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68 | A New Light
will to nullify the trait of anger. He persisted in his private talks with
the Creator of the world and pleaded with Him to help him and
rescue him. He did not give up.
Not Getting Confused by the Results
And what happened? When he was tested, he did grow angry—
very angry. But he was not broken, because he reminded himself
about the simple words that he had heard: that when he prays
and asks for help, heaven has no claim against him because he has
done all that he can. No one promised him results here and now.
But the way is a true path—that is to say, he must carry out his
obligation, and the essence of that obligation is to dedicate time to
praying. He has done his part. He is committing all of his heart to
his intentions and prayers. Anything beyond that is not under his
control. He must only pray and continue, and pray again, and wait
for Hashem’s salvation.
He encouraged himself to pray every day, and he did not allow
his current reality and descents to weaken him. And the results did
not take long to come, because “when a person prays at length,
his prayer does not return empty” (Berachot 32b). At first, he saw a
slight success in overcoming his anger. And he also saw that after he
expressed his anger, he was able to calm down more quickly. And
the most important thing was that he was happy and he thanked
Hashem for every slightest bit of progress. Finally, he saw with his
own eyes how the tough husk of anger that had dominated his heart
broke, and he succeeded in maintaining his equanimity and staying
calm even when he faced difficult tests.
Before he had heard the recording and begun to follow its advice,
he had almost despaired. He had even thought that his anger might
be a genetic disposition that he cannot overcome. And now this
great wonder occurred right before his eyes. He saw with his own
eyes that this was the sole approach that helped him and literally
changed his nature—an absolute miracle.
As a result of his initial successes in nullifying the trait of anger,
he came to meet me. I told him that he was going on the right 3 his mission—moreover, he will be in terrible danger. The
Chapter Three: | 93
lived a miraculous, wondrous mode of life, and who are called “the
generation of knowledge”—they reached such a foolish conclusion?
And the following was the manner of their thinking. (To clarify:
what I write here about Hashem is not my own view, heaven forbid,
but represents the mistaken understanding of the generation of the
desert).
“The Creator hates us, and so He has thought of how He might
kill us. Having thought and thought, the Creator at last came up
with the following plan: ‘I will bring about ten plagues and split the
Sea of Reeds, I will kill millions of Egyptians and I will defeat the
Amalekites. Then I will give the children of Israel the Torah at an
awesome prophetic event, face to face with each individual. All
along the way I will give them manna, a well, clouds of glory, clean
and laundered clothes that grow together with them, and more. I
will do all of that in order to bring them to the land of Israel, so that
there the Amorites will help Me destroy them….’” This is absurd!
Their ingratitude rose to the heights until their intellect was entirely
contorted. It is not enough that in one moment of being tested they
erased all of Hashem’s favors and miracles from their minds, but
that their ability to think was itself entirely erased! To us this even
appears humorous, because if Hashem hated them He would have
killed them during the ten plagues or by drowning them in the sea,
or He would have allowed the Egyptians and Amalekites to do the
work for Him. Did Hashem need to wait until they would come to
the land of Israel?
But at the moment that a person is tested, he responds in precisely
this way. If some small matter does not go his way, he forgets all
of the favors that Hashem has done for him, he feels that Hashem
hates him, and so forth. At the moment that a person is tested,
nothing helps him, because his mind is taken away. Only a person’s
personal work stands with him at the moment of the test.
Remember and Do Not Forget
Thus, if a person does not do the work of the will, he will not
change. He will not attain his rectification, and he will not fulfill