טו

May it be Your will, Hashem our G‑d and G‑d of our fathers — the great, mighty, and awesome G‑d, Whose fear and awe rest upon all who despise evil, and upon all the seraphim and ofanim and holy chayos, and upon all the worlds and upon all the creatures above and below — they all tremble and quake from the awesomeness of Your Name. And therefore have mercy upon me through Your mercies — upon a wretched and despised creature such as I. That You draw down upon me Your holy fear always — and may Your fear be before my face so that I not sin; and may I merit to feel Your holy fear in every single one of my limbs.

Please, Hashem, grant me merit through Your abundant mercies and Your mighty lovingkindnesses that I not lose my world, G‑d forbid, and that I not labor in vain nor give birth to confusion [cf. Isaiah 65:23]. And may I merit to look upon myself always and to settle my mind very well — what am I doing in this world, a world that passes like the blink of an eye; to consider my ways and to judge myself in all the deeds that I do at every time and every day and every hour — to judge myself about them at every time: whether I am doing what is right or not, G‑d forbid. So that through this I merit to have mercy upon myself and to turn from my evil deeds and my ugly thoughts — to truly be turning from evil, whether in thought or in speech or in deed; and to do only that which is good in Your eyes always.

Please, Hashem, have compassion upon me in Your compassion; have pity upon me through Your great mercies; have pity and be gracious to me; and have mercy upon us and see our lowliness and our poverty — for we are in very great distress, more and more like one lost in the heart of the sea and like one lying at the top of a mast [cf. Proverbs 23:34]. I do not know my own soul — where to flee, where to escape, where to fly and dwell; to be saved from my very many soul-afflictions. And I do not know at all how to find any path by which to cry out and to call to You in earnest — for these many days and years I have been occupied in calling to You to stir Your lovingkindnesses and to reveal Your mercies, that You grant me merit to go out from evil to good, from darkness to light, that You help me to abandon my evil ways and my very ugly thoughts — as You have taught us through Your true tzadikim, that prayer avails for every matter, and the essence of drawing near to You in truth is through prayer, and You hearken to the prayer of every mouth. And even a cry from the belly of the grave, from the very depths of depths, You hear through Your mercies. Yet why do You not incline Your ear to hear the words of Your servant who stands before You, who has been crying out to You for such a long time? And not only do I not merit to improve my deeds from day to day — moreover my soul-afflictions multiply day by day and I do not know at all what to do, what counsel and stratagem to seek, to draw upon myself the power of holiness, that I merit to overpower and subdue my evil inclination and to bend and break and nullify my desires. For I have no path to flee from what I must flee from — to save my soul from the judgment of Gehinom — except through prayer and supplications and crying out and calling and beseeching to You; and even this is withheld from me, for how can one pursued and stricken, dragged and stripped as I am, merit to pray and cry out in truth as is fitting? Only I am obligated to cry out and to pray as best I can. And if even this avails me not, G‑d forbid — I do not know what to do, how to seek refuge and safety for myself.

Master of the Universe — in truth I know, for I am myself the guilty one and in me lies the iniquity of my master [cf. Genesis 44:16] — for I do not overpower my desires even for a little while; and through my many iniquities I have been as one who draws the desires upon himself, G‑d forbid, and not only did I not strive to drive them away and to overcome them — I also drew them upon me, may the Merciful One protect us from now on. But even so, I have already sought Your presence and cast my supplication before Your true lovingkindnesses — that You be filled with mercy upon me, and that You save me through Your mercies from my very self, so that I not be cruel any longer to my very wretched soul, and that I merit to have mercy upon myself. For there is no mercy in the world comparable to the mercy that rests upon one who has been distanced from You and still does not merit to draw near in truth — as You know in truth, Hashem my G‑d, Healer of the sick, Liberator of the bound, Sustainer of the fallen, Hearer of the groaning of the destitute. Have compassion upon me and do not abandon me and do not forsake me — see my affliction and my downfall in bitterness and in misery [cf. Lamentations 3:19]; and I know that my Redeemer lives [cf. Job 19:25], and You contemplate from afar to do good to my end, and to restore my captivity. Answer me, Hashem, answer me; help me, help me; be gracious to me, be gracious to me; save me, save me — give me grace that I not perish; grant me merit and help me to return to You in truth in complete teshuvah; and bring it about that I walk in Your statutes and keep Your ordinances. And grant me merit to the holy judgment in truth — that I merit to settle my mind every day always, and to judge myself well; and to deliberate with myself about all the business and matters and deeds that I do — whether it is right for me to do so, to spend my days on such things, G‑d forbid. And may I merit to hold my mind firmly for a fixed time in this settling of the mind and in this judgment, and not let my mind and my thoughts flee from this quickly — rather may I merit to enter into this settling of the mind and this judgment very well indeed, until I merit that my settling of the mind be greatly strengthened in truth with great force and with strong power; in such a way that I merit to turn and to return from now — immediately and straightaway — from all evil deeds and from all evil thoughts, and to hold fast only to good deeds always.

And through this may You grant me merit through Your mercies to complete fear — to fear this glorious and awesome Name, Hashem our G‑d. And may my fear be clear and pure without any dross — and may I have only the fear of Hashem alone; and may Your lovingkindness to me be made great, and may You sweeten and nullify from upon me and from upon my offspring and from upon all Your people the House of Israel all kinds of judgments in the world. And do not judge me according to my deeds nor sentence me according to my actions. "Enter not into judgment with Your servant, for no living being is righteous before You" [Psalms 143:2]. Rather may You decree through Your great and abundant lovingkindnesses to nullify from upon me all sentences and all judgments in the world — that they have no opening whatsoever to arouse judgment and sentence, G‑d forbid. Rather may You grant me merit that I myself judge myself well at every time — to stir myself to complete teshuvah in truth always, until I merit to be as You truly desire. And may You save us through Your abundant mercies from all kinds of external fears, from fallen fears — that I not fear or be afraid of any minister or lord, nor of any evil beast or brigand, nor of any matter in the world at all; but of You alone will I fear and be in awe — and may Your fear be before my face always so that I not sin. And may I merit to elevate the fear to its root — to the holy da'as [daas hakadosh]. And may I merit through Your mighty mercies to complete my mind in completeness in holiness and in purity — so that I know from Whom I must stand in awe: to fear Your great Name alone. And may the holy fear be drawn in all my limbs — in my two hundred and forty-eight limbs and three hundred and sixty-five sinews; and may I merit to be filled with awe and fear and great fear truly before Your great and holy Name at every time and every hour always; and may You grant me merit through Your abundant mercies to complete and whole knowledge [da'as shalem] in truth in holiness and in purity.

Hashem G‑d — You know the great extent of the lowliness and the degradation and the blemish of our minds, for our minds have been blemished and ruined very greatly through our evil deeds and our ugly thoughts and our very confused attitudes — until we do not know at all how to give counsel to our own souls, how to conduct ourselves in any matter in the world. Please, Hashem, full of mercy — have compassion upon me and be gracious to me from You with complete knowledge [da'as shalem], that I merit to whole knowledge of holiness — so that through this I know Your Name in truth and fear You always, and may I merit to the higher fear, the fear of His Exaltedness [yir'as harommus].

And therefore grant me merit through Your abundant mercies to engage in Your holy Torah always — day and night; and may You open my mind and illuminate my eyes through Your Torah, and may I merit to study Your holy Torah with a pure and clear intellect. And may I merit to know and to understand with great swiftness everywhere I study — and no power of any confuser shall be able to confuse my mind, G‑d forbid, during my study with any confusion in the world at all: neither foreign thoughts — alien thoughts from the vanities of the world — nor confusions and muddlings and crookedness in the very subject of study itself. From all of them save me, my Father in Heaven, through Your abundant mercies — rather may I merit to overcome through Your mercies to remove and nullify from upon me all kinds of confusions and crookedness in the world during the time of study. And may I merit to study much with great swiftness, with a pure and clear intellect in truth; and may I merit to begin and to complete all the books of the holy Torah — both Written and Oral — and to study them many times. Please, Hashem, full of mercy — You know the extreme extent of the confusions and muddlings that confuse and surround and muddle my mind always — and in particular during the time of my study; so that I have not yet merited to study even a brief period with a pure and correct thought. And the whole day long — even during my time of study — my mind is very confused and torn, in many kinds of confusions and muddlings and thoughts of foolishness and crookedness of the heart, thousands of thousands and tens of thousands of tens of thousands, without measure or limit at every time and every hour. And I do not know where to flee to save myself from them. Hashem G‑d — You know, You know the scatteredness of our mind, for we have blemished and ruined our mind very greatly; and for days and years my mind has been greatly scattered, wandering at every time in follies and confusions and evil thoughts and many kinds of blemishes — which it is impossible to explain or set forth at all. If I were to say I will tell even an infinitesimal fraction of the extreme extent of the murky confusion of my mind, time would run out; and all the good counsel that You revealed to us through the true tzadikim — how to be saved from them by sitting still and not acting [shev v'al ta'aseh] — we have rebelled against them and not fulfilled them. Until through our many iniquities we have corrupted and blemished very greatly all the good counsel that You have already revealed to us, and the counsel that You are revealing to us and hinting to us at every time: how to be saved from the confusion and scatteredness of our mind — for I was not overpowering myself at all to fulfill them, until our mind has become so confused and scattered that even when we wish to overpower ourselves and to abandon our evil thoughts and to hold fast to the ways of Your good counsel, we are unable at all to hold our thoughts in peace in holiness and in purity even for a short while. Hashem G‑d, our Father in Heaven — the true Merciful One, full of mercy at every time and every moment always. You know how far we are now from the holiness of thought and from the completeness of the mind; and we have already spent our years in vanity and emptiness, in confusion of mind and in very evil and blemished thoughts, at every time and every hour. And we have never yet merited to settle our mind as is fitting truly in truth — not even for one hour from our youth until this day — for we have sinned, done wrong, and transgressed greatly, and we have blemished the holy covenant; through which our mind was torn and confused very greatly; and we do not know at all how to revive ourselves, or what path will grant us merit to return to the holy knowledge [da'as dikdushah] in its completeness truly as is fitting — for we have corrupted and blemished all the paths and byways of the holy knowledge.

Please, Hashem, have compassion upon me through Your abundant mercies; have pity and compassion please upon my very wretched soul — very weary, very weak, very hungry and very thirsty, resting in the place where it rests [cf. Ruth 3:4 — the place of rest]. As You alone know the great extent of the compassion that rests upon us at this time — in the footsteps of the Mashiach [ikv'a d'Meshicha], in the depths of exile. The afflictions of our souls have expanded very greatly without measure or limit — and it is impossible to explain or to tell even one part in a thousand or a myriad of them. Our Father in Heaven — help us; our Father in Heaven — be gracious to us; our Father in Heaven — we do not know at all what to say, or by what path we can merit to please and appease You — after we have spurned Your most lofty counsel and rebelled against You so very greatly. Master of the Universe — You know that all my words and my requests and my supplications, and all that I look forward to and hope for and wait for still — for Your salvation in truth in the blink of an eye — in all of them I have no support or security or refuge at all, except in the power of the true tzadikim with whom You have privileged us in all generations. And in this generation too You have privileged us with great and awesome true tzadikim whose name is proclaimed upon us — and upon their great power alone have I leaned. And therefore may Your innards churn over us; may Your mighty mercies churn and be deeply stirred over us — over one pursued without respite as I am, over one poor and suffering and broken-hearted as I am. And help us through Your abundant mercies, in the power and merit of the true tzadikim, that I merit to overcome all my evil thoughts; and may I merit to complete my mind in holiness and in purity through Your abundant mercies. And grant me merit to study and to meditate in Your holy Torah always — day and night; and may I merit to study with great swiftness without any confusions at all; and may I merit that my brain be clarified — and may my brain and my intellect be pure and clear and clean without any dross at all; and may my brain and intellect be swift and sharp to understand a matter in its truest essence with great speed without any deliberation at all. And have mercy upon me that I merit to true and real humility and lowliness — that there arise in my heart no aspect of arrogance or ulterior motive at all. And even when You grant me merit through Your mercies to study much Torah — may I merit not to take credit to myself at all; and there shall not arise in my heart, G‑d forbid, through my Torah study, any ulterior motive or haughtiness of spirit at all. And may I merit to study much Torah for its own sake in holiness and in purity, in humility and true lowliness; and may I merit to learn and to teach, to observe and to do and to fulfill all the words of Your Torah with love. עברית ▾ Master of the Universe! Master of the Universe! Master of the Universe! I have no mouth to speak and no forehead to raise my head — for there is no word on my tongue; behold, Hashem — You know it all [Psalms 139:4]. For You have borne me and cast me away. Hashem — by Your will You had set up my mountain in strength; You hid Your face and I was confounded [Psalms 30:8]. Answer me, Hashem — for Your lovingkindness is good; according to Your abundant mercies turn toward me [Psalms 69:17]. And do not hide Your face from Your servant — for I am in distress; answer me speedily [Psalms 69:18]. To Hashem I shall call and to Hashem I shall entreat [Psalms 30:9]. What gain is there in my blood — in my going down to the pit? Will the dust acknowledge You? Will it tell Your truth? [Psalms 30:10]. Hear, Hashem, and be gracious to me — Hashem, be my helper [Psalms 30:11]. For I know no path at all how to reveal the immensity of the concealment within concealment — which is comprised of thousands and ten-thousands of concealments; until I know not how to escape from them and how to rescue my soul from the fowler’s snare. רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם. אֵין לִי פֶּה לְדַבֵּר וְלֹא מֵצַח לְהָרִים רֹאשׁ, כִּי אֵין מִלָּה בִּלְשׁוֹנִי הֵן יְהֹוָה יָדַעְתָּ כֻלָּהּ, כִּי נְשָׂאתַנִי וַתַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי. יְהֹוָה בִּרְצוֹנְךָ הֶעֱמַדְתָּ לְהַרְרִי עֹז הִסְתַּרְתָּ פָּנֶיךָ הָיִיתִי נִבְהָל. עֲנֵנִי יְהֹוָה כִּי טוֹב חַסְדֶּךָ כְּרֹב רַחֲמֶיךָ פְּנֵה אֵלָי. וְאַל תַּסְתֵּר פָּנֶיךָ מֵעַבְדֶּךָ כִּי צַר לִי מַהֵר עֲנֵנִי. אֵלֶיךָ יְהֹוָה אֶקְרָא וְאֶל יְהֹוָה אֶתְחַנָּן. מַה בֶּצַע בְּדָמִי בְּרִדְתִּי אֶל שַׁחַת הֲיוֹדְךָ עָפָר הֲיַגִּיד אֲמִתֶּךָ. שְׁמַע יְהֹוָה וְחָנֵּנִי יְהֹוָה הֱיֵה עוֹזֵר לִי, כִּי אֵין אֲנִי יוֹדֵעַ שׁוּם דֶּרֶךְ אֵיךְ לְגַלּוֹת עֹצֶם הַהַסְתָּרָה שֶׁבְּתוֹךְ הַסְתָּרָה הַזֹּאת, הַכְּלוּלָה מֵאֲלָפִים וּרְבָבוֹת הַסְתָּרוֹת, עַד אֲשֶׁר אֵינִי יוֹדֵעַ אֵיךְ לְהִמָּלֵט מֵהֶם וְאֵיךְ לְהַצִּיל נַפְשִׁי מִפַּח יוֹקְשִׁים: And therefore grant me merit through Your abundant mercies to true and complete prayer as is fitting — and may I merit to pray the entire day truly; and may You stir my heart through Your abundant mercies that I merit to pour out my speech before You, to set forth my speech before You always in prayer and supplication. And all the good that is hidden and stored in my good point — may I be able to bring it out to light through the words of prayer and supplication and requests in truth from the very depths of the heart; until I merit that the hidden and concealed good that is within me be revealed, and the good overpower the evil — until I subdue and nullify the evil completely; and may I merit to go out from evil to good, from darkness to great light. And grant me merit through Your mercies to pray with self-sacrifice [mesiras nefesh] in truth — and may I merit to nullify all my being and physicality, and not pray at all for my own benefit; rather may I merit to be completely nullified during prayer — as if I am not in the world at all — and my entire intent in prayer shall be only for Your Name in truth: to elevate the Shechinah from exile, to reveal Your Divinity in the world. And just as You have already begun through Your many mercies and lovingkindnesses to reveal Your Divinity in the world — and You have taught us through Your true tzadikim to arrange songs and praises and prayers and supplications before You, and You have shown us Your holy Names, and You have decreed in Your lovingkindness to support us with Your titles and praises, that we have permission and power to call upon You and to address You with titles and praises — through which alone we have support and hope to draw near to You in truth and to know You with a whole heart — so through Your abundant mercies may You grant us merit in every generation, and among all of Israel may You also grant me merit; and give me true and holy knowledge [da'as amiti dikdushah] through Your holy Torah, that I merit to arrange songs and praises and prayer and supplications before You always all the days of my life — in truth, in faith, and with correct and settled knowledge. And may I merit to aim at the truth and to call upon You and to address You with appropriate and fitting titles and praises as is proper to address You with; in such a way that the words of my supplications and my requests and my songs and praises that I arrange before You may ascend to be accepted. And may they stir Your abundant mercies upon me — and may You be appeased and favorably inclined toward us. And grant us merit from now to draw near to You in truth; and from the treasury of a free gift be gracious to me — for my eyes are turned toward You and wait, that You grant me merit to come to true prayer; and may I merit to engage in prayer always, until I merit through prayer to come and to reach and to attain the true secrets of the Torah. And may I merit to taste the taste of the hidden light [or haganuz] — which You are destined to reveal to Your true tzadikim; which is the inner dimension of the hidden Torah. And grant me merit to behold the pleasantness of Hashem and to visit His sanctuary [Psalms 27:4]. Master of all, full of mercy — be gracious to me and grant me merit through Your abundant mercies to Torah and to prayer in truth with self-sacrifice; until I merit through Your mercies to taste even in this world the taste of the hidden light that is hidden and stored for those who fear You — as it is written: "How great is Your goodness that You have stored up for those who fear You, that You have performed for those who take refuge in You" [Psalms 31:20]. For You are good and You do good to all — and You know that there is no true good in the world except to truly be turning from evil and performing good deeds, to be subjugated and nullified in Torah and in service in truth always — until we merit to taste the taste of the hidden light even in this world; which is the true and eternal good. Act with me according to Your lovingkindness — and grant me merit to taste of Your true good. "He raises up the poor from the dust; from the dungheap He lifts up the destitute" [Psalms 113:7]. Be gracious to me and raise me up and satisfy me from Your goodness, and show me from the radiance of Your glory, and grant me eternal life — from now and forever, Amen Selah.