Page 243 - 20780

238 | A New Light Chapter Six: | 243 246 | A New Light

…We gain a great insight from this: that if we are brings us our salvation and that we must stretch our hands out Mei’eliyahu (Part 4, p. 252) in the name of Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv
inspired to truly pray to come close to Hashem, may to receive it, the work of the will becomes qualitatively different Broide (the Elder of Kelm).
He be blessed, to pray that Hashem will nullify all of our than it was before (as will be explained in depth, with the help of
uncleanness and obtuseness of heart, we will realize that heaven). He would ask:
we are always with Hashem, may He be blessed, and He is How did the holy forefathers and all of the great ones
close to us. The only condition is that we must truly seek We Cry Out for Life of the world attain their level? How is it that their might
Him. Then we will speed the process immeasurably was superior to ours?
beyond all of the barriers of obtuseness and obstacles, As stated above, Hashem wants to save everyone spiritually, and
until we will truly cleave to Him. And the more we unite He is always able to do so. He is only waiting for us to prepare And he answered:
ourselves with this, the more we will succeed (with the our vessel. What is that vessel? It is our strong and whole will. I
understood from the story about Rabbi Nachman hanging from the
help of Hashem, may He be blessed)…. wall that a person’s strong will, as expressed in an authentic outcry They knew of the enormous power that lies in the
from the depth of his heart, constitutes the complete vessel that visualization of the heart. The evil inclination also knows
The second way, which is solely spiritual, penetrates directly into brings about every sort of salvation. The simplest reason that we do this secret well, and it prosecutes its war entirely by
our inner being. Our sages said that “from the day that the Temple not change spiritually is that our will to change in spiritual matters making constant use of visualizations and illusions, in
was destroyed, the gates of prayer were locked…, but the gates is infinitely weaker than our will to be saved from the danger of
of tears were not locked.” The “locked gate” is the obtuseness of death, and so we do not cry out for spiritual life in the same way which it traps our hearts, snaring us in its net. We can
the heart. After the Temple was destroyed, [the heart] grew so that we cry out for physical life. only battle against it by using its own weapon—i.e., by
thick that we cannot split it and come close to Hashem…. But with utilizing many images on the side of holiness.
deep prayer to the point of weeping, we can split that obtuseness, Know that in order to be effective and receive the spiritual
remove it, and come close to Hashem. This gate is never locked. abundance and heavenly assistance that Hashem deeply wants to We see here a literal application of what Rabbi Nachman says:
give us, we must want to receive that spiritual salvation with a that a person should visualize his danger. A person should always
And our sages said, “There is something that stands at the peak of recall the story of Rabbi Nachman as he hung from the wall, about
the world, yet people which disdain—that is prayer” (Berachot 6b). strong and powerful will that leads to an outcry of truth from the to fall and with no one to save him. He should visualize in great
depths of our heart. It is impossible to speak of an outcry of the
This means that prayer transcends the rules of this world, so heart unless a person truly feels that his spiritual danger is at least detail that he himself is hanging from the wall, about to plunge
that we do not arise by means of prayer gradually as in other as terrible as his physical danger. down at any moment. And with that he should cry out to Hashem
means of ascent, but we rise instantaneously to attain purity with all his might and plead for what he needs spiritually.
of the heart. A person requires great encouragement to awaken and
pray for the removal of his uncleanness and obtuseness. A person A Critical Situation People Steeped in Craving Cannot See
who encourages himself in this way will certainly succeed,
because on this path there is no impediment whatsoever. As a result of the story of the drowning student and the stories A person’s outcry emerges in accordance with the imagery in
about Rabbi Nachman, I came to realize that the entirety of the his heart. He knows that it is forbidden to commit a sin. He knows
To Recognize Hashem work of the will is to feel that one is in literal danger, in terrible that his cravings distance him from Hashem, from his goals and
and immediate jeopardy. Wholeness of the will means that we feel from the truth, and that his addictions cast him down even lower
that our situation is critical and that we have no time. We need our
Now I will summarize the two components of faith, and combine than Gehennom and will lead him to absolute destruction. But he
them into a single unit. salvation here and now. That is the essence of the work of the does not feel afraid and he does not have any sense of danger.
will! Even though he knows that his addiction is ruining his life (as
The Vilna Gaon states that the greatest yearning in the world, The problem is that we think that we have time and that the was described in Chapter Four: The Laws of Life), he feels
greater than any other, is the yearning of the soul to do the will of no danger. Why doesn’t he feel fear and danger? It is because his
situation is not critical. Thus, even as we pray, we think to ourselves: