PRAYERS DEFINITION OF THE PRAYER POWER : Organs articulate and pronounce the words of the prayers, which are addressed to the Creator; those prayers are receptacles that include the blessing of God. They are the containers of spiritual flux, precursor of the God's given gifts. "The prayer is the main weapon of the Jewish. And any disputed war of the human being, either for the sake of it or against the adverse of the truth, has to be handled by the prayer; since the whole human vitality comes from the prayer." "To wish to really obtain the holiness of Israel, someone must be plentiful of prayers, supplication and conversation with his Creator. It is the main weapon to win the war." The prayer has an unlimited power. God lessens to all the prayers and takes them into consideration. He desires them and waits for them. … "However, it is impossible to pray perfectly when we mistaken during the sexual life. This is why every one must attach his prayer to the real Tsadikim, which know how to elevate each prayer t its specific destination. POSITION OF THE PRAYER VERSUS THE SUDY OF THE TORAH: THE SHADOW MORE THAN THE SUNSHINE. A kosher Succah, (Ritual hut where the Jewish people celebrate the Succot holidays) is a Succah where the shadow is above the sunshine. Rabbi Nathan explains that the shadow is the prayer and the sunshine is the Torah, the shadow above the sunshine, the prayer above the Torah study. The summit and the absolute synthesis are the processing of the Torah into prayer, which means to pray in order to succeed in applying and to live what we learn from the Torah in a way that the study does not stay only theory. This is why the king David, Zal, which was an accomplished scholar declared: "And I, am a prayer". He wrote the psalm and did not delivered any study guide of the Torah; he could make with the same happiness. THE SUMMIT OF THE PRAYER: THE FREE PRAYER. The free conversation with God, the dialog with our Creator in our usual language, (Hitbodedut: isolation, dialog with the Creator), are the summit of the prayer. We have to pray God as we speak with a sincere friend, to pour out one's heart, to reveal with words the inexpressible, the secret, and the unconscious. We have to share with god our internal situation, to reveal as well our positive points, ignored by ourselves; this is the summit in the Holy service. " Hitbodedut: (Isolation, dialog with the Creator) is a supreme value above everything" (Lik Moharan II, 25). If you have the courage to apply this advise of Rabbi Nachman, to know how t speak with God, to expose your desires, your wishes, your grieves, your feelings, your happiness, your pains, you will be able to change the nature, to change your nature, and to change the world. You will be able to get closer to God and to bring nearer the Messianic Delivery. Your request, your prayers will be fulfilled, and not to be discouraged if the result is not immediate. You have to wait and continue to pray by renewing your request in a thousand and one different ways. THE LIKUTEY TEFILOT Specific prayers help us to establish the dialog with God. Those prayers are adapted to each particular situation, and have been written by Rabbi Nathan on the injunction of his master Rabbi Nachman, which wanted his principal work, the "Likutey Moharan", to be translated and converted into prayer. The "Likutey Tefilot" is though the transposition of the "Likutey Moharan" under the form of prayers. Thanks to those prayers already set, we can, in an easier way, accede to the spontaneous and free dialog with God. Through the prayers of the "Likutey Tefilot", we can evaluate how far we are from God. We may cry and reinforce ourselves in the joy as well. We obtain the personnel peace and explanation that we need. We can glance what a Jewish is and then we desire to become one. With the help of God we can reach the goal.

PRAYERS

Advice

Master of the World, L*rd G*d of Truth, You planted within us True Tzaddikim in every generation. In Your bountiful mercy, save us and let us merit to come close to real Tzaddikim, to accept true advice from them so that we won’t stray from their words, whether to the right or the left. Rather, let us merit to progress in the path of their true advice. Have mercy upon us; save us, and all our friends, and all of Israel from the advice of the wicked, which is the advice of the Primeval Snake. Let us not listen to them at all, and don’t let their words and advice enter our hearts at all. Separate us from those who go astray. Don’t let them have any strength to lead us astray, Heaven forbid, by their evil advice. In Your bountiful mercy save us from all sorts of lies and mistakes in the world. Save us from following their evil advice. They cover lies with truth and change the words of the Living G*d. What is evil they say is good, and what is good they say is evil. They prevent Israel from the true, correct path by their advice, which is the opposite of the truth... There are those who are themselves mistaken and don’t know the absolute truth. They speak straightforwardly, but their advice isn’t good and damages us a lot with regard to worshipping You. Master of the World, You know the Truth; before You all hidden things are revealed. You know the secrets of the world, the hidden matters of all creatures. Rise, come to our aid and save us from them. Don’t let their words attach themselves to or enter our hearts at all. "Great in advice and mighty in deed." Let us merit in Your great compassion to have revealed the True Tzaddikim. Let us really come close to them and receive from them proper clear and honest advice, good advice drawn from the 613 counsels of the Torah, and let us receive the light of truth by their true advice. By this, let us merit to perfect true belief forevermore.

Anger

My Father, merciful Father, have compassion on me for You are good and do good to all. Help me and save me so that I merit very soon to break and nullify the attribute of anger from myself. Save me from anger, from cruelty, and from strictness. Let me never be angry or irritated by anything or strict with anyone in the world. Rather, in Your mercy, let me merit to be good and do good to everyone. By this, in Your bountiful mercy, save me from all sorts of haters and accusers so that they have no strength to denunciate or accuse me at all. Master of the World, have pity o me. Have pity on my very wretched and very tired soul. You know how many haters, enemies, and accusers stand against us at all times. Behold, I myself admit that I am guilty. I caused all this to my soul. I aroused these forces against me by my bad deeds, by my immense sins, iniquities, and willful transgressions. Not only this, I also added one sin upon another for I was not careful and did not guard myself from the evil fire of anger such that this fire of anger has burned inside me many many times. By this great sin of anger I aroused the great accuser and hater who is Esav, a hairy man, through whom many many accusers, denouncers, and haters and enemies have been aroused against us, until the number of haters and enemies has become very great and I do not know what to do at all. I don’t know where to run to escape from them.... Master of the World, You know my heart. What can I say before You who rest in the Heavens, what can I tell before You who dwell in the skies? All the hidden things and revealed things You know. You know the secrets of the world, the mysteries of the hidden things of all living things. You search out all the chambers of the gut, and examine the kidneys and heart. Nothing is obscured from You and nothing is hidden from Your eyes. Good One, who does good to all, satisfy me from Your good and let me merit to be good to everyone. Atone, pardon, and forgive me for all my sins, iniquities, and willful transgressions, for all the blemishes and spoiling that I caused by the iniquity of anger. Have mercy on me from now on. In Your great forgiveness, pardon me and find favor in me, out of Your real goodness. Always be with me and, from now on, save me from anger and strictness so that I never become angry, strict, or irritated about any person or anything in the world, even in my heart. Let me never come to anger or irritation. Shine upon me with the light of Your Countenance. In Your compassion, command that my brain of holiness, which departed from me because of the iniquity of anger, be returned to me. Draw upon me the image of G*d, the light of Countenance of the Living G*d. Grant me, from Yourself, an undeserving gift. Bestow upon me the bounty of holy wisdom, understanding and perception such that I merit to the radiance of the Countenance of Holiness. Let me merit always to eat in great holiness, in the aspect of the delight of Sabbath, such that the Other Side will have no hold over my eating. Let me merit to subdue the liver to the brain and let the brain and mind of holiness overcome the anger of the liver. Let there be no rule or control at all by the liver; rather, let all the control be by my brain until I merit to have the image of G*d shine in my face and I become definable as a holy person.  

Breaking anger

HaShem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers! Good and loving G-d: Help me! Guard and protect me from all anger, temper and resentment. Even if I do start to become angry at times, have pity on me and keep me from doing anything vicious out of anger. Help me break my anger, and instead show love ankindness. Help me control my impulses and break my temper, and turn anger into love. Let me make a point of acting kindly where I might have wanted to show anger. Don't let me have a strange god inside me, and don't let me worship idols because this injunction applies to someone who becomes angry: he is considered as if he worshipped idols.

Master of the Universe: You know how hard it is to break this evil trait of anger and resentment. Once my anger starts to bum, I'm just not in my right mind. It is so hard to put out the fire of anger and suppress it. Take pity on me for Your Name's sake, and You help me! Guard me and protect me at all times. Help me break this trait and totally remove all anger and resentirnent from within me. Let me never ever become angry or resentful. Let me always be good to everyone, from now on and for ever.

And through this, let me arouse Your true kindness and tender love for our poor nation, destitute as we are today. We have been so despised and pushed around. We are scattered on all the mountains like a dispersed flock without a shepherd and with no-one to gather us in. Stop being angry with us. Set aside Your burning fury, and replace it with sweetness. Let Your compassion take the upper hand, and show us favor. Have mercy on us and send us true Tzaddikim, holy leaders, who will lovingly guide us and put into our hearts and minds an understanding of our true goal and purpose in life. With their help, let us spend all our days in pursuit of the true goal, throwing all our worldly appetites behind our back. Let our whole aim, desire, effort and struggle be only for the true, ultimate purpose, in accordance with Your will.

Let holy angels do battle against the enemies of the truth

Let every single word of the Torah insights that come to me in holiness and purity create holy angels that will join all the angels constantly being created through the Torah teachings of the true Tzaddikim. Let all these angels derive strength from Edom, who is in charge of the sword used to punish the wicked, so as to defeat, crush and destroy all those who speak evil about the land. These are the people causing all the obstacles and barriers preventing us from coming to Eretz Israel. Or put weakness into their hearts, so that they will be powerless to keep us from Eretz Israel or any other holy goals.

Loving G-d, have mercy on us and give us the strength to conquer, break and destroy all those who are constantly attacking us and attempting to keep us from holiness, @g to" dominate us and distract us from truly serving You. Master of the Universe: You know what is in their hearts. Have pity on us, loving G-d. Help us and save us from them. Break their strength and completely undermine their power to hold us back from our holy goals. Make it impossible for them to distract any of us from anything holy.

Help me and all those Jews who want to serve You to come genuinely close to You. Give us the power to overcome these wicked enemies of the truth, who want to keep us from truly serving You. Give us the power to stir up the judgment of the nations against them, so as to have them judged and hun-dliated under their laws. Grant us success in getting them brought to justice, and let all who are opposed to the pathways of true holiness emerge from their trials guilty. Let us pull them down to the ground through the laws of the nations, in order to extract their prey from their mouths.

You know our hearts. You know that our only intention is for good - to establish the holy religion on its firm foundation so that we can follow the path of holiness, the path of the King of the Universe. We are powerless to punish the wicked except under the laws of the nations. Have pity on us and on all Jews who are zealous for the Lord of Hosts and seek justice, endeavoring to have the wicked opponents of the truth judged and defeated under the laws of the nations. Give us strength and help us succeed in the trials against them, so that we will be able to throw them down, break them and grind them into the dust. Let them all bend and fall in their cases - fall and never get up. Don't let them ever again have the slightest power to hold us back or distract us in any way from serving the Creator, blessed be Hs Name.

Let us thereby holy justice out of its e)dle amid the forces of evil. Loving Cod, help us, and stop them from ever again opening their mouths to speak out arrogantly against the true Tzaddik and genuinely pious Jews. Close up their mouths and stop them spreading slander amongst the mass of people, so as not to demoralize them, G-d forbid. For 'the mouths of all liars will be stopped up." Help us break and remove all the obstacles and barriers preventing us from con-dng to Eretz Israel and all other holy goals, and let us come to Eretz Israel quicidy and draw genuinely close to You.

Master of the Universe, You know our weakness at this time. We are totally powerless to break those holding us back from Eretz Israel and all other holy goals through any of the methods I have mentioned. We trust only in Your great Name and rely entirely on Your mercy. Help us and save us in Your tender mercy and compassion, and in the merit and power of the true Tzaddikim, who succeeded in breaking all the barriers and reached Eretz Israel. I am relying on their merit and strength alone, and staking my hopes on Your great compassion: grant that I too should travel to Israel soon, even though I am hardly worthy of even mentioning the name of the holy Land of Israel on my lips and I am so totally remote from the holiness of Eretz Israel.

Even so, You show favor even to those who are very far away. Have pity on me! Have mercy on me! Have pity and grant me my request out of pure kindness! Bring me to Eretz Israel soon, so that I will be able to enter the pathways of holiness and constantly rise from level to level in genuine holiness and purity, quicldy and easily, and draw closer and closer to You, genuinely and sincerely, from now and for ever. Then I will not be ashamed either in this world or the next. I will walk before HaShem in the lands of the living. Let me cross over and see this good land, the goodly mountain and Lebanon. Let my poor soul be precious in Your eyes and fulfil my requests in love. Bring me quickly and peacefully to Israel so that I can walk and prostrate myself on the dust of the Holy Land and delight in its stones and kiss the very clods of earth.

Be swayed by Your tender mercy, and treat me leniently. Do not judge me at all, because I am not appealing to You because of my own merits; I'm relying on Your abundant mercy. Your favor is arousthrough compassion and You are appeased through supplications: help me and save me. I will not give You peace, I will not keep quiet, I will not be silent, and I will not stop praying to You about this constantly. Let me only plead, pray and entreat You over and over again, until I succeed in my request and have the merit of reaching Eretz Israel in this lifetime, quicidy and easily, and the verse will be fufiued in me: "You have saved my soul from death and my feet from slipping, to walk before G-d in the light of life." Amen. Amen.

Arrogance

May it be Your will, O L*rd our G*d and G*d of our Fathers, that in Your bountiful compassion, You have mercy on me and do good for me from Your True goodness. Save me and guard me at all times from the very severe iniquity of anger. You know that this evil quality of anger and irritation has taken hold of us since we were young. We’ve already become accustomed to this iniquity very much. I’ve transgressed time and time and time again, beyond counting, until it’s become like something permitted. You know the immensity of the blemishes that I’ve caused by this very severe iniquity of anger, which is an alien god and is really idol worship, as it says: "There shall be no strange god in you; nor shall you worship any alien god" (Psalms 81:10). By this iniquity the soul is actually torn to pieces, as it says: "He who tears his soul in his anger" (Job 18:4). There are many other immense blemishes caused by this in all the worlds. "L*rd G*d You know that because of my many severe transgressions I now know no way to save my soul from this severe iniquity to which I’ve become accustomed very much. Master of the World, who is good and does good to all, take pity and have mercy on me. Teach me the ways of Your goodness in such a way that I merit to hold onto Your holy virtues, always to be good and to completely break the characteristic of anger, impatience, and irritation so that there won’t be any element of anger in my heart at all. At any time when the evil urge wants to provoke me to become angry, Heaven forbid, may I merit to know and believe with perfect faith that at this moment they [in Heaven] want to bestow upon me great wealth. The evil urge wants to spoil this bounty of wealth, Heaven forbid, and to turn it into anger so as to tear my soul to pieces, Heaven forbid. By this belief may I merit to strengthen and encourage myself to overcome, break, and nullify my anger completely and to turn it into compassion. May I merit to this great holy wealth, which is the root of all souls, and let the Evil One have no power to spoil the bestowing of wealth, Heaven forbid, by anger and rage, Heaven forbid, [which are rooted in that most evil of traits: arrogance. Let me understand that this wealth is being bestowed to me out of Your infinite kindness and mercy, so that I may imitate these traits in showing kindness and mercy to my fellow creatures, and not due to any intrinsic merit of my own. Obliterate the evil trait of arrogance, which is rooted in self-worship, and open my heart in humble humility to acknowledge the Supremacy of Your Kingdom of Love and Truth.] Rather may we merit to have drawn upon us the wall of wealth, as it says: "The rich man’s wealth is his strong city and as a high wall in his own domain" (Proverbs 18:11). May the wall of wealth protect us and guard us from all sorts of anger and rage which is like an unwalled, undefended city, as it says: "He who has no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken and without walls" (Proverbs 25:28).  Master of the World You know how very much I’ve lost by anger, You know how many souls I’ve lost, how much wealth of holiness I’ve lost and how many worlds I’ve blemished by this. Master of the World, Master of the World, because of the fouling of my mind, anger and irritation are aroused and overcome me all the time, until my heart has become soured by great crookedness and confuses me very very much. I don’t know what to do. Because of my many iniquities, I don’t have patience to arrange my prayers before You so that You will save me from this very severe and awful iniquity through which some people have been expelled from both worlds, from this world and The World to Come, Heaven forbid, as You know. I don’t know what to say other than: "Save me! O King, Save me! My Father and L*rd, Save me! My King. My G*d. Let me merit to break and nullify the attribute of anger completely and let me merit to holy wealth, which emanates at its root from the place of all souls.

Awe of Heaven

Let us elevate Your glory to its root in Awe, and rectify all its flaws. Bring us to perfect Awe of the glorious, awesome Name of HaShem, and let us attain the Ffigher Awe - awe of Your exalted greatness. Let us have no fear of anything in the world. Let us only fear You, and let Your awe be upon our faces, so that we will not sin in any way from now on and for ever.

Through this awe, grant us peace. Let peace reign within us. Let our bodies be subordinate to our holy souls and united with them to do Your will at all times. Bring us to perfect prayer, and hear our prayers constantly and bring peace to the whole world. Loving G-d, bring peace to reign among the Heavenly Hosts and the hosts of the lower realms. Remove all strife from the world. HaShem, You alone know how much evil is caused by the strife plaguing us today, and in particular the terrible conflicts raging between the Tzaddikim and the pious people of this generation. Everyone's heart is divided from his friend's.

Loving G-d: Take pity on us, and reveal the truth in the world. Let peace reign among Your people Israel for ever. Send blessings of peace into all the worlds, and let peace descend into this material world, so that all the creatures on earth will show love one for the other, and great peace will reign between all of them.

Awesome, holy G-d: please help me attain perfect awe of Heaven and always fear and revere You with all my heart, so as to fulfil the injunction to "fear the Lord your G-d." And through this, help me refine and purify my speech until I sanctify myself in everything I say and attain complete mastery of the Holy Language - for Your holy Sages have informed us that 'the awe of HaShem, Ms precious treasure" is the key to being able to sanctify one's speech.

Master of the Universe: You have taught us that the root cause of all the shame and abuse people suffer is sexual immorality, which is the worst disgrace of all, as our Sages said: "VQere there is nakedness there is shame." Have pity on me and help me escape this shame and disgrace, at least from now on. Let me conduct myself with self-respect and holiness, and bring me to perfect mastery of the Holy Language, so as to enhance and magnify Your great glory through always speaking in a language of perfect holiness.

Loving G-d: grant that I should be able to cool the heat of my physical desires through speaking words of holiness, as it is written: "My heart is hot within me, my panting is burning fire. I speak with my tongue." Help me say the holy words of the Torah and the prayers with fervent heat and heartfelt passion. Let me stir up the flames of the G-dly fire rooted in the nefesh, roach and neshamah within me, blazing and burning to come close to G-d, until I am able to devote myself constantly to Torah, devotion, prayers, supplications, entreaties, songs and praises of G-d, all with a heat flowing from the depths of the heart in holiness and purity.

Let my words bum with blazing fire. Let my words be like coals of fire, let them pour forth in G-dly fear and awe. Let me make You king over all of my two hundred and forty-eight limbs and three hundred and sixty-five sinews in fear, dread and trembling, until all the words flowing from my mouth will be words of perfect holiness, so that the heat of my physical passions will be cooled by the words of the Holy Language. With the holy fire of the Holy Language let me bum and destroy all the efire of the burning furnace of the seventy stars - the heat of sexual lust - so that this evil lust is completely removed from me from now on and for ever.

Fulfil the verse: "From the fire they came forth, and the fire will consume them." "The falsehood of their own mouths will cover the heads of those surrounding me and plotting against me. Burning coals will poudown upon them; with fire they will cast them down into the depths so that they will not be able to rise up." Let me be holy and completely separated from desire. Bring me to a level where I feel no need at all and my only motive will be for the sake of having children in true holiness and purity in accordance with Your will.

Blessing

Please L*rd, the Truly Compassionate One, who is full of mercy, have pity on Your creatures. Open my mouth and heart so that I may speak clearly before You. May I merit to awaken Your true compassion upon me, that You have mercy from now on. Help me to sanctify and purify myself in the holiness of the Brit. May I be saved from now on from all sorts of blemishes of the Brit that exist in the world. In Your bountiful mercy and immense lovingkindness, pardon and forgive me for all that I have blemished in the holy Brit until now, whether I blemished in the mind, or by speech, or by action, whether I blemished by the sight of the eye or the hearing of the ears or by the sense of smell, whether unintentionally or on purpose, whether through force of circumstance or by desire. All the sorts of blemish to the holy Brit that I’ve caused--pardon and forgive me for it all, for You are gracious and forgive a great deal. "For Your Name’s sake, O L*rd, pardon my iniquity for it is great" (Psalms 25:11). Have mercy on me. Break, finish, subdue, and nullify all sorts of ties, bonds and chains of the Other Side, which have become attached to me and have grown by way of my many iniquities, which overcome me at all times, and want to draw me from one blemish to another, Heaven forbid. They don’t let me really sanctify and purify myself as is fitting. Because of this I am very far away from real holiness of the Brit as is proper for a Jew, for the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom You chose. Master of the World, You know my heart. Have pity and mercy on me--separate, tear, break, and nullify all the bonds and chains of the Other Side, such that they will have no strength to overcome me at all. Nullify them completely so that no memory or impression of them remain at all and all my iniquities will turn to elements of merit... Help me and give me strength to overcome all sorts of craving s and bad thought; help me subdue and belittle them, to break them and drive them out from within me and from my domain, from now on forever. May no element of a bad thought enter my mind at all, rather may my brain and thoughts always be holy and pure in the ultimate perfection of holiness. Help me, in Your bountiful mercy, to achieve holiness and purity and many I sanctify myself in that which is permitted to me. May I merit to add holiness every time until I merit to real holiness and abstinence, until I merit to cause the unification of the Higher Unification and the Lower Unification.

Master of the World, You know how even Torah scholars and the great rabbis of Israel, whose marital intercourse is only on Sabbath, also need great strength and extra caution in the matter of the holiness of guarding the Brit. Even more so is this true of ordinary people on a low spiritual level, whose marital relations also take place during the week. they certainly need great guarding and extra caution in the matter of the holiness of intercourse and guarding the Brit. You also taught us the greatness, in its source, of the virtue of the holiness of the intercourse of Your Nation, the House of Israel, such that, by this, a Higher Unification and Lower Unification are effected. Each Jew has to have this done through him. Therefore have pity and compassion on us out of Your great and bountiful mercy. Send us in our hearts and the hearts of all Your Nation, the House of Israel, whether the lowly among us or the spiritually great people, a real arousal to holiness, so that we all merit to awake. Let us sanctify ourselves in that which is permitted us [through marriage]. May we draw upon ourselves an extras holiness every time with regard to guarding the Brit and the holiness of intercourse, such that the holiness of the two Unifications--the Higher and the Lower--be brought about by us perfectly. By this, may Your holy glory be raised and made great, in perfection. "All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the L*rd" (Numbers 14:21). May the earth radiate Your glory. We will rejoice and be happy in You. Fulfill the verse that says: "The glory of the L*rd will endure forever" (Psalms 104:31).

Bringing others closer

Help me bring others back to You as well. You alone know the tragedy of all who are far from Your Name, imprisoned in their desires and trapped in the net of vanity. Help me to talk to them in a way they will accept. Let my words penetrate their hearts. Let me speak words of truth and holiness that will enter their ears and arouse their hearts to come back to You in true Teshuvah. "The sinners will disappear from the earth and the wicked will no longer be there. Let my soul bless HaShem, Halleluyah."

Calm and Concentration

Help me to judge myself. Help me to achieve a state of calm concentration every day, so that I will be able to exan-dne myself carefully and weigh my various activities and involvements for myself. Let me decide ff it is right for me to spend my days acting the way I do, G-d forbid. Help me to sustain my concentration for long enough to be able to examine myself calmly, without allowing my thoughts to wander or avoiding what I have to confront. Let me follow this practice of calm self-examination persist- entry and diligently, until I develop the most intense powers of concentration. Let me then use them to direct myself away from all wrongful thoughts and actions without hesitating for a moment. Let me repent completely, and come to do only good.

Bring me to perfect fear of Heaven, so that I will "fear this glorious awesome Name - HaShem our G-d." Let my fear of G-d be pure and clear, without being mixed up with extraneous fears. Let me fear only G-d. Deal with me kindly, and sweeten and nullify all severe decrees against me, my children and descendants, and the entire Jewish People. Don't judge me according to my actions. Don't bring me to trial because no-one alive can be vindicated before You. Loving G-d: Decree that any possible accusations against me should be null and void, so as to rule out all harsh judgements against me, G-d forbid. Help me to and judge myself at all times, so that I myself will take the initiative to repent genuinely, until I will eventually come to live and act the way You want me to.

Save me from all extraneous, "fallen fears," whether of officials and other influential people, or of wild animals, thieves, or anything else in the world. Let me only fear and revere You, and let Your fear be on my face at all times so as not to sin. Let me elevate my fear to its root in Daat - holy knowledge and awareness of HaShem. Help me attain complete knowledge and awareness of You in holiness and purity, so that I will know Who I am afraid of, and fear only Your great Name. Let holy awe penetrate every part my entire body, my two hundred and forty-eight limbs and my three hundred and sixty-five sinews. Let me be filled with true fear and awe of Your great and holy Name at every moment, and lovingly bring me to genuine, perfect Daat in holiness and purity.

HaShem, You know how minimal and distorted my awareness of You is. My evil deeds, my foul thoughts and confused ideas have corrupted my mind. I have reached a point where I simply do not know how to work out the best course for me to take in any sphere of life. Loving G-d, treat me tenderly and mercifully, and grant me perfect holy Daat. Let me know Your Name and always fear You, and bring me to the higher level of holy fear: awe at Your supreme greatness.  

Chanukah

Help me to carry out the mitzvah of kindling the Chanukah lamp in its season in the best possible way, in holiness and purity and with great devotion. Through the mitzvah of the Chanukah lights, let me rectify everything I have mentioned in my prayer. Consider my fulfilment of the n-dtzvah as if I had carried it out in all its details and fine points and intentions, together with all the six hundred and thirteen mitzvot that are bound up with it. Let the light of the holiness of our mitzvot shine before You in all the worlds. Let us repair all the worlds through fulfilling this niitzvah, together with all the commandments laid down in the Torah and by the Rabbis. Help us carry out all of them perfectly, in love, awe and great joy, until we draw G-dly peace into all the worlds, and "HaShem will give power to His people, HaShem will bless FES people with peace."

He who makes peace in His high places will lovingly make peace for us and for all Israel, and say Amen.

Charity - the key to unlocking the exiled G-dliness

Loving G-d, help me give plenty of charity to needy people who genuinely deserve it and to the true Tzaddikim, so that I can become unified with a multitude of Jewish souls and thereby bring the good hidden within me out into the light. You know the great beauty, the holiness and goodness I have inside me. It's just that theyve been suppressed and locked away in a Ion bitter exile for years and years, from my 91 very first day on earth until today. I've still not been able to take myself in hand and bring this hidden good out of exile and into the light. I find it impossible to keep in mind where I am in the world. I don't know what to do to bring out the good I have inside me.

Please, HaShem, guide me as to what I should do. Show me Your love and give me complete success. Do wonders with me and give me life. Don't let me be like a dead person in my own lifetime! Treat me with the unstinting kindness that befits You, not according to my wrongful, shameful behavior and attitudes. Please have pity on my poor, broken soul and stir up Your compassion for the essential good inside me. Only with this will I be able to fight and conquer the body and its desires, until the good will take command over the bad and all my bodily desires and bad character traits will be removed, and I will always lead my life the way You want me to.

Father in Heaven! Father in Heaven! Kind, truly loving Father, who takes pity on the poor and hears the cry of the needy-, who sees the disgrace of the wretched, and hears and attends to a cry from the lowest depths of hell and lower. There is no sigh or cry from anywhere that You do not hear. Teach me and guide me as to what I should say to You. Let me know what I should cry out to You.

Please, please have pity on me. I feel so hun-dliated. My heart is so crushed. I feel so bereft of intelligence and sensitivity. I am so weak, so confused, so driven, so mixed up. The good inside me is literally trapped and imprisoned in a bitter exile. I'm hemmed in by thousands and thousands of fences, barriers and walls of iron. Thousands upon thousands of guards and lurking enemies stand waiting for me the whole time, and they won't give me back my soul!

I find it impossible to do even the slightest thing the way I'm supposed to. Even when I feel inspired to do something holy, I feel incapable of taking the smallest step with the beauty and splendor that befit a Jew, as You know. Oy! It is so bitter! bitter! Oy! It's all so very bitter. Oy for my soul - the soul that acted this way! Oy! The days and years I've wasted on vain emptiness, futility and evil. Master of everything: to You I cry and scream. Compassionate G-d! Turn Your ear to me and hear! Open Your eyes and see my devastation! See my wretched plight!

Master of the Universe, in Your great love You gave me the privilege of being a Jew. You were kind to me and brought me close to the true Tzaddikim - to believe in them and long for them. In the merit of those holy saints, now at rest in the earth, deal with me kindly and help me experience a true spiritual awakening. Let the good within me be genuinely arousand let me be aware of it! Let the good in me come to understand its great worth and know from where it was taken - from the Supreme Thought of the Hol One, blessed be He. There I arose in the Primordial Thought, together with all the souls of Israel - and I the lightest creature in the 'sea" - above all the four worlds, Atzilut, Beriyah, Yetzirah and Asiyah...

In my root I am higher than all of them, for I am a member of the People of Israel, who arose in the Primordial Thought. With us G-d took counsel in creating all the worlds and everything in them, down to the depths of Asiyah - this world, with everything in it, in the heavens, on earth and in the seas.

And now, after all this, please help me! Strengthen me! Fortify me! Stir me and let me wake up! Kind, loving G-d: Help me realize exactly where I am, where I've been cast down to, and how distanced I've been from You for so long. Would anyone believe that the true goodness rooted inside me could have been cast down to such a dismal, shadowy, lowly place, into such abject darkness, down to such degraded, lowly places - places so remote from holiness that they can't even be called places?

Please, HaShem, have pity on me! Every time I want to speak to You and express my feelings, I have no idea where to start or how to finish. I'm under such extreme pressures and my needs are so many that even tens of thousands of pages wouldn't be enough to explain them all. As a result, I can't open my mouth at all. Even when I do start to talk a little, everything I say is confused, because I have so many different needs that I cannot begin to set them all out and explain everything.

But to You, Master of everything, all secrets are revealed going right back to the very beginnings of creation. You know what is hidden in our hearts and in the depths of our thoughts, and how in my innermost, innermost thoughts, the good in me screams out in the most heart-rending, unbearably bitter voice. The true pity of my condition is beyond all measure. Then why have You closed Your ear to me and hidden Your face for so long? Why have You held back Your love from me?

HaShem our G-d and G-d of our fathers: just as You showed such abundant love and kindness in creating me a Jew, so too may it be Your will to arouse Your mercy for me now and help me attend carefully to the words of the true Tzaddikim. Let my eyes be open and my ears hear and my heart understand their message, because their constant labor is to awaken the goodness rooted in the souls of the Jewish People and lift it out of its exile, by bringing people to repent and making converts.

Let me hear the voice of the Tzaddikim of this generation, and the words of the true Tzaddikim now at rest in the earth, as written in their holy works. Let me hear, see and understand their holy words, until the good within me is awakened in its full strength and holy power, so that I will fight against the evil in me, break it, and drive it out of me completely. Let me return to You with all my heart in perfect, genuine teshuvah, and live the way You want me to in holiness, purity, joy and good-heartedness.

Please, HaShem, have pity on me and do what I'm asking of You. And so too, loving G-d, let the truth be revealed to the whole world, and let the entire Jewish People be aroused so that they come to complete repentance. Let those who are far from You hear and come to recognize the power of Your kingship. Show Your love for the Jewish People, and for the good that is imprisoned among the nations of the world. G-d: it is in Your power to work mighty miracles and wonders. Do so now, and send a new awareness to the goodness that is scattered and dispersed amongst the nations, so far away from holiness. Let those scattered, exiled souls realize where they are in the world, and where they are likely to go, G-d forbid, if they do not come back to their source. Arouse them until they take themselves in hand and remember HaShem and repent and convert wholeheartedly.

HaShem: only You know the full tragedy of this goodness, imprisoned as it is in such places. You know the truth, that nothing in the world is more pitiful. No pain and suffering on earth can compare with the unbearably bitter torment suffered by this good, which is in such deep exile and so far away from its Father in Heaven. "What does it benefit the Father to have banished his children? And woe to the son who has gone into exile from his Father's table." C7! How bitter for this son! Oy! how terribly, terribly bitter for this son, who was once in such an exalted place and has now fallen so low. if You Yourself won't take pity on us, who will? Who will stand up for us? We have no-one to depend on except You, heavenly Father. The true Tzaddikim who had the power to arouse the imgood to awareness of the truth have passed away because of our many sins. What are we to do in this time of trouble, the like of which has never been? We have been left like a solitary mast on top of a mountain, like a lone banner on a hill. We have nothing to lean on for support. Our strength is gone. We have no-one to lead us and help us. See how impoverished we are. Our hearts are full of pain and sorrow. Help us, because we are relying on You, for You are good to all.

For the sake of Your goodness and glory, do what You will do to bring all this scattered and dispersed goodness out of its exile among the nations and back to holiness. Keep on bringing more and more true converts and penitents back, until the whole Jewish People and all the people in the world will turn to You with all their hearts. Let us see the splendor of Your power, and let all the idols and false gods be utterly cut off, until the dominion of the eternal G-d will be revealed over the whole world and all flesh will call on Your Name. Let all the wicked turn to You, and all the inhabitants of the earth will acknowledge You and know that to You every knee must bend and every tongue swear.

Charity

Compassionate G-d: Help me give charity to genuinely needy people. Send me plenty of money, and worthy people to give charity to. "Mighty is the King who loves justice. You founded fairness. You have done justice and righteousness in Yaakov." "For everything is from You - from Your hand have we given to You."

G-d: You deal charitably with everyone. Be charitable to me and let me be numbered among those who give charity. Remove the evil from my heart, and let me give charity joyously and with a kindly expression. Let me have no bad feelings when I hand my gifts to those in need. Let me open my hands and give them sufficient for all their needs. Let my heart go out to the hungry, and let me clothe those who are naked.

In the merit of my charity, bless me, HaShem, and help me express myself to You perfectly in my prayers. Let my prayers be pure and acceptable. Let me have no outside thoughts when I pray, so that no barrier will intervene between my prayers and You.

HaShem, loving G-d: Have mercy on me and save me from this evil lust for money. Help me give plenty of charity to genuinely deserving people. Let my main intention in all my work and business activities be to give charity. When I give, let me go beyond what I think to be my O%M limits. Send me deserving recipients. Help me fulfil the mitzvah of charity to perfection, sincerely, joyously, with good feelings and a kind expression. Let me give my charity in such a way that the receiver will not be ashamed. Help me speak to the hearts of those who are poor and unfortunate, to comfort them and help them to feel better.

"Send me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a generous spirit." Let me always be generous and open-hearted, and let me put all my energy into helping those who are genuinely in need. Let me take from my own money and give it to them with both hands, so as to share with them the blessings You constantly shower upon me. And so too, when necessary, let me make every effort on their behalf and go out to my Jewish brothers and call upon their generosity and ask them to give charity. Help me fill the hands of the needy with everything they require, whether food, clothing or anything else.

WhenI appeal to others to donate, help me find favor in their eyes. Let my words enter their ears and hearts and inspire them to give generously of their own accord. Let me receive a handsome contribution from each one. Help me find words that will transform the instinctive cruelty of the heart into a spirit of generosity. And let me myself give abundantly and wholeheartedly all the days of my life.

Through the merit and power of the collective charity of Your People, the House of Israel, let us break our desire for money. Let the generous spirit of holy charity come upon us and cool our passion for money, our desire for riches and grandeur, and our burning ambition to be wealthy in a world which isn't even ours. Help us throw aside our gods of silver and gold, until we totally void our hearts of all lust and passion for money.

Let us always be happy with our portion. Let us be content with everything You have given each one of us so lovingly at all times. Let us not seyes on what is not ours. Let us not envy what belongs to our friends. Let us always be happy with our own portion. Loving G-d, help us to attach ourselves completely to the true Tzaddikim of this generation, who have succeeded in totally breaking the lust for money.

Children

Master of the World. You indicated to us through Your Holy Sages, may they be blessed, that the primary reason for a person’s formation and birth, his entering the world, his marriage and the necessity to have children, is only for the purpose of drawing the Essential G*dly Intelligence into the world. To attract the Light of True Knowledge, to have knowledge of G*d be He blessed with a wonderful holy knowledge drawn from the aspect of Divine Bounty, Divine Inspiration, All Embracing Light, Essential Light. This is all there is to a person’s labors in this world. By this, and according to one’s service of G*d, each person merits after his death to have his higher soul rise up to the Or HaPanim. However also after his death it is impossible to reach complete perfection unless he leaves children in this world who will also draw the Essential Intelligence into the World and so on, throughout all the generations. Therefore I plead with You, take pity and have mercy on us and let us merit to engage in learning Torah and in performing commandments truly serving the L*rd all the days of our lives. May we pray and plead and shout a lot, from the depths of our hearts, until we merit to draw the mind from the state of concealment to revelation, from the aspect of conception to that of birth. May our marital relations be in great holiness so that we merit to give birth to holy and pure sons, real Tzaddikim and Torah scholars. May we fulfill the verse that says: "Teach your sons and your sons’ sons" (Deuteronomy 4:9). And what is written: "You shall teach them diligently to your children" (Deuteronomy 6:7). And also: "You shall teach your children" (Deuteronomy 11:19).May we merit to leave our children and descendants the immortality of the Holy Knowledge and may we raise our children to Torah, marriage, and good deeds. Please let us marry them off soon after they reach marriageable age and see them have children themselves. Master of the World You taught us that the inner intention of the commandment of marriage by chuppa (bridal canopy) and kiddushin (marriage ceremony) also alludes to this: that the principal factor of marriage and marital relations in holiness is to give birth to children. Everything is only in order to draw the Essential Intelligence into the world, which is the aspect of chuppa, the aspect of holiness. This is the aspect of the seven days of festivity (after the wedding) which corresponds to the holiness of the seven candles (of the menorah) by which one merits to draw the Essential Intelligence, as mentioned above, and to bring that which is beyond our comprehension to the level of full understanding. Therefore have pity and mercy on us. Let us merit to marry off our children soon after they reach marriageable age, by chuppa and kiddushin, according to the tradition of Moses and Israel.

Have mercy on us, in Your great compassion, let us and all Your Nation Israel merit to leave a remnant behind us in this world after our death, a remnant that will last many years. Let our children and descendants endure forever, for all generations, until the end of all generations. Sustain our name and memory forever by our children who will remain after us. May we merit to have many sons and daughters, in holiness and purity, and may we see our children have children. Let there be no sterile man or woman among us or our children. Have mercy on them and grant them life, long life. May they all be holy and pure, clean from any sin or iniquity, fulfilling Your Will, engaged forever in really serving You all the days of their lives, in such a way that our children draw the Essential Intelligence into this World after we die. Let them reveal and publicize Your Divinity and Sovereignty in the world and may our memories remain for generation upon generation, forever and ever.

Clothing

In Your bountiful mercy, from now on help me and save me, be with me always. Protect my clothing and garments so that they won’t be spoiled by any spot of dirt or by a stain. You alone know the immense blemish that affects the Divine Presence itself in the Supernal Worlds when we don’t protect our clothing from becoming dirty or stained. The clothes themselves judge a person when he doesn’t guard them from stains. Because of my many iniquities it is very difficult and burdensome t prevent clothes from becoming stained, for it’s impossible to remain conscious of them all the time, especially when learning Torah, praying, etc. Then they become stained without my noticing. All this I’ve caused because of my numerous transgressions and very confused thoughts, through which I’ve lost the merit to guard my clothes and keep them clean, saving them from stains and dirt. I’ve come before You O L*rd my G*d and G*d of my Fathers to talk to You because of all this...

Help me and save me so that I merit in my own lifetime, very soon, to rectify all this, to merit from now on to rectify the Covenant (Brit) perfectly. Grant me to raise and awaken holy understanding and to draw holy whiteness from the holy understanding, thereby rectifying the blemish of the blood, of all the 365 sinews that correspond to the 365 negative commandments of the Torah. Grant me to rectify the blemish of all the stains on clothes which, until now, I didn’t guard properly. Pardon and forgive me for all these blemishes. Help me from now on, protect and save me from all sin, iniquity, and transgression. Help me to look after my garments and clothes from now on, to treat them with respect and keep them clean. Let me merit to have clothes free of any stain or dirt. Always guard and protect me and my clothes so that my body, soul, and clothes will always be clean, pure, and holy from now on forever. In Your Compassion, draw living waters from the Source of Life...and purify the Divine Presence from Her impurity. Raise Her from Her exile and return Her to Her Loved One in love, brotherhood, and friendship. In Your bountiful mercy, draw and throw over us these pure water and purify us and our clothes from all our impurities...Grant us merit to fulfill the verse which says: "Let your garments always be white and let your head lack no ointment" (Ecclesiastes 9:8).

Conception & Pregnancy

In Your Mercy help us so that we merit to have marital relations in holiness, truly for Your Name’s sake. Enable us to draw holy and pure higher souls to our children. Fine pure souls which are drawn from the sources of the holy souls of Israel, rooted in the letters of the Holy Torah, in the Supernal Thought of the Holy One, may He be blessed. Let this be in such a way that we merit to have sons who are real Torah scholars and that they all be G*d fearing and perfect. Learning Your Torah for its own sake and really performing Your commandments wholeheartedly. May Your Great Name be recognized and praised in all its greatness and holiness by our sons and descendants. May it be said of them "a wise son gladdens a father." Fulfill in them: "Your father and mother will be glad and she who bore you will rejoice" (Proverbs 23:25). Lengthen their days and years. Make them good and pleasant. May they always do Your Will, forever and ever.

Confession of sins

And now, after all this great and awesome goodness and kindness, what can I say? I am the lowliest of Your creatures, yet You show pity to all, and You have put me in a privileged position by creating me a Jew. By making me a member of the Jewish People, the Holy Nation, You have put Your Name upon me, because Your Name is bound up with ours.

After all this, what can I say to You, exalted G-d? How can I speak before You, lowly servant that I am? How can I open my mouth and stand before You, after having failed to take proper care to do what is in my own best interests? With my own hands I have rejected Your great goodness and mercy, and I have failed to observe Your precious, beloved mitzvot, which are the greatest of all goodness and kindness.

G-d of Israel, how I have sinned against You! I have sinned, I have transgressed and rebelled, and I have done what is evil in Your eyes... [One should specify one's sins in detail.] HaShem, You are the righteous one, and I am ashamed and embarrassed. What can I say? How can I justify myself? I have acted wrongfully, and I myself have deprived myself of the good I could have had. I have stained my own holiness.

The damage I have done is so immense. "My sin is too great to bear." My sins are too many even to count. With all my transgressions, I am like a drunkard stupefied with wine. My sins have gone over my head, like a burden that is too heavy for me to bear. The very thought of them fills me with panic and confusion and sets all my bones trembling. "There is no peace in my bones because of my sins." They are inscribed on my bones, from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. Not a single bone is sound because of all my sins and transgressions. Every one of my bones has been splintered and shattered because of the many sins that are inscribed on them.

How bitter it is: more bitter than death, more bitter than anything in the world. And the truth is that I have not yet begun to feel even the minutest fraction of the pain of even one of my sins. I have sinned so much that my heart has become closed, and my mind is so confused that I have lost all awareness of my true self and essence.

If I but knew and felt the smallest part of the pain of even one of my innumerable sins, and the damage I have done to the root of my nefesh, my roach, and my neshamah, and in the highest worlds... I have rebelled against the Master of All, whom the heavens and the heavens of the heavens cannot contain, in awe of whose Name all the mighty angels, the Seraphim, the Ophanim and the holy Chayot and the supernal worlds upon worlds to eternity all quake and tremble. All of them do His will with awe, fear and love.

And I, the lowest, most insignificant creature of all, a putrid drop, a clod of earth and fleeting dust, have rebelled against the G-d of the Universe, blessed be Hs Name for ever. This much I know and believe, that if I were to begin to feel the tiniest fraction of bitterness and pain at even one of my many sins and transgressions, the sound of my screams would be unbearable. I myself would be unable to bear my own screaming or the terrible pain and bitterness of my heart for even a single moment. The entire world be unable to bear the sound of my cries.

My poor soul! I cringe at the sound. I shudder at the sight. I have been so very, very foolish. My wrong-doing and my manysins have cast a blot on Your holy, perfect Torah. I have taken the pure, clear messages of the holy letters of the Torah - the words of the Living G-d - and twisted and degraded them in the most unspeakable ways. My distortions are inscribed on my very bones. My actions have given power and dominance to idolaters, and my sins have lengthened the exile. After all this, do I have any right to cry out to the King?

Conflict & Strife

Have mercy on us and on all of Your People Israel. Always make peace between them. Cancel all sorts of controversy and strife from among us and let there be no jealousy, hatred, or provocation, or any argument or strife against the kosher Jews who wish, desire, and long really to serve You, especially the True Tzaddikim and Sages. Controversy, strife, and accusation have greatly increased among the Torah scholars, because of our many iniquities. "There was no peace to whoever went out or came in" (Chronicles II 15:5). All the world is full of controversy and strife damages us a lot in trying to serve You in truth. there is especially great controversy and strife that becomes stronger all the time against those who were distant from You and have now come to return to You, have come to draw closer to Your great Name and truly to serve You. Most of the controversy against them and against those who engage in bringing them closer to You is without reason and about nothing!

Please L*rd Full of mercy Master of Peace King to whom peace belongs, save us from controversy and strife. Let us merit to a pure and refined mind, perception and intellect without any dross at all. Let us merit to a quiet and serene mind. Let our minds not be confused at all. Nullify all the waste and extraneous matter in the mind for we have no knowledge of how to fight our adversaries and those who persecute us without reason, nor do we know how to react to them. Our intentions should be good, for the sake of Heaven. We desire really to serve You and to return to You very soon, in perfect repentance. We don’t want any controversy and strife at all! You who are full of compassion, have mercy on the oppressed of the flock, on a people dragged and plucked out, a poor and wretched nation. Have mercy, redeem and rescue such weak ones from controversy and strife, for we have no one on whom to rely other than on our Father in Heaven. To You alone we have cast our prayers for aid. We rely only upon You. Our hopes are dependent on You, until You graciously answer us.

The Covenant

Loving G-d: Help me guard the holy Covenant. Save me from all forms of immorality, whether in what I look at, what I think about, the way I talk, or what I actually do, and the way I use my five senses. Guard and protect me from breaking the Covenant in any way, and help me conduct myself in holiness and purity at all times. Bring me to genuine sanctity and to observe the Covenant the way You want me to, and protect me in the shadow of Your wings.

Help me fulfil the mitzvah of Tzitzit in all its fine details and with all the inner intentions of the mitzvah, together with the six hundred and thirteen mitzvot with which it is bound up.

Protect me with the holy fringes of the Tzitzit m4 save me from all forms of immorality.

Help me sanctify myself at all times by draw ing Your holiness upon me, and in this way save me from the "promptings of the serpent" - the blandishments of all the people who would like tempt me and induce me to turn aside from the path of truth, whether from evil motives or not.

Help me draw the light of the true wisdom of Tzaddikim upon myself through putting their teachings and guidance into practice. Bring me to the trutk and never let a word of falsehood cross my lips.

The Holy Covenant

Master of the World, who "leads Yoseph like a flock, You who sit upon the cherubs": Lovingly shine the light of Your holiness on me. Let a spirit of holiness and purity come upon me, giving me the power to control, master and break my evil inclination.

In Your abundant love and great kindness, enable me and all my offspring to guard the holy Covenant. Help me at all times, and keep me from all impurity and any breach of the Covenant, whether in thought, word or deed, whether unwittingly or intentionally, under compulsion or wilfully, whether with my eyes, ears or other senses. Let me sanctify and purify all of my faculties with the holiness of the Covenant, and do nothing to breach or blemish it in any way.

For in Your great love You have chosen us from all the nations and exalted us above all peoples. You have separated us from all their impurities and wrongdoing, as You wrote for us in Your Torah: "I have separated you from the nations to be one," and You called us all Tzaddikim, as it is said, "And Your People are all Tzaddikim."

Please, loving G-d, do not make Your holy Torah into an empty document, G-d forbid, for Your Word is true and enduring for ever. Deal kindly with me and help me to be a genuine Tzaddik by enabling me to guard the Covenant. Only in this way can one be worthy of the name Tzaddik, as You have informed us through the teachings of Your holy sages, who said that only someone who guards the Covenant is called a Tzaddik.

You helped Yoseph the Tzaddik when he was tested: You saved him and gave him the strength to overcome his evil inclination. In the same way, arouse Your compassion for me. Through the merit and strength of Yoseph, give me intelligence, wisdom, understanding and knowledge, holy strength and power, so that I will be able to avoid all impurity in my life and conquer my impulses and inclinations. Let my thoughts be bound and attached toYour holiness at all times, without a single moment's interruption.

Through purifying myself and observing the Covenant, enable me to offer You my prayers in the proper manner, without inhibitions, restraints and confusion. Accept my prayers and arouse Your love for me. Turn to us again and quickly redeem us and send our righteous Mashiach. Do it for Your sake and not for ours. Help me to order my prayers properly. Grant me intelligence and understanding, and let me use judgement to measure my words, so as not to stumble in what I say, or stray left or right from the straight, true path when I pray.

The Covenant. Foundation of Spiritual Awareness

I don't know what to ask for first. I've done so much damage to my mind with immoral thoughts and behavior that I don't know where to begin and ask You to help me do something about it. Should I ask You to help me make amends for my past and for all the damage I've done from my youngest days until today - with my thoughts, words and actions, with my eyes, my ears and other senses, whether deliberately or through carelessness, wilfully or under duress? Or should I pray to You about the future - that I should never do any more damage from now on, not even with so much as a thought?

Loving G-d: have pity on one filled with shame and embarrassment, on a stubborn, twisted heart. You know the extreme difficulties confronting me. I'm surrounded by traps on every side and I have no idea how to escape them. I can't even cry out to You, because I have no words or voice any more. I've damaged my voice, my power of speech and every one of my, two hundred and forty-eight limbs and three hundred and sixty-five sinews. I've corrupted all the pathways of wisdom and holiness, and I have no idea of any way I can possibly come truly and genuinely close to You.

But Your compassion is still not exhausted, and I trust in the power of the holy elders, the true Tzaddikim, on whom the entire Jewish People depends. On their power alone we rely, knowing that they have the strength to release the entire Jewish People from the dominion of unholy forces and bring them to holiness.

I have therefore come before You, HaShem my G-d and G-d of my fathers, with a broken, crushed heart, a sighing, tom heart, asking and pleading like a beggar at the door, lowly and impoverished, stretching out his hands and liftup his eyes to Heaven like the eyes of a servant hanging on his master's hands, like the eye of a guilty rebel seeking to placate his master, asking, begging and pleading for a gift of pure kindness.

Have pity on me! Be kind to me! Fill me with the wisdom and spiritual awareness revealed by the holy elders, and help me keep clear of any kind of immoral thought or behavior from now on. Loving G-d: guard and save me from all evil thoughts and feelings and anything that detracts from spiritual insight and awareness. Help me make amends for all my inunorality until now, so that I can fully observe the Covenant the way You want.

HaShem, help me: give me the ability to raise my voice in holiness so that the sound of my own voice will arouse my powers of concentration and I will be able to develop my spiritual awareness and insight to the full. Please, HaShem, have pity on me and help me fully observe the Covenant in holiness and purity, because this is the foundation of true spiritual awareness and insight.

You took our ancestors out of e)dle, physical and spiritual, in Egypt. You released them from the Fifty Gates of Impurity, and from the immorality and corrupt mentality that were the essence of the e)dle in Egypt. You brought them to the Fifty Gates of Holiness, helping them come to full observance of the Covenant and to spiritual awareness and wisdom. You gave them Your holy Torah and brought them into the Land of Israel.

In the same way, do great and awesome miracles and wonders for us. Release us from this bitter physical and spiritual e)dle, this e)dle of body and soul. Quickly remove us from all the Fifty Gates of Impurity. Redeem us and save us from every kind of immorality and every corrupt idea and attitude, and bring us quicldy to all the Fifty Gates of Holiness. Loving G-d: help us come to full observance of the Covenant and achieve genuine spiritual awareness and insight as befits the holy Jewish People. Fulfil in us the verse: "As in the days of your going out of the land of Egypt I will show you wonders."

Let me clap and dance for joy

Help me attach myself to the true Tzaddikim and channel their holy spirit into my heart, so that I will come to inner purity and my heart will always be directed to HaShem in truth, faith and genuine humility.

Let this holy spirit be drawn into my arms and legs, so that I will be able to correct all the wrong I have done with them. Let the spiritual light of my hands and feet be revealed and radiate. Wake up my heart and fill me with the joy of closeness to G-d. Let this holy joy spread into my arms and legs until I clap my hands and dance.

Give me the power to sweeten and remove all harsh decrees from myself and all Your people, the House of Israel, through clapping my hands and dancing in holiness. Let me lift up my hands and feet and elevate them, and cleanse them of all impurity.

Master of the Universe: My hands are weak - put strength into them! My knees are unsteady - fortify them! Help me purify and san@ my hands and feet. Tell the prisoners: "Go out!" Don't let my feet stumble. Release them from their chains. ff my feet have walked the path of sin and death, quickly bring them back from death to life, so that I will be able to say, "My foot stood on firm ground."

My hands are soiled with all kinds of filth and dirt. Have pity on me, and cleanse them. Remove the pollution that clings to them. Loving G-d: Forgive me for all the damage I have done with my hands and feet. From now on, help me sanctify my hands and feet and keep them free of all wrong and impurity. Let me constantly use my hands and feet to do mitzvot, so as to elevate them to their holy source and reveal their spiritual radiance. Let me clap my hands and dance for joy.

The Month of Elul

Master of the Universe: Help me to follow the path of perfect Teshuvah at all times, and especially during the holy days of Elul. During this period, our teacher Moshe opened up a pathway of Teshuvah for us consisting of the two skills of "running" and "returning", based upon the two holy Names of HaVaYaH (in its expansion of SaG) and EHYEH (in its expansion of KESA), and upon the two holy points - the uppermost and the lowest. This is the essential path of Teshuvah: the initial Teshuvah, and then, Teshuvah on the Teshuvah - respectively the "Teshuvah of This World", and the "Teshuvah of the World to Come."

During the holy days of Elul, help me to attain perfect Teshuvah, and let the holiness of Elul be drawn into the entire year, until we are able to follow the path of perfect Teshuvah at all times and to walk all the pathways of Teshuvah perfectly all our days and for ever.

In Your abundant kindness and mercy, accept all the different aspects and levels of our Teshuvah with love and favor, and enable us to search and examine our ways and return and rise towards HaShem, for Your right hand is stretched out to receive those who wish to return."

Eating

Loving G-d: bring me to eat in holiness and purity, with no physical desire whatever. Give me the power to arouse the light of the twentyeight holy letters of creation which are clothed in everything in the world, until all my enjoyment of everything I eat or drink comes only from the light of the holy letters contained in it. Through this, give me a good heart: let my heart radiate with great holiness through enjoying and being nourished only by the light of the letters that powered the act of creation and are contained in all things.

Help me and guard me from ever benefiting from this world without saying a blessing. Let me recite the appropriate blessings before and after everything I eat and drink with intense concentration and with the sole intention of blessing Your great and holy Name in holiness and purity. Let all my blessings and thanks, songs and praises flow forth in of perfect holiness - words of the Holy Language, as complemented and completed by the langof eN eryday conversation.

Let me thereby arouse the power of the thirty-two names of G-d that appear in the account of the creation, which are the force underlying all G-d's works, the force powering the letters clothed in everything in the world. Through them You created everything in the world according to Your will, from the largest to the smallest. You created everything with its own unique appearance, taste and form, corresponding to the letters of the holy Torah that You put" into it according to Your will, as weighed, measured and determined in Your holy wisdom., "How many are Your works, HaShem, You made them all in wisdom, the world is full of Your possessions." "And now, let the power of my Lord be magnified, as You spoke saying..."

For Your sake, for the sake of Your glory, and for the sake of Your holy letters clothed in all things, give me the power to always be able to arouse the letters of creation clothed in all things. Don't let me follow the stubbornness of my heart. Let me reduce my material desires to a minimum and have no physical craving for anything in the world. Let all my enjoyment of food, drink and other pleasures come only from the radiance of the letters they contain and not from the gratification of bodily desire.

Send blessing into my food, and let me be genuinely satisfied. Let me feel physical satisfaction even after eating just a little. Let my satisfaction come from the radiance of the holy letters contained in what I eat and drink in holiness and purity, and fulfil in me the verse: "And you shall eat with full satisfaction and praise the Name of HaShem your G-d, who has done wonders with you, and My people will never be ashamed."

Through eating and drinking in holiness, let my heart shine with goodness and joy, and let the radiance of my heart light up my face with holiness and joy until my face is constantly bathed in the light of HaShem's countenance. Fulfil in me and my offspring the verse: "This is the generation of those who search for Him, seeking Your countenance - Yaakov, Selah." Let my face be so radiant that I will be able to bring people to complete repentance just by their seeing my face. Let my face shine with the light of G-d's countenance like a bright mirror that people will look into and see themselves in, and realize how their own faces are sunk in darkness.

Let them be inspired to renew their youth like the eagle and come back to You in true, perfect teshuvah.

Kind and loving G-d: Grant me that I should come close to the true Tzaddik of this generation and hear the Torah of the Living G-d directly from his holy mouth, just as he hears it from Your mouth through the merit of his good deeds. Inspire me with awe of Heaven - awe at Your supreme exaltedness. Let me listen to the holy words coming from the lips of the true Tzaddik with reverence and awe, so that I too will be able to receive the full benefit of the Holy Language.

Bring me to true observance of the Covenant in great holiness as befits a member of Your chosen people of Israel. Be gracious to me, and grant that I should be able to make amends for all my sins and transgressions in my lifetime. Let me make up for everything I've done wrong from my earliest years until today, including even the sins I have comn-dtted unknowingly or under compulsion. Let me rectify eve quiddy and easily in my lifetime, and from now on let me come genuinely dose to You in holiness and purity, gain perfect mastery of the Holy Language and faithfully observe the holy Covenant.

Breaking the desire to eat unnecessarily, and avoidance of forbidden foods

Loving G-d: Help me break my urge to eat unnecessarily, until I become totally free of any urge to eat purely for the sake of gratifying my physical appetite. Let me eat and drink only for Your sake - in order to have the strength to follow the path of Your Torah with all my heart. Let me eat in holiness and purity for Your Name's sake.

Loving G-d: help me and protect me from ever eating any forbidden foods, both those forbidden by the Torah and those forbidden by our Sages. Always guard me from all hidden pitfalls, and never let any forbidden food come into my mouth. Master of the entire universe: You know that it is impossible for a mere human constantly to be on guard against all the different kinds of forbidden foods or mixtures of them. There is such an enormous number of complex details. And You also know the terrible damage it does to a Jewish soul to eat forbidden foods.

Please have pity on me and help me for Your sake. Guard my soul, and keep me well away from any kind of forbidden food - non-kosher animals, worms and bugs, mixtures of meat and milk, non-kosher wine, forbidden fat and blood, the sciatic nerve, the limb of a living animal, non-Jewish bread, food cooked by a non4ew, chametz on Pesach, and all other kinds of forbidden foods and mix-ins. Protect me and save me from all of them. Don't let any of them ever come into my mouth or bring impurity into my soul. Let me and my children, my descendants and the whole Jewish People be clean and pure, and keep us away from all forbidden foods. Sanctify us with Your exalted holiness and let us follow Your commandment to "be holy, for I am holy."

Have compassion on me, and save me from all kinds of impurity and anything that makes the soul disgusting. Sanctify me in every way. Help me eat with the holiness that befits a Jew. By eating in holiness and purity, let me repair the damage to the holy altar, and let my table atone for me like the altar itself. Bring me to perfect faith, and give me the strength and wisdom to banish all kinds of false beliefs. Help me bring people who have strayed into false beliefs back to true faith in G-d.

Please, HaShem: help me overcome my bodily desires and my lack of self-control, and give me mental clarity. Grant that I should be able to give charity generously to large numbers of deserving people, and to the true Tzaddikim of our generation, so as to be able to repair the damage to the altar caused by our sins. Today we cannot bring fire-offerings and sacrifices, and we have no priest to atone for us.

Have pity on me: let me overcome my desire to eat unnecessarily, and from now on help me eat in holiness and purity so that MY table will atone like the altar. Let me have guests at my table; let me give a of my meals to those in need; let me study Torah at the table, and let me eat all my meals in complete holiness.

Let my conduct at the table purify me from all my sins and earn me my share in the world to come, as well as a good livelihood in th-s world. Let me be marked for good in the highest worlds, and let me develop my strength for the time I will need it. Don't allow the forces of unholiness to draw nourishment from my table and my eating, except for the barest minimum that has to be given to them in accordance with Your will, but no more.

Let me fulfil the mitzvah of washing my hands before eating bread and at the end of the meal, and let me thereby sanctify my hands and bring perfect holiness and purity into myself in fulfilment of the verse: "You shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for L HaShem am holy." Help me say the blessing over bread, the grace after meals, and all the other blessings before and after food, with full concentration and devotion, in holiness and purity. Let my table be worthy of having applied to it the verse: "And he spoke to me, "This is the table that is before HaShem." " Through eating in holiness, let me overcome my mental confusion and lack of self-control, and help me attain perfect wisdom and connection with G-d.

Please, HaShem: You know the constant mental confusion and turbulence I suffer from. I just cannot stand it. But I have absolutely no idea what to do to try to clear my mind and rid myself of my impulsiveness and folly. These are the cause of my sinful behavior, but far from being able to bring some order into my mind and behave the way I should, I constantly do what I should not: my behavior is becoming more and more impulsive and reckless, and my mind ever more tur.

"My eyes are lifted up above, HaShem. Redeem me and save me! Intercede for the good of Your servant, and don't let my arrogant thoughts and sins overwhelm me. Take my soul out of prison." Grant me knowledge, understanding and wisdom, and help me repent of my evil thoughts. Let me abandon my wicked path and my corrupt and confused thoughts, which create such barriers against my turning to YOU. Have pity on me. Have compassion on me. Stir up Your love and mercy for me. Give me hope. Help me make a new start. From now on, let me drive away all evil thoughts and distractions and free myself of all mental confusion.

Enable me to develop my mind to perfection, quickly and easily, until I come to perfect holy wisdom and knowledge. And through this, help me to stop doing all the wrong I've done until now. From now on let me be a person who truly turns away from evil. Help me improve and perfect my behavior. In place of my former sinful behavior, let me devote myself from now on to good and noble activities that will evoke favor and joy before Your throne of glory.

HaShem my G-d and G-d of my fathers: please open me to the light of holy wisdom, and let me see the radiance of the true Tzaddikim, which shines in all the worlds, and nowhere more than in this lowly world. But because of the wrong I have done and my lack of spirituality, the light of the Tzaddikim has become so concealed from me that even when I try to bring myself closer to them and study their holy works, I am still unable to feel and see their pure, radiant light. I am insensitive to the sweetness of their holy words, because of my own spiritual darkness and bad habits. For me, the light of holy awe and love is shrouded in darkness, and because of my sins I am far, far away from true awe and love.

Please, HaShem, have pity on me! Don't reject me, and don't abandon me. Help me develop my mind and soul and improve my behavior. Open me to the light of holy wisdom, and reveal the truth to me. Let me see the light of the true Tzaddikim with the eyes of my soul. Grant that I should become one with them and cling to the pathways and good practices they have taught us. Through following them, bring me to complete holy awe and love.

Let me come close to the Tzaddikim who have the power to reveal the great pride and pleasure You have from the Jewish People in every generation, as it is written: "Israel, in whom I take pride." These Tzareveal both the pride and pleasure You take in the Jewish People as a whole - Your holy people, whom You chose from all the nations and exalted above all languages - and also the pride and pleasure You have from every individual Jew, even the most insignificant, even the Jewish sinners, as long as they still bear the name Jew because even then You still take pride in them and Your glory is enhanced and elevated through them. And these Tzaddikim also have the power to reveal even the pride and pleasure You take in the smallest details of the good deeds and gestures of every single Jew.

Let all this pride and pleasure be revealed by the true Tzaddikim, so as to reveal all Your intentions in creating the Universe as a whole and each of the different creatures in particular, and all of the unique details of each individual creature. For You created everything only for the sake of Your people Israel, so that You could take pride and pleasure in them and be magnified and exalted. Grant that we should be able to see and understand all this, so that we will attain complete awe and love of G-d, and we will come to fear Your mighty, awesome Name and genuinely love You with all our hearts, all our souls and all our might.

Please HaShem: You listen to every prayer, every cry and every sigh. Listen kindly to my prayer and grant my request - for Your sake and not for mine. Let me give much charity to genuinely deserving people and to the true Tzaddikim of this generation, and let me thereby bring the exiled good to recall its great worth, especially the good inside me, which is trapped in such a deep exile. Arouse and awaken it, and let it fight back against the evil in me, until I am able to conquer the evil and drive it out of me completely. Quickly bring me to complete repentance. Help me remove my physical appetite for unnecessary food. Help me eat in holiness and purity for the sake of Your Name, and remove the mental turbulence and folly that cause me to do wrong.

Kind and loving G-d: bring me to perfect holy knowledge and true spirituality. Let me do what is good in Your eyes. Open me to the fight of wisdom, and let the radiance of the true Tzaddikim, which shines in all the worlds, be revealed in its true power. Let it bring me to perfect awe and love of G-d, and unite my heart to genuinely love and fear Your Name from now on and for ever. Amen. Selah.

The "Mitzvot" of the Evil Inclination

Be kind to me and help me not to fall prey to the irrational appeals of my evil inclination. It tries to influence me and prevent me from serving You properly by dressing up its promptings as "mitzvot," as if trying to persuade me to do something right and proper. The truth is that these "mitzvot" which it dresses itself in are a hidden trap, as You alone know. Please, HaShem, have compassion on my poor soul and save me from the promptings of the evil inclination. Let it have no power to deceive me with these distractions.

I am throwing my whole burden upon You, HaShem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers. I am relying on You alone to lead me lovingly on the straight, true path at all times and in everything I do. Let my every movement be in complete accordance with Your will, and don't let me turn aside from what You want either right or left.

You know that we are flesh and blood - it is impossible for us to always know exactly what You want. I appeal to You to show me Your love and help me. Do not let the evil inclination have any power to unsettle and distract my mind with any kind of foolishness and irrationality whatsoever. Let me rely on You alone. Show me Your great love, and lead me on the path of truth at all times. Let all my actions, activities and behavior, and those of my children, my descendants and all who depend on me, be in full accord with Your good will at all times, from now on and for ever.

Loving G-d: Help me to be able to strengthen the power of holiness so as to overcome the power of evil. Help me to strengthen, my good inclination against the evil urge.

Faith, not superstition

Loving G-d: bring us to perfect, holy faith. Bring us to bein You and Your true Tzaddikim with genuine and complete faith. Save us from false and nonsensical beliefs. Keep us from all false beliefs, and let us never put our trust in any form of superstition. Let us never follow any kind of superstitious practices or even pay the least attention to such primitive lies and nonsense. Let our hearts be filled only with holy Emunah, and bring us to pure, clear, wholehearted faith in You, HaShem our G-d, and in the true Tzaddikim, in the Holy Torah - both the written and oral Torah - and in the entire holy Jewish People.

Faith in the Tzaddikim

Lovingly help me to have faith in the true Tzaddikim. Let no doubts whatever enter my mind on account of the disputes between the true Tzaddikim. Let me have complete faith in all the true Tzaddikim, and let me have no questions either about them or on account of the disputes between them.

Master of the Universe: It is true that I have wasted the drops of my mind and soul, and it is my own deficiencies that make it hard for me to draw close to the true Tzaddikim and develop genuine faith in them. This is the reason for the doubts I have about them. But still, HaShem, please do not treat me according to my sins. Don't judge me harshly, in spite of all the wrong I have done. For Your sake, if not for mine, fulfil my request and let no questions and doubts about the true Tzaddikim or their disputes enter my heart. Grant that I should have genuine, perfect faith in them at all times.

Lovingly and tenderly help me come back to You sincerely and walk the path of life. Let me fix everything I have damaged. Have compassion on me and bring me back from deato life, from chametz to matza, from bad fear to good fear, from a spoiled voice and a spoiled intellect to a good voice and a good mind. "Give me the wisdom to know the path of life and let me be satisfied with the joy of seeing Your face, so as to enjoy the pleasantness of Your merciful right hand for ever." "For with You is the source of life. In Your light we will see light."

Faith

HaShem: Surely faith is what You want that is where Your eyes are directed. Please help me: inspire me to have holy faith in You at all times without a moment's break. Bring me and all Your people Israel to perfect faith. Let us believe in You and Your true Tzaddikim without faltering. Let us be free of all confusion, and not deviate from our faith in any way.

Let me believe in all the holy miracles You have done for us. You have worked the most amazing miracles and wonders in every generation right up until the present - the "higher" and the "lower" miracles, those that have been revealed and those that reconcealed, those within nature and those beyond nature, general and specific miracles - for every single Jew, every day, every hour and every moment.

Let me and all Your people Israel believe in all these miracles unreservedly and with perfect faith. Silence the mouths of all the liars who want to put doubts into our hearts and cover up the miracles with natural explanations. "Cover their faces with shame, and let them search out Your Name, HaShem."

Have pity on me and help me avoid being influenced by such people. Remove any inclination I may have to listen to them. Give me the power to crush them and uproot their wicked ideas entirely. "For the slanderers let there be no hope, and let all the heretics, wanton sinners and atheists perish in an instant."

Put it into their hearts to repent, and let them all recant their evil and confused opinions. Let all of them return to You genuinely and honestly, and recognize the power of Your Kingship.

Forgiveness and Protection

All my sins and transgressions against You have driven the life- spirit out of me. It is my sins that have caused all my inadequacies and deficiencies. In the merit of the true Tzaddikim of the generation, forgive me and pardon me for all my sins. These Tzaddikim have the Spirit of G-d in them. It is through them that You are lovingly reconciled with the Jewish People, pardoning and atoning for our sins in every generation, because "The wise man will atone for it."

Drive all our enemies away. Break them and humble them. Thwart all who try to rise up against us with evil intent, and ftustrate their plans.

HaShem! You know how low and weak we are at this time. We have fallen lower and lower. "The enemy hand is ever stronger, and there is no one to save or support us." Our strength is gone. Every day, each one of us is sub ect to a multitude of pressures, all pushing us away from Your service and driving us away from life, G-d forbid.

I have enough troubles, problems and pressures within my own self. Every moment of."m every day I am under attack from my bodily desires and bad character traits. I don't have the strength to bear it. Because of my sins, I have not made an effort to drive out the "guest" - the Evil Urge - from within me, and now it has become the "master of the house." All my strength is sapped.

And as if all these inner pressures are not enough, I have a multitude of external battles to face as well. "HaShem, how many are our enen-des." To You, nothing is a secret. You know how many enen-des and accusers we have standing against us at all times, both in the upper worlds and in the lower worlds. You know how they have opened their mouths against us and how they wag their tongues. Their mouths are wide open to swallow us, because swallow us is what they want to do, G-d forbid.

Master of the entire Universe: You are truly merciful and full of love and kindness. You know exactly who we have fighting against us every day and every moment. "Why do You countenance the deceivers and stay silent while the sinner devours one more saintly than himselm Please show me Your love and give full rein to Your compassion.

You know that I do not have the strength to stand up against even a single one of my enen-des, whether physical or spiritual, let alone all of them. What am I but a despised, trampled, downtrodden worm? Won't You take pity on me? I am so weak - how can I stand up against lions?

You test people's hearts and innermost recesses. You know all their secrets. HaShem: You know that my real intention is to serve You truly. Maybe my actual behavior is not the best, and the things I do are a contradiction to my words. So far, I have not succeeded in taking myself in hand in order to achieve the only thing I really want in my heart, which is to be what You want me to be. Even so, Your love and kindness are more powerful than anything, and You value people's good intentions as if they had actually achieved what they wanted.

You know my heart. You know how I am constantly longing, yearning, hoping and waiting for You to help me and bring me to true service of G-d. Then why do You make me stray from Your pathways? Why do You give strength to my enemies, when all they want to do is to hide the truth and reinforce their lies? I do not have the strength to stand against them. I can only rely on You, and I am waiting and hoping for You to help me.

HaShem, our G-d and G-d of our fathers: Lovingly help us and save us from all our enemies and persecutors. We are under attack every day, both physically and spiritually. Give us the strength and holy life- spirit to overwhelm and conquer our enemies and bring them down to the ground.

Take away their life-spirit, which they draw from the realm of evil, from the unholy leader. Do not allow them to conquer us. Rescue us from their devouring mouths. "Save us from the sword, from their mouths, and the poor one from the mighty hand."  

  Love and Fear of G-d

Our Father in Heaven: It is from You that all the living have their share of life. Living G-d, our portion and our rock: Save us from death. Redeem us from destruction. Keep me and all Your people, the House of Israel, from all kinds of evil thoughts and doubts. They are called 'the side of death." In Your abundant love and kindness, grant me life. Let me live a life that is truly good, long, and eternal. Help me sanctify my mind, 'the wellspring of living waters."

Bring me to love and cherish Your great Name with a true love that will rise up to You directly. Unify my heart to love and fear Your Name. Save me from fallen fears, so that I will have no fear of anything in the world besides You. Let Your fear be on my face, so that I will never sin.

Help me pray to You with all my strength. Let me put all my energy into the words of the prayers and bring forth the sounds and words with great force. Let my voice penetrate my mind and resound in my heart like thunder, inspiring my heart to Your service. Let the thunder of my voice and words bring me to genuine fear of Heaven, so that my words will be a resounding influence drawing myself and others to serve and fear You.

Let the voice of our prayers rise and find favor before You, like the seven voices with which I-Cing David cried out over the water: "The voice of HaShem is upon the waters, the G-d of glory thunders, HaShem is upon vast waters! The voice of HaShem is in power..." Let the crookedness of my heart be smoothed out cornpletely. "The stubbornness of my heart will depart; I will not know evil." Bring me to be truly pure-hearted, and let me always face G-d honestly.

Bittul - Surrender and attachment to G-d

Open up Your great light to me - the light that has no end - and let me be merged in it to the full extent possible in this life. Especially during my prayers, help me to be truly attached and surrendered to You to the point that all independent ego will be erased and I will be completely separated from materialistic thoughts and desires.

When HaShem wants to help, no obstacle can stand in His way. I may be coarsely materialistic as a result of my deep exile amidst the lusts of the body and its evil traits. I am bound to my body like a chained, tprisoner. In spite of this, You are mighty and abundantly able to save. For You, nothing is impossible. I confidently wait, hope and expect that You will show me Your abundant love and grant me everything I have asked of You, so that I will be able to nullify all my bodily lusts and evil traits completely.

Let me come to transcend all material thoughts and desires, until I become genuinely merged in You all my days to the fullest extent possible in this life, until the day when You will finally take back my soul, and then You will lovingly bring me to be merged in You for ever. No sin or transgression will hold me back, because in Your abundant kindness and awesome mercy, You will forgive me for everything.

G-d's Glory

Arise and help me. Put it into my heart to take up the cause of Your great and holy honor, and that of my own nefesh, ruach and neshamah. Owing to omany sins, our status has fallen very low, because we have neglected Your honor and despised our own souls. We have been stripped of so much of our honor during our hun-dliating exile. "Our honor has dropped low among the nations, and they abhor us like menstrual impurity." See how very lowly the Jewish People has become, both collectively and as individuals.

Take up the cause of Your great and holy glory. It was for Your glory that You created al the worlds, so that Your glory should be magnified and exalted through Your people, as it is written, "All that is called in My Name, for My glory I have created it, formed it and made it."

Why has all the honor gone to strangers instead? Why has all the honor been taken from Israel and fallen into exile among evil, idolatrous people? They have all the glory, while Your people Israel are despised. We are subject to constant abuse and contempt.

Take pity on us for Your sake and the sake of Your glory. Send us help from Your holy heights. From now on, inspire me to serve and revere You sincerely, with all my heart. Let me repent and follow the path of perfect Teshuvah. Let me adom myself and others with good deeds and good character traits. Help me speak to people's hearts and show them the truth, and bring them back to perfect Teshuvah before You, in order that Your great and holy glory will be enhanced and elevated through me.

Your glory is most fully revealed when the people who were furthest away from You come genuinely close to You: then 'the Name of the Hol One blessed be He is exalted and glorified above and below." Therefore have pity on me and draw me close to You, despite my present distance from You. Multiply merit by letting me be an instrument to help other people who are also distant to come closer. Magnify and sanctify Your great glory by carrying this out through me, distant as I am. Support me and give me strength, and help me restore Your glory after the humiliation of exile.

Help me do everything I can to enhance Your glory at all times, and let me raise Your glory to its source in Awe. Inspire me with holy awe of G-d. Let me always be in awe of You and revere Your glorious and awesome Name. Help me come to perfect awe of Heaven - awe at Your exaltedness. Let me accord honor to genuinely G-d-fearing people. Let me defer to them and treat them with sincere, heartfelt respect. If I have been lacking in genuine awe so far, let me now make amends and attain complete awe of Heaven, so as to fulfil the verse: "Fear HaShem, His holy ones, for those who fear Him will lack nothing." Let me thereby attain perfect inner peace and harmony. Heal me spiritually and physically. Let me be whole, with no flaws or blemishes.

Everything is for good

Help me to set aside all my own wishes in favor of Your will. Let me have no other desire in the world except that my will should always be Your will. Bring me to know that HaShem is G-d, and that divine mercy and justice both come from one Source. Let me understand that no matter what may happen to me, everything is for my good. Let me bless You for everything as "Good and Beneficent", the way people will bless You in the future, as it is written: "I will praise Elokim [when G-d deals with me through His attribute of justice]; I will praise HaShem [when He deals with me through His attribute of mercy]."

Let us raise up and restore the fallen Kingship to its place, and let Your Kingship be revealed to all the world. Let the power of evil be shattered, and let the dominion of the idolators over us and all Your people Israel be broken and destroyed, and You, HaShem, will rule alone over all Your works.

Hashem, Master of the Universe: You know that I could attain all these levels with the help of true Tzaddikim. Therefore I appeal to You to reveal the true Tzaddikim of this generation. Show me who they are and help me to come close to them, so that with their help I can achieve everything I have asked of You.

If my many sins have created a barrier between myself and the true Tzaddikim, causing them to be hidden from me and making it impossible for me to discover who they are, may it be Your will, HaShem our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that You Yourself, in Your abundant love, should help me attain everything I have asked of You. Let my confession before You be accepted and accounted as if I had confessed before the true Sage and Tzaddik of the generation. Help me to nullify all my bad traits and desires and attain all the positive qualities and spiritual levels that I could have reached with the help of the true Tzaddikim. Grant me everything I have requested of You, and also the requests I have not mentioned.

Help me in all the different areas where I need help, HaShem, because You are my Father, and I have no-one to rely upon except for You, my Father in Heaven. You know how strongly I yearn to draw close to the true Tzaddik, but because of all my sins I do not know who he is or where. If only I knew and could find him, I would 'skip over the mountains and jump over the hills" to come to him. "I would tell him the number of my steps" - I would tell him every detail of my life.

Loving G-d, see my misery and pain, see my misery and bitterness. "I look at myself and I'm like a lone bird on a roof" - because I have no-one to turn to for help. To You alone I lift my eyes. Please take pity on me. Forgive me and grant atonement for all my many sins and transgressions. "HaShem is the G-d of love and forgiveness, even though we have rebelled against Him. For the sake of Your Name, HaShem, forgive my sin, even though it is very great. For with You is forgiveness, that You may be feared."

Help me and grant everything I have requested as a free gift and an act of charity and kindness. If I have stumbled in my words, You, HaShem, grant me atonement. Grant that even in this world I should have a taste of the World to Come and surrender myself to You, knowing that all that happens to me is for my own good.

For HaShem is good to all. Grant me the privilege of revealing Your Kdngship in the world - "In order that all the nations on earth should know that HaShem is G-d and there is none other. And HaShem will be King over all the earth. On that day HaShem will be one and Ffis Name one. Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable before You, HaShem, my Rock and Redeemer."

Grace

O G-d: You are fof favor, tender mercy, kindness and goodness at all times. May it be Your will to have pity on me and shine upon me with grace and kindness. Grant me favor in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who sme. Send me words of grace and endearment that will enter into Your heart. Accept my prayers and requests at all times, and fulfil Your promise to "pour out on the house of David and those who dwell in Jerusalem a spirit of grace and endearment."

Let the words with which we address You be words of grace and endearment, and give them room to enter into Your heart, and let our words arouse favor and pleasure before the throne of Your glory.

Master of the World, see our poverty, our lowliness and shame. The grace and prestige of Your holy people Israel have fallen in this bitter exile. The Jewish People are despised and lowly in the eyes of the nations of the world and the wicked. All the grand importance have fallen to them.

Take pity on Your great and holy glory, and exalt, raise up and magnify the grace and prestige of Israel, materially and spiritually. Bring down the idol-worshippers, the unholy and the wicked. Let them have no grace and status whatsoever either above or below. Exalt Your people Israel and hear and receive our prayers and cries at all times.

See our toil and look at our plight, and fulfil what is written: "For He has not despised or spurned the suffering of the poor and He has not hidden His face from him. When he cries to He hears." Show us favor and answer us and hear our prayer. For You hear the prayers of every single one of Your people Israel in love. Blessed are You who hears prayer.

Let us help and support one another

Let love and harmony reign among us constantly, until we all become unified and inspire one another. Let us remind each other to turn to You sincerely, break all our bad traits and desires, and acquire good qualities by doing what is right in Your eyes all the days of our lives.

If any Jew has a deficiency of any kind, whether through neglecting some good trait or failing to work on a bad one, let a friend point it out to him and give him encouragement so as to enable him to fix everything in this life. Let us all come back to You in perfect Teshuvah and fix all the wrong we have done from our youngest days until today. From now on, help us to attain the good You want for us. Don't let us ever turn aside right or left from what You want. Watch over us with perfect care.

HaShem, Master of the Universe: Incline Your eand hear, open Your eyes and see our devastation. Don't hide Your eyes from us. Loving G-d: Take pity on us and watch over us with an eye of tender mercy and graciousness, a single eye of love, an open eye that never slumbers. Put us under Your perfect providence and let Your vision rest upon us through Your holy Torah, which You have radiated to us through the true Tzaddikim. Let us be close to Your holy, watchful eye, until we will be the focus of Your vision, and we will become merged with You.

Watch over us and take perfect care of us at all times, and send us a flow of goodness, blessing, holiness and purity. See our pitiful condition and how we are struggling. See the pressures we are under, physically and spiritually. Have pity on the Jewish People. We are scattered like a flock without a shepherd. Bring back our distant ones from the four comers of the earth. Redeem us quickly and send us our righteous Mashiach. For this e)dle of body and soul has gone on for so long that 'the power to bear it has collapsed," as You know, Hashem.

Show us love and pity. Shine Your mercy upon us. Bring us our righteous Mashiach quickly, and build the Holy Temple very soon in our days. "And as for me, in Your abundant mercy I will come to Your House. I will prostrate towards the palace of Your holiness in awe of You." Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart find favor before You, liashem my Rock and my Redeemer.

The Hidden Light

From now on, brinme genuinely close to You and lavish me with kindness from Your treasury of goodness. My eyes are hanging on You, waiting for You to bring me to true prayer. Help me to immerse myself in constant prayer, until I come to grasp the true secrets of the Torah, and I will have a taste of the hidden fight which You are going to reveal to the true Tzaddikim in the future - the innermost secrets of the Torah. Let me gaze upon the pleasantness of HaShem and contemplate in His sanctuary.

Master of all, kind, loving G-d: Grant that I should attain such a level of Torah and fervent prayer that, even in this world, I will be worthy of a taste of the hidden light that is concealed and stored away for those who fear You, as it is written: "How great is Your goodness that You have hidden away for those that fear You and have made for those who take refuge in You against the sons of man."

HaShem: You are good and benevolent to all. You know that there is no true good in the world except to turn from evil and to do good, to genuinely subject ourselves to the Torah and divine service with complete sincerity at all times, until we are granted a taste of the hidden light even in this world. This is the true and enduring good. Deal with me mercifully and grant that I should taste Your true goodness. "He lifts up the lowly from the dust, He will raise up the destitute from the trash-heap."" Be kind to me. Elevate me and satisfy me with Your goodness. Show me the radiance of Your glory and grant me eternal life from now and for ever. Amen. Selah.

Humility

Help me bear shame and embarrassment without throwing insults back in return. Even if I hear myself abused, let me not reply. "To those that curse me, let my soul be silent." No matter how other people may abuse and insult me, let me hold my peace and say nothing. Let me lisilently wait for HaShem and hope in Him", and "let me be like a man who does not hear and has no complaints on his lips...." "I will be like a deaf person - I will not hear; I will be like a dumb person who will not open his mouth."

HaShem, I know the truth: all the insults in the world would not be enough to cleanse me, considering the weight of all my sins. It is impossible to express in words how degraded I have become through my own choices and actions. My sins have cast a stain on Your great glory. I have dishonored Your holy Name, and I have mightily abused my own soul through my sins. I have given power to the blood in the left side of the heart, which has strengthened my evil inclination.

To make up for all this I must simply bear even the worst insults and persecution. So HaShem, when people abuse and insult me, help me bear it in silence, in order that this should be my atonement for all my sins.

HaShem, my G-d: In my heart of hearts I know that I am very far from genuine Teshuvah. My sins have gone over my head. They have left me in such a state of mental confusion that I really have no idea to come back to You. My good sense and intelligence have left me, and I feel as if I have no heart. I go around like a vagrant, devoid of mind and heart.

HaShem, You know my foolishness. I cannot conceal my guilt from You. Father, loving Father, what should I do? Where should I run for help? What possible remedy or strategy can I find to save my soul from destruction? "I lift up my eyes to the mountains: from where will my help come?" Help me! Help me! Please! Please be kind to me! Show me Your love and mercy! Save me!

Shine upon me from Your holy habitation, and cause a spirit of wisdom and understanding, holiness and purity to rest upon me, so that I will be able to genuinely sanctify and purify myself and come back to You in perfect Teshuvah. Let me hold my peace and say nothing to those who abuse and insult my soul. Let me 'silently wait for HaShem and hope in Him", bearing all degradation and persecution with love, as an atonement for my sins.

Eretz Israel

G-d of faith: Help me come to perfect faith, and bring me to Eretz Israel, the place of our sanctity, the root of faith, prayer and miracles, the fountain of life, the source of the Jewish People's closeness to their Father in Heaven, our holy place, our pride, the place of our vitality and long life.

Father in Heaven: Have pity on us and grant us as a gift of love that we should soon move to Eretz Israel and live a life of true service of G-d with reverence and love. Hurry and free us from this deep e)dle away from our land, which has lasted for so many years. Gather us in peace from the four corners of the earth and speedily bring us up to our land in pride and dignity.

Master of the Universe: You know that the only reason for this long e)dle has been our weak faith. This was why we first went into e)dle, and we have still not done enough to strengthen our faith. That is why this bitter e)dle has lasted until now.

Please take pity on the Jewish People, because we have no-one to stand up for us. Only Your great Name will support us: plant Your holy faith in our hearts and keep it firm from now on and for ever.

Free me from the sinuous doubts and questions in my . Let me never entertain the slightest doubt about how You run the world. Let me always believe that You are just and righteous. "For the word of HaShem is just, and all His works are done with faithfulness." "All Your commandments are faith. They have persecuted me falsely - help me."

Be kind to me and answer me, and help me have perfect faith at all times. In the merit of faith, bring us back to our land very soon, as it is written: "Come, look down from the top of Amanah - Emunah, faith." Speedily in our days. Amen.

Have mercy on me! Arouse Your great love and kindness for me and help me go to the Holy Land soon. Eretz Israel is the. very source of our holiness, as You know, HaShem. All our holiness, our purity and our very identity as Jews depend on Eretz Israel. It is impossible to be a true Jew and rise spiritually from level to level except through coming to Eretz Israel, the place of our holiness, the land You chose from all other lands and gave as an inheritance to Your people Israel, choicest of all the nations - the land You watch over constantly, as it is written: "A land that HaShem your G-d watches over; the eyes of HaShem your G-d are upon it constantly from the beginning of the year until the end of the year."

You know the terrible array of obstacles, blocks and distractions holding us back and preventing us from reaching Eretz Israel. Our days and years have been wasted in exile. We have been banished from the land of the living, the Holy Land. We"ve been kept from attaching ourselves to G-d's portion, which is the source of our very life and length of days, and from dwelling in the land HaShem has given us.

Master of the Universe, loving G-d: have pity on us! Open our hearts, the hearts of our children and of all Your People, the House of Israel, and fill us with the most powerful l, yearning and desire for Eretz Israel. Let us constantly yearn and long to come to the Land, until You actually bring us there soon, so that we will be truly inspired to serve You and fear You.

Loving G-d: have mercy on us! Don't let us waste our days in exile. You know our suffering and weakness at this time. It is impossible for us to break the tremendous array of barriers keeping us from Eretz Israel. We do not have the strength to break so many thousands and thousands of obstacles and barriers except through Your power and mercy. We have no-one to depend upon except You, our Father in Heaven. Have pity on Your People and bring us to Eretz Israel quickly and easily. Give us the strength to win the war and break, drive out and remove all those who say bad things about the country, creating all kinds of obstacles to prevent us from reaching there. Help us break and destroy all the barriers and come to Eretz Israel peacefully, quiddy and easily.

Joy of the Mitzvot

HaShem, our G-d and G-d of our fathers: Lovingly help me to fulfil Your mitzvot with great joy. Bring me to pray to You with all my strength. Let the various kinds of energy in all of my two hundred and forty-eight limbs, my three hundred and sixty-five sinews, my flesh, my bones, my veins and arteries, my fat, my blood, my brain, the nerves that branch out through my whole body, my five senses and all my other faculties enter into my prayers and be merged within them.

Let me bring out the sounds and words of the prayers with great force. Let my voice come forth like thunder, and let the sound of my voice arouse my inner concentration, so that I will hear and understand the words I am saying in my heart. Let me pray with intense attention and devotion. And bring me to attain the highest level of heavenly fear: awe at Your exaltedness.

Protect me from all extraneous fears, so that I will not be afraid of or anyone in the world - not of powerful officials or important personages, nor of wild animals, violent robbers or anything else in the entire world. Let me have no extraneous fear whatever. Let me only fear You at all times, and help me experience supreme awe at Your exaltedness.

Judging others favorably

Master of the Universe: Through Your holy sages, of blessed memory, You have given us a distant hint of the exalted holiness of the Jewish People. Every single Jew is a "crown" to the Holy One blessed be He. I therefore want to ask You to help me to always try to search for all the good points that are to be found in each Jew, and to judge everyone favorably.

Even when people are against me and abuse and insult me, let me hold my peace and say nothing. Even in my heart, let me feel no hatred or anger. Instead, let me judge them favorably

Self-judgement

Please, HaShem, loving, merciful G-d: Don't let me lose my eternal reward. Don't let all my efforts come to nothing and bear no fruits. Help me to examine myself constantly and reflect carefully on what I am doing in this fleeting world. Let me think about my path in life. Let me evaluate everything I do every day and every moment. Let me always ask myself whether I am behaving the way I ought to or not, so that I will take myself in hand and repent for my wrongful thoughts and behavior. Let me genuinely 'turn from evil" in thought, word and deed, and do only what is good in Your eyes at all t.

Please, HaShem, have mercy on me. Take pity on me. See how low I have fallen. I'm in terrible trouble - worse than someone adrift at sea and lying in the most dangerous place on the boat. I have no idea where I should run... where I should fly... to try to escape from my mner torment. I have no idea how to cry out to You. For years now I've been calling to You to stir Your love and mercy and release me from my evil thoughts and ways, so as to bring me out of my darkness to goodness and light. Through Your true Tzaddikim You have taught us that prayer helps in everything. Prayer is the basis for all true closeness to You. You hear all prayers, no matter whose. You even listen to a cry from the belly of hell and the lowest depths. Then why will You not attend to the words of Your servant, who has been standing and crying out to You for such a long time?

Not only have I failed to improve my behavior day by day. Every day my spiritual state is worse than it was the day before. I simply don't know what method I should use to try to bring holy power into myself in order to fight and conquer my evil urge and break and remove my desires. There's only one way I can escape from my urges and save my soul from heff - through prayers and supplications, cries and screams. But even this I find impossible. How can someone as persecuted, beaten about and manhandled as I have been come to true prayer? I have no option but to cry out and pray to the best of my ability. But if even this does not help, G-d forbid, I don't know what I can do to escape.

Master of the World, I know the truth: I myself am the guilty one. "The sin is mine, Master" - because I don't try to fight my desires for even a brief moment. In fact, I encourage them. Not only have I made no effort to grapple with my desires and remove them. I've actively embraced them. G-d help me to stop doing so from now on. But I've already asked You to help me with this. I've begged You to have mercy and save me from my very self. Let me stop being so cruel to my poor soul. Let me have pity on myself. No-one is more pathetic than a person who is far away from You and still unable to come close to You. This You well know, HaShem, my G-d, healer of the sick, who releases those who are in bondage and supports those who have fallen, and who hears the cry of the destitute. Have mercy on me! Don't abandon me! Don't throw me away! See how low I've fallen. See my bitter plight.

But I know that my Redeemer is alive and that from a distance You are planning to benefit me in the end and release me from my exile. Answer me, Hashem, answer me! Help me, help me! Save me, save me! Have compassion and save me from destruction. Help me repent sincerely and come to perfect Teshuvah. Let me walk the path of Your statutes and observe Your laws.

Livelihood

Loving G-d: Send me my livelihood before I need it. Provide for me generously and unsparingly through legitimate means, without my transgany prohibitions. Grant me my livelihood easily and honorably from Your wide and open hand, without my having to suffer pain and degradation. Let me not need to depend upon human gifts or loans.

Give me everything I need so that I will be able to do Your will and engage in Your Torah at all times, day and night. Grant me Torah and prosperity together.

HaShem, our G-d and G-d of our fathers" lovingly provide me with my food and a com-, fortable livelihood, honorably and without effort or anxiety. You have taught us that immorality causes a person's food and livelihood to be withheld, "for the desire for a harlot reduces one to begging for a loaf of bread." But keeping the mitzvah of Tzitzit saves a person from immorality and enables him to receive his livelihood in a holy way.

Master of the Universe, loving G-d: Save me from all forms of falsehood and error. When I speak, do not let a single untrue word leave my mouth, and when I act, keep me from all false and wrongful behavior. Protect me from the crooked paths of those who have gone astray, and help me walk the path of truth at all times. Through truth I will come to perfect faith, and connect truth and faith together, so that even in those areas where I have to depenon faith alone, because the truth itself is beyond the grasp of human reason, even so, my beliefs will be true.

Let my prayers be well-ordered and flow fluently from my lips and my very heart. Work miracles and wonders in the world "in ordthat all the nations on earth should know that HaShem is G-d, there is none other."

Remember Your people Israel and free them from this deep exile You have imposed upon them for so many years. Redeem us soon, help us come back to our land, and send us our righteous Mashiach quickly. "Justice will be the belt of his loins and faith the belt of his hips." "Truth will sprout from the earth and justice will appear from the heavens." "Come, gaze from the peak of Amanah - Emunah, faith." Quickly in our days. Amen.

Love and Fear of G-d

Our Father in Heaven: It is from You that all the living have their share of life. Living G-d, our portion and our rock: Save us from death. Redeem us from destruction. Keep me and all Your people, the House of Israel, from all kinds of evil thoughts and doubts. They are called 'the side of death." In Your abundant love and kindness, grant me life. Let me live a life that is truly good, long, and eternal. Help me sanctify my mind, 'the wellspring of living waters."

Bring me to love and cherish Your great Name with a true love that will rise up to You directly. Unify my heart to love and fear Your Name. Save me from fallen fears, so that I will have no fear of anything in the world besides You. Let Your fear be on my face, so that I will never sin.

Help me pray to You with all my strength. Let me put all my energy into the words of the prayers and bring forth the sounds and words with great force. Let my voice penetrate my mind and resound in my heart like thunder, inspiring my heart to Your service. Let the thunder of my voice and words bring me to genuine fear of Heaven, so that my words will be a resounding influence drawing myself and others to serve and fear You.

Let the voice of our prayers rise and find favor before You, like the seven voices with which I-Cing David cried out over the water: "The voice of HaShem is upon the waters, the G-d of glory thunders, HaShem is upon vast waters! The voice of HaShem is in power..." Let the crookedness of my heart be smoothed out cornpletely. "The stubbornness of my heart will depart; I will not know evil." Bring me to be truly pure-hearted, and let me always face G-d honestly.

The Holy Language

G-d: Open my lips and my mouth will declare Your praise. Open Your mouth to the dumb, and help me offer my prayer to You in the language of love and entreaty, in words of crystal clarity, in the language used by the ministering angels. Let me find words that can arouse Your true love for me. Let me speak to You in language of perfect holiness - the Holy Language. Master of the Universe! Loving G-d! Help me attain complete mastery of the Holy Language, so as to enable me to subdue and break all my evil instincts and bad character traits. They all derive from the seventy nations of the world, because all base impulses and character traits really belong to them, not to us, especially the burning furnace of sexual lust, which attacks me constantly. Have pity on me, and help me overcome this burning lust and remove it from myself completely.

You chose the Jewish People from all the nations and exalted us above all tongues. You gave us as our portion the Hebrew Language, the perfect Holy Language. This is the language with which You created Your universe, as it is written: "With the word of G-d the heavens were made and with the breath of His mouth all their host." Through Your prophet Moshe You gave us Your holy Torah, which is written in Hebrew. This was the language You spoke to all the faithful prophets who spoke in Your Name with holy, prophetic spirit. Wiall of them You spoke in the Holy Language, which is 'the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth."

HaShem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers: I have come to plead with You. Have pity on me. Let my soul be precious in Your eyes. Arouse Your true love for me and grant me perfect mastery of the Holy Language, so that I will be able to bring my evil urge under control and totally break and remove my sexual lust. HaShem: You know that this instinct is our main test and stumbling block. The only reason we had to come into this world was to be tried and refined through grappling with this instinct. You wanted to test us with this desire, to see if we would have the strength to control our urges, break our bodily appetites and attach ourselves wholeheartedly to Your great Name all the days of our lives, in order to come to true good in the end, so that You could take pride in us in all the worlds when we break this desire and remove it from ourselves.

But I have sinned repeatedly and I have not been careful to stand up to the test properly. In the words of King David (may he rest in peace): "You tried my heart, You tested me in the night, but You did not find in me what You wanted. If I once thought to challenge You to test me, I won't let such words leave my mouth." My life and my years have gone on pain and sighing. Only because of this lust have I strayed from Your laws and commandments. "Each day one's instincts attack ever more strongly."

Through the true Tzaddikim of the generation You have given us good advice as to how to avoid failing to temptation - by sitting passively and refusing to act on our urges or dwell on lustful thoughts. But I've made little effort to follow this advice, and I've failed to guard myself against lustful thoughts and idle fantasies.

Even so, You are full of mercy, and Your love for me is still not exhausted. You are the great source of counsel, and You guide in the most amazing way. Have pity on me and guide me to a good, true pathway - one that I will really be able to follow - in order to escape this blazing furnace. Save me from this crazy, evil impulse. Because my sins have left me confused, and I don't know how to actually practice the holy teachings You have given us about the way to escape this desire. Through Your true Tzaddikim You have revealed to us that by attaining perfect mastery of the Holy Language we can conquer this evil desire. But You have also taught us that it is impossible to attain perfect mastery of the Holy Language except by breaking our sexual lust and observing the Covenant. I do not understand where to start in order to attain these holy levels - mastery of the Holy Language and observance of the Covenant since each depends on the other.

HaShem, my G-d, I beg You: "Please, teach me Your ways," and help me understand which pathway I should follow to attain perfect mastery of the Holy Language and observe the Covenant, so that I will be able to come genuinely close to You. You know that it is impossible to come close to You except by completely breaking this instinct, which is the comprehensive evil the seventy nations. As Jews, members of the Holy Nation, we are at root totally removed from this evil desire. We have no connection with it at all. It is their share, not ours.

Master of the Universe, protect Your honor. See how low we"ve come and how despised we are. We have fallen into exile among the seventy nations because of this evil desire. It has been the cause of all the troubles and exiles, collective and individual, that we have suffered right up until the present, and we’ve still not been saved. True: we ourselves are well aware that this foolish desire has been the cause of our troubles, yet we"ve failed to guard against it or make an effort to drive it out. Even so, You know that we are only flesh and blood. You know our evil urge: we are physical creatures. "I was conceived in transgression and my mother was heated with sin."

But You are almighty and have complete power to save. You have all the ways and means at Your com, and You have the power to turn things in any direction You want. "Power and might are in Your hand, and it is in Your hand to make anyone great or strong." You can find the good points even in me, and You have the power to make them shine, until the good in me will be strong enough to overcome the bad, and all the evil that dings to me will fall away and disappear. The good will be refined and elevated, enabling me to develop my power of speech to perfection and master the Holy Language.  

The true leader

Master of the Universe: You alone know the true depths of our plight in this generation - the desperate plight of the Jewish People as a whole and of every single Jew individually. We are all hungry, yearning, longing, hoping and waiting to come truly close to You. Everyone who knows the wounds of his heart is longing and waiting for the true healer and leader who will bring us closer and heal the sickness and pain of his soul. We have no one to stand up for us, because You have taken away from us the joy of our eyes the true Tzaddikim, the true leaders. We have no true leader who can guide us and bring us genuinely close to Your service.

Master of the whole world: You know our pains. You have heard our cdes in the face of our oppressors. Arise and come to our aid at this time of trouble, as we stand on the threshold of Mashiach at the peak of this bitter exile of soul and body. We lack any skill and understanding that could enable us to elicit Your favor and call out to You to shine Your face on us again.

Father in Heaven: have compassion on us. Father in Heaven: don't hide Your face from us. Controller of everything, King of all the earth: send us a true holy leader and ruler with the power to guide us lovingly the way a nurse carries a suckling baby, so as to bring us genuinely close to Your service. Give us a true leader like Moshe Rabenu, may he rest in peace. In Egypt the Jewish People were sunk in the forty-nine gates of impurity and it was impossible for them to get out of there except through Moshe. You had pity on them and decreed that Moshe should go there.. Moshe should redeem them... even though Moshe Rabenu, in his great hun-dlity, wanted to hide his face. He did not want to take on the role of leader. Even so, You had mercy on Your people Israel and ordered him to go against his will. And You were with him constantly until he was able to redeem them.

Today, because of our sins, we are sunk in an exile deeper than that in Egypt. You know that only a true leader on the level of Moshe Rabenu can help us. Have pity on us for Your Name's sake. Put aside Your anger against us, and inspire the heart of the true leader with pity, so that he will have compassion on us, turn his face to us, and take on the responsibility of leadership so as to guide us lovingly to Your service.

Protect us from false leaders

Loving G-d: protect us from false, cruel leaders and adn-dnistrators who lord it over the con-anunity not for the sake of Heaven but because they want honor for their own enjoyment. Save us from those who present themselves as if seeking the good of the community, as if their desire to run people's affairs is motivated by altruism, when in fact they are far from this and cannot even run their own fives, let alone other people's. They"ve not been given greatness from Heaven at all. Loving G-d, protect us from all of them: break their power and remove their influence from the world.

Kindly help me and save me, my children and descendants and all of the Jewish People from this evil desire to be powerful and run things. Protect me from ever feeling even the slightest desire for positions of power, leadership and pre-eminence or even having the merest thought about striving for them. Let me never ever chase after honor.

Loving G-d: for Your sake, help me turn to You and come to complete repentance with all my heart. Put into my heart the desire to do what You want. Bend my will into submission to You. Give me holy strength and power to conquer my will, break my evil desires and draw myself only towards the true purpose of life. Help me put my self and my fife in order, and influence many others to lead a good life, come close to You, and enter the realm of the holy. Let me guide them to the life of Torah and G-dly service You want us to have.

Loving G-d: help me cherish the true sages and give them every kind of respect and honor, and sacrifice myself for them. Give me the power to silence all the liars who hold them in contempt and abuse them. Help me overcome such people and bring them down to the dust.

Have pity on me and help me attain everything I have asked of You very soon. Bring me quickly and easily to my true destiny - the ultimate goal of eternal good. From now on help me never to do anything that does not lead to the true purpose. Let me spend all my days and years coming ever closer to the true, ultimate purpose. Let me attain it in this lifetime in this from body, before I leave this world. Save me having to be reincarnated in another body, G-d forbid, in order to attain this purpose. Let me myself attain it during my life in this world. Loving and merciful G-d: do it for Your sake and that of the true Tzaddikim, not for my sake. Grant me the life of the world to come without having to suffer any pain in Gehinnom or in the judgment of the grave. Kindly and lovingly grace me with a good, long life - eternal life in the world of tot&l, everlasting goodness.

"Give me life in accordance with Your kindness and I will observe Your spoken testament. Let me know the path of the life of satisfaction and joy in the light of Your countenance, the pleasantness of Your merciful right hand for ever. Let the words of my lips and the meditation of my heart find favor before You, HaShem, my Rock and Redeemer."

The language of everyday life

I will then be able to sift out the good in the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" - namely the vernacular, the language of everyday conversations - and overcome and remove all the bad in it. The forces of evil and the husks deriving from the primordial serpent will then be powerless to gain entry through my everyday conversations so as to tempt and sway me, G-d forbid. Just help me at all times: inspire me with holy wisdom, knowledge and understanding, so as to destroy their power to tempt me and enable me to drive this reckless desire from me completely.

Let me develop my power of holy speech the Holy Language - to perfection by purifying the language I use in my everyday fife. Send me a spirit of holiness and purity, so that I will always be able to san@ my speech and never say anything unbecon-dng. Let me only speak words of Torah, prayer, requests and entreaties, and talk only about devotion to G-d and other holy topics that enhance and sanctify the tongue. Give me complete mastery of the Holy Language very soon and bring me to true observance of the Covenant.

Marriage Partners

Have compassion on me and help me conduct my marital relationship in great holiness according to Your will. Give help to all those of Your people, the House of Israel, and all our descendants, who need find their marriage partners.

Arrange that each one should be sent a good match from Heaven. Let no-one find himself with the wrong partner, G-d forbid, because of our sins, but help each Jew to quickly find the, partner most suitable for him or her according to their soul-roots.

Sanctity of the marriage relationship and G-d-fearing children

Loving G-d, help me genuinely sanctify myself in my marriage relationship for the sake of Your great Name. Let us draw pure, holy souls for our children - clear, radiant souls drawn from the roots of the souls of the holy Jewish People, which lie in the letters of the Holy Torah, which is drawn from the Supemal Thought of the Holy One blessed be He. Grant that our children should be true Torah scholars, and that they should all be G-d-fearing and fully developed in all good traits. Let them labor in Your Torah for its own sake, and fulfil Your conunandments sincerely and wholeheartedly. Let Your great Name be praised and sanctified through our children and descendants, and let it be said of them that "A wise son brings his father joy," so that "Your father and your mother will be happy, and the one who gave you birth will rejoice." Give them long days and years of goodness and pleasantness, and let them do Your will all their days for ever.

Mashiach

Arouse our righteous Mashiach to receive our prayers and lift them up before You. Let my prayers and those of all Your people Israel be a double-edged sword in his hand to protect and shield us, to fight those who fight against us and to champion our cause. "He takes pity on the poor and needy and saves the souls of the needy." "Take hold of shield and armor and stand up to help me. Gird your sword on your thigh, mighty warrior, your majesty and your splendor."

Do it for Your sake and not for ours - for even our few good deeds, our charity and our prayers are all from You. "For everything is from You, and from Your hand we have given to You." Thus it is written, "Who came before Me that I should pay them?" "Not to us, HaShem, not to us, but to Your Name give glory for Your kindness and Your truth." "In Your abundant kindness, give me life that I may guard the testimony of Your mouth." Fulfil for us the verse: "For My sake, for My sake I will do it, for how could I let My Name be dishonored: I will not give My glory to another." "He magnifies the salvation of His king and does loving kindness to Ms anointed - to David and his descendants for ever." Amen. Selah.

Arouse Your great love for us and redeem us very soon. Send us Mashiach quickly Mashiach ben David and Mashiach ben Yosef. Let them both be joined and merged together. Let them subdue all the seventy nations and all the forces of evil and throw them down into the dust. Let their wisdom be revealed to the world. Let their fountains spread outwards, and let the earth be filled with the knowledge of HaShem as the waters cover the sea. Let every being know that You made it and every creature understand that You created it, and let all the nations repent and come to serve and fear You through the wisdom of the two Mashiachs. Fulfil the prophecy: "For then I will send the nations a pure language, so that all will call on the Name, of HaShem and serve Fflm with one accord."

Remove the dominion of arrogance from the earth, and speedily uproot, break, cast down, destroy and humble the forces of evil speedily in our days. Take away all the clouds covering the eyes. We will then be able to be attached to You and Your holy Torah constantly, without any interruption at all. No obstacle will have any power to distract our minds at all. We will be able to remain attached to You constantly all the days of our lives for ever, and the verse will be fulfilled: "The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun." Speedily in our days. Amen.

Memory

Please, kind and loving King, help me offer my prayers with deep concentration at all times, in order that I may ascend to the realm of miracles - a realm which is above the natural order, and beyond time. And through this, help me develop a powerful memory for everything holy.

Help me remember all the teachings of Your holy Torah, all of which are encompassed within its six hundred and thirteen mitzvot. The mitzvot are the foundation of all the holy teachings that have been revealed to us by the true Tzaddikim. Help me remember them very well, and keep them in the forefront of my heart and mind. Bring me to learn and teach, guard, perform and fulfil all the teachings of Your Torah and the true Tzaddikim with great love.

Protect me from forgetfulness. You know the terrible problems I have in trying to remember things, especially now, after the prolonged exile we have suffered as a result of our sins. Our troubles have left us confused and distracted. Our hearts have become closed, and our minds have become ever weaker. The Angel of Forgetfulness has attacked us so strongly that even in our study sessions we often forget things we learned only a few moments earlier.

There are times when I feel so moved by the sweetness and pleasantness of the Torah and the teachings of the true Tzaddikim that I am filled with an earnest desire to do nothing except follow their advice and carry out everything they say... But then, with the passage of time, eve@ thing is forgotten.

All these problems of forgetfulness are the result of the excessive influence of materialism in our lives. If I were more spiritual, I would be able to rise above time. But instead, I have fallen into such a time-bound state that even a short period of time may seem very long. This is why am so prone to forgetfulness, which is caused by being under the rule of time instead of above it.

I therefore appeal to You to take pity on me and help me put all the holy teachings of the Torah into practice. This in itself will bring me to truth, faith and perfect prayer, and to the realm of miracles, which is beyond nature and beyond time. Then I will be able to develop a powerful memory for everything holy.

Miracles

"You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and the strength of Your hand. Which power in heaven or on earth could imitate Your works or Your mighty actions?" You revealed Your G-dly power and kingship to us when You took us out of Egypt and redeemed us from the most terrible exile in the melting-pot of affliction, down in the very depths of evil. You took us out of the Fifty Gates of Impurity and brought us into the Fifty Gates of Holiness.

You worked miracles and wonders in Egypt and at the Red Sea. You broke and crushed all the Egyptian idols. You confounded the heavenly order and changed the laws of nature, and You uprooted and negated all the false, idolatrous and atheistic beliefs of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They wanted to keep the Children of Israel submerged in their midst, and impose their own false and atheistic beliefs on them, G-d forbid.

The assault on faith was the worst part of the exile. But in Your love and compassion, You did not abandon us among them. You acted swiftly to take us out of their midst, and You uprooted and smashed all their atheistic beliefs by means of the great and awesome miracles and wonders You performed. You manifested Your G-dly power and dominion to everyone in the entire world.

From that time on, the Jewish People attached themselves to You and 'they believed in HaShem and in Moshe His servant." In the same way, loving G-d, help me to have complete faith in You and in Your true Tzaddikim at all times. Let my faith be strong, firm and soundly based.

Music and song

HaShem our G-d and G-d of our fathers, Who chooses David His servant and his descendants after him, and who delights in songs of praise:

In Your great love and kindness, remember Your powerful Presence, the Shekhinah, which has wandered from Her place like a bird wandering from its nest. "Rise up, take pity on Zion, for it is time to favor her, for the moment has come." Lift up and raise the Assembl of Israel from where we havefallen and, in Your abundant love, help us and enable us to raise our voices in song.

Give me the power to praise You joyously with songs and hymns. me sing melodies my days, in a sweet, pleasant voice, the way You love.

And help me to study Your holy Torah for its own sake constantly, day and night. When You gave Your holy Torah to Your servant Moses, You studied the Written Torah with him by day and the Oral Torah by night. So, too, help me to study and think about Your holy Torah constantly, and help me to study the Written Torah and the Oral Torah day and night.

Master of the World, lovingly help me and give me the strength to win the battle against sleep. Let me banish sleep from my eyes in order to study Torah each night and learn the sixty tractates of the Mishnah together with the Holy Gemara - to learn, teach, observe, do and fulfil and practice them for their own sake. "Arise, exult in the night at the start of the watches!" Through this, let a thread of loving kindness be drawn down upon me. "By day HaShem will command His loving kindness to be revealed, and in the night His song is with me, a prayer to the G-d of my life."

And in this way, help me and protect me from the bad effects caused by hearing degenerate music - the songs and melodies Of fallen souls, "birds caught in the snare." Don't let them hann me or distract me from my spiritual devotions. Give me the power to elevate and refine them, to lift them up and restore them to the realm of the holy, and raise up the fallen Tabernacle of David.

In Your abundant love, arouse the Lily of Sharon - the Shekhinah - to sing in a voice Of pleasantness, joy and exultation. And You alone, HaShem, speedily rule over all Your works, so as to fulfil the verse: "Make music for G-d, make music, make music for our King, make music.

For G-d is King over all the earth. Make music, enlightened one!"

Remember Your people Israel, who are scattered among the nations, and Your Holy Temple, which is destroyed and uninhabited. "The bird too has found a house, and the sparrow has found a nest for herself to put her fledglings on Your altar, HaShem of Legions, my King and my G-d." Restore the priests to their service, and the Levites to their platform and their songs and hymns, and restore Israel to their dwelling place.

Grant me holy wisdom and enlightenment so that I will be able to draw the yoke of Your kingship upon myself constantly and reveal Your kingship and sovereignty to the world. Speedily establish the throne of David. Quickly, easily and speedily bring us Mashiach the son of David, the sweet singer of Israel.

"Then our mouths will be filled with laughter and our tongues with joy." We will then sing, praise and rejoice before You all our days, and the verse will be fulfilled: "HaShem will come to save us, and we will sing our songs all the days of our lives for the House of HaShem." Speedily in our days. Amen.

Counting the Omer

Loving G-d: Let me carry out the n-dtzvah of Counting the Omer in holiness and purity, joyously and with all my heart. Let me fulfil the mitzvah in all its details and fine points with the proper intentions, and all the six hundred and thirteen mitzvot that are bound up with it. Through the mitzvah of counting the Omer, let us break and uproot the husk of Haman-Amalek and rid the world of it com.

Refinement of the Personality

Help me achieve every good quality, so that all four elements will be copure and refined, and only good will remain, with no admixture of evil whatever. Let all the four elements then be merged within the four letters of Your Name, which is their ultimate holy source.

Please, HaShem, lovingly help me come to everything I have requested of You. I know how far I am from even one dot of what I have asked for. Even so, nothing can stop G-d from helping. For You, nothing is too difficult. You have the power to help and strengthen me and bring me to everything I have asked of You.

Do it for the sake of Your Name, and for the sake of the true Tzaddikim who had the merit to come to all these levels and more. Lovingly channel power and strength from them into me so as to vitalize and encourage me. Grant that I too may achieve these levels.

Through the power of the true Tzaddik, help us defeat all who hate us and are opposed to the truth. Break and crush all the channels through which the wicked draw their power - namely the evil traits that have got the better of them. Through this, throw the wicked down to the ground, and make them powerless to attack us, G-d forbid. "And their hands will not be able to carry out anything they plan. All my enemies will be ashamed and frightened. n-tey will instantly turn back and be ashamed."

Pride and arrogance

Loving G-d: Help me break my arrogance, and empty my heart of all pride. Please HaShem, You know how low I have become. My sins and transgressions have pushed me far away from You. I cannot base my request on any merit of mine. I am undeserving, and I can only ask Yout help as a free gift of mercy. Your way is to be good to all Your creatures and Your love and mercy spread over all Your works.

Loving G-d: Don't let the least improper thought so much as enter my mind. Don't let the slightest hint of pride or self-importance, or motives of trying to impress others, ever enter mv heart oraffect my behavior, so that my hope should not be completely lost, G-d forbid.

The little good I have in me is all from You, because everything is from You. Anything I have given You was Yours in the first place. Even this tiny modicum of good is mixed up with a great deal of waste. Much work will be needed to refine it before it will be pure enough to rise up before You.

How can someone as distant and rossly material as myself rely on my own merits, when the good in me is less than a drop in the ocean? I have nothing to depend upon except Your boundless love and kindness. If I go astray and let the slightest hint of pride and arrogance enter my heart, I'd be lost in my wretchedness. How can a simple person like me, who is devoid of all good, claim to deserve anything?

HaShem: I am incapable of explaining myself and expressing all my feelings to You. just have pity on me, and save me from pride and arrogance. Someone as lowly as myself should really not have to pray about pride at all. It is absurd to think that it could even occur to someone so covered in blemishes from the soles of his feet to the top of his head to entertain the least trace of pride.

Even if I had never failed You all my days except in the most minor way, how could I lift up my head and look down on even the merest creature in the world, considering Your overwhelming greatness and exaltedness, and the countless favors and blessings You shower upon me every single moment.

Such is the radiance of Your majesty and greatness that even if our only failure was to have fallen a little short of absolute perfection in a matter of minor importance, it would be impossible for us to lift up our heads before You. After all the wrong I have done, I should certainly not have had to ask You at all about getting rid of arrogance.

But HaShem, You know that I am only flesh and blood. My mind is a turmoil of thoughts that sometimes border on madness. I am prone to the most ridiculous motives of wanting to impress people, and I get all kinds of ideas about my own importance, as You know. I am constantly having thoughts like these. They crowd in on me from every conceivable side, to the point that I cannot open my mouth and say a single word with true sincerity.

I don't know what to do. Where should I run to? Where should I turn? Where will I get help from? It is very painful: "Even when I cry and scream, my prayer is closed up" because of all the improper thoughts and false motives which attack and confuse me when I'm praying.

What can I say? How can I justify myself? G-d has found out my sin. Do with me what You want. Here I am in Your hand like clay in the hand of the potter. Have pity! Save me! I am like a captive on the way to be killed. Save me! Free me! Loving G-d, help me, and bring me from death to life, from sorrow to joy, from darkness to brilliant light.

Loving G-d: Have pity on me. Let the merit and power of the true Tzaddikim protect me. With their help let me break my pride and free myself of arrogance completely. Leme genuinely feel my own lowliness in every limb of my body. Don't let a single tinge of pride or arrogance enter my heart or mind in any way. Bring me to true humility and perfect faith.

Help me rid myself of all religious doubts and questions, and remove all confusion and dishonesty from my heart. Let them never enter my heart again, or the hearts of Your people Israel.

Malicious Talk and Pride

Grant also that I should be able to give charity to true Tzaddikim, so as to be saved from "wild beasts" and "robbers" - malicious slander, worthless pursuits, pride and their offshoots. HaShem, loving G-d: when I speak, help me to talk in such a way that everything I say will only be for the sake of Your Name and Your service. Let me never engage in idle talk. Let all my words be words of Torah, service of G-d and awe of Heaven.

In particular, save me and all Your people, the House of Israel, from the sin of malicious slander and talebearing, which is serious in the extreme. Let me never say a single bad word about any Jew in the entire world. "My G-d, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking slyly." Save me from slander and talebearing, and anything which has even the faintest odor of them, from now on and for ever.

Grant that I should be able to attain true humility, and let my soul be like dust to all. Let me know my own lowliness. Save me from anger. Let me never get angry about anything. Save me from impatience. Erase all anger and irritability from my heart. Let me make Your divine qualities the model for all my behavior, and let me be well-disposed to all. "To those that curse me, let my soul be silent." Save me from poverty and need, and send me my livelihood in abundance even before I need it, through honest, honorable and easy means. Grant all my needs from Your ever-open, ample hand, so that I can genuinely do Your will all the days of my life from now and for ever.

Lovingly grant that I should be able to come before the true Tzaddik and Sage of the generation and make a full confession of all my sins and transgressions, from my earliest days until today, in order that he should bring atonement for me through his wisdom and hun-dlity, and teach me the right path to follow and how I should conduct myself. With his help, let me become merged with the Infinite, and let me attain true surrender and self-transcendence, until I become completely free of materialistic thoughts and desires, so as to return and rise to the place from which my soul was hewn out.

Pesach

Help me celebrate the holy festival of Pesach with extreme holiness", joy and delight. Let me carry out the mitzvah of the four cups of wine on Pesach in all its details and with the utmost holiness and purity. Open up to me the light of G-dly awareness and inspire me with the holy light of the Supreme Wisdom, so that I will able to experience all the levels of spiritual insight and awareness that radiate on Pesach, "expanded consciousness" and "restricted consciousness"

Help me conduct the Pesach Seder properly and with great holiness. Help me recite the Hagadah in a loud voice with intense concentration,extremejoyand delightfervorandpassion, holiness and purity, until my voice will arouse my powers of concentration and I will come to observe the Covenant perfectly, achieve genuine spiritual awareness and insight, and be able to develop true and original Torah ideas.

Pesach - freedom from chametz

Master of the Universe: Help me to receive the full holiness of the Pesach festival season. Throughout the eight days of Pesach, guard me from transgressing the prohibition against eating even the slightest amount of chametz. Help me to fulfil the mitzvah of eating matza on Pesach in great holiness, and let me thereby receive the light of the spiritual insight and inspiration that radiate then. With the strength this inspiration will give me, let me keep my mind and my thoughts holy every day of the year and for all time. Let me close my mind to extraneous, idle thoughts, and certainly to evil or atheistic thoughts. Let them not enter my mind for even a brief moment. Let me not be drawn in by the persuasive arguments and temptations of my evil inclination, and let me avoid all debates with it.

Help me to keep firm against the evil indination at all times, and to push down all improper and idle thoughts. Let me drive them out of my mind and keep them out until eventually they will disappear completely. Don't let them have even the slightest hold or influence on my mind or my thoughts. Let me be included among the true Tzaddikim who make battle with the unholy forces of the Sitra Achra, the "Other Side," so that they should not come close to the Holy Sanctuary.

Master of the Universe: You know the shame and pain of the downcast. Remember the preciousness of my poor soul. Take pity on me in Your tender kindness. Help me, strengthen me and encourage me. Sanctify me with Your exalted holiness. Let Your holiness and purity be drawn down upon me, so that from now on I will be able to guard myself against all improper thoughts, against mental confusion, and especially against skepticism and sinful thoughts of any kind. Let my thoughts always be holy, clear and free of all impurity.

Have pity on one so far away

I have therefore come before You, HaShem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers, to appeal to You. I'm calling to You from the ends of the earth. Loving G-d, have pity on me. I am so far from You. I feel so rejected. It's as if I've been driven away. Through the power of Your love and mercy, bring me closer to You. Call a halt to my troubles. From now on, start drawing me closer and closer.

You have let us know through the teachings of Your sages that Your greatness is most revealed when those who are furthest away come genuinely closer and begin to serve You. I may be completely distant from You. Even so, please do not treat me according to my sins. Don't judge me according to the wrong I have done. Even when people are far from You, You are near to them. Won't it be precisely through mthat Your blessed Name will be most exalted, praised and magnified - when You bring someone as far away as myself closer to You? For Your greatness is most revealed when those who are furthest away come genuinely dose to You.

HaShem: Please teach me to order my prayer properly, and to express myself clearly with words that will arouse Your love and kindness. Send me pure, beautiful words, and let my prayer flow from my mouth in a way that will please and gratify You. Arouse Your hidden love for me and bring me close to You.

I am so far from You. I feel myself distanced from You in countless different ways. Reach out to me here in the place where I am, and draw me close to You out of pure love - that powerful, endless, awesome love that You have hidden in Your treasuries, a love that no contrary force of judgement or accusation has the power to restrain, a love that extends even to those who have reached the furthest limits of alienation and rejection, and can bring them back.

Do it for Your sake if not for mine. Do it for Your sake and save me. Bring me close to You. Inspire me with determination to serve You the way I should, and strengthen me in the fear of Heaven. Take me by the hand and release me from all the evil traits and desires that are entrenched in my body and which constantly hold me back from You.

Prayer

Master of the World, I know I'm still far away from perfection. I'm riddled with all kinds of flaws and deficiencies from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. There's not a healthy spot an here. "There is no healthy place in my flesh YW because of Your anger, there is no peace in my bones because of my sin." My limbs are suffering from the wounds I've inflicted on my soul through all my sins and transgressions. As a result, I am far away from Your service. Nothing I do is without flaws. I never manage to pray properly and without mistakes, for "whatever has a blemish in it shall not come as an offering." But if I am far from true prayer, what means of con-dng close to You do I have?

Loving Father in Heaven, Master of the Whole World: I know that in spite of all this, You do hear the sound of my cry even from such a distance, and I will raise my voice and call out to You. Father! Father! Master! Master! My King and my G-d: I beg You! I cry out to You! I scream to You! I plead with You! I reach out and prostrate myself before You! I bend my knee to You and stretch out my hands! Take pitv on me! Have mercy on me! Stir Your compassion for me. Watch over me from Your holy dwelling place. Protect me. Heal the pain of my soul. Remove all the wounds I have caused to every limb of my soul.

Your way is to use broken vessels. The wonders You do are countless and unfathomable. In Your overwhelming mercy You revive the dead. In Your might You lift up and gather the shards of broken ve- the shards of the shards - and mercifully mend them and restore them until they shine with greater strength than before. Not a single spark is lost or cast aside, for "In Your hand are strength and might, and it is in Your hand to make everything great and strong."

G-d, You are the free Healer. Arouse Your love for me and heal me. Remove all flaws and blemishes from my body, from my nefesh, my ru"ach and my neshamah. Send complete healing to all those Jews who are sick, and in particular to [specify the name of the sick person]. Faithful, loving Healer, who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds: "heal me, HaShem, and I will be healed, save me and I will be saved, for You are my praise." Let me be whole and perfect, free of all flaws and blemishes.

Grant me inner peace, and give me control and mastery over my body so that I will be able to nullify all bodily desires and bad traits. Let my body be completely subordinate to my soul and have no other will or desire but to follow the desire of the holy soul, which is to do Your Will. Let peace reign between my soul and my body. Let my body be sanctified and purified until it becomes united with the holy soul, and I carry out all Your commandments and do everything You want of me, body and soul, willingly and withgreatjoy. Letmybodyand souluniteinlove and peace to do Your will sincerely, until I attain complete inner harmony and am ready to order MY prayer before You perfectly. Let my prayer rise before You like the incense and perfect sacrifices offered by those who are whole and perfect.

Master of the World, let my only motive in taking part in the affairs of this world be for the sake of my soul. Let my only intention in all my prayers be only to perfect my soul. Even when I offer the prayers arranged by Your sages of old, of blessed memory, which contain explicit requests for our bodily needs, as in the blessings of "Heal us" and "Bless this year for us" in the Shmoneh Esray prayer, let my only thought be for the healing of my soul, her livelihood and perfection. Let me believe and know that when everything is in order in the spiritual realm, the fixing of the material realm will follow of itself, and I will automatically receive all the material blessings I need.

Bring me to genuine belief in You. Let me have complete faith that You are "good to all," and that no matter what a person requires, whether healing, livelihood or anything else, You are "good for everything" - You can satisfy all his needs and requirements if he prays to You for what he needs sincerely, begging for compassion. Let all my efforts be directed only to You, HaShem. No matter what I may need, let me only pray to You and appeal for You to help me, instead of trying to get what I need by resorting to worldly ploys and stratagems.

What use is it to expend energy on such things, when it is either impossible or extremely difficult to get exactly what we need - whether it be the right medicine, or the things we need to make a living? Surely it is better to turn to You for everything we need. You are very close to us, and available at all times, "For which great nation is there whose god is close to them the way HaShem our G-d is close to us whenever we call to FEm?" You have the power to fulfil all our requests through easily available means. Nothing is too wonderful for You.

Let us put all our efforts into constant prayer and supplication. Let us always pray with intense concentration, until we bring peace into all the worlds and they will all come to perfection. Let peace reign among all Your creatures. Let them all love one another. This will cause Your love, kindness and mercy to descend over all Your creatures, since, as our Rabbis taught, "Moever shows love for G-d's creatures is shown love from Heaven." Let us see the fulfilment of the verse: "HaShem is good to all, and his love is upon all his works."

Master of the World: If my words are halting, open Ymouth to me and help me order my prayers and requests in a fitting manner and offer them truly and sincerely at all times. Let me always be able to express everything I need to say to You. Help me to explain everything I have in my heart in such a way as to elicit Your love and kindness, so that You will always grant my requests.

Please, HaShem, let me come to everything I have asked of You. Through the power and merit of the Torah-labors of the true Tzaddikim, let a great light shine down to us from the source of our souls, inspiring us to repent for all our sins so that we elevate the holy glory from its deep, humiliating exile amidst the husks. Let Your great and holy glory always be enhanced, sanctified, exalted and elevated through us. Let Your glory be revealed throughout the world. Let Your glory shine over the whole earth, as it is written: "And the earth will shine with Hs glory."... "And the glory of G-d will be revealed, and all flesh will see together that the mouth of G-d has spoken."

Prayer and devotion

HaShem: Please bring me to pray to You sincerely and wholeheartedly, and with perfect faith. Let my prayers be pure, fitting and properly ordered. Let me pray with complete attention and devotion. Let me bind my thoughts to the words of my prayers as I say them. Let me concentrate on the words intensely, and pour my heart out to You like water.

Aid in expressing myself to You at all times. Help me tell You everything that is in my heart. You know how many needs I have. My heart is so troubled that I find it too much to express and explain everything I need and want. Please take pity on my poor soul and help me talk to You about everything I have in my heart. Put pure and pleasing words and entreaties into my mouth, so that I will be able to arouse Your compassion and bring You to accept my prayers with love.

Let my prayers rise up to the greatest heights. Give me the power to arouse the Upper Eden through my prayers, so as to open up a flowing channel of love, supreme wisdom and G-dly knowledge. Let the emerging river flow down to water the Garden - the Torah - which is where our souls are rooted. Let my soul grow and blossom. Let the pathways of the intellect be truly open to me, and bring me to attain wisdom, understanding and knowledge.

Help me pray

Help me pray with full attention and with all my energy and strength. Let me put all my energy into the letters of the words, so that my strength will be renewed and I will draw new holy vitality from the prayers, since prayer is the source of all vitality - "Prayer to the G-d of my life." Help me come to perfect faith.

Kind and loving G-d: Help me direct my prayers upwards to You through the gate of the tribe in which my soul is rooted and from which I was hewn out. Let my prayers ascend through the right gate and rise up to Heaven - through the Land of Israel, through Jerusalem, the Temple and the Holy of Holies - until they rise to the place of Your dwelling.

Give my prayers the power to arouse the Constellation associated with each person's gate and tribe, so as to shine down on on the world with goodness and blessing, to bless all the fruits of the earth, and to give us success in all our efforts.

Purim

Help me enter the Purim season and celebrate Purim with great joy. Let the holy radiance of Purim - the holiness of Mordechai and Esther - shine upon us and our children and all Your people Israel. Let me fulfil all the mitzvot of Purim in holiness and purity, joyously and with all my heart. Put joy into my heart and let it spread to my hands and feet until I clap my hands and dance for joy in praise of Your Name.

Let me renew my commitment to fulfil all the teachings of Your Torah with love. Help me learn, teach, guard, observe and fulfil the Torah. Enlighten my eyes and grant that I should study and understand both the revealed and the mystical aspects of the Torah. Help me advance from level to level and grasp Your hidden secrets, so that I do not come before You with shame.

Taking responsibility for the world

Master of the Universe: Help us fulfil perfectly the teaching of our Rabbis, of blessed memory, that "Every single person is obliged to say,"The world was created for my sake." " Help me keep these words in my heart constantly, in order that I should always steer clear of even the smallest sin or anything else that goes contrary to Your will, so that I never become the cause of any kind of deficiency, damage or impediment, whether in myself or in the world as a whole. Instead, let me always be watchful for anything I can do to improve or benefit the world, or provide for its needs, and let me pray for the world.

In Your abundant love and kindness, help us to be able to pray for the entire world and thereby bring about the fulfilment of its needs. Help us nulall evil decrees through our prayers. Grant us the knowledge of whether the decree has already been sealed or not, so that we may know how best to pray to You, and whether we should clothe our prayers in the form of narra. tive at times when this is necessary. Even though we may be very far from this level of understanding at the present time, even so, everything is in Your hand, and for You nothing is impossible.

"HaShem, do not hold back Your love from me; Your mercy and Your truth will always protect me." Help me come to everything I have requested of You. Sanctify me with Your mitzvot and delight my soul with Your salvation. Purify my heart to serve You sincerely with the service of the heart - namely prayer - so that I will be able to pray to You with all my strength and to fulfil Your mitzvot joyously at all times.

"Let the words of my prayer be sweet to Fhm." "I will rejoice in HaShem, and my soul will exult in HaShem and delight in His salvation." "All my bones will declare: HaShem, who is like You? You save the poor from those who are too strong for them, and the needy from those who would rob them." "Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for those who are pure of heart." Blessed be HaShem for ever. Amen. Amen.

Rosh Chodesh - The New Moon

Help me to come to perfect Teshuvah. Let me not leave this world until I have repented of my sins and made amends for all the wrong I have done, whether in thought, word or deed. Help me draw down the light of perfect Teshuvah from its root - Rosh Chodesh - as we have learned from Your true Tzaddikim.

Let me always celebrate Rosh Chodesh with great holiness. You have given Your people Israel twelve New Moons as a time for atonement in every generation. On each one, let me draw down the light of Teshuvah from its root, so that I will come back to You in true, perfect Teshuvah.

Loving G-d: let me have faith in the true Tzaddikim, and help me come genuinely close to them. Let me always be able to arouse their concern, so that they will pray for me and awaken Your love for me, until You bring me truly close to You.

Israel need, physically or spiritually, be channeled to us through the prayers of the true Tzaddikim on our behalf. You know that I myself am unable to order my prayers in the right way. My words are halting and riddled with imperfection.

My only hope is to rely on the prayers of the true Tzaddikim, both those who are alive in this world - long may they live - and those who dwell in the earth. They are my only foundation. All my hopes are on them. I am relying on their great merit and power as I come before You, HaShem my G-d and G-d of my fathers. Have mercy and take pity on us. Let their prayers shield and protect us, so that we will genuinely come close to You, turn away from evil and always do good in Your eyes from now on and for ever. Amen. Selah.

Ruler of all the worlds, Master of all the souls

You created Your universe for the sake of Your people Israel, as it is written: "Be-reishit In the beginning, G-d created the heaven and the earth" - on which our Rabbis commented: "Bereishit - for Israel, who are called reishit, the first." Israel arose in the Divine thought first. For our sake You created all the worlds, from the beginning of Atzilut, the World of Emanation, down to this physical world, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them. You created everything for a good purpose, in order that You could take pride in us in every generation.

And so, loving Father, have pity on us, and helus always to do what is good in Your eyes. Let us genuinely become the people You want us to be. Let us turn aside from evil and always do good, so that Your pride and delight in us can be revealed for all time.

For the sake of Heaven

May it be Your will, HaShem my G-d and G-d of my fathers, lovingly help me attain great joy, true joy, in serving You, as it is written: "Serve HaShem with happiness..." "...and rejoice with trembling." Bring me to fulfil all the n-dtzvot with a happiness and joy that come from the mitzvah itself. While engaged in each mitzvah, let me rejoice over the fact that You have lovingly given me the privilege of performing this mitzvah.

Let all my joy be from the mitzvah alone and not from the thought of the reward I will receive in the World to Come, not to speak of any honor or other extraneous benefits I anticipate from other people, or other mundane advantages of any kind. Let my entire joy be from the mitzvah itself. Let my World to Come be in the actual performance of the mitzvah, so that I will have no wish for any reward for the mitzvah in the Next World. Let my reward be that You will grant me another mitzvah, as taught by our Rabbis: "The reward for a mitzvah is mitzvah." Through Your holy mitzvot, which are Your unity, let me become fully merged with You, and fulfil through me the words of the Psalms: "HaShem will rejoice in Ffis works" and "Israel will rejoice in their Maker." Take joy in us through granting us the opportunity to carry out actions that are good in Your eyes, and let our joy be in You.

By lovingly helping us to perform our mitzvot with joy, give us the power to bring vitality and G-dly blessing into our two hundred and forty-eight limbs and three hundred and sixty-five sinews, and into the entire world, the entire year, and the three dimensions: space, time and soul. Let all of them be blessed and receive goodness, vitality, holiness and purity through our fulfilment of the n-dtzvot with great joy.

The exile of the Soul

You alone know how desperately I need help, and how my soul needs help on every level - my nefesh, roach and nesha?nah. My soul originates from the greatest heights, where she enjoyed the embrace of her Father in Heaven. But to come down into this world, she has had to enter a gross, material body like this. Woe for the son who has been e)dled from his father's table.

Your holy intention was for my own good that I should be placed in a position of challenge in this lowly world. It is up to me to use my free will to overcome the physical lin-dtations of my body and conquer the passions of my heart, in order to come to know You in this lowly world, which is so totally remote from Your holiness.

What should I do, Heavenly Father? I have not been able to receive Your great goodness. I have not taken care of my soul, and I have not made the effort to control my desires. "You have tried me but You did not find what You wanted." My years have been wasted on vanity and emptiness because of my bodily appetites, which have remained entrenched in me from earliest childhood until today.

Every day I wait and hope for genuine spiritual redemption, but my hopes have been disappointed. Each day my urges attack me with ever greater force. I have no one to rely upon except You, my Father in Heaven. Have pity on me. Be kind to me even though I have nothing to give You in return. Love me like a father loves his children. Answer me, Father, answer me! Answer me, Creator, answer me! Answer me, Redeemer, answer me! Bring me to follow the path of Your statutes and observe Your laws. Help me and save me.

Please, HaShem, save my soul from all the evil traits and desires that are still entrenched in my body, both those I was bom with - "for I was conceived in guilt, and my mother was heated with sin" - and those I myself have allowed to develop through failing to make sufficient effort to fight to overcome them. Free me from all of them from now on.

Help me lead a good life in the future. Grant me wisdom, understanding, good counsel, strength and power so that I will be able to save my soul from destruction and keep myself well away from all bad traits and desires. Help meradicate them completely. Let my body be pure and cleansed of all lusts and evil, and help me attain the holiness and purity that befit a Jew.

Help me make amends in my lifetime for all the wrong and damage I have done from my childhood until today. Help me cleanse my soul of all the stains and corruption caused by my sins and transgressions. "You know my shaxne, and my disgrace is not hidden from You. All my enen-des are before You." "Shame has broken my heart and I am sick with pain, I hoped for somebody who would sympathize, but there was nobody. I hoped for comforters, but I did not find any.

"Remove my disgrace, which I dread, for Your judgements are good." Let my soul be precious in Your eyes. Give full rein to Your love as against any strictness and harshness. "You have taken my soul out of prison to give thanks to Your Name." "What profit is there in my blood if I o down to destruction? Will the dust acknowledge You or proclaim Your truth2"

"Arise, HaShem, save my soul" from all kinds of shame and disgrace, from all evil traits and desires, and from all faults and defects. Forgive me and pardon me for all the dama e I have done until now. Remove my shame, and throw all my sins into the depths of the sea, to a place where they will never be remembered. Take no account of them: let them simply disappear into oblivion. From now on, help me cleanse and purify my soul and my body of all evil traits and desires. In future, let me be genuinely pure and holy, just the way You would like me to be.

Shabbat

HaShem my G-d and G-d of my fathers! G-d of love and favor: Help me and bring me to celebrate Shabbat with tremendous joy and delight, with awe and love. Let me take an active part in preparing for Shabbat and do so eagerly and energetically. Help me to always keep up to date with my study of the weekly Torah reading: let me read the portion of the week each Friday, twice in the Hebrew and once in the Aramaic Targum, with full concentration, in holiness and purity, and thereby bring me to gain perfect mastery of the Holy Language through the language of the Targum.

Letme bring the holiness of Shabbat into me through washing in hot water and in-unersing in the mikveh on Shabbat eve. Help me never to miss washing and immersing prior to Shabbat. And just as I wash and in-unerse myself in this world, so purify and sanctify my body, my nefesh, my roach and my neshamah with Your supreme holiness. Send down flames of the holy, G-dly fire that bums above and consumes and destroys all kinds of fire, so as to bum and destroy all the evil that has come into me personally and the Jewish People as a whole as a result of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and all our sins and transgressions. Let all the evil that has taken hold of us be burned and fall away, and let the good be purified so as to ascend and become unified with the Supreme good - Your great goodness that will endure for ever.

Please, HaShem: You know that I don't have the power to bring the holiness of Shabbat into me by myself. Have pity on me and arouse Your love for me. You know how far I am from experiencing the true holiness of Shabbat. Be kind to me and grant me the true holiness of Shabbat as an outright gift. Let me add to the Shabbat at its beginning and end, and help me draw the holiness of Shabbat into the other days of the week, until all the six working days will have the purity and holiness of Shabbat. Let the six working days then become reunited with their holy vital source - Shabbat, which gives life and sustenance to the other six days of the week, to the entire array of different creatures of every kind and on every level, spiritual and physical, and to all the worlds, from the first point from which the creation emanated down to the central point of the material world. AR their life and sustenance come from the Shabbat.

Master of the Universe: In Your love and kindness You gave us this good gift called Shabbat that was hidden in Your treasure-house. I have therefore come to pour out my prayer and plead and beg You, HaShem my G-d and G-d of my fathers: just as You gave us this good, holy gift with such overwheln-dng love and mercy, so now shower me with goodness, inspire me and help me to receive this good and holy gift and celebrate Shabbat with the utmost holiness, joy and delight. Inspire me with the holiness of Shabbat at all times so that I can break and destroy the evil that has taken hold of me and sift out and elevate the good in me by mastering the Holy Language through refining the language of everyday conversation. Bring me to the true holiness of the Covenant and let me come back to You with all my heart and constantly rise from level to level with ever greater holiness, just as You want, until I will ascend and become merged in the supreme Shabbat and You will mercifully grant me the day that is all Shabbat and rest and eternal life.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart find favor before You, HaShem, my Rock and Redeemer.

The Blast of the Shofar

Master of the Universe: Grant that I should hear the sounding of the shofar on Rosh HaShanah from shofar-blowers who are genuinely pure and G-d-feari. Let the holy sound of the shofar penetrate my mind like thunder, until I am gripped with fear and awe of HaShem and His radiant glory, so that all the crookedness in my heart will be smoothed out and I will come to inner purity and holyjoy, as it is written: "And to the pure of heart, joy."

"Happy is the people who know the shofar blast, HaShem, they will walk in the light of Your countenance. They will rejoice in Your Name all day long, and through Your righteousness they will be exalted." HaShem, grant that I should experience the fulfilment of this verse in my own life.

Through hearing the shofar sounded on Rosh HaShanah by someone who is truly G-dfearing, guard and protect me the whole year round from every kind of fear, and from all possible damage as a result of thunderstorms. "With claps of thunder and flashes of lightning You were revealed to them, and with the sound of the shofar You appeared to them."

Sleep and dreams

Loving G-d: save me from evil thoughts and bad dreams, and let my bed be a place of perfect holiness. Help me sleep only the n-dnimum necessary for the health of my body, and even that in holiness and purity. Let my sleep be sweet. As I go to sleep, let it be with thoughts of Torah in my mind and with feelings of joy. Let me recite the bedtime Shema with great holiness and surrender, with deep concentration and heartfelt intensity, so as to kill all impure and destructive spirits and all unholy forces.

Let my nefesh, my ruach and my neshamah be joined in unity with all the holy souls of the Jewish People. Let my soul ascend with them to You as I sleep, and let my soul be delivered into Your hand alone, as it is written: "Into Your hand I entrust my spirit: You have redeemed me, Ha- Shem, G-d of truth." Loving G-d: banish all the different kinds of evil spirits and unholy forces wanting to take hold of my soul. Have mercy on my poor soul and help her ascend to You in peace while I sleep and return in peace to my body when I wake up. Let me enjoy good, sweet, holy sleep - the sleep of life! Send me good, true, holy dreams through true, holy angels, and save me from false, vain and confused dreams caused by unholy spirits.

Kind and merciful G-d: guard me and save me from the vain en-dssion of seed at night. Let me never have a vain emission either during the day or at night. Let me always sleep in holiness and purity: let me lie down to rest in goodness and purity, and awaken to Your love.

Kind, ever-loving, merciful Father: You watch over us from afar, planning eve g for our ultimate benefit. Have pity on us and on our little ones, and save me and all the Jewish People from vain emissions. You know the terrible damage this causes in all the worlds, up to the very highest. Because of this our city was destroyed, our Holy Temple was made desolate, the glory was taken from the House of our life, and we were exiled from our land, dispersed among the nations and scattered to the four comers of the earth.

Have pity on the remnant of Your people, the House of Israel. Have pity on Your poor, scattered flock - for there is no one to gather us in. Loving King: have pity on us. Good and beneficent G-d, give us success in our search for You. Return to us in love for the sake of the patriarchs, who carried out Your will. Say "Enough!" to our troubles. Loving G-d: purify us, guard us and save us from night-time emis- sions from now on, and guard us in life and peace when we go out and when we come in, from now and for ever. Protect us from all evil. Let us never harbor evil thoughts by day, so that we won't come to impurity at night, G-d forbid. Let all our thoughts be pure and holy at all times.

Study of the Halakhah

Help me devote myself to Your Torah in the proper way, and give me the ability to clarify Torah law, so that in each case I will come to the right decision. Help me study the law codes, and inspire me with the necessary wisdom, understanding and knowledge so as to be able to" clarify the final decision and distinguish between what is permitted and what is forbidden,, what is pure and what is impure, what is valid and what is invalid.

This will give me the power to fix and make amends for the damage I have caused in all the worlds through my many sins and transgressions, which caused good and evil to become mixed up.

Help me come to genuine prayer, so that the light of true wisdom will be opened up for me and I will be able to clarify the Halakhah and come to the right decisions. I will then have the power to sift out the good from the bad in all the worlds and correct all the damage caused by my sins, whether in this incarnation or another. Fulfil all the requests of my heart for good, and let me see everything I need and ask for come to fruition.

Through the study of the Halakhah, help me cleanse, purify and rectify the four primary elements of which my body is composed, so as to break and conquer all the bad traits and desires that derive from them, while refining the good.

Teshuvah

Please, HaShem: I am in such painf Redeem me! Have pity on my poor, wounded soul, which has been snatched and ground down as if between the teeth of a lion. I am full of sin. I am far from You in every way. When will I think about my destiny and prepare provisions for my journey, like all the pious, G-d-fearing Jews who have gone before me in all the generations? What will I do on the Day of judgement? Where will I take my great shame? How will I hide myself away? What will I do when G-d will arise? When He recalls my deeds, what will I answer Him?

The Path of Teshuvah

Help me to follow the path of Teshuvah all my days. "Who can say, "I have cleansed my heart and purified myself of sin"?" You know our hearts, and how we often have mixed and impure motives for even the good that we do. Even when I am confessing my sins, I have improper thoughts and motives. I find it impossible to say even a single word sincerely and honestly. My sins are real enough, but I have a block against owning up to them.

So please help me to keep going forward on the path of Teshuvah, and to repent over my repentance - to make amends for the inadequacy of my earlier Teshuvah. This way, with Your help, I will eventually be able to attain the highest level of Teshuvah: You will open my heart and mind to know Your Name, and I will then attain such a level of spiritual perception that I will understand that I have not even begun to repent as yet in a way that is commensurate with Your awesome greatness and exaltedness.

You will then help me repent genuinely over my earlier repentance. With each new and higher perception of Your exaltedness, I will repent over the limitations of my earlier perceptions, and for having allowed material images to influence the way I conceive of You, detracting from the supreme exaltedness of Your divinity. I will keep going forward on the path of Teshuvah every day of my life, until the day when You will finally take my soul and bring me to the World to Come, the "day that is all Shabbat, all Teshuvah."

Help me to slaughter my Evil Urge, and thereby give You honor in two worlds, This World and the World to Come, as it is written, "The one who slaughters [the evil urge, and offers] the thanksgiving offering will give Me honor."

Help me run away from honor. Let me minimize my own importance, while doing everything I can to enhance the glory of G-d. Grant me a share in Your great glory, and lovingly bring me to experience the glory of G-d and attain holy glory for Your sake alone. Let me never make use of Your glory for my own personal advantage, but only for the sake of Your Name and in Your service, and let no one feel the need to raise questions about my reputation and honor.

HaShem, help me be firm, strong and determined in Your service at all times. Don't let me ever fall away, G-d forbid. "Don't throw me down from before You, and do not take Your holy spirit from me." Bring me to be one of those who is always "coming in and going out" of the Palace of the I<ing, constantly striving to achieve ever greater intimacy. Teach me how to "run forward" to new spiritual heights, and then "return" and integrate the perceptions and insiI have gained into my life as a whole. Help me develop the skills I need during all the different phases of my spiritual life, both when I am making progress and when I find myself regressing. Let me be expert at "running forward," and expert at "returning," expert when "con-dng in" and expert when "going out."

Let me be able to find You everywhere, whether I go up or down, as it is written: "If I go up to Heaven, there You are, and even if I make my bed in hell, behold, there You are!" Let me constantly reach out for connection with You, so that I will be able to say: "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine."

Please, HaShem, have compassion on me and remember me for good. Don't abandon me, and do not leave me to sink and become trapped in the lowly, degraded situations I have been caught in until now. "Don't forsake me, HaShem my G-d, and don't keep far from me. Don't let me be swallowed up in the depths, and don't let the pit shut its mouth over me."

Be kind to me and lift me out of the dust. Help me rise from my degraded state. Be with me, just as You promised You would be with Yaakov: "I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will surely bring you up." It is true that I have fallen, but I ask You to let my fall be a preparation for a great ascent. Have pity on me. Send me Your help and take hold of me with Your loving hand of mercy. Support me tenderly and lovingly, and always be with me. Give me the strength and good sense to hold on to You at all times, and never ever let me fall. It is written: "Even if he falls, he will not be cast aside, because HaShem is supporting him by the hand." Fulfil this in me.

Grant me spiritual freedom very soon. From today on, release me from the vicious cycle of backsliding and failure I have been caught in so far. Help me overcome the sense of distance from You that I have had until now. You "lift the poor out of the dust and the needy from the scrapheap." I am poor and needy: take pity on me. Be kind to me, and lift me up. "My hands are raised to You. From the ends of the earth I call to You. My heart is fainting. Bring me up to a rock which is too high for me."

Master of the Universe! Master of the Universe! My Father in heaven: Take pity on me, and drive away all those who are persecuting me and pushing me down. Call a halt to my troubles. Say, "So far and no further." From now on, help me, and start to lift me up, level by level, quickly and easily. Turn all my spiritual failures into successes. If my relationship with You until now has been one of distance and alienation, let it be transformed from now on into one of closeness and intimacy.

In Your compassion, You have made a start in drawing us close to You. Through the true Tzaddikim You have sent us in each generation, You have begun to shine the light of Your holiness and love upon us. HaShem, it would not be fitting for You to abandon us now.

You began showing us Your greatness and goodness when You gave us Your holy Torah through Moshe, Your faithful prophet. In each generation You have lovingly sent us all the Tzaddikim who have transmitted the Torah to us - from Moshe to Yehoshua, from Yehoshua to the Elders, and from them to the subsequent Elders and Tzaddikim in every generation, until the chain of Torah tradition has now reached us.

Your love for us has still not ceased to flow: "I awaken, and I am still with You." just as You have alwayhelped us until now, stir up Your compassion yet again, and help me fulfil the entire Torah in love. Take pity on me and help me remain attached to You and to the true Tzaddikim for ever, both in This World and in the World to Come.

Please, HaShem, lovingly help me open my eyes, my heart and my ears to see, understand and hear Your greatness and exaltedness, and to return to You in complete sincerity and truth. Grant me knowledge, understanding and wisdom to understand and grasp the ways of Teshuvah. Help me to follow them at all times, and let me be a true Baal Teshuvah, a Master of Repentan. For Your right hand is held open to receive those who return, and You want Teshuvah. If not now, when?

Help me come to perfect Teshuvah on the highest level, so that through my efforts to make amends and repair what I must, the lowest point and highest points of creation will be united, and the Supernal Man will be seated upon the throne. Let my nefesh, ruach and neshamah be merged in that exalted place from now and for ever.

Restore the moon and fill its dark portions with light. Let the light of the moon be like the light of the sun, and let the light of the sun be sevenfold, like the light of the Seven Days of Creation. For Your IGngship governs everything in heaven and on earth.

Your miracles and wonders are unfathomable. You work out ways to make sure that no-one should be cast aside. You "cause death and bring to life, You take souls down to hell and You bring them up." You have the power to connect, bind and unify complete opposites - from the lowest depths of hell to the supreme, most exalted heights, from the lowest point to the highest. For "Who will tell You what to do?"

If so, let Your tender mercy reach even me. G-d who takes pity on the poor and hears the cry of the needy: forge a channel from beneath Your throne of glory down to me, and help me stir and wake up, and return to You in perfect Teshuvah. Help me be genuinely attached to the true Tzaddikim from now on and for ever.

"For You do not wish for the death of the sinner but that he should turn from his ways and live." "You grind man down to the dust and say, "Return, sons of man."... Return, HaShem -until when? Relent over Your servants." "Bring us back to You, HaShem, and we will return. Renew our days as of old."

Pure Thoughts

Loving G-d: Help me clear my mind and my thoughts of ideas and theories that are in conflict with the Torah, in order that I should not sully my intelligence and sensitivity with sinful thoughts and desires, or sour my mind with erroneous theories. Free me of all doubts and skepticism, and let my mind and my thoughts be pure, clear and holy.

Give me the strength to fight against the bad thoughts, doubts and sinful desires that come to confuse me. Let me keep them out of my mind. Let me fight them down and drive them away completely. Let them have no power to enter my consciousness at all, and let me sanctify my and my thoughts at all times.

Please, HaShem: You know the tremendous damage caused in the upper worlds by every single bad thought, and even more so by evil doubts that go against the very foundations of Torah faith, G-d forbid. Such doubts cause a flaw in all the worlds, and have the power to uproot a person from the Source of life, until becomes extremely difficult for him to repent and rediscover the path of life. You alone know the full extent of the damage caused on the highest of levels by every evil thought and idea that comes into the mind.

You also know the tremendous power such thoughts have over our minds, and their ability to confuse us. We are under constant pressure to succumb to them. I have sinned in this many times. I have failed to protect myself against such thoughts or fight them, and I have caused tremendous damage to my own mind by the evil thoughts I have allowed to enter. My whole mind is full of alien thoughts. I have transgressed the prohibition against chametz - leaven, souring my mind with forbidden desires and skeptidsm, and allowing myself to fall prey to all kinds of meaningless distractions.

Not only have I not tried to fight against such thoughts. I have opened myself to them, making no effort at all to push them out. I have not followed the advice given in Your holy Torah to at least sit passively rather than willfully entertain sinful thoughts: "sit and do nothing." I have not listened to my teachers.

How many of my days have gone to waste because of confused and evil thoughts. "I am sinking in the depths of the mud with nothing to support me; I have come into the deepest water and the current is sweeping me away." My mind is such a tun-noil of evil thoughts and confusion that it is extremely hard for me to fight them even when I want to.

"HaShem, You know my folly, amy sin is not hidden from You." I come before You prostrate, humbled, begging and supplicating like a poor man at the door, sighing and beaten down, asking, requesting and begging as a free gift and an act of mercy that You should show me Your wonderful love and kindness and take me out of my darkness into the light. Help me to sanctify my thoughts today and forever.

Attachment to the Tzaddikim

HaShem: Help me draw the breath of life from the Tzaddikim to satisfy all my needs. Always hear the sound of my sighs. Let me draw the breath of life and goodness from the true Tzaddikim through my sighs, so as to satisfy my needs and provide me with everything I require, whether materially or spiritually.

Let all my needs be satisfied for good, "for the source of life is with You": You give breath and life-spirit to everything which is alive and to everything in the world - all through Your true Tzaddikim, who are constantly attached to Your holy Torah, which is our life and length of days.

Have pity on Your people Israel: reveal to us who the true Tzaddikim are, and help us draw the breath of life from them. Give us the ability to make up for anything we may be lacking by simply sighing over it. Fulfil all the requests of our hearts for good.

Attachment to the true Tzaddik

Even so, my hope in HaShem is still not lost, because He loves mercy. You want the wicked to repent, not that they should die. In Your great love, You have taught us to confess all our sins and transgressions before You. Through Your holy sages, now at rest, You have taught us to go before the true Sage and Tzaddik and openly confess in his presence in order that all our sins should be atoned.

Thus it is written: "The anger of the King [is expressed through] emissaries of death, but the wise man will atone." For "He overlooks transgression for the sake of the remnant..." - "...for the sake of the one who makes himself like remnants [because of his humility]." This refers to the true Tzaddik and Sage of the generation, who is "More humble than any man on the face of the earth."

Through his hun-dlity, the Tzaddik has the power to lift up our woof confession before You and bring atonement for all our sins, and remove the evil that has become inscribed on our bones as a result of our sins. Our twisting of the teachings of the Torah can then be rectified, so that the pure, clear message of the letters will shine forth as at first - all through our confession before the Sage. Then our shattered bones will be healed and put back in their proper place, and through this we will become merged in You for ever.

Please, loving G-d, who works out ways that none should be rejected, "remember Your love and mercy, HaShem, for they are eternal." The hand of the enemy is high, and we have no one to lead and support us. What should we do now, HaShem our G-d? We have been left as orphans without a father: we have no-one to stand up fous. We have lost our saints. The true Tzaddikim and Sages of the generation, who had the power I mentioned and more than that as well, have left this world owing to our many sins. And we are here alone, empty and bereft of all good. We are like a lone mast on the top of a mountain and a flag on top of a hill.

The Guidance of the Tzaddikim

Master of the Universe, HaShem, G-d of truth: In each generation You planted true Tzaddikim among us. Loving G-d: help me come close to the true Tzaddikim and receive true counsel from them. Let me follow their advice without deviating from it in any way.

Guard me, my family and friends, and all Your people Israel, from all evil influences. There are people whose advice and suggestions are like those of the archetypal serpent. Let me pay no attention to anything they say. Let me not even hear their words. Let nothing they say enter my heart and mind in any way.

Let me keep well away from people who have strayed from the path of Torah. Don't let them have any power to deceive me with their destructive ideas. Thwart their evil intentions. Save me from all falsehood and error. Protect me from those who cover their lies with a veneer of truth, twisting the words of the Living G-d, and calling evil good and good evil. Their ideas and suizeestions are the opposite of the truth, and they are holding back the Jewish People from the true and correct path.

They make light of the most serious laws of the Torah, while turning minor matters into issues of major importance. What You reject, they embrace; what You desire, they reject. Not all of them have evil intentions: some of them have simply made a mis, and they do not know the real truth. They speak in all innocence, but their ideas and suggestions are false, and they are very damaging to us in our efforts to serve You.

Master of the Universe: You know the truth. Before You, all secrets are revealed. You know the mysteries of the entire universe and the hidden secrets of all living. Help us and save us from these people. Let none of what they say stick in our hearts in any way. We want nothing of them not them, and not their tumult, and not their uproar."

Almighty G-d: You are the supreme Guide. Lovingly grant that the true Tzaddikim should be revealed to me. Help me come dose to them and receive sound, clear guidance from them founded on the six hundred and thirteen niitzvot of the Torah. Through their guidance and counsel, let me receive the light of truth, and thereby come to genuine, perfect faith for ever.

I bind my prayers to the true Tzaddikim

On the contrary, the Tzaddikim in every generation most certainly lift up our every prayer and put each one in its proper place, building out of them, as it were, the structure of the Shekhinah. Eventually the entire structure will be completed, and then the Mashiach will come and bring the work to perfection and raise the Shekhinah completely.

I would like to bind all my prayers to all the Tzaddikim in our generation. And You, in Your abundant mercy, arouse the hearts of the true Tzaddikim of this generation, and give them the power to take my prayers and elevate them to You.

My prayers may be far from perfect. There may be much about them that is not right. There may not even be a single word or letter that is pure and clean. My words are very muddled and what I say is full of mistakes. I do not speak with the proper concentration and awareness, and my words are far from where my thoughts are.

Even so, Your love and kindness are overwhelming: give Your true Tzaddikim the power to lift up and elevate all my prayers and cleanse and purify them from all blemishes and impurities. Let my prayers rise up and find favor before You, and let the Tzaddikim use them to build the structure of the Shekhinah, to prepare Her, support Her, and lift Her out of her e)dle. Raise up the fallen Tabernacle of David through our prayers, and return Your Divine Presence the Shekhinah - to Zion, and shine Your face upon us.

"Turn to me and show me favor, for I do not put my trust in my bow, and my sword will not save me." Only in Your Name do we put our trust. "For G-d alone do we have praise all day, and we give thanks to Your Name for ever!"

The true Tzaddik

Loving G-d: You have planned everything for our ultimate good, and You have sent us the remedy even before the wound. You have sent us true Tzaddikim - holy ones now at rest in the earth - who have been our support and refuge. Because of the awesome good they did, You gave them the power to elevate all those who had the privilege of coming genuinely close to them, and to bring them back to You in complete Teshuvah.

They even had the power to lift up my poor soul and restore it after having been so terribly shattered, so tired, so hungry, so thirsty and so bitter. Together with all the other souls gathered around them, I too was uplifted and inspired, proving that there is hope for the lowly. What a privilege it was to see Tzaddikim who had such powers and more! How fortunate were the souls who used to ascend to such heights of devotion with the help of these Tzaddikim, and experience renewal.

I have come before You now, Hashem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers, to ask You to have mercy on me and take pity on my posoul. Show me what I should do now that the true Tzaddikim have left this world because of our many sins. We have been abandoned, like a solitary mast at the top of a mountain. "Tbe Tzaddik has been lost, yet no-one stops to ponder it; the men of piety have been taken, yet no-one understands: the Tzaddik has been taken, so as not to see the coming evil."

Loving, merciful Father in Heaven: Look at the desperate plight we are in. We are now experiendng the fulfilment of the prophecy that "a time of trouble will come for Yaakov the like of which never was." You have struck us with "a blow which is not written in the Torah" - 'this is the death of the Tzaddikim," those faithful leaders who used to carry us like a nurse carries a suckling child. Thad compassion on our souls. They were constantly looking to heal and revive our souls and renew our days of darkness like the eagle.

Where should we turn to now? Where should we run for refuge? Where should we look for help?

Master of the Universe: See what a pitiful state we are in. Our hearts are full of pain and sorrow. We are like sheep being led to the slaughter.

Look at what I've become! I go around like a "fugitive and a wanderer." I'm like a body without a soul, a mindless robot. I'm like a captainless boat drifting in the heart of the sea, with the storm wind blowing stronger and stronger every moment.

My sins make it seem impossible that I will ever be able to come close to You. The pathways of Teshuvah are hidden from me. I have no idea how to set about gaining wisdom and understanding, or how to develop the strength to fight against my evil inclination and break it and force it into submission to You, so that I will be able to turn to You sincerely with all my heart.

I have strayed far away from Your holiness, Hashem: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Search out Your servant, for I have not forgotten Your commandments." HaShem: You know that no matter how many confessions I make to You, I have still not begun to express my thoughts and explain to You how far I feel myself to be from You. It is impossible to find words to express how far away I am, and how many mistakes I have made. I don't know where I am in the world. All I know is how distant I feel from You, and how much damage I have done. From the time I was young until today, I've not had a single day I could call perfect and flawless.

Even on those occasions when You helped me arouse myself and start trying to serve You, I was never able to persist and keep following the path of holiness for more than a short while. Even when You have helped me, I've not had pity on myself. I've not tried to stand firm for even a single day. "Even while the King was still sitting in Ffis place, my behavior gave off its scent.,,

Even so, Your love and kindness are with me all the time, and You help me constantly. You have treated me kindly, but I have repaid You with evil. I am so weak and under such pressure that I desperately need You to send us a true leader - one who will constantly watch over us and "have pity on the poor and needy, and save the souls of the needy." I need someone who will take me by the hand and lift me out of my darkness into the light, showing me the path to take and what I should do.

Master of the Universe! Loving G-d! G-d of Israel, who truly loves the Jewish People: "Tell me, You whom my soul loves: where do You pasture Your flock? Where do You put them to rest under the fierce sun of the harsh e)dle?" Our many sins have caused us to experience the fulfilment of words of the prophet: "Who will take pity upon You, Jerusalem, and who will nod in sympathy with you, and who will turn aside to ask how you are?"

Even so, Master of the Universe, You have already pron-dsed us that there is no orphaned generation. Even in this generation there must certainly be true Tzaddikim who have the power to gather up our souls and revive them, and reveal new, inspiring Torah teachings that will bring us back to You in complete Teshuvah.

HaShem our G-d and G-d of our fathers: Have compassion on us and do not turn away from us. Show us the true Tzaddikim of this generation, and grant that we should come close to them. We have no-one to depend on except You, our Father in Heaven, and the true Tzaddikim, through whom You lovingly help and support Your people Israel.

The Power of the Tzaddikim

Master of the World: You know that regardless of anything I might say to You or ask of You, if I have any hopes of speedy salvation, the only thing I can depend on is the power of the true Tzaddikim. You have sent us Tzaddikim in every generation. In this generation too You have sent us awesomely great Tzaddikim. I have nothing to rely on except their strength. And so, let Your great love and compassion for me be aroused. I am under continuous attack. I've fallen so low. I'm in such pain. My heart is so stricken. Loving G-d, help me! Through the power of the true Tzaddikim and in their merit, help me fight against all my evil thoughts and develop perfect knowledge and awareness of G-d in holiness and purity. Help me study and ponder Your holy Torah constantly, day and night. Let my thoughts and intellect be cleansed and purified until they are free of all waste. Let my mind be sharp and alert, and help me gain a true, dear grasp of whatever subject I am studying quickly and without my having to pore over it at all.

Bring me to true meekness and hun-dlity. Let me never be swayed by the least hint of pride or by false motives. Even when You help me and enable me to learn much Torah, don't let me take any of the credit for myself. Don't allow my Torah studies to lead me into arrogance. Let me learn much Torah for its own sake, in holiness, purity, and true humility. Help me study, teach, guard, practice and fulfil all Your Torah teachings in love.

Rising beyond oneself through prayer Loving G-d, bring me to true prayer.

Throughout the day let me always pray in the proper way, truthfully and sincerely. Arouse my feelings until I pour out my very heart to You in prayer and supplication. Help me bring all the goodness concealed within my inner good point" out into the light. Let me draw the words of my prayers and supplications from the very depths of my heart, until the goodness concealed within me will be revealed and the good will outweigh the evil, enabling me to subdue my evil side and remove it completely. Bring me from evil to good, from darkness to great light.

Help me pray with complete surrender, until I lose all sense of my own independent e)dstence and material being. Let me not pray for my own benefit. Help me to rise beyond all the limitations of self, as if I am not in the world at all. Let my only aim in my prayers be for the sake of Your Name, to lift up the Divine Presence from the e)dle and reveal Your G-dliness throughout the world.

Loving G-d: You have already begun to reveal Yourself to the world. Through the true Tzaddikim, You have taught us to offer You songs and praises, prayers and supplications. You have sustained us by teaching us Your holy Names and attributes, thereby permitting us to address You and call upon You. This is the only support we have in our hopes of drawing dose to You with all our hearts and knowing You. Now too, help all of us in every generation. Help every Jew, including me. Through the Torah that I study, give me holy understanding and help me offer You constant songs, praises, prayers and supplications all the days of my life. Let me pray with perfect sincerity, with faith, complete calm and full concentration. Guide me toward the truth, so that I will call to You and address You in fitting terms, and my requests and praises will find favor before You and arouse Your love and good Will.

Show us the Tzaddikim

Certainly there is no orphaned generatioq., There must be true Tzaddikim even in this generation. But they are concealed from our eyes. We do not know who they are and we cannot get near to them. HaShem, where should we turn to find medicine for our wounds? Where is the doctor of souls who can bind up and heal our wounds and relieve us of our desperate pain?

We have been robbed! Every heart is melt, everyone's knees are trembling! The sun has gone down in the middle of the afternoon. The delight of our eyes has been taken from us - the one who encouraged us and inspired us with life and vigor, the pride of our heads, our glory and strength, our nefesh, our ruach, our neshamah, our holiness and purity - the true Tzaddikim, the highest saints, who have left us because of our sins. They have gone to their rest and they have left us to our sighs. HaShem, see how low Your people have fallen!

But You, G-d of truth, scrutinize all hearts. You know our innermost feelings. You know the strength of my desire and yearning, and that of all Your people, the House of Israel, to find healing for our wounds. All who feel the pain in their own hearts are yearning, longing and hoping to draw close to the true Tzaddik, in order that he should bring them back from their sins, rectify their transgressions, and show us the path to follow and what we should do.

And now, HaShem our G-d, where is Your earlier kindness? In every generation there were true Tzaddikim who led the Jewish People, taking them in their arms like a nurse takes up a little child. They taught them the path of G-d and brought them close to You. Then why have You abandoned us and smitten us with "a wound that is not written in the Torah" - "that is the death of the Tzaddikim", which is harder to bear than even the destruction of the Holy Temple?

Why should G-d's Assembly be like a flock without a shepherd? We are orphans of orphans, babes who never saw the light. We are sullied with every kind of madness, we are full of sins and transgressions. What should we do? Mere should we go in search of a remedy? How can we escape our own folly, the pain in our hearts and the corruption of our deeds?

Please, HaShem, pardon us and save us from destruction. Come after Your scattered flock, for there is no-one to gather us together. You Yourself draw us close in Your abundant love and mercy. I am fully aware that after the terrible things I have done I am not worthy of coming close to You. My actions have been despicable and my thoughts appalling. I have done the same bad things time after time. I have repeatedly promised You that I would not go back to my wrong-doing or make You angry ever again, but I have not been able to keep my promises for even a short time. I've always been quick to go back to my bad ways. This has happened time and time again. How can I dare come before You and try to placate You?

But we know, HaShem, that Your thoughts are way above our thoughts, and the power and depth of Your love and mercy are far beyond the grasp of our minds. It is impossible to apprehend the awesome heights of Your love and mercy. "The mercies of HaShem will never be exhausted, nor will His love ever come to an end." As long as there is life there is hope. "You return man to the dust" - "Up until the moment when life itself is crushed into dust, sinners are received." I have trust in Your great love, and I will rely on Your mercy. I know that You will not abandon me.

You alone know the true extent of the damage I have done. It is impossible for me to begin to understand even the tiniest fraction of the damage caused by my sins. I am still not fully aware of who it is that I have sinned and rebelled against, because my sins have caused Your exaltedness to be concealed from me. You alone know what I have done and the damage I have caused - what, how much and against whom. For no-one knows anything of You except for You alone, blessed be Your Name for ever.

In spite of all this, the power of Your love and mercy will overcome everything. You know our nature and our inclinations, and Your desire is to show mercy. You do not want the death of the sinner but that he should turn from his ways and live. You wait for him until the day of his death, and if he repents, You receive him immediately.

I have therefore come before You, HaShem my G-d and G-d of my fathers, with a crushed heart and humble spirit, to beg You to take pity on me and upon all of Your people, the House of Israel. Send us true Tzaddikim who will have the power to heal us and bring us to complete Teshuvah, to restore our souls and bring atonement for our sins.

Connection with the Tzaddik through intense Torah study

Arouse Your love for me. Shine Your holy spirit upon me. Bring me to learn Torah - both the Wriften and the Oral Torah - with such holy intensity that when I am studying, I will have the power to connect my soul with the soul of the Tzaddik who first revealed the teaching or law I am learning. Help me come to the level of spiritual communion that is referred to as "kissing." Let me attach my soul to the soul of the Tzaddik with such intimacy that it will be as if I am "kissing" the Tzaddik or the Tanna who first revealed this teaching.

May my study give the Tzaddik or the Tanna profound pleasure. Let me cause the Tanna or Tzaddik supreme delight by studying his words in extreme holiness, so that even there in the grave his very lips will be gently whispering. And by studying the Torah in great holiness and purity, let me lift the Shekhinah up from the dust and out of exile. Please HaShem, loving G-d: Our spirit is so crushed. Have pity on us. Protect me and my children, my descendants and those of all Your people, the House of Israel. Keep me well away from those who have gone astray from the true path. Compassionate G-d: Don't ever let my Torah study turn into a fatal poison, G-d forbid. Don't allow the least hint of opposition to the true Tzaddikim ever come into my heart as a result of anything I study. Don't let me ever study for my own self-aggrandizement or in order to chide, especially when studying the Oral Torah - the Gemara and its commentaries, and the Law Codes.

HaShem, G-d of love: Save me from evthe least hint of pride or arrogance. Don't let me ever be sly and over-clever in any way. Let me never harbor doubts or questions in my heart about the true Tzaddikim of the generation, and certainly never let a single insolent word against them leave my mouth. Let me never insult their honor in any way, G-d forbid. On the contrary, let my studies bring me to a close bond of connection with the true Tzaddikim. Let me accept their authority, believe in them, and subordinate myself to them. Let me embrace the dust of their feet and drink their holy words thirstily all the days of my life - and so too my children, my children's children, and those of all Your people, the House of Israel, from now on and for ever.

Let me come close and bind myself to the outstandingly great, true Tzaddikim who have the power to bring all the twisted words of slander spoken against the true Tzaddikim ba& to their holy source and to use them to reconstruct the original Torah laws from which these evil words of the enemies of the truth developed. For they used their study of the Oral Torah to twist the words of the living G-d, so as to give themselves an opening to speak out insolently and contemptuously against the Tzaddik.

Loving G-d: Through the power of the true Tzaddikim, let me become enuinely sanctified and purified until I too can attain this wisdom and know how to sift through these twisted words, and transform and elevate them back to their holy root, so as to turn them into genuine Torah laws.

Help me lift up the Shechinah from her exile and bring her to rejoin her Beloved in love, brotherhood and friendship, "embracing," "kissing" and perfectly unified. Help me humble and break all those who have set themselves in opposition to the truth, and let me take their prey from their mouths. Put truth and faith into their hearts, and let them realize the truth. Let them come back to You genuinely and whole-heartedly.

Reveal the truth and spread it throughout the world, and fulfil the verse in the Psalms: "Truth will blossom forth from the earth, and justice will be seen from the heavens." Let peace reign among all the members of Your people Israel for ever.

Let me serve You happily at all times. Help me be one of those people who bear insults without returning them, who do not answer even when they hear themselves abused, who act out of loveand rejoice in their suffering.

Grant us all holy wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Let us come to learn the Holy Torah for its own sake at all times and return to You truly and sincerely. Let abundant blessings flow down to us from the source of blessings, and let us do Your will in truth all the days of our lives - we, our children, our descendants, and all Your people the House of Israel, from now and for ever. Amen. Selah.

Torah insights

Let me always be able to pray and plead with You until words hot as burning coals come pouring out of me. When I pray to You, let me bind myself to the souls of Israel, so that my prayer will be a collective prayer that You will not reject, for "Even though G-d is mighty, He will not despise [the weak]."Let my prayers bring about a tremendous increase in holiness in the higher realms, so that I can draw Torah ideas and explanations from the Supreme Heart, where they are all written.

Help me follow the Torah path and fulfil the teaching of our Rabbis of blessed memory, who revealed to us that the way of the Torah is to "eat bread dipped in salt and drink water by measure." Let me constantly labor in the Torah and draw Torah explanations from the holy soul that suffers so bitterly over the e)dle of the Torah - the soul that is the source of all original Torah insights and explanations. Let me draw Torah explanations from there through my prayers and supplications, until I will constantly be developing true, holy original Torah insights derived from the Thirteen Perfect Features of the Holy Beard, namely thThirteen Rules for Interpreting the Torah.

Guard and protect me from all kinds of confficts and arguments and save me and the entire Jewish People from all causeless hatred. Put it into the hearts of all our opponents to repent and give up their hatred and opposition. Turn their hearts to the truth and let us never again suffer from gratuitous opposition. Let peace dwell amongst Your people Israel for ever.

Torah Revelations of the true Tzaddik-Sage Master of the Universe: Grant that I should come dose to the true Tzaddik and Sage of this generation - the elder who sits in the assembly" of scholars teaching publicly. He is constantly able to draw new, true Torah insights from the Supreme Heart by making all the necessary preparations - binding himself before the discourse to all the souls of those present, who have come to hear the word of G-d, and pouring out his heart like water before G-d while bound to their souls. In his prayers he relies on nothing but pleas and entreaties.

He certainly has the power to wield a "rod of strength" through the outstanding power and merit he possesses as a result of his n-dtzvot, his good deeds and his unremittingly reverential, loving, fervent, zealous, passionate service of G-d. Even so, the only use he makes of this "rod of strength" is to quash the evil in the community and release them from the power of unholy forces in order to bring them into the domain of holiness. But before G-d he stands in prayer like a poor beggar without relying on his merit in the least. He only pleads and entreats, binding himself to the souls of his listeners so that his prayer will be a communal prayer that will not be rejected, as it is written: "Even though G-d"is n-dghty, He will not despise [the weak]." A prayer like this, which is in fact a communal prayer, causes a great gathering of additional holiness above, through which the Supreme Heart pours forth original Torah insights more than ever.

Master of the Universe: Grant that I too should be part of the holy gathering of those who have come together to hear original Torah insights from the lips of the sage and elder sitting in such an assembly. Not only will the evil in me be crushed and removed through the good in the sage who is teaching, buf I will also have a part in the original Torah teachings that he brings down, since in his prayer before his discourse he will have bound himself with the souls of his listeners, and my soul will be included among them. In this way I too will have a part in the extra holiness gathered above through the prayer of this sage. For You have revealed to us that the greater the number of souls with which the prayer is bound, the greater the holiness above, as it is written: "And You are holy, enthroned upon the praises of Israel." This arouses the Supreme Heart to pour forth more Torah insights than ever.

Master of the Universe, have mercy on me and bring me to everything I have asked of You. Let me draw close to the elder seated in the assembly of scholars, laboring to bring down new Torah insights through all the amazing preparations this requires, so that I too will flow with passionate words of holiness and have true and original Torah insights.

Torah Study

Master of the Universe: Help me study Torah for its own sake at all times. You have taught us that prayer can only be complete through study of the holy Torah: "When a person turns his ear away and won't listen to the Tor his prayer is also an abomination." Therefore help me engage in Torah-study day and night, so that You will lovingly accept my prayers.

Help me 'sing out at night at the beginning of the watches" and pour out my heart like water before You, so that we will merit complete redemption by our righteous Mashiach. Let my prayers be a sword and a weapon for Mashiach, as You have intimated to us through Your holy Sages.

Lovingly help me bind all my prayers to the true Tzaddikim of the generation, who have the power to elevate all prayers through the appropriate gate and tribe.

Please, loving and gracious King, make it possible for me to engage in the study of the holy Torah for many hours each day. Let me study the Torah for its own sake. Let my only motive in studying be to keep, observe and fulfil the entire Torah in love.

The letters of the Torah which come out of my mouth as I study are 'sparks of souls". May they all enter into and be merged and clothed in the holy words of my prayers and develop and be renewed there. Let the light of my prayers then shine forth in full radiance, as You have taught us through Your holy sages of blessed memory.

Help me to make an effort with my prayers at all times. Let me never despair of calling out to You and praying. Bring me to have perfect faith in the power of prayer. Our e)dle has lasted so long. Your people, the House of Israel, cry out to You every day and appeal to You to shine Your face upous, build our Holy Temple and redeem us eternally. Despite all this, we have still not been delivered. Even so, let us come to believe and know with firm and perfect faith that no prayer is ever lost or in vain, G-d forbid.

And so too, HaShem our G-d and G-d of our fathers, help me labor in Your holy Torah constantly, day and night, in holiness and purity. Let, my Torah study arouse the very roots of the souls of Israel, which stem from the Primordial Thought of G-d. All the Jewish souls are rooted in the letters of the Holy Torah. HaShem, let my labor in the Torah so radiate that my Torah study will arouse the roots of the souls of Israel until they shine to one another, and even the souls of the wicked and the sinners will shine, inspiring them to repent and come back to You. Through the shining of the souls, create and give birth to the souls of converts, and let those who are distant come and convert. Let them acknowledge the power of Your lcngship, until the whole world will genuinely serve You.

I may be very lowly and far from studying Torah with such holiness that I can arouse the souls of others to repent. Even so, loving G-d, take pity on me and help me study Torah in such a way that I unite myself with the soul of the true Tzaddik of this generation, who does learn Torah with this degree of holiness. Let the Tzaddik's Torah teachings so inspire me that my soul will radiate at its very root in the Primordial Thought of the Holy One blessed be He together with the other holy souls of the Children of Israel, Your People. Shine light to me from the root of my soul until I come back to You in genuine Teshuvah.

Help me labor at Your holy Torah cons, day and night. Open my mind and let my eyes see the light of Your Torah. Grant me a dear, pure intellect with which to study Your holy Torah. Give me a rapid grasp of everything I study. Let nothing in the world have any power to distract me and throw me off course during my study-sessions - whether irrelevant thoughts, or fantasies about the vain pleasures of this world, or confused and distorted ideas about my studies themselves and how to approach them. Help me fight off all such distractions and confusion while studying. Let me rapidly cover plenty of ground with clear understanding. Let me start and finish all the books of the holy Torah, both the Written and the Oral Torah, and go through them again and again many times.

HaShem, loving G-d: You know the powerful distractions and mental confusion I suffer from constantly, especially when studying. Until now I have never once managed to study with a clear head for even a brief moment. All day, and even when I'm studying, my mind is in turmoil, with an endless succession of thousands upon thousands of twisted and confused thoughts and feelings. I have no idea where to run to escape them.

HaShem: You know how disjointed my thoughts are. I've damaged my mind so much. For years and years now my thoughts just go everywhere. My mind wanders along every avenue of folly, confusion and evil. I cannot possibly go into all the details. If I wanted to describe even a tiny fraction of the turmoil in my mind, it would take for ever. The true Tzaddikim have given much good advice about how to escape such thoughts by just sitting passively without pursuing them further. But I have neglected their teachings and done the very opposite. I have thrown away all the good advice You have revealed and continue to reveal through various hints, as to how to escape mental confusion and turmoil. I've made no effort to follow any of it. My mind is so confused that even when I want to fight my evil thoughts and keep to Your advice I am no longer capable of keeping calm and concentrating on holy thoughts for even a short time.

HaShem, loving Father in Heaven: You are filled with love and kindness every single moment. You know how far I am from purity of thought and holy knowledge. My years have been wasted on vanity, emptiness, confusion: I've had nothing but evil, corrupt thoughts the whole time. In my entire life I've never had even a single hour of true inner calm and concentration. My sins and immorality have left my n-dnd turbulent and confused. I hno idea how to heal myself and go about cultivating true holy knowledge and awareness, because I have failed in all the pathways of holy knowledge.

Please HaShem, have mercy on me. Have pity on my poor, exhausted, weak, hungry, thirsty soul, which has descended to such a level of degradation. You alone know the true pathos of our condition at this time of deep exile, as we await the coming of Mashiach. The dimensions of our spiritual tragedy cannot begin to be described. It is impossible to express even a tiny fraction of our troubles in words. Heavenly Father, be kind to us and help us! Heavenly Father, I have no idea what to say and how I can placate You, seeing that I've rejected Your profound guidance and rebelled against You so much.  

Reveal the secrets of the Torah

Let Your kindness then flow to us, and open up to us the light of Knowledge. Let us come" close to a true Tzaddik who has the power and wisdom to gather all the souls together and lift them up, as it is said, "And the wise man takes souls." All our souls will be merged together in unity, and the true Sage will take them and ascend with them so as to renew them for good, bringing down new Torah teachings from the mouth of the Ancient of Days, as it is said, "The wise man ascended to the city of the mighty and brought down its secure stronghold" - the Torah. Loving G-d: Reveal to us the secrets of the Torah - the Torah of @e concealed Ancient One.

Please, HaShem: lovingly grant my request for Your Name's sake. I(ind and merciful G-d: Grant that I should come close to the true Tzaddik of this generation, who has the power and wisdom to gather our souls and elevate them, unifying the Holy One blessed be He and His Indwelling Presence. And let our souls be reborn and renewed for good through the new Torah teachings he will reveal.

You know how bitter and confused I am. I'm so bitter that "...the power to endure has collapsed." I cannot bear my pain and confusion any more. My mind is racing everywhere. I have no-one to stand up for me and help me, and save me from this confusion and bitterness.

I have nothing to rely on except the true Tzaddikim. They are the only ones who have the wisdom and skill to save someone like me from this confusion, and elevate even my worst traits and desires. Only the Tzaddikim have the power to purify my negative characteristics and elevate them together with all my good traits and desires. Only they can gather together the scattered parts of my personality and lift them all up together so as to renew them for good, radiating new light to my darkened soul. I will then be able to experience the "brilliant lights," and my hungry soul will be filled with good, and my youth renewed like the eagle. My soul will be joined with all the souls of Your people, the House of Israel, and we will all be united, great and small.

Loving, gracious G-d: Let me come close to the true Tzaddik who has this power and wisdom. Let him gather all our souls together and rise with them before the throne of Your glory, so as to arouse Your love for us. Let our souls rise up and give You pleasure and find favor before You. And You rejoice in our souls, and let Your unity be revealed through us - the unity of the Holy One blessed be He and the IndweUing Presence. Let all our souls be renewed and reborn. The Tzaddik will bring down new Torah teachings, and the secrets of the Torah - the Torah of the Ancient Concealed One - will be revealed to us. With this the Tzaddik will mend our souls, perfecting the Supreme Chariot and the Lower Chariot.

You have already informed us through Your holy sages that You overlook nothing in the World to Come. You pay each person according to his ways and the fruits of his deeds. Your love and forgiveness are mainly for the people who genuinely repent in This World. You pardon them for all their sins, even if rebelled against You greatly. You made this known to Your servant Moses, as it is written: "and He will cleanse - will not cleanse." Our Rabbis explained this to mean that " "He will cleanse'those who repent, and "will not cleanse" - those who do not repent."

I therefore throw myself down and prostrate myself before the radiance of Your holiness." Kind, loving G-d, who is good to the wicked and the righteous, who waits for the sinner, longing for him to be acquitted: take pity on me, and help me come to complete Teshuvah in This World. Let me repair all the damage I have done before I leave This World. From now on, help me abandon my bad ways, and release me from the evil and confused thoughts that are holding me back from the path of justice and goodness. Let me banish the thoughts that caused me to go wrong and become distanced from You. Rise and help me purify and sanctify my n-dnd. Let me bind my thoughts to You truthfully and sincerely from now on and for ever.

Please, HaShem, take pity on my soul. Order all the dirty garments I have clothed my soul in through my sins to be removed. These filthy garments created by my sins are the biggest obstacles to my repentance, preventing me from following Your pathways of goodness and holiness. HaShem, You know what a tremendous struggle it is for me to try to strip myself of these clothes. My "power of endurance has tottered.r I cannot endure the bitter struggle I have to suffer before I can break through the walls of iron separating me from holiness. I have sinned so much that these dirty clothes are very many. You alone know how far I am from You as a result.

Stir Your love and compassion for me and have mercy on my nefesh, my ruach and my neshamah. Command Your holy angels to take Off these sullied garments and cme in garments of splendor, so as to remove all the obstacles and barriers of iron that prevent me from sanctifying myself, making it impossible for me to carry out any holy task in the proper way. Take away all these barriers and obstacles. Let me repent sincerely and from now on be a person who genuinely 'turns from evil" and does only what is good in Your eyes.

The Power of Torah Study

Through the merit and power of Torah study, give me the strength to conquer and break my evil inclination and drive it out of myself. Help me rid myself of the foolish spirit that has taken hold of me because of the wrong I've done. I'll be able to get free by studying and keeping the Torah, which is entirely made up of Your holy Names. The power of the Torah will overcome any sway this foolishness may have over me. just help me drive it out and remove it from myself and my life.

Please, HaShem: You know the many thoughts that trouble me every single moment of the day and distract me from serving You properly. They are all caused by the foolish spirit that has taken hold of me because of the wrong I've done and all my sins and transgressions. My mind is in turmoil, and my good sense and intelligence have been severely impaired.

Father in Heaven: You are good to all and merciful to all Your creatures. Forgive me and save me from destruction. Loving G-d: Give me the strength to conquer my own foolishness and drive it out of myself by studying and practicing Your holy Torah.

Pure Thoughts

Loving G-d: Help me clear my mind and my thoughts of ideas and theories that are in conflict with the Torah, in order that I should not sully my intelligence and sensitivity with sinful thoughts and desires, or sour my mind with erroneous theories. Free me of all doubts and skepticism, and let my mind and my thoughts be pure, clear and holy.

Give me the strength to fight against the bad thoughts, doubts and sinful desires that come to confuse me. Let me keep them out of my mind. Let me fight them down and drive them away completely. Let them have no power to enter my consciousness at all, and let me sanctify my and my thoughts at all times.

Please, HaShem: You know the tremendous damage caused in the upper worlds by every single bad thought, and even more so by evil doubts that go against the very foundations of Torah faith, G-d forbid. Such doubts cause a flaw in all the worlds, and have the power to uproot a person from the Source of life, until becomes extremely difficult for him to repent and rediscover the path of life. You alone know the full extent of the damage caused on the highest of levels by every evil thought and idea that comes into the mind.

You also know the tremendous power such thoughts have over our minds, and their ability to confuse us. We are under constant pressure to succumb to them. I have sinned in this many times. I have failed to protect myself against such thoughts or fight them, and I have caused tremendous damage to my own mind by the evil thoughts I have allowed to enter. My whole mind is full of alien thoughts. I have transgressed the prohibition against chametz - leaven, souring my mind with forbidden desires and skeptidsm, and allowing myself to fall prey to all kinds of meaningless distractions.

Not only have I not tried to fight against such thoughts. I have opened myself to them, making no effort at all to push them out. I have not followed the advice given in Your holy Torah to at least sit passively rather than willfully entertain sinful thoughts: "sit and do nothing." I have not listened to my teachers.

How many of my days have gone to waste because of confused and evil thoughts. "I am sinking in the depths of the mud with nothing to support me; I have come into the deepest water and the current is sweeping me away." My mind is such a tun-noil of evil thoughts and confusion that it is extremely hard for me to fight them even when I want to.

"HaShem, You know my folly, and my sin is not hidden from You." I come before You prostrate, humbled, begging and supplicating like a poor man at the door, sighing and beaten down, asking, requesting and begging as a free gift and an act of mercy that You should show me Your wonderful love and kindness and take me out of my darkness into the light. Help me to sanctify my thoughts today and forever.

Truth

Help me say my prayers with complete honesty and truthfulness, so that the light of Truth will shine upon me, and I will be able to emerge from the thick darkness and the strange thoughts - the "husks" - that constantly confront me on all sides.

Especially when I am praying, I feel surrounded on every side and in every comer. The attacks come in all kinds of different ways. There are endless distractions. Sometimes things are so bad that I cannot open my mouth to pray at all, and I find it impossible to say a single word of my prayers properly, because of the darkness, the alien thoughts, the distractions, the obstacles and the barriers surrounding me on all sides.

My only hope of finding a way to escape is by talking to You truthfully and honestly. Through the teachings of Your holy Sages You have let us know that if we speak to You truthfully, You will shine upon us even in the thickest darkness and gloom, and help us come out of the darkness into a brilliant light, because You love the truth and You are "close to all who call to You in truth."

I have therefore come before You, HaShem, my G-d, to plead and prostrate myself before You, and stretch out my hands to You: arouse Your true love for me. I feel so low. I need Your help so much. Shine on me with the light of Truth, so that I will be able to say the words of my prayers truthfully and sincerely.

Help me bring every single word of each service out of my mouth in pure, clear truthfulness and honesty, so that the light of Truth will shine on me and help me find the openings in the terrible darkness that is constantly threatening to envelop me and hide Your great light from me, G-d forbid.

I know that I have sinned, transgressed and rebelled against You from my earliest days until today. Again and again I have made the worst mistakes - I cannot count how many times. With each new sin, I have added yet more darkness, more barriers, more screens, more obstacles, more confusion.

I have come into the worst depths of darkness and gloom. All the e)dts from the darkness into the light have been thrown into gloom: they are invisible to my eyes. "I am sinking in the deep mire - there is no way to stand; I have come into the depths of the waters, the current has swept me away."

Yet in spite of all this, I have come before You, HaShem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers. Have mercy! Have pity and save me! just as You had the mercy and compassion to reveal this holy teaching, so now, HaShem, have compassion on me and help me follow it. Help me say the words of my prayers and supplications with complete honesty and sincerity.

Don't let gloom and darkness stop me from praying and serving You. No matter how thick my darkness, especially when I pray, let me always be able to find the e)dts out the darkness into the light - by saying the words truthfully. "For You will light my lamp: HaShem my G-d will illumine my darkness." Fulfil the verse in the Psalms: "HaShem is my light and my help. Who should I be afraid of? HaShem is the strength of my life. Who should I fear?"

HaShem, You know that I have no other way to escape unless You help me speak to You truthfully and honestly in the proper way. Help me go on the path of truth at all times. Let me never allow a false word out of my mouth. Let me never say a false word even by mistake or unintentionally. Let me always tell the truth.

Bind my heart to You, so that I will always be able to direct my mind and my thoughts to the absolute truth. And You help me from Heaven to walk the path of truth at all times. Let me not stray from the path of truth in any way, not to the right and not to the left.

"Direct me in Your truth, and teame that You are the G-d of my salvation. In You I have hoped all the day. Send Your light and Your truth: they will guide me and bring me to Your mountain of Holiness and to Your sanctu. Do not take the truth away from my lips in any way, because I have put my hope in Your judgements."

Let me always pour out my thoughts and prayers and supplications to You with perfect sincerity. Help me express everything I need to say to You honestly at all times. Let me tell You everything I have in my mind and on my heart, HaShem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers.

You know my heart. My needs are very many, but I lack the patience to explain everything in detail. Even if all the seas were ink and all the reeds were pens, it would be impossible to explain even a tiny fraction of my needs.

As yet I've not even started to try to overcome even a single one of my bad traits and desires. I am so totally far away from You. Yet every timI come to express myself to You, my mouth closes up and I find it impossible to say even a single word to You properly.

HaShem: You know my heart. To You, all secrets are revealed. Be kind to me and answer me. Put it into my heart to be able to speak to You truthfully, so that Your great light - which is the truth - will be opened up to me, helping me to express everything I need to tell You, and to offer You my prayers properly, with true sincerity, at all times.

Then I'll be able to tell You about everything I need, both physically and spiritually. I will be able to put everything into words and pour out my heart like water in prayer and supplication before You. Your love for me will be aroused: You will listen to my cries and hear my supplications, and lovingly fulfil all the requests of MY heart for good.

This way I will be able to come truly close to You from now on and for ever, and do Your wfll every day of my life, together with my children and children's children, and those of all Your people, the House of Israel.

The Mitzvah of Tzitzit

Help me fulfil the mitzvah of Tzitzit exactly the way it should be carried out in all its fine details, together with the rest of the six hundred and thirteen mitzvot that are bound up with it. Let me carry out this mitzvah with the proper intention, with good feelings and great joy. Through the mitzvah of Tzitzit, enable me to draw down holy life-spirit so as to provide me with everything I may be lacking, materially and spiritually. Take hold of the comers of the earth and shake off the wicked from it. Break, destroy, humble and throw down this "implacable enemy of a man" - Esav, 'the man of Seir" and disgorge the prey from his mouth.

HaShem: You have compassion on the poor, You hear the cry of the needy, and You have ways to make sure that no-one is rejected. Have pity on me and release me from the teeth of wicked enemies who want to swallow me up for nothing, G-d forbid. "Don't let the depths swallow me up, and don't let the pit close its mouth on me."

Just as You answered Yonah in the belly of the whale, so answer me in Your abundant kindness, and release me from the teeth of the lions, as You pron-dsed us: "G-d says: I will bring them back from Bashan, I will bring them back from the depths of the seas." Our Rabbis of blessed memory taught that this means that "Even from between the teeth of the lions, G-d promised us to bring us back from them."

Loving Father: Take pity on us at this time of trouble. See how persecuted I am, and how pushed and pulled about I am. Hear my sighs" I've been rejected and driven out of Your presence. "Don't give the soul of Your dove to the ranks of the enemy. Do not ever forget the soul of Your poor ones."

G-d who lovingly revives the dead: revive and sustain us in the light of Your countenance. Give us the power to draw holy life-spirit through sighing, so that everything our hearts request will be fulfilled for good. Let us constantly do Your will all the days of our lives. Grant that we should truly 'turn aside from evil" and only do what is good in Your eyes at all times both us and our descendants, and the descendants of all Your people, the House of Israel, from now and for ever. Amen. Selah.

Please, HaShem, have mercy and take pity on me. Fulfil my requests in love, and forgive me for all my sins. Order all my filthy garments to be removed, and clothe me in dean, pure, holy garments. Help me fulfil the mitzvah of Tzitzit properly, in the best possible manner. just as I cover myself with the Tallit in This World, so clothe my nefesh, my roach and my neshamah above with a beautiful Tallit and the robe of the Rabbis. Clothe them in clean, white garments, and fulfil in me the verse that says: "at all times your garments will be white and oil for your head will not be lacking."

Achieving the ultimate goal

HaShem, my G-d and G-d of my fathers, G-d of compassion: Help me fulfil Your purpose and attain the good You want to give me. Let me serve You at all times, genuinely and wholeheartedly. Let me turn away from all evil and always do what is good in Your eyes, so as to come to my true destiny. In every action I take in this world and everything I become involved in, let my only purpose be to attain the ultimate goal, so that eventually this action or involve- ment will lead me to my true destiny. Don't let me do anything, say anything or become in- volved in anything that is not bound up with attaining this ultimate purpose. Let me fulfil the verse: "Know Him in all your ways, and He will straighten your paths." Let all my actions be for the sake of Heaven.

Master of the Universe: You know how far I am from my ultimate purpose. Not only have I failed to take care not to do anything that isn't bound up with attaining my destiny. On the contrary, I've done the very opposite. My invol- vements have taken me far, far away from my goal. I've done so much wrong. I'm as far away as I could possibly be from my true purpose.

Heavenly Father: what point is there in a life of pain and bitterness like this? Is this called life? Wouldn't a thousand deaths be better than this bitter life, seeing as my life is not bringing me to my true purpose?

Master of the World! Master of the entire Universe, who lovingly gives life to the dead! Source of all life! Give me life! Let me live and not die! Give me true life, eternal life, good, long life, a life of awe of Heaven - a life in which I will use every single moment to come nearer to the true, ultimate goal- for which You created all the worlds and for which we came down from the supreme heights of the highest world into this lowly world.

Have pity on me! Give me hope! Don't destroy me! Strengthen me and fill me with determination. Help me take pity on myself and keep myself well away from all evil. Let me never again do anything which does not take me closer to the ultimate purpose. Have pity on Your handiwork. Bring me to turn to You with all my heart, so that I will attain the true goal of life, raising and elevating this world, the last to be created, so as to join it and unite it with what arose first in thought.

The ultimate purpose of life

Master of the worlds! Source of all good! You who are good to all: You created Your universe for a good purpose, in accordance with Your primordial plan. Your ultimate purpose was for our good, that we should thereb be able to fulfil our true destiny and come to the ultimate good. This true good is the ultimate goal of everything - all other goals must ultimately lead to this. It was for this that You created all the worlds with such amazing wisdom, from the source of Atzilut to the very end of Asiyah, this World of Action. Through our labor in this world, which came last in the actual work of creation, we can become merged and united with that which arose first in thought: the ultimate goal of eternal good.

Overcoming the desire for wealth

G-d of mercy: Help me fight and control my appetites and my negative thoughts and feelings. Help me break my craving for material wealth, and let me be content with the portion You have given me, HaShem. Let me overcome the urge to get rich, and help me stop chasing after unnecessary extravagances and dishonest gain.

Whatever I have to do in the way of work or business in order to make a living, let me do it in holiness and purity for the sake of Your great Name. Help me to be honest in busines. Let me make fixed times for Torah study, and iet me give the Torah pride of place in my life, with work and business secondary. Don't let me be preoccupied with business worries. Even when I am involved in my work, let my thoughts always be bound to You and Your holy Torah for there is no work or business activity in the world that does not contain Torah, even if it is heavily veiled.

Bring me to perfect trust. Let me trust You at all times, and throw my burden onto You. And You, Hashem, sustain me and guide me in all my business affairs. Let me know how I should conduct myself, when I should buy, when I should sell, and everything else I need to know. Lead me along the right path. Give success to my endeavors. Send me a good living easily and without my having to exert myself at all, so that I will be able to do Your will and occupy myself with Your Torah and serve You at all times.

Please, HaShem, have mercy on my soul and the souls of all the Jewish People. Separate us from those who have gone astray and thrown away their eternal reward because of their lust for money. Their days are consumed with worries about making a living. "With the sweat of their brow they will eat bread, until they go back to the earth" - and they will take nothing away with them after all their toil. Loving G-d, save us from such people.

Have mercy on me and on all Your people, the House of Israel, and save us from the lust for money, which has become so strong and widespread in recent generations. We have reached a point where we find it impossible to take a good, calm look at ourselves and carefully think what will become of us in the end and how we will appear when we come before the King. Instead, we are constantly preoccupied with thoughts about how to make a living. Even earning what is necessary causes us tremendous confusion.

Words hot as burning coals

Loving G-d: inspire me and open my heart until I pray to You with all my heart and soul. Let me pour out my heart to You like water, and constantly vent my innermost feelings and offer You my prayers with perfect sincerity, pleading and supplicating until Your love for me will be stirred and Your compassionate heart aroused, and You will send words hot as burning coals from the Supreme Heart, as it is written: "My heart is hot within me as I ponder, with burning fire I speak with my tongue."

Let me always pray with holy fervor and passion, and let all my words be like coals of fire. And through this, help me draw Torah teachings from the Supreme Heart. Let me constantly develop new Torah ideas and interpretations true, holy ideas that will arouse delight and favor before Your Throne of Glory, ideas in which You will take pride in all the worlds.

Master of the World, Master of the entire Universe, Lord over Everything: You know the precious beauty of my holy soul at its root. So holy is my soul at its root that I should be constantly inspired with new Torah ideas and interpretations. This was what I was created for. But because of my many sins I have become so distant from You that it is hard for me even to ask You to help me in this. My face is covered with a veil of shame that stops me even praying that I should be able to develop true Torah ideas.

The wisdom in all things

Grant me holy wisdom and intelligence. Let me always see all things in the light of the holy wisdom they contain, and so attach myself to You through everything in the world. Let me understand the constant messages and signals You send me to come closer to You.