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Hashem, “You must give me the will itself,” and not to say, “You give us and pour onto us from Your holy dwelling
must give me the particular result,” because (as already explained), place the help to receive this good, holy gift….
that result is not the essence of the work. The work is the will. And
regarding that, we must pray: “I have to serve You properly, and Rabbi Natan is telling Hashem: “You give us gifts. Any impediment
You want me to serve You properly. You want this even more than is from our side: that we do not have the ‘hands’ to receive them.
You ‘have to.’ Therefore, You must help me serve You in the way Help us be able to receive Your gifts.” Therefore, do not ask, “How
that You want me to.” will I be able to build the wholeness of my will?” That itself will
come about as a result of your strong prayers as you do the work of
When a person devotes time to the work of the will every day the will. Whenever you devote time to the work of the will, begin
with great regularity, he can argue before Hashem, “Master of the the work of the will with a wholeness of faith. Remind yourself how
world, I obligate myself to stand and want every day—which is much Hashem wants to save you, that He is all-powerful, and that
what You want of me. Therefore, You must save me and give me from this moment on you can emerge entirely different! Only when
a strong will, because Your good will is to save all those who call to you are strong in this can you progress to visualize your danger and
You in truth.” thus attain the wholeness of will and receive your salvation. Say to
Hashem:
You must know clearly that everything stated in this entire book—
and, in particular, in this chapter—is meant to inspire you to take Master of the universe, You want, yearn and
full responsibility for your life, and invest time in the work of the desire to give to me, and You are certainly all-
will. Know that this work is not hard, and the results are infinite. powerful. And I need to be saved, because as long
By the same token, one may not skip the work. All of us want to as You do not save me I commit transgressions
know what this work is and to do it with all our might and with all
our heart. and violate Your will, and I cannot move forward
in my life. If I really felt this and came to the true
“And I Pleaded with Hashem” core of my will, I would immediately be saved.
Therefore, I pray for this itself: please help me
attain the wholeness of will so that I will truly feel
People have asked me: You say that we must make a strong
request of Hashem and ask for salvation here and now, and even that I cannot live unless You save me.
say to Hashem, “You must save me!” But explicit quotes from our
sages indicate that we are not allowed to make forceful demands. Regarding this itself, you must cry out and ask Hashem to help you
Rather, we must plead and pray for Hashem’s compassion. For so that you will be able to sense your danger and cry out to Him.
instance, “Do not make your prayer a routine duty but [an appeal That is something that you can ask to receive immediately,
for Hashem’s] compassion and pleading” (Avot 2:13). Even Moses, because that awareness constitutes your spiritual salvation.
who attained so much and who did so much for others, only And it is something that heaven must give you immediately, because
requested an undeserved gift of Hashem. That being the case, who you are asking for a spiritual element that you require, and heaven
are we to demand that Hashem give us what we want at this very wants to give you the spiritual salvation that you need.
moment?
If you lack this sense of your danger, you cannot cry out and ask
However, according to what I wrote above, it is understood Hashem to save you immediately. However, you can cry out that
that there is no contradiction between our obligation to pray for you want to sense the danger, because you know that in fact you
are in danger, and you know that if you are not able to sense the