How Do We Organize Ourselves For Prayer

The direct, natural reaction of the desire for the Light is programmed and known in advance, so there is no creation here.After all, “creation” (Beria) means “outside of state” (bar), that is, something new. The creation begins with the opportunity given to the desire to respond in an unnatural way, not instinctively, but according to different, extraneous criterion. The desire has to love the Light not for all kinds of pleasant fillings, but for the fact that the Light is elevated, special, giving, and has exceptional, noble qualities, peculiar only to the Light.

It turns out that the created being appreciates the Light precisely for the fact that it behaves in the opposite way to the nature of the desire: as giving and able to act outside its interest. The desire appreciates this quality. While enjoying the filling, the desire simultaneously realizes that the Light brings pleasure to it, fills it, cares for, and tends to it. It begins to appreciate this attitude like a child who grew up and appreciates his parents’ love and care. In this way, the Kli begins to appreciate the Creator.

In order to elevate the creation to its degree of bestowal, the Creator takes direct pleasures away from it, and enables it to fill itself and enjoy bestowal and not receiving.

In our life, we implement the same scenario. In infancy, we enjoy receiving from our parents, using them and demanding from them. Yet as we grow older, we gradually become separated from our parents, to this extent we begin to understand what they have done for us, and we treat our children in the same way.

The Creator leads us to independence, which appears when we move from the property of receiving to the property of bestowal, that is, when we use our desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal in order to bring enjoyment to the Creator and not to ourselves.

This desire should come from us and should not be imposed by the Light. However, this is possible only under the condition that we are in the ten and bestow to each other, internally connecting with each other. Then through this connection, we receive the Light. We demand through the ten this special power of bestowal and use it. Although this energy of bestowal does not belong to us, we can form the need for it in ourselves.

Instead of the instinctive need for filling and enjoying filling ourselves, we want the power of bestowal and enjoyment from it. This is the purpose of creation: that all created beings enjoy bestowal, following the example of the Creator.

Love Is Stronger Than Nature

The prayer of the common man is to feel pleasant at every moment, and all inanimate nature, plants, and animals ask the same. It is an ordinary, instinctive prayer felt by a person as natural self-care or as the influence of a religion that teaches a person to turn to the Creator with a request for filling.

However, there is a method that teaches us to demand not an egoistic filling in this and in the next world, but the opportunity to become similar to the Creator, to His actions, and enjoy bestowal. Also, you can enjoy bestowal only when you love the one to whom you bestow, as parents enjoy bestowing to their child. By virtue of their love for the children, a parent receives from bestowing to a child even more than if he would take for himself.

This is a proof that love can be stronger than nature. Indeed, we see in inanimate nature, plants, and animals many examples when parents die for their offspring. Their instinct pushes them to sacrifice themselves. It turns out that bestowal illuminated by the power of love is stronger than the desire to enjoy.

Therefore, there are two kinds of prayer. The first one is the prayer of “people in the street” about selfish filling, enjoyment, confidence in the present and in the future, which may be unconscious, instinctive, or conscious. The second prayer is no longer that of one in the street, but in accordance with the Torah, that is, a request for the power of bestowal. In bestowal, the action itself is important and not its result, and I enjoy the fact that I do not expect any response from this action: it comes out of me and this is where everything ends for me. This is what the prayer is devoted to: to receive the ability to bestow, to fill your neighbor according to the example of the Creator, and thereby bestow pleasure to the Creator.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/18, Lesson on the Topic “How do We Organize Ourselves for Prayer”