46.
Master of the World, full of compassion, who loves his Nation, Israel. You know how great and numerous the obstacles are that prevent us from the path of eternal life. They stand against us, each and every one of us in particular, like walls of iron, like flooding streams, like rivers of fire which surround us from all sides. Because of the multiplicity of obstacles we’ve become distanced from You, as we are now. But in Your bountiful mercy, You informed us that you also are hidden within the obstacles, because of Your great lover for all Your Nation, Israel. He who has sense can approach within the darkness of the cloud and mist, within the force and power of the obstacles, and find the Holy One there. For there, within the obstacle itself, the Holy One is hidden and concealed! But what will I do for I lack sense? Because of my lack of perception I’ve been standing far away for some time now. I don’t strengthen myself to come closer to You because of the many obstacles that separate me from You like real walls. The truth is that I know a little and I believe with perfect faith that I have the ability to break these obstacles and nullify them, for, in truth, they are not barriers at all! However, even so they overcome me and spread out before me such that I don’t know how to break them or nullify them.
Therefore I’ve come before You, who are full of compassion, who graces man with perception, to ask that You show me, teach me and inform me of perception, understanding and wisdom, of real intelligence and true advice at all times, in such a way that I merit to really come closer to You than I am now. Let me pass over and jump over all the obstacles that stand before me. Let me merit to know and really believe that all the obstacles are only a trick of the eyes and an illusion, and that he who strengthens his will and faces them with great desire and a strong will to come close to the Holy One will nullify them completely as a result. May I nullify and break all the obstacles in the world, whether those which come from other people or those stemming from the cravings of my materialistic body, or all the different obstacles in the world that prevent us from the path of holiness, from the path of truth. May I merit to break, nullify and drive them all out by Your giving my heart the strength and courage to conquer my evil desire. Let me strengthen my heart with great boldness and great encouragement to stand against them. May I not dread or fear them at all and may I merit to win the war without being harmed.
Have mercy upon me, redeem me and save me from the obstacles stemming from the mind. These are all the questions, doubts and confusions that make the mind question the tzaddikim and kosher people in the generation, or to question your attributes, Heaven forbid. These obstacles of the mind are bigger than all the obstacles in the world. Yet he whose mind and hearts are strong with perfect belief in God and in true tzaddikim, no obstacle in the world can stop him. However, when one’s mind and heart are separated from the Holy One and from tzaddikim, Heaven forbid, and questions arise in the heart against them, then these obstacles are the hardest of all. Therefore I’ve come to shout, cry out and call to You, for I have no hope to escape from them other than by calling out to You. Help me, redeem me, save me and rescue me from all sorts of questions, doubts, confusions and obstacles of the mind so that I won’t take notice of them at all and so that they won’t come again at all to my heart, mind or brain. Rather, may I merit to always know and believe in the truth, to have a perfect faith which is strong and proper, without any doubt or confusion or tendency to stray at all, until I merit to become strong and overcome all the obstacles and physical barriers from other people or from the cravings of the body. Let me strengthen myself and be bold to stand against all of them, to enter the real paths of the Lord and to come close to You and to tzaddikim and really kosher people. May I serve You with truth, fear and love, turning away from evil and doing good, and let me very quickly start and finish all the things connected with holiness which are really You desire. Have mercy upon me at all times whenever any questions or doubts come to my heart causing me to cry out and to call to You from the depths of my heart, with a strong voice so that, in Your bountiful mercy, You will answer me immediately. I will cry out and you will answer ‘here I am.’ I have no one to rely upon to help me stand against all the obstacles other than You, our Father in Heaven. Upon you alone I rely, on Your great loving-kindness I trust, that you will show me and teach me how to overcome, how to enter into the thick of the force of the obstacles and to come close to You by virtue of the obstacles themselves. In them the Holy One Himself is hidden, for his greatness has no bounds and His thoughts are very profound. All that You cause to happen to a man, even those things which seem to be obstacles and delays upon the path of holiness, every one is for the good and is a wonderful salvation.
Have mercy upon us, show us, strengthen us, encourage us. Grant me and all Israel strength and courage in the heart, given from Heaven, so that from now on I won’t dread or fear anything in the world. Let me rather be like a warrior ready for war at all times, without any fear of any craving or any thought or any confusion, unafraid of any person or anything at all in the world such that I need to be saved from or to escape from. Let me never return to my folly nor cause any blemish at all, whether by thought, speech or deed, or whether by the power of sight or any of the other senses. Strengthen me and encourage me to skip over all the obstacles, to break and nullify them all, so I can really enter into the into the realm of holiness and begin from now on to really and truly come closer to You, as is Your good desire.
My father in Heaven, have mercy upon me and in mercy, fulfill all my wishes, for I have no hope other than in prayer and supplications and in the great strength of the true tzaddikim. That which is good in Your eyes do to me and for me. Have mercy upon me for Your Name’s sake. Don’t desert me. Don’t leave me. Help me and save me, You who are full of compassion. Please make it be that I walk in Your statues and keep Your commandments from now and forever. Answer us, for we are in dire straits in this bitter exile of which the main thing is the exile of the soul caused by the cravings of the body, confusions of the mind and the many obstacles from other people. All of them have become habitual. They’ve come up to our necks in order to prevent us, Heaven forbid, from the path of life. Grant us real wisdom, understanding and perception in such a way that we merit to stand against them all, without glancing at them at all! Help us to really come close to holiness, to always find You within the very midst of the force of the obstacles, for in Your bountiful mercy and great love of Your nation, the House of Israel, You are hidden and concealed within these obstacles. Help us to always find You within the thick of the concealment and the obstacles. May the words of my mouth and the contemplation of my heart find grace before You O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen and Amen.
47.
It is a great danger to say over words of Torah. On needs a very great effort and great skill to be able to measure one's words exactly in such a way that no-one will hear anything other than what he needs and no more. For when a person hears more than what his mind and understanding can grasp, the husks draw sustenance from this (see inside). The true tzaddik has great fear when he says over Torah, greater than the fear of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
48.
(a) A person needs very great encouragement so as not to become discouraged , Heaven forbid, when he sees that many days and years have passed and he has struggled making great efforts, shouting out each time, pleading and praying to G-d, asking to be helped in the service of G-d, yet he still remains very far away and therefore it seems to him as though G-d does not want him at all. Against all this he needs great encouragement to strengthen himself a lot so as not to look at all this at all, for all this occurred also to the true tzaddikim. And if they had not strengthened themselves a lot to ignore all this, they would have remained in their original place (their previous spiritual level) and would not have attained all that they did. Therefore, my dear brother, strengthen and encourage yourself a lot. Hold on with all your strength to remain persistent in your service of G-d. Don't worry and don't take any notice at all of all this, as mentioned.
(b) If you are very, very far away from G-d and it seems to you that you really blemish every moment against Him, contrary to this, know on the other hand that a person like this who is so gross, every single movement that he takes to cut himself off, slowly and surely, from his grossness, thus turning to G-d, is considered very great and precious indeed. Even a very small step in which he cuts himself off from this grossness in order to come close to the Holy One is like him running thousands of miles in the Worlds Above. About this he should be very happy. He should distance himself from sadness a great deal, for sadness does a lot of damage.
(c) As soon as a person wants to enter the service of G-d, then immediately it becomes a great sin for him to feel sad, Heaven forbid, for sadness is the Other Side (the power of evil) and the Holy One hates it. (Editor's note: See Torah 24. "It is a great mitzvah to always be happy. For just as sadness is a great sin, so also, to the contrary, happiness is a great mitzvah. Fortunate is the one who merits to always be happy; for it is a cure for a person both physically and spiritually.).
(d) A person has to be very stubborn in the service of G-d without easing off even a little from his service of G-d that he started, no matter what happens to him. Remember this very well, for when you start a little in the service of G-d you will need this advice a lot. It is a necessity for a person to experience countless ups and downs. Sometimes he is deliberately made to fall from the service of G-d. For all of this he needs great encouragement to sustain himself in the service of G-d just by means of stubborn determination. One needs very, very great determination with this.
(e) Sometimes a person is already at the entranceway of holiness but he retreats because the Other Side and the Evil One overcome him then with very great and awesome power, Heaven preserve us. They don't let him to go through the entranceway. Because of this he loses spirit and retreats completely, Heaven forbid. That is the way of the Evil One and the Other Side; when they see that a Jew is really close to the gates of holiness and is about to enter, then, specifically, they attack him with great strength, Heaven save us. Therefore, he then needs tremendous encouragement to stand up against them, remaining in his place without paying any attention to the falls and downs that occur to him. Rather, he needs to do what he can in the service of G-d. Eventually, with the passage of days and years he will enter with certainty the gates of holiness, with G-d's help, for the Holy One is full of mercy and greatly wants our service. Know that all the movements and steps that you take to cut yourself off each time, even a little, from your grossness for the sake of serving G-d, they all gather, join and connect together and come to your assistance when you need it, that's to say, when, Heaven forbid, there is distress or a time of trouble, materially and also spiritually, during the midst of the strong attack of the Evil One, Heaven save us.
(f) Know that there is a tree upon which leaves grow that each leaf needs to grow for a hundred years. And presumably during these hundred years, certainly a lot occurs to it, yet, even so, afterwards, at the end of the hundred years, the tree fires off with a great noise like a cannon. The moral lesson derived from this metaphor is obvious.
(g) And know – a person has to cross a very narrow bridge in This World. And the main thing is not to become afraid at all. A person has to strengthen himself and make himself happy a lot whether it is by finding in himself some merit or good point. For how is it possible that he hasn't performed some good during his life. Or similarly, he should make himself happy by remembering that he wasn't created a gentile. Also he should dance and jump in order to become happy until, by this, he merits to repent and then all his intentional sins will turn into meritorious deeds (see Yoma 86B).