Higher and Sweeter - a prayer

A Written Prayer: 27th of Menachem Av 5772, 8:04AM in a Starbucks Cafe’ in Philly.


Dearest Sweet Beloved Divine Parent, Thank You for this beautiful and happy day. Thank You that I’m here communing with You. It’s really special to allow the spirit in my heart to emote to You in prayer. My heart is hollow for the blood that carries my spirit. With her beat, her walls vibrate a prayer to You, which pen or tongue place into words or better yet, "craft into words".

I am feeling a wish for the world to operate ... I mean for humanity to operate with greater kindness. I wish for war and conflict to disappear and for humanity’s whole focus to revolve around how can we share and do kindness for another. I know that the changes we are all hoping for has much more to do with receiving Your blessing than changing jobs, people in our lives, political systems, religions, economic systems, whose in control, how medical services are dispensed, etc.

Every situation has a higher and sweeter version. With Your blessing, situations can be transcended into that higher and sweeter version - simply as natural extensions of what they already are. There’s no real falsehood, only limited perspectives. So the real remedy is to expand the perspective. Once blessing flows in, the light on its own dispels rigidity, stubbornness and blockages.

The Alter Rebbe again and again reiterates that our emotional states are not in our own hands. They are transmitted to us by You. That’s why he enjoins us to elicit Your blessings  via the distribution of alms. As counter-intuitive as it may seem to the western mindset, the Alter Rebbe teaches that by this kindness a person will be able to receive a very kind gift from You - the ability to feel true love and reverence for You while in prayer.

It occurs to me that if doing kindness can elicit serious changes in the way the heart feels - couldn’t doing kindness elicit Your kindness to shine on other areas of our lives as well and lift up every situation to enter the space of its “better and sweeter self”?

This is why I am praying to You  to open people’s hearts to kindness. Please open us up to the “master key” to all that’s blocked and locked; namely, kindness. We need Your help to attain that “flexible heart of flesh” which emotes and vibrates us to pray and help. Please …

I specifically look back to my childhood religious upbringing which wasn’t too Zionistic, but, very much focused on Moshiach. What was the underlying inherent thought behind how the people I grew up around were expecting that a Moshiach which can arrive in a “flash”, at any second, was going to rebuild our Holy Temple on the site of what is essentially regarded as a central Moslem shrine and of Christian significance?

The answer is very simple. The Kotzker once said that Moshiach will show the idolaters that they basically had the right idea, they merely focused too low on their own self admitted heavenly hierarchy. The meaning is that if all religions ascend high enough in their perspective, they all become monotheistic - they all find greater truth. However, we need to be blessed with a higher more inclusive perspective. The human mind only arrives at that mental space via Your blessing. We need You to help us with the kindness that will elicit the blessings of opening our minds and hearts.

This will lead to the unity of all perspectives into a single highly flexible and compatible perspective, where everyone can meet each other.

Thank You for this prayer. Love and Kisses …