point that the prayer will be accepted, that it will rise to the heavens? 

M. Laitman: By supporting each other and being incorporated with each other in their request, in their prayer. And then we raise our prayer more, and more, and more, higher, and higher, and higher. 

Student: So the matter is to reach a sufficient prayer, that's what we need? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How? 

M. Laitman: By being incorporated with each other. 

Question (PT17): (23:06) He writes that if he makes all the efforts, he reaches the knowledge that it came from the Creator. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: That's a kind of a connection already. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So what else should he pray for? 

M. Laitman: For what he wanted before.

Student: He wanted to bestow to the Creator, to the friends. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So now he has the forces for it? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Okay, good. 

Question (Women Turkey 7): (24:06) When a person does all the efforts to pray, there's still hope. And there's a hope that it will be implemented, but then there's a dilemma. At one stage a person has to reach a state where he's despaired from his own forces, and then he doesn't have enough forces to keep praying. So the question is, does that weaken him? Because when he doesn't see an answer, it makes him weaker and weaker. So, how in that way to build the prayer correctly? Supposedly what Baal HaSulam writes is to reach a state of despair. On the other hand, he hopes he will get an answer, so it gives him the forces to keep asking. So how to keep asking when you know that the only way is to reach despair? 

M. Laitman: Only to ask. This is the answer. And not alone, but to try to connect to the society. Because the society has the same requests, and then we incorporate it in them, and as much as possible to be at the center of that society. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:40) About the excerpts of Lishma, there's a certain state that a person, maybe it's a delicacy of his soul, he recognizes the gap between what he feels towards his friends to the desired state that he should adhere to them. When he reaches that recognition of the gap, here a prayer can come out. And he understands that only the Creator can help, like he writes. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Question. So how to implement it, that we really reach despair, to pay attention to this gap, because the gap is in front of our eyes all the time. So, what do you recommend to work on this gap?

M. Laitman: To work on this gap, we need also through prayer, how else? You have nothing else but prayer. A plea to the Creator, that has to cover all problems. The understanding, the feeling, the... whatever you want. 

Student: So, what you're saying, Rav, is that the conditions for the prayer is basically to shoot in the air until something catches. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:50) To continue friend’s question, what feeling does a person want from his prayer? 

M. Laitman: Whatever a person wants, you're asking me? 

Student: Let's say that we pray. For, as we just said, for the deficiency, the gap always exists. It's very difficult to pray. Many times it feels like it really doesn't exist. We work in the group, we unite, but there's no connection with some force above, so there's a gap. It's always there. Now, we pray to reach Lishma, to reach adhesion with this force that operates on us, just like we said, with this relation. But where's the filling? It feels like we are praying, and I feel like the purpose of the prayer itself is not to reach the filling but to have some connection with above. Or am I wrong? I don't know. 

M. Laitman: Okay, and so why is it bothering you? 

Student: What bothers me is that I don't know what I want from my prayer, if I even want. What's missing? I mean, I know what I'm lacking, but there's no filling here. It's only from below. It's like we keep asking and asking, but there's no filling. I don't know. 

M. Laitman: So you have to reach a state that you are constantly feeling that the Creator is relating to you, and speaking to you, and changing your desires, and filling them, and you, on your behalf, have to ask for Him. So Him towards you, and you to Him, and constantly in this way, you connect. That's it. And try in this, to see what He wants from you, and what you want from Him. 

Student: It's hard to believe what I feel. It's hard. I can't say that I connect to the Creator. Maybe I only think this way, because I rely more on the friends. I rely on sitting and workshopping with them, and from their feeling, I get closer to the Creator. That's my situation. If I think something on my own, I feel like it's not real connection with the Creator. I mean, I can. The Creator always gives states. We go through stuff, and we do pray. And we also feel that it's some sort of correction that we go through in life. But the real connection is really when we build a vessel. We build our vessel as a Ten. That's the real connection. When we feel that here, each one in my Ten wants to come closer to the Creator, there I do feel it. I feel like there's something here. There's a real connection with the Creator above. But myself, what the Creator wants from me, I can't trust myself. I trust more on what the friends tell me.

M. Laitman: And what you think about that? Let's say that they say, and you feel something else. So you follow your own line, or you go towards their line? 

Student: In general, if I feel like I am against what the friends are saying, and it's obvious that this happens, I know it's something in my will to receive things and not that they are wrong. That's the situation. As we learn, not to trust on yourself on the path but only on the group, on what the Kabbalists are giving. 

M. Laitman: Okay. Soon it will change.

Student: I’m sorry, I just wanted…I want something in life, you know, I want to come closer, I want Lishma. But it's unpleasant for me that He doesn't satisfy, it's unpleasant. It's difficult. It's very difficult that He doesn't satisfy the deficiency. Very difficult. Because I can see it. I can see it and say everything's okay, everything's beautiful. But it's missing, the bestowal is missing, the Lishma is missing.

M. Laitman: You still didn't reach that limit. The cup hasn't been filled, meaning your vessel still doesn't feel the right emptiness. But it'll come soon. Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:45) What forces does a person have to invest? He says a person has to make every effort. So what effort does a person… what forces does a person have? 

M. Laitman: What's in a person? What forces? 

Student: Yes, he says a person has to make every effort. What efforts can a person make? 

M. Laitman: A force of reception and a force of bestowal. 

Student: But in the end he discovers that only the Creator can help him, so he has no strength. And that's the immediate conclusion. 

M. Laitman: Yes. He tries to work with the forces that are on his behalf, and he sees that definitely there isn't something that is revealing the Creator.

Student: So, what stops me from agreeing that I have no strength? I have no strength, and I think along the way we understand that we have no strength. But we still can't reach a complete prayer. The right deficiency for Lishma is still not organized there. It's like that friend asked before, this gap. And then you say, okay, I'll try again. But you already know that you don't have the strength. And still you can't come to this complete prayer, the prayer from the bottom of the heart. 

M. Laitman: Yes. You're right. We have to go through this state too. 

Student: It's not a simple state to remain in because you're really hanging between heaven and earth in that state. 

M. Laitman: Get used to it.

Student: You get used to it? 

M. Laitman:  Yes. 

Student: I don't want to get used to it.

M. Laitman: No, you demand forces to rise to the heavens. But in the meantime, you are thrown to the ground. And in between, you feel it. 

Student: And is this the only way to advance until the end of correction, in these states where you constantly go through this? 

M. Laitman: No, no, no, that's just for now. Just for now.  

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:29) After all the friends' questions, I wanted to ask, what are we actually missing in the society here in order to master the strength, the willpower, which we all feel we're lacking? So what is the point, that is, why is the feeling that we don't have the strength to make the move and break into spirituality? 

M. Laitman: Lacking the forces of connection. 

Student: Why are we lacking the forces of connection? What's the problem? 

M. Laitman: You don't want to connect with one another.

Student: We're not making enough efforts for this? Is that it? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: But that's all we do all day. Well, not only this, of course, but well, maybe that's the problem. But still, what do we do with this? I feel like I don't have the strength to demand, to ask.

M. Laitman: Listen, speak about it between you and reach a conclusion. What do you need in order to reach in order to bestow? That's it. What do you need? 

Student: The feeling is that there's a desire to have a desire, but the real desire still isn't there, to devotion, to work.

M. Laitman: So keep going. 

Student: Well, it's clear that we'll continue, but well, okay. 

M. Laitman: Keep going with your mutual forces in one force. And in this way, you will reach it. Okay, good. The prayers of Israel have ceased. Okay, what do you recommend? 

Reader: About what you just said, that we will speak among ourselves now. In the program, we have reading TES. We have not many minutes left, so maybe we should talk among ourselves about the whole lesson we received from you and what you just said now.

M. Laitman: Please

Reader: So let's speak among ourselves now and reach a conclusion. What we must do in order to reach, in order to bestow. What must we do in order to reach the intention to bestow? What must we do in order to reach the intention to bestow?