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172 | A New Light
that you are building vessels. Every word you say is another vessel.
Everyone who does the work of the will for half an hour a day
repeats himself endlessly. After all, who can talk for half an hour
on one topic and not repeat himself? That is exactly what this work
consists of: to build vessels, to pray over and over and over again,
until we are saved. This is the only way to be able to do this work
for half an hour. I myself have repeated the same words for hours
over a period of years. Every day I repeat In the same way, when
we recite the Shemoneh Esrei, we repeat ourselves three times a
day. The work is not to produce words. The work is to say
the words with renewed will!
If you cannot repeat the words over and over again, that shows
that you lack will. Therefore, pray and ask Hashem to give you
will: “Master of the universe, have compassion on me. I see that I
am repeating the same sin day after day, and that I fall prey to the
same craving day after day. What will be with me in the end? Do
I have any other helpful advice but this? Do I have anywhere else
to turn to? Master of the world, only You can save me. Creator of
the universe, please have compassion on me and give me a strong
will to leave this darkness. Give me the strength to pray for what I
need. Help me have the strength to pray and entreat You. Where
will I go? Where will I escape to? All I can do is stand here and
stubbornly pray to You. Creator of the universe, help me stand for
half an hour and entreat You. Help me repeat the words so that
they remain fresh. Help me pray to You to give me the strength
to overcome my evil inclination. The Gemara states that if You
do not help me, I cannot overcome my evil inclination. Help me
build more and more vessels, help me pray a great deal, asking
You to help me and give me the strength to overcome my evil
inclination. Help me pray a great deal, to pray over and over again
until I nullify nature and totally nullify the evil inclination for this
craving of mine….” Repeat these words over and over again. That
is, practically speaking, the work of the will!
The Beginning
With this as a given, many people ask what they should work on
first. Everyone has many imperfections. Where should he begin?
Chapter Five: | 181 6
what teshuvah is: “What is teshuvah? It means that a transgressor
abandons his transgression, removes it from his thought and
resolves in his heart never to do it again” (Hilchot Teshuvah:
Chapter 2). It is not enough to leave the transgression. We must
uproot it entirely.
How will you remove from your mind and heart everything that
you have seen and done, everything that you have absorbed over
the years when you were far from holiness? How will you erase all
of the impressions of all of the thoughts, words, deeds and feelings
that have been embedded and burned into your heart? How will you
truly regret the things that once gave you satisfaction and pleasure,
and which you still desire? How will you uproot those feelings and
thrills that absorbed you then, and eradicate them completely until
“the One Who knows secrets will testify that this person will never
again return to that transgression” (ibid.)? How will you be able to
say: “I am someone else, and not that person who committed these
deeds” (ibid.)?
A person who do not devote time to the work of the will does not
attain true, inner teshuvah! Practically speaking, he does not have
free choice. He is as far from serving Hashem and rectifying himself
as East is from West, because he does not possess the principal tool
with which a person can have an effect and bring about changes in
himself.
Do Not Be Easy Prey
Prayer is everything: prayer is the weapon, prayer is teshuvah,
prayer is free choice. That is because prayer is the will, the essence
of life is the will, and a person is led in the way that he wants to
go. When you want something, you choose it! Your evil inclination
will allow you to do everything except pray, because if you possess
prayer and the work of the will, it is in deep trouble. Therefore, it
steals every person’s principal weapon and causes him to wander
about in this world like a soldier in the midst of a battlefield without
a weapon, like a “sitting duck.”
As we have learned, the Gemara states that everyone has an