10

a) The fact that the world is far away from the Holy One and fails to come close to Him is only because they don't have calmness of mind and do not collect their thoughts. The main thing is to endeavour to calm the mind and consider well what the purpose is of all the physical cravings and all the other worldly pursuits, whether the cravings that enter the body or whether the cravings that are outside the body (i.e. mental desires) such as honour and so on. Then a person will certainly return to G-d.

b) The main way to calm the mind is through joy, for, by joy, a person will be able to control his mind as he desires and calm his mind to think about his eternal purpose; joy is the world of liberty. So when a person connects joy to his mind, his mind is at liberty and not in exile, then he will be able to calm his mind, as explained.

c) But, because of depression and sadness the brain and mind are in exile and then it is hard for a person to collect his thoughts and return to G-d. It turns out that sadness is a very great obstacle to the service of G-d whereas, through joy, a person becomes liberated and escapes exile, as it says "For you shall go out in joy" (Isaiah 55:12). And the opposite is also true, by exile the mind is not calm, as the Sages said (Megilla 12B) about the People of Amon and Mo'av that their minds are calm because they never went out to exile, as it says, "Mo'av has been at ease… neither has he gone into exile"(Jeremiah 48:11). Therefore his good reasoning remained etc.

d) It is explained later in Torah 48 and this is the wording; "Know that as soon as a person wants to enter the service of G-d and wants to be a kosher Jew, immediately it becomes a very serious sin for him to be sad, Heaven forbid, for sadness is the Other Side and the Holy One hates depression and sadness a great deal, Heaven preserve us. (Editor's note: See Tikkunei Zohar at the beginning of page 59 where it says that one needs to protect oneself from saddening things, {meaning when one makes a pilgrimage on the Festivals} for this is Lilit, darkness and sadness etc. for it is a serious blemish. About this the verse says "Anyone who has in him a blemish is forbidden to bring a sacrifice" (Lev.21:18) and whoever is sad is called someone with a blemish, Heaven save us.)

e) A person has to strengthen himself to become happy by any means possible, to strive to search for and find in himself some good point in order to come to joy, as explained about the verse, (Psalms,146:2) "I will sing praises to my G-d with the little that remains in me" (see Torah 282). At least a person has to be happy in that he merited to be from the seed of Israel and wasn't made a gentile. This is certainly a wondrous joy and beyond measure; being born a Jew has no flaw because it is the act of G-d Himself. In all other actions in the world the Evil One can mix into them sadness and depression, but as to this joy, that I was not created a gentile, in this there is no element of depression since it is the action of the Holy One Himself. For, regardless, however a Jew is, the very fact that he merited to be from the seed of Israel and not created a gentile is reason for great joy without end. It is fitting for a Jew to always take joy in this, all the days of his life no matter what befalls him. He should be accustomed to say joyfully with his mouth and in his heart, "Blessed is our G-d Who created us for His honour and separated us from those who go astray, and Who gave us the Torah of Truth etc. and Who sanctified us with His commandments and brought us close to His service and in Whose great and Holy Name we are called etc.

f) Also, quite often a person has to make himself happy by words of nonsense and words of joking. Because of the many troubles that a person suffers, each person with his body, soul and property, it is usually impossible for him to make himself happy other than by words of nonsense, making himself like a madman in order to be happy. (Copier’s note: See Ketuvot,11A: One person used to behave like a madman in order to make a bride and groom happy, as Rashi explains. In Eruvin, 54B it says "Because of one's love of G-d, a person is always mad about it"; Rashi explains: ‘Due to this love you should make yourself mad and foolish’ etc.) All the vitality in the body and soul are dependent on this. Also in the World Above a great Unification is made by the person connecting the joy to his brain and mind, for then the brain is liberated and he will have calmness of mind. This is an aspect of 'clarity of mind' (Shabbat,77) which is a great thing. May G-d always merit us to this. Amen, so may it be.

(Editor's note: See Ta'anit, 22- Eliyahu told Rav B'roka about two brothers who were destined to inherit the World to Come. So the latter asked them: What are your deeds to deserve it? They said to him that they are jovial and they get other people out of their sadness by making them (happy.)

10.

Master of the Universe, merit me as quickly as possible to calmness of mind in This World and this body. Help me to calm my mind very, very well to think about the ultimate purpose of the world with all its cravings and dealings, whether the physical cravings that enter the body or whether those outside the body such as honour and status, hate, envy etc . Merit me to look at my ultimate purpose with real calmness of mind. Let the world not delude me at all. You know, that all our distance from You is because we do not think calmly at all. If we merited to think calmly about the bitterness of This World with all its cravings and delights that pass away like a shadow, and all the distress, anguish and suffering which are an integral part of them and far greater that the enjoyment, we would see the loss is far greater that the gain and then we would merit to calm ourselves very well and certainly return to You in absolutely genuine repentance for the truth is that even in This World we can see how it is all vanity and worthless, even more so in relation the World to Come.

In the end, we have to give back the pledge to its owner and the body will return to the earth and the worms. We will be forced to make an account to the King of Kings, the Holy One, for all our actions. We will be reminded of everything there. Nothing will be reminded of everything there. Nothing will be overlooked from what we have done. There will be no place to escape to. But the truth is that our distance from You, is only because we do not calm our minds really and truly.

However, You revealed to us, through Your holy Torah that the main way to achieve this calmness of mind is by being happy. You also know my great distance from happiness, therefore, I have come before You, G-d, my G-d and G-d of my Fathers, Master of Joy to ask that You have mercy on me and all the Jewish People and in Your great, hidden and eternal compassion, You draw upon us true joy from Heaven, in such a way that I merit to always be happy and join the happiness to by brain. May I redeem and fee my brain, mind and thoughts from their prison and great, bitter exile to which they have bee exposed for months and years, since I remember myself, due to my bad thoughts, confusions, foolishness and crooked heart. These thoughts enter the brain and heart all the time and cause the brain and heart to become crooked. It is unbearable. The main exile of the mind is because of depression and very bitter sadness which overcome us. We cannot calm our minds, neither can we control our brains as we want for we are continually overcome with sadness. That is the main reason why we have become distant from G-d and done what we have done, sinning as we have.

Every person knows in his heart his own great distance from G-d. However much more we become distant, the depression and sadness overcome us more. Further more however much more the sadness and depression overcomes us, Heaven forbid, our confusion increases until we become unable to think calmly. Oh, how we have destroyed our temple of wisdom and burnt down the palaces of our intelligence; we have exiled our minds to various places of exile.

Master of the Universe, the distress of our hearts has greatly increased. We have no understanding of how to speak and how to calm ourselves in this ephemeral world by thinking of our ultimate, eternal, true purpose. However, in Your immense compassion, because You desire our final good, You have give us a cure before the fatal illness by sending us tzaddikim in each generation who, through their great power, have rectified what they rectified. They have taught us various true and wonderful ideals so that we can gladden our hearts at any time. They warned us and encouraged us to strengthen ourselves so that we remain happy constantly for example, they taught us to be happy at having been born a Jew.

In Your immense mercy, Yu have saved us with wonderful and awesome miracles from opposing true tzaddikim and genuinely kosher servants of G-d. Therefore, I have come before You to plead with You, Merciful One, that I merit to always be happy by finding good points within myself. You merited me to perform many mitzvot every day, reciting blessings and prayers, morning and evening; I engaged in studying Your holy Torah with its mitzvot which straighten and gladden the heart. Enable me to speedily calm my mind by thinking about the ultimate purpose of all the cravings and dealings of This World. As a result, please merit me to really return toYou in repentance from now on and forever.

11.

When a person prays in the field, then all the grasses and plants of the field join into his prayer and help out, giving strength to his prayer. This is an aspect of "And Yitzchak went out to pray in the field" (Gen.24:63). His prayer was with the help and strength of the grasses of the field. Therefore in the curse it says "The earth will not give forth its crop". That's to say, the crop of the earth will not give strength into one's prayer. "Crop" ('yebul') alludes to the initial letters of the verse "And Yitzchak went out to pray in the field"- U'Yitzchak Yetzei La'suach B'sadeh."