|
Just saying the words of the prayer at a normal
reading speed it takes about half an hour. Just read it out loud. As the
Sages teach: The heart is drawn after the mouth. Even though there may be
things that you don't feel and even don't agree with or even totally reject -
just read the words! Or not. As you wish. I wrote this
prayer for my brother who has cancer. Based on the copious number of
true-life stories the Rabbi brings in the book of people having absolute miracles
done for them, some of them even immediately after starting doing the half an
hour prayer every day: ailments cured, debts disappearing, court cases
cancelled etc., I promised my brother that if he were to say this prayer
every day, even just for seven days, his cancer will be cured. Well that
didn’t happen, but we live in hope. Just as it says about Miriam, the sister of
Moses when she was struck with leprosy, “Moses prayed to God” and immediately
she was cured. Muslims say Allah for God. This prayer was sponsored by Mark Mazel of
Woodmere.
The Final Prayer Master
of the Universe, I have written this prayer down in order that I should be
able to say it fluently, without having to struggle and think about what to
say next. Basically, the reason I come before You is to say thank you. Thank
You for all the good that You give me and do for me, both since my birth up
until now and also for the good that You do for me every second of my life.
But more importantly, I also want to thank You for all the bad. At least, all
the things that I have perceived up until now as bad, and in particular for
my ill health and all the suffering that I am going through because of it. It would never have occurred to me that I
should have to thank You that I have cancer, for all the anguish and the
problems that it causes me and the distress that even just the treatments
cause my family and I, but it has now been brought to my attention that that
is indeed the case, and I will now read out this prayer that does exactly
that. Please help me to come to pray this prayer
with all my heart and feeling, and most of all with humility. Also, I
understand that it is important for me to speak out everything that is in my
heart clearly and unambiguously, and not just to assume that You know what I
mean! First of all, I fully acknowledge that You
owe me absolutely nothing at all! Not millions of pounds, not success in
business, not many descendants, a Rolls Royce, a Lear Jet, and not even my
good health. I appreciate that internalising this mindset, this awareness
that You are not obligated to me in any way whatsoever is not going to happen
overnight, but I now take upon myself to study, contemplate and pray that I
should come to truly believe it. Furthermore, I understand from so many
teachings of our Sages that You genuinely care for me and love me with an
infinite love, that Your only desire is to bestow
eternal goodness upon me. The fact that You don’t give me everything I desire
is not at all because You don’t care for me, rather that it would not be good
for me to have that particular thing or that the time is not yet right. I also understand that I am required and
obligated to be happy at all times, that I have a duty and responsibility to
You to be only and always happy with my life and everything that happens to
me. I understand that this feeling of entitlement that I have, thinking that really I deserve better, is actually nothing other than an
accusation against You, that if You are not running the world according to my
requirements You obviously got it wrong. I appreciate that so much as the slightest
feeling of sadness or dissatisfaction or even depression on my part is
nothing less than my being angry at You for not running the world properly!
Moreover, to have the slightest feeling that really I deserve more is
basically doing nothing other than accusing You of not fulfilling Your
commitment to me, of cheating me out of my due, in effect, saying that You
are corrupt which would be an impudence, brazenness and ingratitude beyond
belief! If I had a signed contract specifying
exactly what You owe me then I could go ahead and sue You. But I don’t, which
means that I am also not allowed to be sad or bitter about anything that I am
going through, since anything other than accepting everything that happens to
me with happiness is behaving as if I have some kind of claim against You!
And anyway, so often things look good initially but afterwards turn out to be
bad, that also works to the contrary, only time will tell. It happened the
police rounded up a dozen people at random and they were exiled to Siberia.
Back-breaking work in a labour camp in sub-zero temperatures. They didn’t
feel too good about it, and the ones left behind thought they were the
fortunate ones. Until a couple of weeks later the Germans arrived and
massacred every single person in the town, men women and children! So, to conclude this point, not only do You
owe me nothing but I actually owe You very much indeed. Firstly, I owe You an
enormous debt of gratitude for all the myriad acts of kindness that You do
for me. Secondly, I owe You a most emphatic apology for all that I afflict
You in acting against Your will and transgressing Your commandments. Finally,
and most important of all, I am indebted to You for giving me the means and
the ability to do everything that I am able to do! In short, if I were truly to appreciate how
much I owe You and how much You don’t owe me I would never come to be sad or
impatient, disappointed or to complain about anything whatsoever ever again!
Just the very fact that You have given me life, air to breathe, shelter, food
to eat, clothes to wear etc., simply out of Your pure benevolence, without me
being in any way deserving of so many free gifts, is enough reason for me to
spend the rest of my life thanking You! I am forever indebted to You for all
that You give me, and it all comes from Your kindness and generosity, as a
free gift. It is a commandment to remember Your kindness
constantly, “And you shall remember all the journey along which the Lord your
God led you for forty years in the wilderness...Your garment did not wear
out; your feet did not swell.” We are commanded to remember the kindness that
You do for each and every one of us at every moment. Similarly, it is
incumbent upon us to thank You constantly for everything, thank You for this
chair, thank You for this table etc. We are also obliged to thank You for
when it hurts, thank You for this pain I am suffering, please help me to
thank You always for everything, even the bad things! It is written, “Beware
that you do not forget the Lord your God,” please help me not to forget that
everything I have is not due to my own cleverness and ability but rather a
gift from You. It can be so easy to mistake the whole
matter of “cause” and “effect.” A person thinks he lost his money because he
had a hole in his pocket but actually the truth is the opposite. The cause
was Your decree that he should lose his money, and that’s why he had a hole
in his pocket. A person has a bad experience in a certain place and wishes he
hadn’t gone there. In fact, it was You that wanted him to have that
experience which is why You put it into his head to go there. Please help me
to never question Your ways but to always accept everything that is happening
to me with joy. Dear God, please help me to live a life of
absolute faith in You, to believe that everything that happens in my life is
for the very best. I should strive to know You and to be connected to You at
all times. Because of the suffering I am going through because of the cancer
I am troubled in mind and confused as to what I should believe and what not,
so please help me to constantly hold in my head that everything that happens
to me comes directly from You and that it is bestowed upon me by You in Your
great compassion and that also this is for the best. Please help me to feel in my heart a true and
enduring love for You and a sincere gratitude for all that You do for me. It
is tempting to think that I am carrying the whole weight of this cancer on my
own, but it is simply not so, I have to try and fix it in my head that You
are with me at all times. I have so much to thank You for I don’t
even know where to begin. Thank You for the good life you sent me where I
have never lacked for anything. Thank You that I was born into such a family
of good people and that I never suffered any abuse of any kind, but rather
was led by example to lead a righteous, truthful and upright life. Thank You that I was born in a good country
that provides for its citizens all the opportunities to have a prosperous and
peaceful life, adequate healthcare etc. Thank You that I was sent to a good
school that made it possible for me to succeed in attaining various
qualifications that set me up to be able to earn a prosperous living and to
adequately provide for myself and my family. It says in the gemara,
(Psachim 54b) that “There are seven things concealed from a person, and they
are: the day he will die, the day his suffering will come to an end, the
extent of his punishment, what the other person is thinking, the best way to
earn money, when will the Messiah come and when the sinful regime will be
destroyed.” Thank You for opening my eyes to the possibilities, and the
prosperity that I am enjoying with my present enterprise and for the
beautiful apartment it has enabled me to purchase. Thank You for giving me a fully functioning
body, with all my organs and limbs and senses etc. working properly, my arms
and legs, fingers and toes all operating the way they are supposed to, my
heart, brain, liver, lungs, kidneys, various colons, intestines etc. Thank
You that I am able to go to the bathroom successfully etc., all the
phenomena. Thank You that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells, that I
can speak and eat, taste all my food and drink etc. Please help me to bless
You constantly for all the good that You do for me. Thank you for sending me a wonderful,
loving family that worry about me and take care of me and ensure that I have
everything that I need. Please help me never to forget that my wife owes me
nothing at all. Help me to truly appreciate everything that she does for me
and to thank her every time she washes my clothes, prepares my food, washes
the dishes etc. In truth I should be ashamed of myself over so much that she
does for me with so much self-sacrifice and I just take it for granted. If a
complete stranger were to do me a favour I would at the very least say thank
you, even if I could do nothing for him in return, so how much more so should
I appreciate all that my wife does for me. What my life would be like without
her I cannot even imagine. Furthermore, even if someone treats me badly I am still obliged to treat them well since You
teach in Your Torah that such a reaction guarantees one a long and good life.
As Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches: “He who repays evil with good will merit
a long life.” So, whatever anyone does to me, even an attacker or a thief, it
is always in my own best interest to forgive them and treat them well. As
people say: Don’t be right, be wise! Since nothing I have actually belongs to
me, it is all a gift from You, even my own body, I now appreciate that
everything depends upon my own attitude, especially whether I will live my
life in happiness or unhappiness. So even if I think that someone owes me
something, rather than live a life of bitterness and frustration about it, it
is better for me to forgive them since it is acting wisely that brings one to
a happy life. Also, focusing on another person’s qualities rather than their
faults, and regarding them positively can also have a good effect on them!
And also, the greatest acclaim for the Creator is when a soul that was far
away comes closer. As we see when Jethro said, “Now I know that God is
greater than all the other gods.” And the Zohar comments: When Jethro said
that, God’s glory in heaven was greatly increased, and because of that the
Torah was finally given in its entirety, that it may reign over all (Zohar
Shemos, 68a/3). I should also beg You for Your forgiveness
and repent for never having really concentrated on how much good You have
done for me my whole life that I have never thanked You for, and for all the
times that I was miserable and complaining. The Kabbalah teaches that one
receiving from another without the slightest effort on his part is nothing
but a humiliation and disgrace for him, which they refer to as the “bread of
shame.” You created this world in order to lavish upon us Your complete
goodness and give us the merit of being able to earn our bread as a reward
for all our effort and struggle, so that it almost appears as if all the good
that You do for us is in our own merit. Please help me never to forget that You
don’t abandon us for a second and You are constantly by my side, even though
it is up to me to make my own choices. My main task is to know, understand
and believe with complete faith that there is nothing apart from You. You own
everything and everything that happens in my life is through You. Help me to
feel genuinely ashamed before You and to stop all my complaining, even in my
heart, and only then will I be able to accept rebuke, because a person who
never stops complaining is unable to accept the slightest criticism. Most of all, thank You for this sickness
You have sent me. I have absolute and complete faith in You that it is the
best possible thing that could have happened to me at this time and the only
thing that I am truly lacking is that I have not given thanks for it enough!
I don’t even understand myself how I could have so misunderstood the
situation, that I was so sad and miserable about being sick, and not
appreciating that if I was ill it could only be
because You sent me this ailment and that therefore it must be for my own
good. It simply has to be that this is the best thing that could have
happened to me, since You do only what is best for me, since You love me more
than anyone else in the world and You only want to give me perfect good. As
the Sages say, More than the calf wants to nurse the
mother wants to feed her! I cannot believe that I have been so ungrateful and
insensitive to think that You were capable of doing anything bad to me, that
I was actually complaining about You. Please help me to truly repent for my lack
of faith in You, and from now on to put my trust in You completely and only
to give thanks for all my suffering, since in fact it is not a suffering at all
but rather my ultimate salvation. With all this thanks I am giving I am not
giving thanks for sins or physical passions or for bad character traits, only
for the suffering I have. Each person’s soul was created in and descends to
this world from a very exalted place in heaven, and it is not fitting that we
should indulge ourselves in any kind of debased or depraved behaviour.
Sometimes a person has to stop and ask himself, “Is this really the way I
should be behaving?” It is very precious to You when a person controls
himself and refrains from even the tiniest desire! It is true that I have transgressed and not
always succeeded in overcoming my improper desires, and it is known that
negative feelings can actually create bad luck, and vice versa, so please
help me to be always happy and positive and avoid being angry so that I
should always have good luck. Dear God, please help me to totally rejoice
in my suffering, since it is for my eternal good and until I am able to
rejoice in it, I don’t want You to give me anything else at all, or send me
any salvation or cure. I want only one thing, to have absolute faith in You
and to believe that everything is for my own good and to thank You with a
joyful heart. For all that You have given me and for all that You will give
me please help me to be truly grateful and to truly rejoice and to feel Your
love for me and all the goodness You do me. Also please help me to never ever have the
slightest fear from any person, animal or situation but only to always see You
before my eyes and trust in You completely. I should always fear only You and
also not come to believe any heresy of any kind. I’m not talking about the
little stupid heresies like evolution that have been disproven already a
billion different ways and only the brain-dead are still hanging on to them.
I mean even the big ones that both make sense and are convincing and can
actually separate a person from You. Regarding evolution anyone who can see
the endless wisdom, beaty, design and order in the creation is forced to
admit that the theory has failed, and yet people have a blind spot that
prevents them from seeing the obvious, that You created the world. Please
help me never to fall in to this stupidity, rather to recognise You in every
single aspect of the creation. This
next paragraph is not part of the prayer and is taken from the book Mysteries
of the Creation by Rabbi Dovid Brown. “Naturalism
is not something about which Darwinists can afford to be tentative, because
their science is based on it. Proof that Darwinian style evolution has
produced important biological innovations is non-existent. Darwinists are
certain that the mutation-selection mechanism can produce wings, eyes and
brains not because the mechanism can be observed to do anything of the kind,
but because their guiding philosophy assures them that no other power is
available to do the job. The absence from the cosmos of a Creator is
therefore the essential starting point for Darwinism” (Darwin on Trial). “The
theory of natural selection is nothing other than a dish of rank materialism
cleverly cooked up and served, merely to make us independent of a Creator”
(Adam Sedgewick, Darwin’s teacher and close friend). “The
whole theory of evolution is not supported by the slightest proof. It is
simply a religious belief. Not even that, it is nothing but a superstition
based on no evidence whatsoever” (J. Eccles, Nobel prize winner). “The
theory of natural selection is a tautology. It states that the fittest
individuals in a population (defined as those that leave the most offspring)
will leave the most offspring” (C. Waddington). “The
Evolutionists complain that it is absurd to say that there is a God who
created everything out of nothing, and they claim that what actually happened
was that nothing turned itself into everything” (G.K. Chesterton). Please help me to believe in the teaching
of our Sages that the ultimate remedy for all ailments is to accept them with
love. The only true goal is to come closer to You. I want it and I will never
stop wanting it, whether You help me to achieve it or not. I am prepared to
wait as long as it takes but I will never stop wanting it. I want to fill
myself with the belief that You love me and want only my best. Only You know
what is best for me and when I should receive it. There is no evil in the
world and everything that happens to me is in Your hands and according to
Your will. Nothing is decreed by police or judges or assailants or anyone
else. You make all the decisions as to what happens to every person at all
times, there is no other power in the world but You, and everything that You
do is good. Evil absolutely does not exist and if I could only start to give
thanks also for the things I don’t understand how
they could happen and to search to find the way that they are truly in fact
good I would be able to see how everything really will turn out for the best. Thank You for giving me the gift of this
cancer. You are my Father and I am your child and
everything that You do for me is motivated by Your love for me. If I were to
sincerely evaluate all the good You have given me up until now, I would be
completely ashamed to ask for anything more, especially I would not ask to be
cured! That would be simply ungrateful and negate all that You have done for
me. Thank You for this wonderful world that You
created for me, to serve me and help me to achieve my goal in this life, and
also for all the emissaries You send me to interact with me in my life in all
the different ways to benefit me. Thank You for sending me a wonderful,
beautiful wife who takes such good care of me and whose only intention is
that I should have the best life possible. Thank You for giving me a heart and a brain
and the strength to do good, to serve You, to believe in You, to keep Your
commandments, to have good character traits and to praise and extol You. For
everything that I am and do is only because of Your help and by Your power.
Thank You for all the times You help me to overcome my evil inclination and
to turn away from evil and for every success I achieve in Divine service. Please help me to believe in You with an
absolute faith and to discard all my understanding and logic when it
contradicts that. I know it doesn’t make any sense logically to thank You for
having cancer, but having genuine faith in You requires me to do exactly
that. Having faith means that I must see You before my eyes at all times, as
the creator of the world, who supervises all that happens and does kindness
to all people at all times. What that kindness looks like from the point of
view of logic is hard to justify but only because all that You do is far
beyond the level of our understanding. Please help me to step out of the world of
logic and enter the world of faith. How it can be that having cancer is a bad
thing and having cancer is a good thing is only according to which world you
are in. Logically it’s bad, but in the world of faith, believing in You and
knowing it’s from You, then it becomes good. To say that having cancer is bad
is true, it is obviously right, but I didn’t come into the world to be right.
You sent me here in order that I should believe in You, which results in
having to accept that bad is actually good! So, what is the point of all this
gratitude? The answer is that giving thanks is what brings one to faith, to
believe in You. It is impossible to give thanks for suffering, so failing to
give thanks means that I am still stuck in the world of logic and I am unable
to see all the miracles and wonders that You are constantly doing for me. By
giving thanks, even if I don’t do it wholeheartedly at first, I am slowly
going to leave this world of human logic and darkness and ascend to the world
where everything is light and compassion. Questions only apply to this world,
but there are no answers, however in the world of faith there are no
questions. In the world of logic there is only nature and
everything happens by chance, but in the world of faith there is only You and
everything happens exactly as You dictate. In the world of logic
I am controlled by the doctors and according to the laws of nature they are
right, but in the world of faith everything that they say is cancelled. Being
sad and miserable and not giving thanks confines me to the world of logic,
but giving thanks even without understanding transports me to the world of
faith where all the natural laws are annulled and miracles happen. Truly we
are literally incapable of understanding what is good and what is not good Dear God, please help me to believe that
all this gratitude I am expressing here is not in order that I should be
cured. Rather it is to bring me to a level of complete faith in You.
Certainly, I would very much like to put this whole episode behind me, but
what is far more important is my connection to You, since that is something I need now and always. You owe me nothing and
everything You do for me is only for my own good, and I have to believe that
this attitude applies also to my cancer, that You sent it to me for my own
good and You will take it away when the time is right. My mission at this
time is not to entreat You for a cure but only that You should help me attain
perfect faith in You. Thank You for the downfalls and failures
and the stumbling and difficulties I have and for the times I feel sad and
bitter. I believe that all that happens is designed in a precise manner and
sent to me specifically to bring me closer to You. I have so much to thank
You for, all the times that You helped me and saved me and rescued and
protected and supported me. All the times that You cheered me up and
encouraged and strengthened me. Thank You for always listening to me and accepting
my prayers. Master of the universe, it is
known and revealed before You that I do not have the spiritual awareness to
understand and see that all that You do with me is for my own good. Still, I
ask Your forgiveness for having questioned Your decisions and for not having
valued Your actions and for having become sad and for having complained,
instead of rejoicing and thanking You. I ask Your forgiveness for all the
times I was not satisfied and for all the regrets and self-pity, and also for
not having appreciated all that You have given me. Please help me to become a
truly humble person, to never take anything that You give me for granted and
to never become angry with anyone and to not harbor any complaints in my
heart against anyone. Even people who argue against me, I should not be strict with them or irritated by
them. Quite the contrary, I should be happy about their success and sad about
their sorrows. I should pray for them that no bad should happen to them
because of their opposing me. Please help me to fulfil the verse, “My
soul should be like dust to everyone,” and I should be silent to those that
curse me. The Sages teach that there are four types of reaction to frustration,
and the highest one is the person who is hard to anger and quickly appeased.
They ask, What about a person who doesn’t get angry
at all, isn’t that a higher level? They answer, Such
a person doesn’t exist! You didn’t create us to be angels, we all have bad
character traits and inclinations and desires and it is our task to try to
improve ourselves. Please help me to
overcome any improper desires I have and to stay away from bad friends and
influences. I should go beyond my nature in serving You and then You will
alter the rules of nature to help me. Please help me to constantly keep that in
mind and always try to improve myself. I should have endless patience for
every person and situation and to always avoid becoming angry. To always
respond with soft words and not feel bitter, even in my heart. Becoming
nervous or anxious or upset is a sure sign that I do not have sufficient
faith and belief that everything is from You. Even when people do good for me
or bad to me it is not them doing it, it is only You putting such thoughts
and desires into their hearts to behave in such a fashion. One who truly
believes that You created all the worlds and universes and Milky Ways and us
to inhabit them and to serve You, to such a person all situations are the
same. The Sages teach that the first question we
will be asked when we come to the next world is “Did you trade with faith?”
The simple meaning of this question is whether every material business one
did was done with faith, that is, with honesty and integrity, without lying
or deceiving anyone. But this question can also be interpreted to mean did
one trade in this world by giving and receiving faith. Please help me to
achieve maximum faith in You and also to pass it on to others. If it is Your
will that I should suffer and be in pain then I will be content with the pain.
Not only that, I will try to say thank You and to actually be happy with
every pain and to publicise my happiness! There is a teaching of the
Sages that, “If one loses a silver
coin, he should praise God as though he had found a silver coin. And if he loses
two silver coins, he should be happy as though he had found two silver coins.
The same goes for every bad thing that happens to a person; he should think
that the bad is good, because the extent of the good is in accordance with
the extent of the bad.” This means that when things seem very bad, it is Your
kindness coming down to us to an even greater extent. Please help me to
internalise this teaching and truly believe it. Please help me to give thanks even for
being able to repent for anything I might have done wrong, to forsake all my
arrogance and my feeling of entitlement that everyone owes me everything. I
should cultivate the trait of humility and never become haughty, as it is
written, “A contrite heart God does not despise.” At the very least I should
stop all my lamenting and complaining. The all-important point here is that I
should strengthen my faith and belief in You, and to be always happy. Not
only because You want me to be happy but also because it is actually
healthier and conducive to a better and longer life to be happy! And by happiness I don’t mean more
possessions and better food and entertainment and places to go, I mean simply
understanding how lucky I am to have what I have! I mean to be happy without
all the superfluous things in life which only make one yearn for more, rather
to have a genuine satisfaction even from the simple things, from what I
already possess. As it is said, Who is a rich man?
The man who learns to be happy with what he has, and doesn’t yearn for more
or different or better, and especially not for extras and luxuries,
travelling etc.! Similarly, by happiness I don’t mean foolishness and
light-headedness, frivolity and stupidity. I mean a genuine happiness in You.
Also, now that I am saying this prayer, please
help me to not start to get the feeling that You are now obliged to help me,
to send me my salvation. Since I am now praying for half an hour every day
You are obliged to help me. The very essence of gratitude is to feel that I
deserve nothing and that everything is pure kindness from You and it is for
that that I give thanks. You owe me
nothing and I don’t deserve anything and I just want to accept with total
gratitude and praise every single thing I receive. I just want to thank You
for everything that I have and for everything that I lack, since the only
true purpose of everything is to come closer to You. Dear God, please never put me to the test
of wealth. So many people fall down from this test, they get given large
amounts of money and don’t use it properly. All these program makers, social
media owners, hedge fund managers, vaccine manufacturers etc., they all
become multi-billionaires and then all they do is hog all this money that You
have sent them to themselves. It’s like the waiter bringing a tray piled high
with food for all the diners and plonking it down in front of one of them. Is
he supposed to eat the whole lot himself or distribute it to everyone?
Anyway, there are people that have ten mansions all over the world, but no
happiness or peace of mind! Please help me to bear in mind at all times
that everything I am and have is from You and it is
all in order for me to strive to have complete faith in You. Not to enjoy it
all myself and not share it out to those that need it. If I am successful,
and even if I am not successful, any thoughts that come into my head that I
am such a success or such a failure are nothing but heresy. Even the things
that You didn’t give me are also for the best for me. Am I in pain? Then I
thank You for the pain, for all my suffering. What really hurts me is that I
don’t give thanks to You for everything, that I don’t have sufficient faith
in You. It hurts me that I don’t believe that everything that happens to me
is directed to me from You and that it is for the best. If my livelihood is
insufficient, thank You. If I am not in good health, thank You. I just want
to have perfect faith in You and to be always joyful and to give thanks
wholeheartedly. This is the secret of having a good life, that everything is good,
therefore I will always be happy and as a result I will live my life in total
contentment. Simply by actually “living” gratitude and belief in You I am
absolutely guaranteed a good life. Please help me to internalise that the
world, all the universes, everything that You created was solely for our
actions and behaviour. We should recognise that You are the owner of
everything and You want us to be aware of all the goodness and kindness that
You do for us and to thank You and praise You at all times. I am required to
put my strength and effort into making a living and taking care of business,
but I am equally required to believe that the end result is all from You and
depends upon Your compassion. You give us life, air to breathe, rain, sun,
water, everything that we need. All we are required to do is to recognise
that it is all from You and to be thankful. This requirement that is
imperative upon us, to give thanks to You, is actually an essential part of
the creation and it is incumbent upon us not only to give thanks to You for
all the good that You do for us, but also for all the good that You have ever
done for us, all the previous kindness and miracles that You did for us up
until now. I hereby accept upon myself to try my very
best to live my life joyfully. Not only because it’s no fun at all being
miserable and sad, but also because being sad is actually a very great sin,
there is no “permission” to be sad. Even a person who commits a very great
sin is forbidden to be sad. Who gave him permission to be sad? Because he did
something wrong does that mean he should now commit an even worse sin and be
sad about it? Certainly, he should regret it and be repentant, but then he
should return to a state of happiness. Being sorry you did something wrong does
not bring you closer to God, actually it distances you from Him. He should
repent and say sorry, and then remind himself of all the good that he has
done and that You have done for him and, as people say – a child works
himself up into a rage, he should work himself up into a happy! The most
important part of repentance is confession. One must confess every detail of
every single fault to You. Please help me to be constantly in contact with
You, to speak to You just like a child speaks to his father, to say sorry, to
say thank You, to pour out my heart to You at all times and hold myself on
the right track of being bonded to You and never to get lost from You,
especially when I don’t even realise that I am lost. Please help me to truly believe that my
praising and thanking You brings You great happiness, even when I am
suffering so much that I myself don’t even feel a connection to the words I
am saying. I certainly have no doubt that You are fair and just in all that
You do for me. As the philosopher said, or should have said: I believe
therefore I am. Also please help me to never speak the slightest word of
heresy, even in jest, since that can have a detrimental effect on my soul.
Life is not always easy, I see people around me who suffer physical and
mental problems, anxiety and panic attacks, people who fall into physical
passions and addictions simply because they were never prepared in order to
be able to face the difficulties, disappointments and crises that inevitably
crop up in life. Please help me to strengthen my soul in my faith in You that
no contact with people or circumstances can ever diminish my belief. Please help me to pray this prayer to You
with conviction and vitality and to discard all my sadness and laziness and
heaviness. To pray it every day with a renewed vigour, as if I had never said
it before. It is so easy to forget You and fall into despair, to forget that
just as You have kept me alive until today, I have to believe that You will
never abandon me. I should constantly notice and pay particular attention
always and only to the kindness You are doing for me and not to that which I
am lacking or suffering. My whole goal here is to raise myself up to a
spiritual level that I will thank You for absolutely everything that happens
to me. Thank You that I am in a sound position financially but even if I were
in debt I would praise You and thank You every day
for my debts. If I were to fail to achieve the position at work that I aspire
to or not get the job I was hoping for I would thank You and praise You for
that. Please help me to remember You throughout
the day and speak my heart out to You about everything. One time Rabbi
Nachman noticed that his student Nasan was missing a button on his coat. He
asked him, “Nasan, did you pray to God for a new button?” The student didn’t
answer, thinking, Am I going to ask God for something so insignificant? The
Rabbi asked him, “Is it beneath your dignity to pray for a button?” This is
the level that I am hoping to achieve, to tell You everything that is in my
heart and in my thoughts. To thank You for everything from the bottom of my
heart and not just as a lip-service, to express my deepest gratitude and
faith in You. It is known that Your only purpose in
creating the world was in order to bestow goodness and reveal Your compassion
to us, so that we should understand and believe in You. Because if we don’t believe this then what
do we believe? Is it possible that You created the world in order to abuse
us, that You hate us and are cruel to us and leave us in the hands of
destiny? Obviously not! If we don’t believe in Your compassion and kindness
then we don’t believe in You at all. By thinking we are entitled to anything
what we are actually doing is inventing an imaginary creator who is obliged
to fulfil all our desires. By being sad or disappointed that is exactly what
we are saying and doing. We have a duty to love You and no one can love You
if he feels that You owe him. Only by appreciating that all that we have is a
kindness from You can we then feel Your love for us and love You in return.
And anyway, who are we to declare that what You have done is right or wrong?
Only by living a life of faith in You can we achieve a truly happy life and
receive all salvation. Dear God, please help me to judge all
people favourably and not to be strict with anyone at all, not even in my
thoughts. Help me to believe that no one can do anything to me at all,
neither good or bad, unless You have decreed it. I shouldn’t condemn anyone
as guilty but rather judge all people positively. Please help me, even as the traffic
policeman is looking through his book deciding which ticket to give me, to
pray to You and say thank You for giving me this ticket. Even if, God forbid,
I should find myself in court expecting to be found guilty, and especially if
I am already in jail, I should simply pray to You and say thank You for all
that I am going through. Please help me to always accept all problems and
difficulties with love and sincere thanks. Please help me to accustom myself to give
thanks to You with genuine enthusiasm for absolutely everything that has
happened and is happening in my life. To give thanks for every single
kindness You have done for me, both material and spiritual, to ascribe such
value to each and every little thing that I would be ashamed to ask for
anything more. A person who constantly gives thanks is a happy person with an
optimistic attitude to life. Nobody likes being around pessimistic people who
are always moaning and complaining and see everything as black. It is
depressing just having to deal with such people. Everything depends on speech. The way a
person speaks is his inside coming out. Being frustrated and negative is the
surest way of being found repulsive by everyone you know. Also, it is now
well established the connection between being happy and positive and having
good health. Simply by being joyful the immune system is strengthened and the
body is better able to resist and even cure disease, viruses and all other
sicknesses. Faith depends on gratitude and gratitude, and also good health,
depends on joy! Help me to say thank You and to always be happy. Nothing else
makes it. Conversely, any complaining is actually
eating away at my very vitality. Mostly any speech that is not gratitude is
complaining – jokes, politics, stock exchange, etc. Basically, any speech
that is not praising You is complaining. Complaining is nothing but blaming
You, and is a tremendous impudence and actual heresy. Even listening to
someone else complaining is harmful. All complaining poisons both the
complainer and the listener, please help me to stay far away from both of
them. The wife and eleven children of Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam were
murdered in the holocaust. He himself survived the ghettos, the cattle
trucks, the death marches and the concentration camps and yet he maintained
constantly that there was no power in the world other than You. He would
stand before the SS guards and totally ignore them, even praying out loud as
they were beating him mercilessly. Despite enduring all the German tortures,
he continued to inspire and encourage his fellow Jews to believe only in You,
to see You before their eyes constantly, and never to complain about the
suffering they were going through. The most important thing for me to fix in
my head is that I have to be always happy. Someone humiliates or insults me –
I can’t get out of bed for three days! Everyone suffers being disgraced and
shamed occasionally, and anyway it is the nature of a person to be sad.
Please help me to fight against all types of depression and sadness. Help me
to pray this prayer every day for the rest of my life, or any other prayer
for that matter. Just to spend half an hour a day talking to You. Rabbi Nachman put
it like this, “Prayer to God builds a conduit between us and Him. The more
you pray the larger the pipe you create through which God will be able to
send you all the blessings, peace of mind and salvation that you require.” The more I connect myself to
You the better quality of life I will have. I should be able to accept
suffering and disturbing memories the same way that I accept joyous news and
plenty. There are people that have no food to eat, no home, people that are
born impaired or that suffer damage during their life, either through
accident or attack or some other means. People contract cancer and other
diseases and physical complications, whether life-threatening or not. People
who lost a child or close family member or friend. Whatever happens to me
please help me to thank You for all that I am going through. Help me to spell
it all out in my prayer; what happened and what I am going through, every
detail, and thank You for it all. I should specify detail by detail and say a
separate thank you for each one! I should always have the presence of mind
not to forget, and to believe all that is happening to me is sent to me
directly from You and that it is all for my eternal good. Like I said, this prayer was
written for my brother who has cancer. Your life circumstances and present
situation are certainly different to his. He grew up in England and had a
great life. You might have grown up in the Congo working as a slave down a mine.
So give thanks for that. You might have been abused
as a child or suffered attack. So give thanks for
that. Speak out the details. Say – Thank You that I was abused as a child.
Thank You for all the suffering and humiliation I went through and all the pain.
Thank You for the nightmares and all the trauma I suffered and still suffer.
The only important thing is to give thanks for half an hour every day. Use
this prayer, edit it and make it all about you, or write your own. Just write
it in this style, giving thanks. Also, forgive the person who attacked you.
This is the best way to bring a completion to the whole episode. And who knows? Perhaps in your
previous incarnation it was you who cruelly abused and tortured them, and
according to the laws of heavenly justice you should have been sentenced to a
billion years in hell. So God had mercy on you and
sent you back here together, and put it into this person’s head to abuse or
attack you, and thereby cancelled all the strict judgements on you! We have absolutely no
understanding of why God does the things He does to us, we just have to
believe that it is all for the best. He knows us far far
better than we know ourselves, He knows everything that we went through in
all our previous incarnations and what will be with us in the future. He
loves us, and all that happens to us is for our own good. The only cure for
everything is to be happy. Like I said – Work yourself up into a happy! Sing
a lot, dance a lot, laugh a lot, give thanks for everything – be happy! Also, teach it to your
children. They also have to learn how to give thanks, and get used to giving
thanks for everything. They also need to learn to have faith in God. They
also sometimes need salvation. The Rabbi speaks in the book about children
who were bullied or had no friends or suffered in some other way. They
started giving thanks for it and it all came to an end. They also have to
learn and to speak it out, God loves me, God takes care of me, God is proud
of me. This is as important if not more important than any other aspect of
their education, but it needs a lot of work and constant, even daily
reminding. Finally, first of all, Rabbi
Nachman of Breslov said that the Messiah wouldn’t come until the whole world
was full of his teachings. This prayer is full of Rabbi Nachman’s teachings.
Secondly, I am not publishing this prayer for my own profit or glory, rather
to increase the glory of God in the world and to help raise up the Shechinah
from the dust. Therefore, I hereby relinquish all my Intellectual Property
Rights to the prayer and declare it ownerless. Please feel free to post it on
your own website, post it on your fridge, post it to a friend...let’s just
get it out there! In answer to the question: Can I pray for
someone else? Here is an excerpt from the book “The Wonders of Gratitude” by
Rabbi Shalom Arush. "At the end of a lecture,
I was approached by a man who told me about a young woman in her early
twenties who had been a normal girl, who suddenly began to suffer from
increasingly severe mental problems. Her parents had consulted with
specialists and rabbis and had prayed for her at the graves of Tzaddikim,
but, in spite of everything, the situation went from bad to worse, to such an
extent that the young woman was committed against her will to a psychiatric
hospital. The parents were desperate and didn’t know what to do, but God had
mercy on them, seeing their suffering and someone gave the mother a copy of
my book The Garden of Gratitude. The mother read the book and started spending
a half an hour every day speaking out her gratitude for all the suffering she
was going through because of her daughter's illness. She stopped blaming
herself and her daughter because she understood through her faith that this
was something that God had sent her, and she accepted it with love, giving
thanks for it. As if by magic, after a month, the young girl was completely
cured and was released from the psychiatric hospital. This story teaches us
something very important: people who heard this story asked me if the girl
was cured because the mother said thank You. I told them yes. In practically
all cases, suffering is not limited to the sick person alone but extends to
all those around them. In Heaven it was decreed that a certain number of people
must suffer. And when several people who are related to each other suffer, if
one of them accepts the suffering with love, immediately the bad decree is
annulled for all of them, because the moment one of them rectified what he
needed to, he no longer needs to continue suffering and then the suffering
ceases for all of them. When the mother of this young girl accepted the
suffering with love and gave thanks for it, the problem ended, both for her
and for her daughter. This teaches us an important
lesson: that every suffering that a person goes through involves suffering
also for other people. Therefore, it is enough if only one of those people
give thanks for the suffering to bring salvation and healing to all.” The Rabbi is answering the
question, Can one person pray for another, but
obviously it is much better if the sick person prays for themself. As it says
by Hagar that when she saw her son was dying “She raised her voice and wept.”
But that didn’t help, so obviously the child decided to pray for himself,
since next it says, “Then God heard the voice of the lad.” It was his prayer
that made the difference! A sick person prays from the depths of his heart because
he feels his distress with all his heart, and such a prayer will always be
answered! Copyright © 2021 Breslov Institutions,
Yeshivat "Shuvu Bonim",
|