Squaring the Circle

The Talmud Yerushalmi teaches us that within God's Creation there are no squares; everything is circular. A circle represents something complete. A circle rolls from place to place and doesn't stay in one place. Its place is every place, it is not limited. This symbolizes Hashem whose place is the entirety of Creation.

In the Mishkan (Tabernacle) everything was rectangular other than the Kiyor which stood outside. Rectangular objects don't just roll from place to place and symbolize Tzimtzum (limitation). Hashem chose his Creations to embody Him in the world in a finite manner. There were many half-measures in the Mishkan and the Ark had half measures in all of its dimensions. This is to indicate that we are seeking something, the Schechina, to complete us.
א"ב שמות ר"ס

The challenge of really davening

It is much easier to write a book about prayer, defining what is prayer, and to spend a full year working of explaining the fine points of prayer, contrasting the value of prayer vs. Torah study, than it is to actually pray. Ask such an author how much time he spent writing the book, and how much time he actually prayed to God that he should succeed in writing the book...

A brilliant person can author such a book, but a more simple person would respond that after reading all these lofty ideas, do you know what really inspires me? The simplest things. Rabbi Shmuel of Knon said that after studying all the Kabbalistic intentions of prayer, he decided to pray like a child, with no intentions other than that he was speaking to God. All I can offer with prayer is my own two cents, but you God know that my disfigured prayer is what I can do, it is my handiwork for you....

א"ב יתרו