The Most Difficult Task Is To Ask

Thanks to our Kabbalah studies, we finally understand that theCreator performed, performs, and will perform all actions. And all that is asked of us is a request that constitutes our freedom of choice. That is, we have to want the Creator to correct us.

Everything that the Creator did with us before did not require our consent; we obeyed the direct order of our nature, and thus we had nothing to ask. We simply followed our natural instinct, satisfying our growing desire in all its manifestations. However, in order to give us an opportunity to develop on our own, to acquire self-knowledge, and to reveal the Creator and His actions, at a certain moment, the Creator begins to act against our nature.

This turning point occurs in our generation. The Creator does not follow us, pushing us forward, but stands in front of us and demands that we get closer to Him by our own will. In fact, this is our job: to mobilize within ourselves forces, desires, and the understanding that we must come closer to Him. And we cannot do that ourselves; we can only request, demand from Him that He brings us closer.

To do this, we need to come and work together to discover within ourselves the desire for mutual bestowal. We must recreate within ourselves the desired form of the Creator, the perfect property of bestowal. We have to aspire within our group to achieve such relationships between us that the force, existing there in concealment, becomes revealed. This means to reveal the Creator, to know Him, in order to cleave to Him.

Then, we will advance and govern ourselves. But just as before we unquestionably obeyed our egoistic desire without even thinking about it, so now we want to obey the Creator with the same devotion. After all the issues, challenges, and scrutiny, in spite of our objections and resistance, we want to be fully managed by Him and become His faithful workers, as it is said: “Love covers all sins.”

And the key in this process is to find the point of addressing the Creator, the request to change and correct ourselves each time. We shouldn’t look within ourselves for the forces and means of becoming “righteous,” doing “good deeds.”

Clearly, it is impossible to reach true prayer at once, and we have to go through much scrutiny on the way to it. But the main obstacle is a person’s thoughts that he is the master of his actions and should correct himself and his environment by his own forces. He forgets that he is merely clay in the Master’s hands, and that “there is none else besides Him,” the only One who performed, performs, and will perform all actions. And our freedom of choice, given to us to get closer to perfect bestowal, is only to ask it from that property, that force, which will reign between us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/2011, Shamati #50