Prayers:    Part 1  | Part 2  |  Part 3  |  Part 4  |  Part 5

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.