Part II
Morning Lesson February 12, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Everything is Obtained By the Power of Prayer - Selected Excerpts from the Sources
1. R. (00:11) Yes, we saw it is right to collect such excerpts. Because besides our work, study, what we are doing, the meals, all kinds of things, the main thing as we are told by Kabbalists and we will also learn this from these excerpts, the main thing is the power of prayer. The Creator has done everything. He established it all, He prepared it all for us to feel reality in a way that we can turn to Him. That specifically by turning to Him he builds a more corrected system of us. We feel it again this corrected system that we got from Him, suppose the first degree, first level. And then we start discovering how bad it is, how wrong it is. It still has all kinds of flaws so we turn to the Creator again and He corrects it again. That's why our work is to discover the bad state, to sort it out, to turn to the Creator and the Creator corrects. Examine the current state we got. It seems good to us. Bit by bit we go into it, we feel bad in it, things that are not corrected, in a purposeful manner. It's not that it’s according to our will to receive it’s according to the final goal and we ask the Creator again and the Creator corrects again. Meaning we’re always in a process of coming closer to the Creator by asking, receiving what we’ve asked, discovering it’s not enough. We ask again and we get again, etc. What do we ask for? We always ask for the force of connection to resemble the Creator more and more. To come closer to Him according to the form of connection between us. This form is called Boreh, Creator, come and see. That’s how we attain the upper force, the upper system or the general soul. So let's hear what our friends prepared for us.
Reader Excerpt # 1 (02:55)
2. R. (05:29) I don't really understand what he writes. We should note that “if I did not I labor and found, do not believe.” When the measure is full your prayer will be complete. Why will it be complete then? Then I’ll believe that everything depends only on the prayer and the Creator will grant generously. As our sages instructed us “I labored and found, believe.” One is unfit for prayer prior to this, and the Creator hears the prayer. What did he mean?
Reader continues: (06:29)
3. R. (06:43) That’s the first thing, right? This is the law. That if we want to attain something in spirituality it is only by us attaining it by the prayer. Small or big, it doesn’t matter. Whatever advancement is possible it is only by us asking.
Reader continues: (07:13) “All the labor and work…”
4. R. (07:26) This is something we have to discover. That I can be certain that I can change no state on my own. Rather if I want to change something I have to come to a prayer. And if I don't come to prayer meaning a request and address to the Creator it is a sign that I don't yet want what I would like to ask. My request is not yet the right request, it is not a true request, it is not a desire that is ripe in me or I don't know how to turn, or who to turn to. Meaning all in all, all the data that should be in an address to the Creator is not yet clear.
Reader continues: (08:22) “for then we can pour out a wholehearted prayer…”
5. R. (09:53) This means that all our labor is in order to reach prayer, request. It's not that we should labor and as a result of that we get something. Rather what we need to discover as a result of our labor is what we are missing, who exactly to turn to and how to turn. This is the result of the labor, the exertion. This is what we should see as a reward, as payment for our labor.
Reader continues: (10:46) “When the measure is full your prayer will be complete…”
6. S. (11:09) I want to ask about the result. It seems to me that when we invest the complete amount of effort we come to complete prayer?
R. This is the exact result. Our prayer, a prayer on our behalf which is scrutinized out of our efforts is the exact, desired, correct result of all our work. Because after that we have nothing to do. If we activate the correct prayer by that everything is ended. That is called the Creator will finish the work for me. After the prayer the Creator does it all.
S. But I see that in our ten there is only a process where let's say hatred becomes revealed and still we meet and we come together or we feel like rags and we crawl to the ten and then it influences you. So there's always some way, some process, we're always in the process?
R. Well that's okay, that’s very good, very good. We just need to add to it. Let's read a few things and we'll collect all kinds of advice on the way. We’ll realize in the upcoming few days, week or two and we’ll see how much it helps us advance. Exactly these excerpts should shine the path for us in a more precise way.
7. S. (13:20) What is exertion? What is considered exertion?
R. Exertion means above man's force. When I want to perform an action which is in order to bestow, it is not in my power and I ask to have a power to do this action in order to bestow. I feel l can't think of others, I can’t connect to a friend, I’m incapable. It’s all a lie, false and I'm asking for it to happen to me. I do not have it but I'm asking for it to happen to me. That’s called above human power. That is considered labor or exertion.
8. S. (14:25) In the process the prayer becomes kind of more dry and not like before. Is it good or is it part of the process?
R. Yes, what can I say? The deeper we go into the prayer the bigger it seems to us, concluding more things, closer to us, etc., yes..
9. S. (15:07) In the ten we’re always engaged in scrutinizing the prayer, composing the prayer. It is a constant engagement. The question is whether this engagement is the labor that's supposed to take us to the real prayer?
R. Any tendency, any action when we come closer to the address to the Creator, the request to the Creator, the prayer, that is exertion and if we're not intending to reach a prayer to the Creator there is no exertion here. Because all in all our work ends with the request, the right request to the right place, to the right state. That’s why reaching that on our behalf is the goal. When I come to the Creator who is expecting me, who is ready for me, has what to answer me with, and when I equip myself with the right desire, the right force, the right request, the right way to ask of Him, if I come to Him this way it is the final part of my path.
10. S. (16:42) We learned that prayer on the one hand needs to be scrutinized. On the other hand the true prayer is an outcry, it’s out of darkness, it’s a feeling that you can’t do anything. So how do you connect these two things?
R. Again?
S. We learn that prayer has to be scrutinized, meaning we need to know exactly what we ask of the Creator. On the other hand a true prayer is a cry, it comes from darkness, disappointment, inability to do anything. So how to connect these two things? Scrutiny, where everything becomes clear and you just need to ask, and the outcry which is lack of scrutiny and darkness?
R. The Creator is like a mother understanding what her baby is asking even if he's not speaking. She feels his cry, what she gets from him is enough for her to understand what he wants and she fulfills him, she gives him what he wants. Meaning on our behalf we should try to scrutinize our request as much as possible. The request itself, where is it from? Why is it? Who is it for, etc.? But on behalf of the Creator there certainly is no problem. Because He himself is the one who is inviting this request. He knows in advance what’s going on here, He’s planning it and He passes us through these things. Meaning all the scrutiny, all the prayer should be for us first. That we will build our vessel and in it we can get an advancement toward the Creator. It is not that the Creator needs it.
S. A friend said that with progress the prayer is more dry but if it's an outcry then how does it work?
R. So that's wrong, that's not the right kind of advancement. It should be advancing in the connection between you. That you feel every time that your heart is becoming softer.
11. S. (19:34) Is there a difference between prayer before and after the barrier?
R. Of course there’s a difference in the prayer in each and every degree.
12. S. (19:58) Is the measure that state where we reach, where we can no longer work with our will to receive to attain spirituality, and we ask because we say we have no strength, we are out of strength?
R. That too is a prayer, that’s also a prayer. The main thing is to try to turn to the Creator all the time, really nonstop.
13. S. (20:31) With the group we've been trying to reach a common prayer for a long time. The common prayer means it's the same text or it doesn't change? What is it?
R. The prayer has to be accepted by the whole group and it can be new every day, yes, or as new everyday.
14. S. (21:08) My question has to do with a friend's question. How do we reach a common prayer which is a result of the individual prayer, so that together we reach that state of “I labored and I found?”
R. That is only from the states that you go through. You can scrutinize that. I have nothing to add.
15. S. (21:48) So what is the work of prayer before the cup is full?
R. The work is to connect the prayer. We should always be in the scrutiny of the prayer, always, or to scrutinize what we got from the Creator. And from that we intend to elevate a prayer back to Him, our deficiency. To always be this way with the Creator. Receiving, asking, receiving asking.
S. And before we ask what are we supposed to do before we make a request?
R. Scrutinize what we have because it's clear it comes from Him.
S. Now of course before the prayer we have to first do work off connection. But the question is how to do this scrutiny between our part of the work and where we can then turn to the Creator to complete it?
R. I think the main thing is what you scrutinize between you and then the result, what you think is right from the conversation between you, you to turn to the Creator.
S. And when we don't clarify with words between us we can’t turn to the Creator?
R. It's best if we scrutinize it, it's best to write.
S. What are we clarifying? We did 1, 2, 3, 4 towards connection, we discovered we’re not connected and now we’re turning to Him with that?
R. Yes, yes, even this way.
S. So it turns out we can't always turn to the Creator, but we say one should wish to pray all day, to turn to the Creator with everything?
R. Yes, each and everyone of you and all of you together. Just try to determine this direction from all of you towards the Creator.
S. If the prayer is supposed to erupt from the heart is it something that we are supposed to remind each other or does it just happens emotionally from the effort to connect?
R. No. We have to manage the prayer in a way that we establish it in the heart, we bring it out of the heart and we seemingly send it to the Creator, even though the Creator is in the heart.
S. If we can just clarify a bit more what is the work that each friend is doing without the ten. You have explained well what is the mutual scrutiny and prayer but outside of the ten, what does it mean that we each also pray?
R. A person has no group?
S. Of course he has a group but right now he’s not clarifying with the group, where do they need help for connection and from the Creator and so on.
R. No. There has to be a connection between the people and doesn't matter if it’s physical, there is no physical connection today. But there has to be a connection between the friends and they’re scrutinizing how this connection is advancing towards bestowal between us and the Creator.
S. In the middle of my day when I'm not connected in a conversation with the friends, I can’t discuss our prayer with them. Can I still turn to the Creator?
R. Yes, but you want to be connected to your friends and connect all the hearts to present to the Creator for Him to correct and fulfill by His force of bestowal. Then all the hearts will be connected in the general force of bestowal that’s how they’ll behave with the entire reality.
S. And what does it mean that I gave my half a shekel first before I turn to the Creator to connect the ten?
R. That doesn’t really matter, he doesn’t write it here.
S. He writes that you have to bring the offer first. Until the measure is full you can’t turn to the Creator. So what do you turn to the Creator each time with?
R. You turn to the Creator when you want to be connected with all your friends to give room for the Creator to correct this place. He loves the corrections. When we present him a broken situation and we're asking for correction there is no greater joy for Him. When we accept Him as the greater, the bigger, the father the correct thing, fulfillment, by that you crown Him.
S. So I have to discover the broken state. What if I don't discover the broken state now?
R. So you have no connection with your friends, you’re not trying to be connected.
S. And this work I can always do towards them, right?
R. Yes of course, always. What’s the problem? You can always discover how much you're missing toward connection.
S. And if we don't clarify our prayer? We read quotes, talk about them, let's say. Where's the work of prayer while we read the sources?
R. In these excerpts you have to feel how much they are alive in you, how much you’re on fire because of them.
S. You said we're not now discussing the prayer discussing our address to the Creator. We talk about the quotes, the sources.
R. What do you mean you’re talking? I don’t understand you. When we’re talking about the quotes from Baal HaSulam aren’t we living this? Is this living in me or not? How much? How are we realizing it or not?
S. And how does the scrutiny lead to a common prayer?
R. Try to read it together and you will start scrutinizing it, discerning it and feeling how much this quote is connecting you.
16. S. (28:52) Why in order to reach prayer does one have to be brought to a state where he's helpless and can’t hold onto anything?
R. Otherwise he won't need the Creator. A person has to reach a prayer with a deficiency, or he can thank the Creator for all the abundance he received, or he has nothing in his life that can be connected to the purpose of creation and he doesn’t feel the strength to come closer to that. So both to be thankful and to request. That's why every prayer has to be made of two, gratitude and the request. There is gratitude for the fact that I’m not blind, I understand where I am, I know my place on the whole. On the other hand I’m happy for being in connection with the upper force I can turn to, and I have a group to turn with and through the group I enter this system that the Creator accepts, receives and takes care of.
S. For adhesion from that state and not that the Creator will just cover the state that you’re going through.
R. I'm not asking to cover or not to cover. What I'm asking for is connection, adhesion and all the actions that the Creator should do, I don’t understand about that. I don't even understand why He broke the vessels, why He created the will to receive in order to receive, etc., all kinds of things. I act out of what I want from the present state, without philosophy about the past or the system. Rather what do I want? I want to be connected to my friends so that in the connection between us we will discover the Creator, He will fill us. He’ll fill the space between us, so that we’ll feel how much by that He is happy with us.
S. And what do you thank Him for in the prayer?
R. I thank him for bringing me to a state that I feel that I’m the created being, I am in His hands. It means I want to reach adhesion with Him. Everything is before me and now I am going to realize it. That’s my joy.
S. So how, from that state you don't ask Him to delete the state but to increase the gratitude and adhesion in the ten and with Him?
R. Yes, I'm not asking for the final correction from Him. I'm asking for my situation to be better scrutinized for me and that I'll be able to present the vessel, and He will be able to correct that vessel and to fulfill that vessel and be happy with it. So as much as we’re asking, the Creator is enjoying us much more than the complete righteous that are somewhere. He is more content with us because we are further away from Him. We are in this distance, but we are asking.
17. S. (33:42) Is there a connection between the importance of the friends and the power of prayer? Because I see something that depends on me and doesn't move?
R. It doesn't move because you do not connect to your friends and you are not demanding from the Creator. That is why it is not moving and you should say thank you very much for the Creator for giving you this feeling, that it is for you to move.
18. S. (34:27) When the person feels pain he just naturally asks for the pain to stop, that’s what he wants. It’s not clear how to ask for connection from a state of pain, it’s false. Your mouth and hard are not equal.
R. To begin with, pain accompanies situations that are not right or not correct. That is why it comes to us, so that we should know that there is something to correct here. That’s why we should be thankful even for the pain. It’s a sign and we should correct it on our own. That’s why with everything that a person turns to the Creator with, he has to bless the bad and the good. This is how the Creator awakens him in the closest way to correction and if he awakens him in an acute way it’s a sign that the situation is serious and a person should hurry.
19. S. (35:57) Reaching a true prayer is possible because the ten awakens a great sense of urgency in him or he has to labor and despair?
R. No, there has to be a society and the general atmosphere, the feeling of the society has to be such that we have to reach a prayer and this prayer has to be common between us, established as much as possible among everyone. That's how we reach an address to the Creator.
20. S. (36:42) Is the full measure a matter of a feeling or how much he exerted?
R. It is a result of the exertion.
21. S. (36:56) What is the most important in prayer, the opportunity to turn to the Creator or actually what we ask for?
R. Both are important for us. The fact that we address the Creator, we’re turning to the Creator we are already blessing Him for giving us the opportunity to turn to Him and for bringing us to a state where we feel we lack something and that from this deficiency we can turn to Him specifically rather than run to all kinds of other places that seemingly help us. This is why we turn to Him, and ask. We’re thankful to Him for creating reality in such a way that we can turn to Him and receive from Him help and the truth is the help is everything he awakens in us in order to adhere to Him. We need to reach a state that we’re attached to Him, that’s it.
22. S. (38:13) You said that the prayer needs to be new each day. Sometimes we scrutinize and discuss and we think we need to keep the prayer. Is it okay that sometimes the prayer continues and we do not change it?
R. Yes, yes, of course. The prayer may not change. Nonetheless we change every moment and from that we are going to get a new answer to the prayer. The Creator understands better what's happening in us even though it seems to us that it’s the same because we feel our feelings and the Creator feels our desires from which the emotions grow. That’s why the Creator acts on our desires not on our emotions. It seems to us this is the emotion we're in at the moment, it’s wrong. The Creator's work is in more internal levels of our nature.
23. S. (39:25) How and when can we reach a state where there's a prayer not from suffering but for the good of the friend?
R. To the extent that we rise above our ego to the degree of Bina, faith above reason and we will want to live within the friend. This is how you reach a connection between us and start discovering between our connections the Creator Himself.
24. S. (40:09) How can I know the Creator hears a prayer even when I don't see it, I don't understand it and I even think the opposite, that he’s not hearing at all?
R. I keep on doing what's required in such a way you know, like children. Something falls and they build it again it falls again, they build it again, that’s how it is until we go through the stage. It may take a long, long time, such an action. Until out of the mechanical actions it moves on to the mind and emotions and builds a new mind for us. Many things in life we go through superficially simply doing it without the brain, but rather the brain, the thought is born after many actions.
25. S. (41:19) Is the prayer the corrected desire already or it’s just a phase in connection with the upper one?
R. There is an uncorrected desire, a deficiency and it’s corrected to be the right deficiency. That's why there was the correction of the prayer. There is a scrutiny of the prayer until it will become such a prayer that will be called MAN, that will bind the lower one with the upper one. MAN is Mayin Nukvin. Mayin, water is Bina, Nukvin is Malchut, female Malchut. so the prayer MAN is called the force that connects Malchut and Bina, and Bina bestows upon Malchut.
26. S. (42:25) When we discuss the prayer before we put together the prayer some deficiencies I connect to and some not. How to choose one deficiency in the ten that everyone feels, it is a part of them?
R. A deficiency we should all focus on and ask is for us to feel our one heart and within it the Creator is. That’s it.