Why do we sometimes ask the Creator for help and receive no answer?
The answer depends on what we are truly asking for.
Suppose I have a habit of stealing. I have been caught many times, punished, beaten, perhaps even imprisoned. Eventually, I conclude that stealing is causing me nothing but trouble. I turn to the Creator and ask Him to help me stop.
But why am I asking?
If I want to stop stealing only because stealing makes my life difficult, then I am not really asking to become a better person. I am asking for my life to become better. I still want what is good for myself. I simply want to obtain it without suffering the consequences. Accordingly, the egoistic calculation has remained unchanged.
This is why the purity of a request is very important. We need to examine how much our prayer is still directed at ourselves and how much it is directed at the good of others.
There is a great difference between asking the Creator, “Make things better for me,” and asking Him, “Make me better.”
Only one word changes, but the entire direction of the request changes with it.
If I ask for things to become better for me, I remain inside my egoism. Even if I no longer want to steal, I still want to arrange reality for my own benefit. In a sense, I continue the same approach in another form: I want to receive for myself.
However, suppose something changes in me. I begin to feel pain not because I was caught stealing, but because I took something from another person. It hurts me that my nature causes me to exploit others. Now I ask the Creator not to remove the punishment or make my life easier, but to change me so that I will relate properly to others.
That is already a completely different request.
I ask to become better toward others. I ask for the ability to stop taking from them and instead consider their good. Such a request begins to move away from egoism, and it thus corresponds to the direction of correction, i.e., toward giving, loving, harmonious, and peaceful human connections.
This principle applies to everything in life. We naturally want our circumstances to improve, and so we ask for fewer problems and greater comfort. However, spiritual development begins when the focus of our request shifts from changing what happens around us to changing what exists in us.
The key question is therefore not, “How can I make my life better?” but, “How can I become better toward others?”
When the suffering of others because of my egoism begins to concern me, I have something real to ask the Creator to correct.
That is a request He can answer.
Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 16, 2026. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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