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in prayer and pleading before the Holy One, blessed be will. With it, you will draw all salvation onto yourself. Hashem
He, until heaven and earth and the structures of wants to give. You need only prepare the vessel—which is the will.
Creation trembled, and [the ministering angels] said, And the main component is the inner will, not the outer voice.
“Perhaps the Holy One, blessed be He, is coming to Therefore, Rabbi Nachman says (Sichot Haran 16):
renew His world….” The sound of [Moses’] prayer Know that a person can cry out with a still, small voice
grew so strong that [the angels] wished to move up a that is a very great outcry that no one else can hear at
firmament because of that sound of the prayer of Moses,
because his prayer was similar to the sword that all, because the person does not express any sound at
tears apart and splits apart, and that does not stop. all. Instead, he cries out in a still, small voice. This is
something that everyone can do. That is to say, a person

This prayer of Moses demonstrates clearly that there is no should imagine himself crying out. The voice of that
contradiction between prayer as pleading for Hashem’s compassion outcry will enter into his thought, and he will imagine the
and prayer that is powerful, because Moses prayed with all his might sound of the outcry literally with its intonation, in the
and with immense stubbornness, yet he is said to have “pleaded.” way that people cry out. He should enter into this until
he cries out literally on the level of a still, small voice,
To Fall before Hashem which no one else can hear at all.

From here we see that even when we pray by seeking Hashem’s “Whatever Is Used in Fire, You Shall Pass through
compassion by pleading and asking for an undeserved gift, Fire”
our prayer must be so strong that heaven and earth and the
structures of Creation tremble. Thus, the midrash describes Moses’ When we attain wholeness of the will, we pray with complete
uncompromising request for an “undeserved gift” as being similar fervor, with complete ardor. Such prayer enkindles the entirety of
to “a sword that tears apart and splits apart, and that does not a person. As the verse states, “My heart is hot within me” (Psalms
stop,” with a loud, thundering sound. Presumably, Moses argued 39:4). When such a person prays, he is not dreaming and asleep.
before Hashem: “I must enter the Holy Land. And You want to Instead, his prayer is filled with passion, intensity, flame and fire.
assist me, because in Your treasury You possess the treasure of an Only with such prayer do we attain a pure heart. Sins and cravings
undeserved gift. For whom did You create this treasure? Didn’t operate with absolute ardor, with all of a person’s heart, with zeal
You create it in order to save me? You wish to save me and to and searing heat. Therefore, when we want to purify our heart
reveal Your treasure of an undeserved gift.” of every evil intent, we must pray with zeal and searing heat, in
keeping with the principle in the laws of kashering vessels that “just
We see from this midrash that praying with great force does not as a vessel absorbs, so does it expel”: if a vessel absorbed the taste
in the least contradict pleading for Hashem’s compassion and for of a forbidden food due to a process involving fire, it must be
His undeserved gift. We must uproot the false belief that prayer in kashered in fire. Scalding it in boiling water that is not as hot as
the form of pleading contradicts forceful crying out to Hashem. fire does not suffice. So too, if our heart was polluted in the fire
Accordingly, the statement in the Shulchan Aruch, “A person of cravings and the evil inclination, in order to purify it with the
should pray in a pleading manner, like a poor person begging at the work of the will we require fiery prayer. We cannot make do with
door” (Orach Chaim 98), does not mean that a person should pray weak intent. We need mighty intent, like that of a person who is
weakly. It does not mean that he should pray listlessly. A person
fighting for his life. Then the work of the will is performed with