40.
Master of the Universe, You created Your world as You desired, for the sake of the Jewish People; in order to take pride in them in each generation, in Your great goodness, You chose the Jewish People from among all the nations and the Land of Israel from among all the countries as an inheritance for the Jewish People. You know that the air of Israel makes a person wise; it is the place prepared for the holiness of the Jewish People who can acquire true wisdom there by knowing You with wonderful understanding and perfect faith. You know the true virtue of the Land of Israel whose holiness is beyond measure. Even I, after all my sins and blemishes when have left my mind confused and dirtied, still see from my great distance, the immense virtue of the holiness of the Land of Israel. We have heard this from the mouth of the tzaddikim and read in their holy books that all the holiness if a Jew depends on the Land of Israel.
Please unique master, in your great compassion, fulfil my wishes and merit me to come to the Land of Israel as soon as possible. Let me pass through and jump over all the obstacles in peace without any evil occurrence. Help me to achieve holiness and purity in Israel in such a way that I return to You, truly coming close to You. Master of the Universe, merit me despite my lowly disgraceful spiritual level, to come to the Land of Israel, as soon as possible, in the merit of the deeds and Torah of all the tzaddikim who revealed to the world the holiness of the Land of Israel. Father in Heaven, You granted me, in Your loving kindness, the merit to pray for this, to come to the Land of Israel. I now ask that You do an even greater favour and perform a wonder with me; teach me the true and straight path so that I cease doing bad deeds and stop having blemish thoughts. Merit me to really attach myself to You in such a way that I will merit to renew myself completely and start again from anew in the service of God, as if I was born today.
Master of the Universe, remember the pride and delight You received from the tzaddikim who were in each generation and from all the Jewish people, including this generation. From the tzaddikim, their followers and kosher Jews all the holiness of the Land of Israel is drawn unto the world. So, merit us to have a portion in this pride and delight You receive. Then, let us return to You as you really desire until the Shechinah takes pride in me all the time. From this, the holiness pierces the eyes and draws the eyes of Your divine providence upon the Land of Israel. The great holiness of the Land of Israel stems from this Divine providence and, because of that the air of the Land of Israel makes wise Your holy eyes of wisdom and knowledge are constantly drawn to the Land of Israel, as it says,” A land that the L-rd, Your God, seeks out; the eyes of the L-rd Your God, are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the year’s end.” Therefore have mercy on me and all the Jewish People; reveal to us the holiness of the Land of Israel so that we really long and yearn to reach the Land of Israel. Let us pray to You a lot about this, for you are full of mercy. Enable us to reach the Land of Israel very speedily and with ease.
In Your bountiful compassion merit us every year to travel to true tzaddikim for Rosh Hashanah. Let me be counted among those kosher, pure Jews who gather around the tzaddikim on Rosh Hashanah. You alone know the true virtue of Jews gathering around tzaddikim on Rosh Hashanah. Only You know how much great pleasure and awesome delight You receive every Rosh Hashanah from this holy gathering of Jews around true tzaddikim. Please let me be counted among such Jews, let no obstacle prevent me, nor any delay stop me. Merit me, in Your great compassion, to look at the holy faces of the tzaddikim, especially on the holy days of Rosh Hashanah when You take most pride on us. Then their faces shine very much with the general pride and delight of all the holy gathering which is around them.
Please God enable me to behold the splendour and majesty of their holy and awesome faces so that a radiance of this splendour is drawn upon us and gleams from our eyes. Then let the place become sanctified with the holiness of the Land of Israel such that anyone who knows of the feeling of the Land of Israel will feel its holiness in every place where Jews come together. He will be able to recognize and distinguish which of us merits to be in the gathering around true tzaddikim on Rosh Hashanah.
Master of the Universe, merciful one, have compassion on the Shechinah which cries out bitterly about our deeds. Who can bear her bitter cries. Therefore, from now on, save us and guard us from bad deeds and end evil thoughts. Merit us to return to You in repentance. Help us to rectify only those that we have blemished in our eyes by having looked outside the realm of holiness. May we draw upon ourselves the eyes of God so that we can see the splendour of God and the pride He takes in tzaddikim. Please, help us to search for and find the true tzaddikim who belong to the source of our souls and enable us to travel to them regularly, especially on Rosh Hashanah which is the main time for the holy gathering around the true tzaddikim. As a result, merit us to repent completely and to behold their holy faces. By this merit us to rectify anything we have blemished in our eyes since our youth until now. Then, draw upon us the light of the holy splendour which exists in their holy faces.
Anywhere where we look, may it draw down the holiness of the Land of Israel.
Merciful One, have mercy on us for Your Name’s sake. Merit us to really arouse our hearts towards You. Let us sense and know very well the awesome, sweetness of the wonderful holiness of the Land of Israel. Merit us from now on to long and yearn for the Land of Israel with a heart aflame with enthusiasm. May we pray for this a great deal until we make our wishes become fulfilled. Help us, my God; save us for Your Name’s sake for our eyes only look to You. Hear our prayers for You hear the prayers of every mouth among Your nation, the Jews. May the words of my mouth and the musings of my heart find favour before you God, my Rock and my Redeemer.
41.
Sometimes the Holy One performs wonders through 'poskim' (rabbis who decide the halacha). Because the public accept their opinion regarding what is permitted or prohibited, so also in the World Above their opinion is accepted when they decide regarding a certain matter. This is an aspect of "his wonders and the judgements of his mouth"(Chronicles,1:16)
42.
"For I am the Lord, your healer." – "Ki ani YHVH rofecha" (Ex. 15:27); the initial letters are those of "amen ken y'hi ratzon" – "Amen so may it be Your will."
43.
3. Because of the weakness of the heart, fears descend on a person, for the essence of strength is in the heart. Those weak of heart are the ones who are afraid. That is what it says, "The person who fears and is soft of heart", as Rashi explains, "fears" etc. for 'as a result of the soft heart, he fears'.
44.
(a) When a person falls from his faith, Heaven forbid, the best advice is to speak about faith with his mouth; he should say clearly that he believes etc. The very fact that he speaks out words of faith is itself an aspect of faith. Also, by this, he merits to achieve perfect faith, for faith depends on a person's mouth, meaning that he has to speak out his faith, as mentioned, as it says, "I will make known Your faith in my mouth"(Psalms,89:2).
(b) The opposite is also true-one has to be very careful not to speak out any thing about atheism or heresy, Heaven forbid, even by way of joking. That's to say, even if in one's heart one really believes but one says something atheistic in the name of someone else in order to ridicule him. This is also strictly forbidden for it damages one's own faith. About G-d it is forbidden to say any jokes even for the sake of amusement. Furthermore we must be very careful not to look into philosophical books at all because they damage and blemish our holy faith a great deal. This warning has already has already been clarified elsewhere but it needs to be repeated several times so that a person will not lose all his World to Come in an instant, Heaven forbid.
(c) We also need to keep far away from all kinds of cleverness that exist in the service of G-d itself. For example, a person can think and be very particular about details, all the time querying if he has fulfilled his duty or not in what he did; he searches for unnecessary stringencies. These kinds of 'cleverness' make a person fall a lot from the service of G-d. All this is confusion and imagination from the forces of evil in order to obstruct a person from his service of G-d. 'The Holy One does not level complaints against a person' etc. (Avoda Zora, 3A). About these people the verse applies which says, "And you shall live in them and not die in them."(Levit. 18:5). These people get no vitality at all from the service of G-d and mitzvot which they perform because of the stringencies and their depression. The greatest wisdom of all wisdoms is not to be 'clever' at all, but rather to serve G-d with purity and simplicity. The main thing is that "The Merciful One wants the heart" (Sanhedrin,106B: Zohar, Tetzei,pg.281).