Afternoon Lesson June 25, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Lesson on the topic of “Preparation for the Prayer”
1. Rav’s Introduction: (00:22) We already spoke a lot, many times that the prayer is the main thing that is demanded of us since by the prayer we can speed up our development and to quickly reach that appeal to the Creator and in that way to reach our correction our rise until the end of correction, so basically to form a prayer is the most important thing that's in front of us. So let's see what else our teachers write about it.
Reading Lesson on the topic of “Preparation for the Prayer” (01:09)
2. R. (01:55) This is truly really important things that you fix your faith in us in our hearts forever and that your faith be tied to our hearts as a stake that will not fall, that we need all the time go with a prayer in the heart for our heart to be directed to the Creator always in the right request that we want to come closer to Him and get included in Him, to tie our desire with the Creator's desire and in such a way, like a baby that wants to be connected to the mother and adhere to her body and doesn't want to come down from her. In that way we want to be adhered to the Creator with our prayer for there not to be any cessation between us and for the Creator to always hear what we have to tell Him, and besides this constant adhesion that we are drawn to Him we don't want anything else. It's exactly like how a baby shows us how he feels himself in the best way and where he's always drawn towards.
3. S. (03:44) What is the power of the prayer and can the prayer correct our egoistic desire?
R. The matter is that the Creator created the desire that's opposite of its nature of bestowal and we therefore need to direct ourselves, we that are those that are born in the desire to receive in all of our thoughts and our desires, they're all in the desire to receive and that we want to reach the form that's opposite from the desire to receive, the desire to bestow, and this is what we're asking for, this is what we feel our heart with and our mind, like it's written in the mind and the heart for us just to have these thoughts and intentions of bestowal, of love, of connection, and this is what we need to pray for and to turn our yearnings, our expectations to the Creator for Him to change our nature from an egoistic one into one of bestowal, an altruistic one.
4. S. (06:22) Why is there always a feeling that I am as if connected to the Creator and speaking with Him but only later on He returns me to the ten, meaning that I don't right away turn first to the ten but first to the Creator and then He asks me, but where's the ten? What do I need to do in order to connect first to the ten and then to the Creator?
R. I don't think that it's possible to organize it easily because we don't want to connect with anyone. We are ready to connect with the Creator because we see that it's worthwhile according to our intellect and feelings we see it's worthwhile, but it's not that we want just like that to connect with the friends and to start caring for them, it's against our nature, and therefore what we need is all the time to pray to the Creator, that He will give us a desire to connect together since out of that desire we can already turn to Him, to the Creator. Directly to the Creator we cannot turn. We can ask of Him but this request will work only on the condition that we're asking of Him to connect us, between us, in the group. Only in such a way can we turn to the Creator and obligate Him to hear us and this is how we need to work.
S. I thank Him at least that He's always returning me to the ten. He's telling me directly, so where is your ten? I have gratitude for that.
R. Okay.
5. S. (08:57) This example that you constantly give us of holding on to the mum like a baby, how do we do it with the Creator? How do we hold on to Him?
R. It's also through the group otherwise we don't have a contact with the Creator. We need to connect with the group, through the group, to always hold on to the friends and the Creator and in this way we will advance. We will advance to the connection between us.
S. The prayer is not just to hold on to the Creator we also need to ask Him something.
R. Yes, but we cannot just turn to the Creator but we need to come to Him with a special demand, a justified one, and that we truly are not just turning to Him as if for no reason but we are thinking beforehand and preparing ourselves and in this way we turn to Him.
6. S. (10:43) In the text it’s written, ‘your faith,’ so what is, ‘your faith?’ Does the Creator have faith?
R. No, the Creator doesn't have the force of faith itself. He has a desire to bestow which includes within it all of the stages, all of the discernments, that we need to acquire in our ascent one after the other.
S. Why does he write in the specific way of your faith as if it's the Creator's faith?
R. Because we receive the strength from Him. This force, this force of bestowal, adhesion, of coming closer, we receive all of that from the Creator, we just have the force of reception to receive and enjoy ourselves and all sorts of manners of reception.
7. S. (12:30) We need clarification on the condition of how to pray to the Creator. It sometimes happens that it's easier to pray to Creator through the world Kli, but when I try to pray through the ten suddenly I feel that the ten, there is not much power in the ten, as if some people want less and some people are a little afraid. What is the best way to really pray? Through which vessel of connection?
R. The best way to pray is to connect together with the friends to prepare ourselves in one Connection in the ten and to turn to the Creator and specifically with the ten that you're always connected to.
8. S. (14:12) Sometimes you feel like a little baby that can't quite ask but only just screams. What is the outcry that needs to be there for the mother to come?
R. It needs to be an outcry from the heart that I really ask to be connected with the friends, for me to have this spiritual vessel and beyond that, with that spiritual vessel, for me to come to the Creator, to turn to the Creator, and to start in a maximum way to participate in His work.
S. In the example of that vessel of the child he screams only when something is bad, what he's lacking food or something hurts. That's our initial prayer, that's really what it seems to be, that something hurts for us, we don't understand something. How do we find the pain? How do we clarify it?
R. The mother knows this. The Creator knows this. We just need to turn and ask for the understanding of what's bad in us and how do we need to correct it, meaning how do we need to turn correctly to the Creator.
9. S. (16:16) What is absolute faith? What is complete faith?
R. Complete faith, whole faith, is that a person sees in all of the desires, thoughts, and intentions of his, that he needs to adhere to the Creator.
10. S. (16:50) You said that we cannot just turn to the Creator as if for no reason, we need to have some kind of a justified prayer, prepare ourselves, and then turn. This matter itself it takes time and we need to dedicate some twenty minutes of meeting, maybe more, and as of today our meetings are such that we get prepared workshops and then five or ten minutes remain for us to have some kind of a common clarification. Do we need to make a change in the format of our meetings? Because there isn't a lot of time remaining to discuss together. With which common justified demand do we turn to him?
R. I'll tell you with my experience that after a ten makes this calculation, each one by himself, when they already come to the gathering, meaning to the connection between them in order to discuss something, this takes maybe ten minutes for everything because they already know what is being spoken about, what each one wants exactly, and they don't have any difficulty to quickly connect, but there needs to be a preparation for that, for each and everyone.
S. We need to commit to each other so that each one does a preparation before the meeting because there's not always time. We're engaged in all sorts of obligations in this world etc..
R. You can do the dishes or you can be walking around with the baby or you could be working at work, it's not important. Together with that you can prepare yourself for that group scrutiny.
S. Okay, so let's say and practice it doesn't take more than fifteen minutes and if it does it's a sign we didn't prepare ourselves?
R. Yes.
11. S. (19:19) It's very rare that we have such a state that we don't have nothing that irritates us, or being upset of the friends, and you don't have the strength to join a meeting but you sit and you pray for the friends, for the whole group, and you're as if with the ten but from afar. What is that state and will the Creator hear the prayer of a friend in such a state?
R. Each one goes through such a state and you cannot run away from it. I'm really happy to see that you have it and a lot more of my students, so don't pay attention to it, but despite it, try to be connected with each other. Specifically not paying attention to the fact that you don't want, but you do do it, but what you need to do to connect between you. Specifically, thanks to that we will come closer to the goal.
12. S. (20:55) What do we need to pray for and how do we work correctly if someone's negative example brings us to a descent?
R. Pray for that as well. Pray for that as well for those negative examples to be more understood by you. Why is the Creator showing you such examples and what you need to do over such examples and how to act. Ask, pray, that He will explain this to you.
13. S. (21:38) It's written in the excerpt, ‘to fix your faith in our hearts forever and ever, incessantly.’ How can it be? Because a person always gets new desires, he always has a new heart. How can we ask for something that will last forever?
R. It's possible to ask despite us always receiving all sorts of disturbances. It's possible to ask, it's possible to hold the friends in such a way that they won't let you fall but they will let you pray, to pray, yes, sometimes we have such a feeling that we are, as if we're on a raft, how can we say that? That we're always in a state that we can fall and if we hold on to each other then each one holds the others and then we could fall but the moment that each and every one of us thinks how can I hold the friends for them not to fall, and for me it's not so important, I think only for them not to fall. But myself, I disconnect the thought and the feeling so then everyone calms down and we hold ourselves on this raft that we are capable of being as if on the ground, and there's no problem of falling, in this way we need to try to be between us in connection.
14. S. (24:27) Do we need to connect our ten into Malchut for the Creator to connect us through the prayer?
R. We need to be as much as possible, as close as possible and in this tendency we will cancel all the disturbances. Okay?
15. S. (25:06) How can I come to a deficiency of a prayer from the bottom of the heart?
R. Enter the heart, enter the depth, the bottom of the heart, and as much as possible probe into that, check clarify all of your desires and your thoughts and dig as much as you can to the depth, really the depth there, to take it out to the Creator and then you will see to what extent this influences Him.
16. S. (26:03) Our friend is suffering from a disease. What is the best prayer, the strongest one that we can pray for her?
R. That you are all connected and are asking the Creator to heal her. It doesn't matter which, regardless of the disease, nothing's important. The main thing is that you are together asking of the Creator to heal her.
17. S. (27:11) You say that we need to pray for others to exclude ourselves and just pray for the friends, for everyone. How do we prepare ourselves to truly have the prayer for others? Because a person, as much as he tries, prays for the friends, for each one individually, for all of humanity, for people he doesn't know, but then the Pharaoh says it's a prayer for oneself because my ten is my point and I belong to it?
R. Not more or not less I'm asking you to stop talking. You need to have a maximum of two sentences. That’s it, I'm disconnecting you.
18. S. (28:43) What is the value of my prayer until we reach faith if we still haven’t reached it yet?
R. Each of our appeals to the Creator to the extent that you're connected with the friends it reaches Him and influences Him, that's it. So take that into account and don't get despaired.
19. S. (29:36) Why is it so hard to wake up toward the congress?
R. Because you're lazy, that's it, because you're lazy.
S. It's not just me but why is it so difficult in this congress? What is this Congress that's ahead of us? It's as if it's impossible to look forward towards it.
R. I don't know what to tell you. We must nonetheless, despite everything, despite the difficulty, that specifically it's good, that we feel it's difficult for us, we must nonetheless in the connection between us to activate ourselves in our request to their Creator all of us together, that's the whole matter. Connect to the friends and everyone together you need to reach the Creator.
S. I had a thought this week, maybe I'm speaking nonsense really, but maybe we need to make our congresses in a completely different way from the morning lesson.
R. I don't know. This is your thing, your matter. I'm ready to participate to everything that you want. Speak among you, argue, do what you want. I'm always ready to join.
20. S. (31:36) The Creator is always with us like a mother and with the disturbances as if they don't stop.
R. We don't have an automatic connection with the Creator but it can be there if we all help each other so our main task is how do we push each other to the connection with the Creator.
21. S. (32:17) Can we hold on in a state of faith above reason and not lose it?
R. No, it's impossible. We will always lose the state and achieve it anew and lose it again and reach it anew and it's such a way of start/stop, start/stop we will move forward.
22. S. (32:54) Can you say that is it possible that in preparation for the prayer there's such an analysis that we need to ask very carefully for the friends because the one that asks for the friends receives first or is it egoistic?
R. It's not important. Think of the friends and don't think about yourself at all.
23. S. (33:23) Is it better to feel the ten and yourself or you yourself in the ten? Is there a difference?
R. It's best to feel the ten inside yourself.
S. Meaning to connect all the friends into your heart?
R. Yes.
24. S. (33:52) The state of above reason, do we need to enter into it and any situation? Meaning not just in spiritual work because there's a lot of things in life that demand the connection with the Creator and the Creator puts you in such conditions that you need to always connect with Him. Does a Kabbalist need in any situation to do it?
R. Yes. A person needs in any situation not to let go of the connection of the Creator, not to let go of the connection with the group but to feel himself, to put these two things together.
S. Before we had this division between the material life and the spiritual life and the group and now you feel that you're incapable of even in the material life and any aspect to resolve anything without the connection with the group and the Creator. It just doesn't work out.
R. Yes, that's how it is and that's how it needs to be.
25. S. (35:09) I want to ask about this matter of disconnection with the Creator. If the Creator is basically in us and we are in Him and He sees all of our thoughts and desires and basically there's no separation, truly, so what does it mean that we don't have this automatic connection with Him? What exactly is the connection?
R. The connection is that we are drawn to Him and He is drawn to us.
26. S. (35:45) Why is it so difficult to enter the Congress and we recently discussed it and it's really a huge difference between those that are preparing themselves in content and setting things up, they're burning, but those who just want to be as guests, they're having difficulties. Is that a correct way of looking at it?
R. I don't think that this is a correct observation. We need to of course participate as much as possible and the Congress, meaning to read plenty of times excerpts which prepare us for the Congress because the Congress itself is basically connection and if we will come into that mutual connection then we will for sure rise a few degrees, each one of us and toward the purpose if creation, so we need to not miss out on this opportunity.
27. S. (36:51) If the women feel that the men are in a descent what do they need to do in order to help the desire?
R. She needs to give an example. This really works on a man. A woman needs to show the man an example that she's in an ascent, that she's getting ready for the congress.
28. S. (37:29) What is the preparation, what is the calculation that each one needs to make for himself before a meeting?
R. The preparation, the calculation we need to make before our meetings is that we are hoping that through us coming closer we'll start coming closer between us we'll start to reveal the Creator. If I'm coming closer to the friends then by that I, as if zoom in on the Creator and gradually I start to feel Him, because the Creator does not have a form, does not have a place, there's nothing, but only specifically through the friends that I'm working towards them in my connection, specifically by that, I come closer to Him. Which is why ‘from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator,’ from the connection between us to the connection with the Creator, that's how it works. Directly it's impossible because that appliance where we reveal the Creator, this is our group.
29. S. (39:11) I wanted to ask, our ability for the prayer, what does it depend on? To what extent does that depend on the ten?
R. Basically, everything depends on the prayer, all of our success, and the entire success of the prayer depends on us in the connection between us. Here the main thing is that each shall help his friend, that we can give an example to each other, support each other, and in this way we will come closer to the connection between us to such an extent we will start to feel that in the connection is the Creator.
S. If everything depends on the prayer, why is the prayer so concealed from a person? It's not something that he can activate every moment in spite that this is what is expected of him. Why is it so concealed, that ability to pray?
R. Because we're not preparing ourselves and therefore the prayer seems to us as something that's impossible to hold on to, but basically if we arrange the prayer correctly that we want to reach the Creator in order to demand of Him and ask of Him beforehand we need to respect Him and direct ourselves, our hearts, to connect between us so then everything works out nicely all together to such an extent that we don't need to do anything besides the prayer. There's nothing more than a prayer. We're simply below the Creator’s above and the connection between us is only through the prayer, that's it.
S. You said in other words that we're not preparing ourselves for the prayer. What does it mean to be ready for the prayer?
R. That we are gathering in every moment of our lives we see that this I can join to the prayer and that I can join to the prayer, I as if gather, and gather, and gather more and more things with which I can come to spill myself out in front of the Creator and in that way to succeed.
30. S. (42:23) Our question is as such, what's more important than the Congress as if to take the ten by myself and to come out to the whole world Kli to get incorporated there or to focus on the work within the ten as much as possible?
R. The main thing is to connect the ten and to come out through the connection of the ten to the rest of the tens.
31. S. (43:04) To read ‘The Prayer Before a Prayer,’ of Noam Elimelech, once in the Congress can it awaken us?
R. If you don't have anything else to say out of your hearts then do that. Then do that.
32. S. (43:38) When in a prayer the friends are in the head and not in the heart. How do we bring them to the heart so that the prayer will truly be whole?
R. Try. Try to pass their feeling for it to be directed towards our entire world Kli. Try.
33. S. (44:18) What is that part in our desire which is Asia, which Asia represents, and how do we come closer to it within ourselves and in the ten until the congress?
R. Asia is half of the world according to the quantity of people, according to their desire, that this is how we need to relate to them and we truly want to draw them to us, or to, or into ourselves in between them, that we in this way will exist together. We hope that soon we will be able to also hold our congress there, nonetheless it's a lot of people, billions of people and great distances and we want to get to know them more and more.
S. Can I ask about that?
R. No, no, no, no.
34. S. (45:47) Why do we use this phrase that the Creator’s above somewhere?
R. Because by our qualities, He is above us. This is why He is above.
S. In what way above?
R. Because He gives, He loves, He's concerned, He does everything in order to bring us to our better state of the final, of the complete correction.
S. This is what height is?
R. Yes, that's what height is.
35. S. (46:43) We had a discussion in our ten about the greatness of the Creator and the importance of our goal to turn into a prayer or does it need to be something more?
R. You don't need anything else. Develop the thought and everything else will be okay.
36. S. (47:13) Sometimes we feel ourselves connected with the Creator and sometimes the Creator disappears from our field of vision. What is that feeling that we're constantly adhered to the Creator?
R. It's because we don't picture ourselves separated from the Creator at all because He made our qualities and He's found within them in order to educate us and bring us to the best possible state.
37. S. (47:57) The request to the Creator, what is its goal? To connect to the Creator and to give to Him or to get an answer from Him and get some kind of reward from Him?
R. The appeal to the Creator is necessary in order to connect to Him and then through the connection with Him to start your spiritual assent because in this way we can more and more give to Him.
S. What is that spiritual ascent in that request to the Creator?
R. It’s that I want Him to raise me more and more in the qualities of bestowal and love so that I can through my friends that I can give it to the Creator.
S. Through the friends I feel the connection and then I want Him to raise me. What do I want Him to give? What are these next qualities?
R. He will give, He knows which ones, and He knows in what connection to do all this. Don't worry about all that, it's like a child what does he know, like a baby what does he know? He's just ready out of nature so that everything that his parents do he's ready to accept it.
38. S. (49:49) The end of the act is in the preliminary thought. Is that also in the prayer? And what image do we need to depict ourselves?
R. Well basically all of our prayers they’re gradually all of our prayers are gradually moving in that direction so nothing to worry about we're going toward the goal.
39. S. (50:29) Do we need to gather before the Congress everyone together men and women and read and pray for the congress and for everyone else?
R. You can do that at the very beginning of the Congress.
40. S. (50:55) Question regarding the Congress, right now when we're working with our thoughts we connect with the whole world Kli and Bnei Baruch at the center. Can we now connect to the Asia Kli or is that not the correct approach?
R. You need to speak about that with your organizers so here I cannot do anything. I am participating in the same way as you. How can they connect between them in order to influence the center of the Congress which is Asia. We need to think about it.
41. S. (52:00) I want to ask about the prayer. How through the recognition of evil do I discover myself as shattered I reach a prayer to the ten for the vessel?
R. Specifically through the recognition of evil you reach that shattered vessel and you start to correct it.
S. How do I turn the prayer into bestowal?
R. When you discover what else you have not corrected and how you can help that and you ask of the Creator to correct it, and the correction is only through our prayer to the Creator we’re incapable of correcting anything but we are capable of finding the place which needs correction.
42. S. (53:18) [No English Translation]
R. [No English Translation]
43. S. (54:18) [No English Translation]
R. With the way the study materials are put together a prayer. This is something that you need to decide on.
S. The question is about the Congress study material.
R. Okay, what about it?
S. Is it important to read all the study materials before the Congress to find time for it or it's more important to read the articles before every lesson?
R. No, it's more important to read the Congress articles.
Reading Excerpt #8 (55:37) Rabash writes, when one is in a state of descent..Twice.
44. R. (58:03) Here there's a question, how can we depict that we are awakening the darkness? Depict it between you that we now want to awaken the darkness. Well, what do we do? What do we do?
45. S. (58:42) There is such a thought that everything of the light and made things as if officially and for that we need to put ourselves into the hands of the Creator?
R. No, no that's not correct.
46. S. (59:05) Could be that I need to picture that I’m already in their darkness and to ask the Creator right away to illuminate the darkness?
R. Okay.
47. S. (59:30) I think that we need to agree with any situation and to give ourselves to the Creator in everything and to ask Him from the center of the ten to raise a prayer.
R. That's well said.
48. S. (59:57) I woke up this morning with a very strong desire to read all the Psalms from Psalm one to Psalm 115 and I was not sure why I had this desire obviously this Congress is going to be a strong Congress and it's put a lot of pressure on us to rise above what we are accustomed to. I did not understand why I had this desire to read the Psalms from the beginning to the end.
R. That's correct because in the Psalms, truly, King David, he did everything, he clarified the entire approach basically from a person to the Creator but we will be able to add to it out of our hearts, out of our hearts another approach, another expectation and more closeness. I thank all of you and we'll see each other tomorrow and hope that what we spoke about today it will enter into each of your heart and in this way we'll continue further. Thank you to all of you I wish you all the best from the bottom of the heart.
https://kabbalahmedia.info/en/lessons/cu/DtrF1qZ5