44.
“My mouth was filled with Your praise, all day long with Your splendour.” “I will sing forever of God’s kindness, I will make known Your faith to every generation with my mouth.” Master of the universe, have compassion over me and all Jews; merit me to always have complete faith in You. Let no thought of disbelief, doubt, or confusion enter my mind. On the contrary, may I regularly speak out words of faith expressing my explicit belief in You, God, our L-rd, that you are unique and eternal, exiting before time and without end. Through Your desire, you created a world from absolute nothingness. You control and guide all the worlds, as You desire. You chose us from all the nations and sanctified us with Your commandments. You have given us prophets, Tanaim, holy Sages and true tzaddikim throughout the generations until today so, have mercy on us for Your Names sake. Strengthen and intensify our holy faith in You constantly. You know that all our vitality is from our holy faith, for it is the foundation of all the Torah, as it says, “All Your commandments are faith.” And as it says, “And a tzaddik lives in his faith.” It is the foundation of all the worlds as is written, “All His deeds are faith.”
I have sinned and spoilt a lot so all my hope and vitality is in faith alone. Please have mercy on me and merit me to such a powerful faith every moment that I really return to You in repentance with all my heart. You know the great strength of true faith; it can extract me from all the places and blemishes into which I have fallen, as a result of my bad deeds. Master of the Universe, return and revive me; let Your people rejoice in You. In my present situation grant me perfect advice in such a way that I will begin to really return to You. Merit me to revive myself through my holy belief so that I can cleave to You at all times. Let me be really close to You always, in all places and on all spiritual levels that exist. For all the earth is full of Your glory. You rule over everything and give life to all things. You fill all worlds, surround all worlds and no place is vacant of Your presence.
Please grant me faith so that it will revive me throughout whatever occurs to me. Let me always come close to You and cleave to You in whatever place I am until I truly return to You very speedily, with true perfection, rectifying whatever I have blemished and spoilt for nothing is beyond You. Have compassion on me, merciful One; never caste me away from faith although I may deserve it because of my sins. Merit me to always behave with purity and simplicity without any cleverness at all. Master of salvations, do not caste me away from You nor take from me the spirit of Your holiness. Help me, for Your Name’s sake; save me for the sake of Your compassion, for the sake of Your immense loving-kindness which never cease. May the words of my mouth and the musings of my heart find favour before You, God, my Rock and Redeemer.
45.
The tzaddik is an aspect of Shabbat, an aspect of the inner point of the circles which are an aspect of the six workdays of the week which themselves are an aspect of the circles around the inner point (See Zohar, Vayakel, 204B). The Evil One overcomes a person and arranges obstacles for him; he doesn't let a Jew come close to the inner point, meaning the tzaddik, from whom everyone draws sustenance. However, all the time that a Jew is within the community of the People of Israel (i.e. he has faith) this is still an aspect of being within the circles and he hasn't gone out of the circles completely; then he still has hope to come close to the inner point, as mentioned.
46.
(a) Every Jew has the power of self-sacrifice, each day. For example, when he gives money to charity, the money is the soul for he gives his soul (in order to earn it) and gives it for G-d's sake (to charity). In other words, he sacrifices his soul. So also in prayer; it says in the Midrash Ha'Ne'elam (Chayei Sarah,124B) that this is an aspect of "for Your sake we kill ourselves all day long" etc. (Psalms,44:23) for one needs to battle a lot with the thoughts, confusions and strategies (of the Evil One) and to flee from them. It comes out that this is self-sacrifice.
(b) All the obstacles that a person faces in the service of G-d, even though it seems to him that the obstacle is very great and it is impossible to break it, the truth is that it is not so, for there is no person who has an obstacle that he cannot break if he really wants to. The Holy One doesn't send to anybody obstacles other than those he has the strength and ability to stand up to; if he wants, to overcome them, as is fitting. If he looks well he will be able to understand that G-d is hidden also there within the obstacle itself, as explained elsewhere. Therefore, there is really no obstacle in the world at all for all the obstacles are only illusions.
(c) The greatest obstacle of all is that caused by the person’s mind. That's to say, when his heart is divided (uncertain) and he does not apply his heart and mind well enough to understand the extent of the significance of the holy thing he wants to do; for example, when he wants to travel to the true tzaddik, and he has many obstacles; if his heart and mind were strong enough regarding the truth that all his vitality and immortality after his death depend entirely on this, for himself and his descendents, certainly no obstacle would prevent him (from traveling to the tzaddik). All the obstacles would be considered in his eyes as nothing in relation to this. But the primary obstacle is that of the mind, meaning that his mind is not strong enough strong to know that on this alone depends all his immortality. And even when he merits to come to the true tzaddik, overcoming all the obstacles that he had against his coming, he may nevertheless have questions about the tzaddik such that his heart is divided- this is the greatest obstacle of all. So also with prayer. In the beginning he faces several obstacles to prayer but afterwards when he overcomes them and comes to pray, his hearty is crooked and he gets all kinds of questions about G-d, Heaven forbid. This obstacle is the biggest of them all. The rectification for this , when he has queries about G-d or about the true tzaddikim, is to shout out to G-d with a strong voice from the depths of the heart.
(d) The main thing is to have a strong and courageous heart. Then he will have no obstacle, especially material obstacles such as those caused by money, or by his wife, his children, father-in- law or father and mother; and certainly not from other people who prevent him, by their words and mockery, from coming close to the truth. Without doubt all this is completely nullified and as nothing to one who strengthens and fortifies his heart in (the service of) G-d.