Despair From His Own Forces

The wisdom of Kabbalah respects both forces acting in reality: the force of attraction and the force of rejection. Both come from the Creator and both are equally important in His eyes. We also need to treat them the same way.

The rejecting force is no less important than the attracting one. Of course, we would prefer the attracting force, but that is how it appears in our desire to receive, which is not spiritual. However, it is said that a person should bless for the bad even more than for the good and to relate to good and bad equally. One will then be under restriction, at the middle point, independent of anything, and thus will be able to rise above one’s nature and become free.

Therefore, it is very important that we undergo both bad and good states equally because it is only from this point that can we make correct decisions.

The entrance to the spiritual world is very special. It is as if you are allowed to enter, reject it, and so on, again and again. Therefore, we study our inner psychology, to what extent we want or do not want the spiritual. There are such moments in the study when the entrance is open for us, but we do not want to enter. The Creator has to draw us in.

We must be prepared for such polar states in order to exist in the spiritual world, and first of all, we should pay attention to the middle point that lets us maintain balance, independence, when we are not drawn either to the good or to the bad side, but only to the greatness of the Creator, who determines our correct direction of development.

The greatness of the Creator is revealed only in the middle point, in the middle line. That is, it is most important not to lean either to the left or to the right, but to stay in the middle, above knowledge and reason, so that I do not care whether I feel good or bad. It is important only to stay in this central point and strive for the Creator. If I aspire for the middle line and imagine it, then I can imagine the forces acting on me: left, right, and middle.¹

A person should be completely despaired of one’s own forces. But this despair is in oneself, not in the path and the goal. If you suddenly becomes despaired in the goal, then you must do everything to return to balance; otherwise, you are not in the right reality. The right state is when I do not lean either left or right, but strive only for the greatness of the Creator so that I draw myself to Him.

And if I am at this correct point, I will find that I have no strength there, no mind, no means to take even one step forward. It is as if I am suspended in the air, and this is a very important condition in our development. After all, when I understand that I have nothing and nothing will help me, then there is only one thing left for me: prayer. From this state, a true prayer will arise because I have no support, no chance to take even one step myself, and the true prayer is what will help. It is a cry in the desert, in despair from my own forces.

But this is not a sign of weakness as it seems to us today. Right now, we are still relying on our strength. But the closer we get to the spiritual entrance, the more we rejoice, revealing the lack of our own strength, which means that we become more dependent on the Creator.

And at the very entrance, a person sees that only the Creator can save you, help you, and the question is whether you are able to ask for help or not. Prayer is possible only with the support of the ten—this is the first necessary condition in order to turn to the Creator with a prayer.

You can perform a spiritual action, turn to the Creator, praise Him, ask, and associate with Him only in a minyan, in the ten, and no less than that. Without this, a person cannot rise above his egoism in an appeal to the Creator and will not know what to ask for. Therefore, it is obvious that entering spirituality is possible only through the ten.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/20, Despair from his own Forces