Prayer Thirty-Two

My Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise [ Psalms 51:17 ]. Master of the Universe — Lord of joy and delight, in Whose dwelling joy abides; and in Your abundant mercies You created joy and gladness, groom and bride, exultation and song, delight and rejoicing [ cf. the seven wedding blessings ]. Grant me merit through Your abundant mercies — that I merit to fulfill the commandment of bringing a bride under the wedding canopy [ hachnasas kallah lachuppah ] in the ultimate completeness, in great holiness and purity. And may I merit at every time to gladden a groom and bride [ lesameach chasan v'kallah ] — to gladden them with all might and delight; to multiply every kind of joy before them; and to dance before them with all my strength in great joy and delight. And may I merit through the dancing [ rikudim ] to sweeten all the judgments from upon us and from upon all Israel. And may You place joy in my heart until my feet are lifted up through the joy of the heart — to dance greatly before the groom and bride; and to leap and to whirl with all my strength before them. And may I merit through the dancing to draw down the five [ ה׳ — heh, the number five] thousands that are in the Binah [supernal Understanding] — and through this to sweeten all the three hundred and twenty [ ש"ך — shin-chaf ] judgments [ dinim ]; and may the judgment be transformed into simple mercies. And may we merit to draw upon ourselves all the five [ ה׳ — chamishshah ] holy voices. And may the verse speedily be fulfilled: Again shall there be heard — in the cities of Yehudah and in the streets of Jerusalem — the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the sound of the groom and the sound of the bride, the sound of those who say: give thanks to Hashem of Hosts, for Hashem is good, for His lovingkindness is forever [ Jeremiah 33:10–11 ]. And may I always merit to engage in Torah and prayer and charity and good deeds with joy and great delight — until I merit to unite and to join the supernal Groom and Bride [ chasan v'kallah ha'elyonim ]. And have mercy upon the Community of Israel [ Kneses Yisrael ], Your holy people — Your beloved, who is drawn after You; the bride called with sweetness in Your love and Your compassion. And may You sweeten and nullify all the judgments from upon all Your people the House of Israel — in the physical and the spiritual. And may You gladden us with Your salvation always — and hasten and hurry to redeem us; and raise us in joy to our land and build our holy and glorious House. And may the verse speedily be fulfilled: Then shall the maiden rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the elders together — and I shall turn their mourning into joy and comfort them and gladden them from their sorrow [ Jeremiah 31:12 ]. And may we merit to behold the pleasantness of Your splendor — in the time when You shall be crowned with the crown of glory through the good deeds of all Israel Your people, as it is said: Go forth and see, O daughters of Zion, King Shlomo with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding and on the day of the gladness of his heart [ Song of Songs 3:11 ]. Speedily in our days, Amen.