What Is the Gift that a Person Asks of the Creator?
It is written in The Zohar (Pinhas, Item 180): “It is written, ‘My God, save Your servant.’ ‘Delight the soul of Your servant.’ ‘Give Your strength to Your servant.’ Three times did David become a servant in this praise, corresponding to the three times that the authors of the Mishnah established that man should be a servant in the prayer. In the first blessings, he should be as a servant who praises his teacher. In the middle ones, he is as a servant who asks for a gift from his teacher. In the last blessings, he is as a servant who thanks his teacher for the gift he has received from him, and he walks away.”
We should understand why they compared man’s prayer to a servant receiving a gift from his teacher, and not to charity or other things. What does this teach us in the work?
It is known that from the Creator, two things come to us directly: 1) the light, 2) the Kli [vessel] to receive the light.
1) We learned that the purpose of creation is His will to do good to His creations. It follows that the Creator wanted to do good to the creatures even without an awakening from the lower ones, for there were still no creatures in the world from whom to receive awakening. This is regarded as the light coming from the Creator without any involvement of the lower one.
2) The Creator created—existence from absence—a Kli called “desire and yearning to receive delight and pleasure.” This means that what we see is as in “By Your actions we know You,” meaning that we speak only of what we see that exists in the nature of creation. We see that it is impossible to enjoy anything, whatever it is, unless there is a yearning for it. For this reason, we learned that from the perspective of the light that created this Kli, called “will to receive,” it underwent four Behinot [discernments], meaning four stages until the will to receive acquired the complete form of yearning. After the light created the Kli, this Kli received the delight and pleasure that He wished to give.
These two above-mentioned things, the light and the Kli, pertain to the Creator. We learn that in this respect, there was complete perfection and there is nothing to add to this.
However, afterwards, something new was born, which we attribute to the creature and not to the Creator. In other words, we attribute the matter of giving to the Creator, who is the giver, for His desire is to do good to His creations, which is to give abundance to the creatures and receive nothing from them. Yet, afterward, something new was made, as it is written in The Study of the Ten Sefirot (Part 1), that the first receiver, called Malchut de Ein Sof, craved a decoration called “decoration at the point of desire”: to have equivalence of form called Dvekut [adhesion]. For this reason, the Tzimtzum [restriction] was made, meaning that she diminished her will to receive on the Kli called “will to receive,” hence the light departed.
Malchut invented a new Kli, called “will to bestow,” meaning not to receive delight and pleasure according to the level of the yearning for the light, but according to the level of her desire to bestow. This means that Malchut calculated how many percent of the abundance she could receive with the aim to bestow. On the part she would receive in order to receive, if she were to receive, she would not receive.
It follows that we attribute this Kli, which the lower one gives, to the lower one, since the Kelim [vessels] of the upper one, which the upper has made in order for the lower one to be able to enjoy the light, is only the will to receive. That Kli will never be revoked because what the Creator has created must always exist.
However, the lower one can add to the Kli of the Creator, as it is written, “Which God has created to do.” This means that God has created the Kli called “desire to receive pleasure,” and man must add to it a correction called “the intention to bestow,” as was said above, that Malchut de Ein Sof decorated herself at the point of the desire. This means that her decoration was in that she placed on the will to receive the aim to bestow.
There, in Malchut de Ein Sof, was only the root. From her, it extended to the lower ones that it is forbidden to receive, following the rule, “A desire in the upper one becomes a binding law in the lower one.” It extended from this discernment until the Sitra Achra [other side] was born—the opposite of Kedusha [holiness/sanctity]. In Kedusha, there is only the desire to bestow, which is Dvekut. But those who want to receive in order to receive become removed and separated from the Life of Lives. For this reason, they said in The Zohar, “The wicked in their lives are called ‘dead,’” and said the verse, “The grace of the nations is a sin,” about the wicked, “All the good that they do, they do for themselves.”
It therefore follows that Creator gives two things directly to the creature: 1) the delight and pleasure, 2) the desire to yearn for pleasures.
However, unpleasantness, called “shame,” extends indirectly from the Creator. That is, the Creator wants the lower one to receive delight and not suffering, but indirectly, meaning that the upper one, the Giver, does not want the lower one to feel shame upon reception of the delight.
This is why the correction of the Tzimtzum was made. Because of the Tzimtzum, the abundance does not come to the Kelim [vessels] that the Creator has made, unless the creature has placed a correction of the intention to bestow on the Kli. If a person does not have this Kli, he remains in the dark without light, and the name The Good Who Does Good is hidden from him because he does not have the right Kelim for reception of the abundance, which is called “equivalence of form.”
It follows that the whole novelty that was made after the Tzimtzum is that only the aim to bestow is missing, but the two discernments that extended prior to the Tzimtzum did not change. In other words, in the first Behina [discernment], which is His desire to do good, there was no change, and after the Tzimtzum He still wants to impart delight and pleasure. In the second Behina, which is the will to receive, there was also no change. It is as we learn that there are no changes in spirituality, but only additions. It follows that after the Tzimtzum, it is impossible to receive any upper abundance unless we add to the will to receive the aim to bestow. This is all of our work in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments]: to be rewarded with vessels of bestowal.
Our sages said about this (Kidushin 30), “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the spice of Torah.” It is known that the will to receive is called “evil inclination” because it causes remoteness from the Creator, since it is in disparity of form from the Creator. The Creator aims to bestow, whereas the evil inclination wants only to receive. For this reason, all the delight and pleasure in the thought of creation is hidden from it.
However, how can we obtain these Kelim, since this is against our nature?
The answer is that this is why we were given the Torah and Mitzvot. Through them, we can obtain these Kelim. Yet, why are not everyone awarded with vessels of bestowal through Torah and Mitzvot? The reason is that there is no light without a Kli.
It follows that if a person does not know for certain that all we need are only these Kelim, he still does not have real Kelim. In other words, he does not have a need for these Kelim. It follows that the light is in Torah and Mitzvot, which can assist a person to attain in these Kelim, but he does not have a real need to be given these Kelim.
If we look a little deeper in, and thoroughly examine those who observe Torah and Mitzvot, whether they want to be given vessels of bestowal and to give in return the will to receive, the vast majority of the workers will say that they pass on this. Instead, they want to observe Torah and Mitzvot in order to receive. It follows that they have no need for vessels of bestowal. For this reason, how can they say that the Torah and Mitzvot they labor in should give them a reward for which they have no need? On the contrary, they are afraid lest they will lose the vessel of reception called “self-love.”
This is as Maimonides says (end of Hilchot Teshuva), “Our sages said, ‘One should always engage in Torah, even if Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], since from Lo Lishma he will come to Lishma [for Her sake]. Therefore, when teaching little ones, women, and uneducated people, they are taught to work only out of fear and in order to receive reward. Until they gain knowledge and acquire much wisdom, they are taught that secret little-by-little and are accustomed to the matter calmly until they attain Him and serve Him with love.’”
It therefore follows that one should yearn to obtain vessels of bestowal. Although he sees that the will to receive disagrees with it, meaning that it does not let him pray that the Creator will give him these Kelim, for that, too, one must pray to the Creator to give him a desire to understand the necessity that there is in these Kelim. He asks the Creator to have the strength to overcome the desire of the body, which wants to remain specifically in vessels of reception. Moreover, when he sees that a desire can emerge from this thing—that the person will later want to come to vessels of bestowal—he promptly feels this and begins to instantaneously resist.
However, a person does not come easily into seeing that he cannot work in order to bestow. Instead, a person thinks that now he still does not have the desire to bestow, but whenever he wants to work in order to bestow, the choice is in his hands, meaning he will be able to work in order to bestow. The awareness that he thinks he has calms him down so as not to be impressed by the fact that he is not engaging in work of bestowal, since whenever he chooses, he will be able to. For this reason, he is not worried about this.
However, the truth is that this is not within man’s power, as it is against human nature. Our sages said about this: “Man’s inclination overcomes him every day. If the Creator does not help him, he will not overcome it.” However, in order to receive help, a person must see and exert to have a need for His help. This is why it was said, “He who comes to purify,” then the Creator helps him.
We asked, Why does man have to begin the work and only then the Creator helps him? Why does the Creator not give him this strength right away, meaning that even if a person does not ask for help, the Creator will help him as soon as he begins the work of the Creator? According to the rule that there is no light without a Kli, a person must begin. When a person sees that he cannot, he has a need for the Creator’s help. Therefore, specifically when one has begun the work and sees he is unable, in that state he receives a Kli for the Creator to impart him this force, called “desire to bestow.”
However, normally, when a person begins the work of bestowal and sees that it is difficult for him, and sees that in his view, he has already asked the Creator many times to help him but received no help at all, a person escapes the campaign and says that this work is not for him. Indeed, precisely in this place, when he has resolved that this is difficult for him alone and only the Creator can help, a person must trust the Creator that He will help him.
However, this still does not complete the Kli, meaning the need for His help. Each time he asks for help, although he still does not feel His help, we must believe above reason that the Creator does help, but that we still do not need to see in order to reveal the real need for this.
According to the above, we should interpret that the verse, “For the ways of the Lord are straight. The righteous walk in it and the wicked fail in them.” This means that precisely at this point, when a person comes to a resolution that it is not within man’s power to obtain vessels of bestowal because he sees that not a single organ in his body agrees to this, now he has arrived at the point of truth. Now he should make an honest prayer for the Creator to help him. Certainly, he will receive the help from the Creator, who sits and waits for man to give him the Kli, meaning the need for it. It is precisely here that a person escapes from that state, and precisely here is where the help can come to him. Yet, he escapes the campaign and for this reason he is called “a criminal.”
Yet, the righteous does not despair because specifically now he is rewarded with vessels of bestowal. It follows that in the same place where “the righteous walk,” meaning receive an ascent in degree, in that very same place “the wicked fail.” Precisely in this place where they should receive help, they fail and escape the campaign.
It follows from all the above that man should ask for the Creator’s giving, meaning that the Creator will give him as a gift the vessels of reception, just as He has given him the Kli called “will to receive.” In other words, on one hand, we say that the Creator has given the Kli and the light, meaning both the desire and the yearning to receive the pleasure, as well as the pleasure. Only the addition to the Kli, which is the will to bestow, we attribute to the creatures, as it is written, “Which God has created to do.” “Which has created” refers to the will to receive, called “created,” which is something made existence from absence, called “creation.” On this, man should place the aim to bestow, meaning that this really does belong to the creatures and not to the Creator.
However, the truth is that the Creator should give even this Kli, called “addition.” When we say that this pertains to the creatures, it means that man should ask the Creator to give him this Kli called “intention to bestow.” That is, only the lack, his lack of desire to bestow, is what the lower one should exert to have.
But regarding the will to receive, it cannot be said that there is an awakening of the lower ones for this because if the desire to receive still does not exist in the world, who would ask to be given a desire to want to receive pleasure? It is impossible to say that before a person is born, he wants something. This is why we say that the will to receive belongs entirely to the Creator.
But afterwards, once the will to receive pleasures has been born, comes the time when a person feels that this will to receive, without additions, but as it came from nature, is bad because he cannot receive real pleasures with this desire, but only as a “thin light,” which the Creator has given to the Klipot [shells/peels] so they would not be canceled. When a person comes to this awareness, he receives a need to have the ability to aim to bestow. Before he has the need for this, he cannot be given the Kli, as was said that “there is no light without a Kli,” and a Kli is called “need” and “lack.” That lack is not apparent as such unless he suffers torments and pains from needing this thing and not having it.
A regular lack is when a person sees that he does not have something and understands that he needs it. However, if he knows that he can live without it, it still cannot be said about him that he has a real lack. A real lack means that he knows that without the thing he lacks, he cannot go on living. This is called a “real need.”
It is likewise in the work: Many times a person knows, understands, and feels that he is lacking the desire to bestow. He asks the Creator to give him the ability to overcome the body called “will to receive,” and he knows that he has already asked the Creator several times but the Creator did not want to listen to him. Seeing that he still did not receive this strength from the Creator puts him off and he does not have the strength to ask the Creator once again to give him what he wants, since he sees that the Creator is not listening to him. Hence, he can no longer pray to the Creator.
But in truth, we should say that a person still does not have the real need for the Creator’s help. The need that the person has, where he sees that he is unable to aim to bestow, is still not regarded as a real need. Rather, a real need means that he sees that if he does not have what he needs, he cannot exist in the world. This is regarded as a real need.
For this reason, when a person realizes that unless he obtains the desire to bestow he will be separated from Kedusha, and he has no hope of ever achieving spirituality, called “Dvekut with the Creator,” but he will be constantly immersed in self-love and have no chance of entering Kedusha, and he will remain in the Klipot, and this pains him and he says, “In that case, I am better off dead than alive,” this is called “a real need.” Then, when a person prays that the Creator will grant him the vessels of bestowal, this is called a “real need,” and it is only this that we can attribute to the lower ones, meaning the lack, that he is lacking vessels of bestowal. This is called a Kli, meaning a need.
The filling for this, meaning the desire to bestow, belongs to the Creator. In other words, as the Creator has given the first Kli, which is the will to receive, He also gives the Kli called “desire to bestow.” The only difference between the first Kli called “will to receive,” and the Kli called “desire to bestow,” is that the first Kli was without an awakening of the lower one, since before he was born, who would ask? But afterwards, when the will to receive was born, he began to feel what that will to receive is causing him. To the extent of the understanding of the need for vessels of bestowal, so does a person awaken to feel the need, and it is only the need for vessels of bestowal that we attribute to the creatures.
Accordingly, we can interpret what we say and ask, “Grant me the treasure of a free gift.” This is perplexing, since we need to serve the Creator not in order to receive reward, much less ask for a free gift. So, why does it say (in the prayer, May It Please, before saying Psalms) “Grant me the treasure of a free gift?”
The meaning is “Give us a free gift, grant me.” That is, give us the gift of the vessel of bestowal, just as You have given us the Kli of the will to receive. We are asking You, since we feel the need for the vessel of bestowal. And what are the vessels of bestowal? To be able to work for free, without any reward, but rather that our work will be only in order to bestow. That is, in the first Kli, called “will to receive,” a person can only work for a reward, and this Kli is called “a new Kli,” a new creation that did not exist before He has created it.
Now, give us a Kli, meaning a desire from Your treasure. And what is it? The desire to bestow. This was also before He has created the will to receive, for the desire to bestow is the reason for the desire to receive. The desire to bestow is called “existence from existence,” and the will to receive is called “existence from absence, since it is known that there is no will to receive in the Creator because from whom would He receive? For this reason, we ask for “the treasure of a free gift,” meaning from Your treasure. Since You have a desire to bestow, You give that desire for free. Give it to us, so we, too, can work for free, without receiving reward.
By this we will understand what we asked, How can we ask the Creator to give us a free gift? The meaning is that we are asking the Creator to give us the ability to serve Him for free. In other words, the vessel of reception that a person receives is called “a free gift.”
Thus, what is the gift that one should ask the Creator to give him? We asked, How can one ask for presents, since it is known that you can ask for charity, but a gift? Who asks for gifts? Normally, we give gifts to those we love.
The answer is that since a person wants to love the Creator, and since the will to receive is the obstructor, a person asks for this gift called vessels of bestowal, where through this gift that he will receive from the Creator, a person will be rewarded with the love of the Creator and not with self-love. This is why it is called a “gift,” and this is what a person should ask.
This is the meaning of what we asked, What gift should one ask of the Creator, which is permitted to ask, and on which our work in Torah and Mitzvot stand, where by observing them we will receive a need for this request and understand that “they are our lives and the length of our days”? That need is that we are lacking Dvekut with the Creator, called “equivalence of form,” by which we can adhere to the Life of Lives. And if we are not rewarded with Dvekut and remain in self-love, we will be separated from the Life of Lives, which is the meaning of “the wicked in their lives are called ‘dead,’” due to the separation between them.
Concerning the request for the gift, the main point is the need for the matter. Through Torah and Mitzvot we receive a need, and through the need there is room to ask for this gift, regarded as Him giving us the Kli called “desire to bestow upon the Creator.”
It is written about it (Hagigah 7): “As I am for free, you are for free.” In other words, a person should exert to work in order to bestow and not want to receive any reward. Although the Gemara interprets this differently, this, too, is implied there, as it is called Dvekut.
According to the above, we can interpret what we say in the blessing for the food, that even on Shabbat [Sabbath], when it is forbidden to speak of mundane matters, we ask the Creator, “Do not make us need the gift of flesh and blood.” Such a prayer is suitable on weekdays, when we ask for provision, but not on Shabbat.
We should interpret that the request on Shabbat not to “need the gift of flesh and blood” refers to the Kelim of flesh and blood, which flesh and blood use, namely vessels of reception. They ask the Creator to help them not need to use their Kelim, but the Kelim of the Creator, which are vessels of bestowal, and on these Kelim we ask of the Creator, for they are Kelim of a free gift.