If You Wish to Look at the Creator’s Face

After all of his searches, a person reaches a state where he asks for just one thing: the ability to make the right decision. And that means he has reached the right prayer.

The most important thing that we will discover by studying the unification of the forces of reception and bestowal is how the Creator makes decisions while being above them, what He bases His decisions on. We will attain Him by His actions. But by researching everything that happens inside of us under His influence, through this we want to attain His mind, His plan, intentions, and thoughts. This is our entire work.

And to do this all that is necessary is prayer. With our own forces we cannot attain His mind and head, the place where decisions are made and from which all actions come. That is because we are also His actions.

And since a spiritual action is always done "for the sake of bestowal," we cannot understand how the upper mind could have made that decision. This always happens as a "finding" or miracle, as it is written: "I labored and found"! It is impossible to understand the Creator's mind directly by observing the combination of two forces: reception and bestowal. This is where the difference lies between the Creator Himself, His decision, and all the actions that follow from His decision.

Therefore, a person who reaches prayer asks for the ability to understand precisely this: the plan and thought of the Creator, who makes the decisions. Similarly, Moses was told, "You will see me from behind, but you will not see My face." This prayer emerges continuously.

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 03/10/11, What Is Prayer?

Creation Swimming in an Ocean of Light

There are only two forces in the universe: the force of bestowal-the Creator, and the force of reception-creation. They begin from the state one opposite the other where the force of the Creator is infinite, like an ocean of Light that is at eternal rest. And the force of creation begins with a small point inside this Light of Infinity.

The Creator's aim is to raise this point so it will become as big as the Light and equal to it in every way both in size and quality. This will mean that the good and generous Creator has carried out his good and benevolent action-the action of bestowal.

Therefore, the Creator gives creation all of the qualities that are present in the desire to receive pleasure, in opposition to what is present in the Creator, in the desire to bestow, so creation would independently decide and freely choose the state of the Creator, bestowal, as the highest and most desirable quality compared to everything that is present in creation. Even if it received the opportunity to acquire infinite fulfillment for its own sake, it would prefer to remain empty just to be closer to the quality of bestowal.

On this path creation has to go through an enormous amount of discernments, but they can all be divided into two parts: quantitative understanding and qualitative understanding. All the work of creation lies in realizing its evil. It has to understand how bad its egoistic quality of reception is compared to the Creator's quality of bestowal.

And the reason it is bad is not because it causes creation to suffer. In that case creation would choose bestowal egoistically. Yet these discernments of good and evil should not depend on the desires of creation itself, meaning it cannot choose something that it would be able to enjoy naturally.

The choice has to be made from a point that is independent of your own desires so you would prefer bestowal for the sake of this quality because it is the most exalted one. And it shouldn't happen because you plan to receive some kind of fulfillment or benefit from it.

Therefore, on this path creation always starts by asking, "Who is the Creator so I would listen to His voice?" And "What will I receive for all of this work?" That is, it reveals all of its desire, the entire vessel (Kli) and its size as well as quality, attains itself, and demands natural fulfillment according to its egoistic qualities.

Then it works by analyzing its desires from within, and reaches the understanding that it is completely limited and aspires only toward its own pleasure, which is therefore false. Under these conditions, it cannot objectively value the truth.

And when it tries to reach the truth in order not to depend on its own desires, to "hang" between the sky and the earth, it sees itself as "half sinner and half righteous" like on the scale of justice. From here on, creation already starts working on its own free choice.

From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 03/10/11, What Is Prayer?