The Prayer
The Kabbalists said "what is the service of the heart? prayer." First, we need to understand why the prayer is called service or work. Is it work to pray to the Creator that He should fulfill our needs and wants?! If the Kabbalists learned out in this way, then they want to hint to us that within the subject of prayer there is a special meaning or element which is work, and not merely prayer. If so, what is this element to which the Kabbalists are hinting?
Certainly it is not relevant to say that a person is praying and requesting that he be given something if he does not have a lack of it, and only when a person feels that he is lacking something does he then go to request the fulfillment which is related to his lack, from someone who is able to fill it for him - since a person makes a request only from someone who has that which he is requesting, and also knows that he is willing to give and to benefit others.
And, according to this, when a person comes to pray and request to the Creator, that He should fill his lack, it is certainly necessary that his prayer should be clear - that is to say, that he knows clearly what he is lacking. This means that when he goes to request from the Creator, he needs to prefigure to himself that he is speaking before the King who is able to do him good so that he will be the happiest person in the world, as nothing is lacking from the house of the King. If so, the person needs first to consider well, before the prayer, in order to know what is truly lacking to him. Then if the King fulfills his lack, so then he will not be lacking anything, and he will be the most perfect and complete man in the World.
The goal of the creation was to bestow good to His creations, it turns out that from the side of the Creator there are no obstacles to bestow good and pleasure to the created beings. The Creator created a lack which is called a desire to receive in order to fill that lack. A lack is called pain and suffering, as long as it is not fullfilled. Therefore all of the lack which was created was with the intention to realize the pleasure by means of it, as also the lack is included in the intention to bestow good, in accordance with the general rule that the yearning for a thing is what endows its fulfillment with pleasure. It is clear that if you give someone a meal, even if it is like the feast of King Solomon he will not enjoy it if he doesn’t have any longing for the meal.
If so, when a person feels a lack, and he doesn’t have its fulfillment, certainly he will turn to the Creator with his requests, as in general a person only requests from the Creator pleasure and delight. From the Creator's side it is irrelevant to say that a person should pray that he should be given benefit and pleasure, since the Creator is a desire to bestow good to the created beings. Therefore it is not relevant to speak of requesting when the will of the giver is only to bestow.
(This last sentence needs to be understood, for it seems to be contradicting what was said above. I.e., above he said: “since a person makes a request only from someone who has that which he is requesting, and also knows that he has a will to give and to benefit others”. This seems to imply that one of the necessary conditions which must be met before someone makes a request is that he knows the other has a will to give. However, here he says that if the will of the giver is to give, then it is not applicable to be asking something from him. How can both of these statements be true? The answer is, that we have to reevaluate our understanding of this last sentence here. That is to say, if the giver is always ready to give this specific thing, then it is not applicable to make a request for it, as it is given even without a request.)