The Cry Of A Person Drowning In The Swamp

Rabash, “A True Prayer Is Over a True Deficiency:” When a person wants to observe the Torah and Mitzvot(commandments), in order to bestow upon the Creator, it natural for body not to move if it doesn’t see any reward in it. So there is no way he can work for the sake of Heaven and not for his own good. Here the exile begins, which means the sufferings, that no matter how hard he works, he doesn’t see that he advances, but that everything is based on self-love.

It turns out that the suffering and the pain he experiences are because he cannot work for the Creator. He wants to work in order to bestow and the body, which is totally enslaved to the shells doesn’t let him aim at this goal. Then he cries out to the Creator for help, since he sees that he is in exile among the shells and that they dominate him, and he sees no way out, so that he can be free of their domination.

Then his prayer is called a true prayer, since it isn’t in a person’s power to leave this exile…and since this is against nature, only the Creator can take Israel out of this exile.

A person goes through the states of exile and redemption internally, in his attitude to his nature and to the Creator; there are these two forces, two goals for which a person can work and aim himself at: either for his own benefit or for the Creator’s benefit.

He knows instinctively what it means to work for his own benefit and he does so naturally. Then he begins to criticize himself. This recognition usually comes from the work in the group, in the study, in dissemination, in using all the options to draw the Light that Reforms upon himself.

Then a person sees that all his intentions and his appeals, all his movements were aimed only at his own good. In the meantime he determines only this fact, like a psychologist who understands that this is nature. But if he begins to disagree with this, it is already an influence from Above, a real call from Above.

Thus a person begins to feel that he is in exile. The more he tries to stop working for his own good in different situations and to turn to bestowal upon others, upon the Creator, he feels that he is more in exile, under the domination of Pharaoh.

If he actively struggles and tries to leave his intention to receive so that he won’t constantly think about himself, then the contrary happens, and he sinks more deeply into his ego, like into a swamp. The more attempts a person makes to get out of the swamp, the more it swallows him.

He cries out and gets no response! On the contrary, the Light that comes and that seemingly reforms, shows him more clearly how immersed he is in his desire to receive, that has absorbed everything up to the most subtle appeals, thoughts, and desires. Previously he didn’t see that he is such an egoist and now he discovers it more and more in great detail.

He sees that he is totally in Egypt, thinking and worrying only about himself.

The more he tries to get out of exile, the more he sinks into it, until “and the Children of Israel sighed from the work,” which means that he has reached such a dead end that the only thing he can do is cry out…

A person cries out when he sees that there is no other way to change his situation by himself. This is called a true prayer, which in response he gets the force of bestowal, the force of the intention to act for the good of others. This is what he calls redemption.
[92810]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/12