A Prayer written by HaRav Eliezer Berland, shlit"a, for Purim.

Click here to listen to a (very old, very slow and very Ashkenazic) reading of the Megilla. (Unfortunately with a few words missing in two places.)
(Here are the chapter times: 2 - 8:32, 3 - 18:23, 4 - 24:53, 5 - 30:03, 6 - 35:00, 7 - 40:20, 8 - 44:30, 9 - 52:14, 10 - 62:24)

1.   May it be Your Will, Hashem our G-d and the G-d of our forefathers, Who does miracles in every generation, “Who fights our battles” that, in Your endless compassion, You will have mercy on us and save us in an amazing way. Help us so that we will be worthy to receive the holy days of Purim and to fulfill all their holy commandments in a pure and holy manner, joyfully and with the most powerful delight. Help us to fulfill all of the commandments that apply to Purim in all their detail, with proper intention, and a consciousness of how all the other six hundred and thirteen commandments relate to them. 
2.   Master of the Universe, You revealed to us that all the miracles that You did for our ancestors in the past shine continuously into the present. They can brighten every generation and every person’s every living moment. Help us so that we will be able to experience the light and sanctity of Purim, and all the festivals. Give us the power to feel the illumination of the miracles that were done then and to feel how they are constantly performed anew for each and every one of us. 
3.   That is why I have come before You in prayer, Hashem. Teach me, show me the way, grant me this undeserved gift and make me feel true Purim joy, an endless joy that I feel with all my heart and soul. And with this joy, may I, together with the rest of the Jewish people, become worthy of the purity that the Red Heifer brings upon us, a cleansing from the impurity of contact with the dead. Help us to draw this purity upon ourselves through true Purim joy, so that we will be pure in time to receive the holiness of the Pesach sacrifice. 
4.   Master of the Universe, You know how deep we have fallen in this bitter exile and how intense the spiritual pain of the Jewish people really is—especially my pain and trouble. You know how I am drowning and how I am pursued, and how I feel that there is no way out or any hope. Hashem, I need You to do miracles for me. You have always done wonders for the Jewish people, especially the greatest miracle which is the miracle of Purim. It used to be that all beginnings were from Pesach, but now—but now they are from Purim. Help me to make new beginnings now. 
5.   Master of the Universe, You know the truth—that of all the miracles that You performed for us throughout history, the greatest one is when You rescue us spiritually. For all of the pain that we suffer at the hands of those who persecute us is rooted in their resentment of our faith in You. They hate that we long to follow Your holy Torah and to publicize the truth of Your Providence and rule in the world. It is only because of this that, in every generation, they stand against us to destroy us, but You save us from their hands. 
6.   Master of the Universe, Lord of joy, the only G-d, what an awesome hour this is! It is like Yom HaKippurim, when the Shechinah enters the King’s inner sanctum to beg for mercy for a threatened Jewish people. We are on the verge of being utterly destroyed. The entire world knows it, and no one opens their mouths in protest. But, on this day, the Shechinah dons her white garments and enters the place that she enters. It is a place where no angel or heavenly accuser may enter. The Satan himself fears coming near to that holy place. A day when the impure husk of Haman-Amalek has no power. It is a day of joy and happiness in all the worlds, a day when all souls return to a state of primeval perfection. A day on which there is no depression—no sighing! On Purim, we can strip off the garments of pride that are the cast-off remnants from the Snake, and go out into the streets singing and dancing. It is a day when everything superficial is transformed into its true inner meaning, when all the worlds receive light from the fiftieth gate. The material is changed into the spiritual, on this day which is the root of all holiness and joy. It is a day that is the source of all miracles, a day of receiving the Torah again out of love. I beg of You, on this day bring me into the realm of constant joy. Allow me to bask in its light all year long, to feel true happiness in You and Your true Tzaddikim. Help me feel this joy that can give me the strength to break out of all my sins and defects, from all my failures and despair, so that I will never fall into them again. I beg of You, Hashem, make me worthy of spontaneous prayer so joy filled that it will make me want to sing and dance. Make me able to say the kind of Tikkun Chatzos that is like David’s harp, an outpouring of my heart that stems from intense joy. Help me to get up and say it at midnight—when all the heavenly gates are open and nothing can obstruct my prayer. 
7.   Master of the Universe, please shower upon us the highest level of heavenly awe on this holy day that is like Yom HaKippurim. On this day, You stretch Your golden scepter out to us, and shower heavenly awe upon us; this itself is the spiritual source of all the gold. And through this awe, please make me worthy of subduing the forces of impurity. Oh G-d, full of mercy and compassion, make us worthy of getting up every night at midnight, the hour which was the beginning of Haman’s downfall, so that we will be fit to receive the gift of awe, the awe that the Tzaddikim feel. Open up for us then Your treasury, from which all gold and holy wealth comes. Sustain us, so that we should no longer be in debt, and that we should not have to run around in circles chasing after our livelihoods. And when the Tablets become revealed on this holy day, help us to come to holy understanding. Send an abundance of holy wealth down to us from the place that the Shechinah , which is Knesses Yisrael, enters. It is a place where no one dares to come and make an accusation against the Jewish people. It is the place of the holy Tablets, the foundation stone from where the holy Torah is drawn out to everyone in accordance with his pleas and his preparations. “They give to anyone who stretches forth his hand.” It is the place from which we receive the Tablets that are Torah, and the sapphire shavings of the Tablets that are wealth. 
8.   I beg of You, Hashem! I will cry to You with every fiber of my being, with every wish of my heart and all my senses. I shudder from fear of You, and I am afraid of Your judgments. You are dreaded in the council of the angels, and revered by those who surround You. I am confounded before You. I will contemplate and fear You. 
9.   Please, Almighty and Righteous G-d, You know the power of the awe that the true Tzaddikim merited to attain through their efforts and true self-sacrifice. It brought them to know You and revere You. And it is so powerful, that it can influence even us. Have mercy on us for their sakes, and grant us a portion of their holy awe, so that we too should experience complete awe of You always. Let us feel that awe so strongly, that we will not sin any more, and that we will return to You with all our hearts. 
10.   Have mercy on me for Your Name’s sake, and fill me with a constant yearning and longing to come close to true Tzaddikim and G-d fearing people. With this longing I will have the power to break through all kinds of obstacles and to bear all sorts of hardships, so that I should come close to true Tzaddikim. Help me so that I can actually develop a relationship with them, attach myself to them, and truly receive complete fear of You from them, so that I can always be the way that You want me to be. Help me to create a pure and holy vessel out of the obstacles that I break through, one that will be able to receive an abundance of good and blessing, for us and all Israel. 
11.   Master of the Universe, Merciful and Exalted, be kind to us and answer us. Make us truly G-d fearing. You are holy and Your Name inspires awe; all the heavenly hosts tremble from terror of Your Name, and all of them do Your Will with fear and awe. Give us fear, Merciful One, give us fear! Fearful and Awesome One, give us fear! “Give fear for You, Hashem our G-d, to all that You made, and terror of You to all that You created. And all that You made will fear You, and all the creations will bow before You. All of them will band together to do Your Will wholeheartedly.” 
12.   Master of the Universe, do wonders for us so that we be able to truly return to You. Teach me Your way, Hashem, and I will walk in Your truth. Unify my heart to fear Your Name. Holy One, save us and help us to attain everything we have asked for and grant us true fear of You. Our fear of You will bring You great pleasure, so that You will send an abundance of good, blessing, mercy, life, and peace down to us. Send us children, life and sustenance, wealth, honor, and all kinds of material and spiritual good now and forever so that we should never feel disgraced. Raise us up higher and higher, until we attain a lofty fear of You. Such fear will perfect our actions so that we, ourselves, will complete Your Holy Name in this world. Your Name will become more and more known, and all humanity will return to You and all will serve You in awe. “But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your love, and in the fear of You will I worship towards Your holy Temple.” 
13.   Master of the Universe, please make us worthy of singing and dancing non stop, throughout this day of joy. Especially the simple dancing in circles that help our sins to be forgiven, for their spiritual source is repentance inspired by love of G-d, which, in turn, is sparked by reading the Megilla with fear and trembling, while crying tears of repentance. And that fear has as it's source the fear of G-d that Mordechai the Tzaddik shared with the Jewish people when he rent his garment and donned sackcloth and ashes, when he cried the great and bitter cry that stilled Esav’s cry. I beg of You, Hashem, allow this awe to bring us to true Purim joy, endless joy that, in turn, arouses and intensifies our awe. Through this, may we merit to experience the state of “until he does not know.”
14.   Master of the Universe, Great and Awesome G-d, make us holy like Mordechai and Esther whose great holiness was strong enough to release the entire Jewish people from the impure husk of Haman-Amalek. Hashem, whose awe is upon all the denizens of the upper and lower worlds, make me able to see Mordechai and Esther in the Megilla. Have pity on me so that I will be worthy of standing during the entire Megilla reading in awe. That I should hear every single letter with incredible reverence. That my tears should flow like water during the reading of this Megilla—for it must be drafted like a Torah scroll, and is considered as holy as a Torah scroll. Help me to truly feel the troubles that the Jewish people were in then and to feel how much suffering we have gone through throughout history. Then I will be able to pour my heart out like water and break through the steel walls that surround my stopped up heart when we reach the verse, “great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.” All the generations will pass before my eyes, all the pure and holy ones who were cruelly murdered. And the six million holy and pure Jews that were slaughtered using every bizarre means—such a massacre, the world has never seen anything like it. Woe to us, that such has happened to us in our generation. 
15.   I beg of You, Hashem, make me like queen Esther who is the holy Shechinah, who fell down at the king’s feet and begged him to avert Haman’s scheme against the Jews. Make me worthy of tearing my heart into pieces over the many troubles that afflict the Jewish people, and over the terrifying decrees that affect us materially and spiritually that we hear about all the time. Help me be able to pour my heart out like water, especially at midnight when all the heavenly gates are open, at the time that is called “before the face of Hashem.” I will then be able to speak to You from the depths of my heart every day at all times. Make me like Mordechai the Jew, who went out and cried bitterly in the streets. I will, then, also be able to nullify the awful decrees that are forever renewing themselves against the Jewish people, and to nullify the evil forces that fight against us day and night. So “give us our lives at our petition, and our nation at our request, for we, I and my people, are sold to be destroyed, slain, annihilated,” and wiped off the face of the earth. 
16.   Master of the Universe, full of mercy, be kind to us, for the souls of the living and the dead are in Your Hands. You can change all these decrees in the blink of an eye, especially on the holy day of Purim. You revealed to us that the main sweetening of judgments can be achieved today through singing and dancing both at home and in the streets. Have pity and favor us on this day of transformations, so that we can sanctify it with Torah and prayer, with fear of Heaven, and holy joy. Help us guard our eyes from impure sights and sanctify the Covenant; Cleanse our minds and send us holy thoughts, for on this day, if we will only sanctify it, harsh judgments will have no hold on us at all. Light can then be drawn down from the fiftieth gate, and even the dead can be brought back to life. 
17.   I beg of You, Merciful and Compassionate G-d, help us to see Mordechai the Jew go out in his princely garments and “put his hand in the crevice,” in all the cracks and crevices, and hint to us to throw away our filthy garments of arrogance. “My beloved put his hand in by the crevice,” a crack that goes clear through to the other side. If only the words of Torah would become engraved on our hearts, clear through from one side to the other! If only Mordechai and Esther could become engraved on our hearts. The words of the Tzaddikim should never leave us. That is the way it would have been before the first sin, just as the words of Torah were inscribed on Adam HaRishon’s heart so that all he saw was G-dliness. May it be Your Will Hashem, that we should never again fall away from You, and never fall into the realm of the Other Side, Heaven forbid, and that we should never trespass the bounds that the Tzaddikim set up.
18.   Master of the Universe, Lord of joy, strength and delight is in Your Place, and there is no sorrow before You. Help us to fulfill the commandment of the omer of barley, the aspect of  “hands and feet” which is Mordechai and Esther’s hand clapping and dancing. May they bring us to experience renewed understanding of the revealed and hidden parts of the Torah. “Their omer of barley came and was victorious over him and his sons.” Through our songs and melodies, make us victorious over the Other Side and all her minions. Help me to enliven myself with every good point I have ever managed to bring into being, even though I have done wrong and stumbled too. Give me the ability to lay my hands and mind aside and simply raise my eyes to the Tzaddikim who “put [their] hand in the crevice,” Tzaddikim like Mordechai, who went out in princely garments and put his hand in the cracks, who peeked through all the cracks to bring even someone as far away from You as I am, closer. I, who defiled myself in so many ways. I, who have already sunk to the very abyss and, G-d save us, have already lost all hope. Make me worthy of coming close to the true Tzaddik who doesn’t give up on anyone, who works all that much more for those who rely on him, who beg and plead with him to come and meet them halfway. Bring me close to such true Tzaddikim , who always hold our hands. They continually inspire and encourage us to come closer to You, to long for You, no matter what happens, never to pay attention to any obstacle. And they strengthen us with good advice, telling us to sing and to dance. 
19.   Master of the Universe, everything is known to You and You can accomplish anything. You know what the nations and the enemies of the Jewish people are thinking and see all their plans for us. Merciful G-d, I come before You in the merit of the true Tzaddikim . Strengthen us to sing and dance today for Your sake and not for our own, for the honor of Your Name, and not for our own honor. For we are debased, we are completely broken to pieces and honor is the furthest thing from us, so do it for the sake of Your Name. And in the merit of our singing and dancing, please make those leaders who plot against us have a change of heart for the better. Please, overturn their schemes against Your holy people, and nullify all the decrees that can harm us, both those that have already been decided, and those that they would like to put into effect, G-d forbid. Both those that are already public knowledge, and those that haven’t even been heard about. Completely nullify and uproot them! Overturn the hearts of all the world leaders just as You overturned Achashverosh’s heart, so that all that happens should be only for our good.
20.   Hashem, You know that in this time before Moshiach arrives, we have no one to rely on but You. In Your great mercy, purify our singing so that we will be able to sweeten all the judgments and nullify all the harsh decrees from ourselves and from the rest of the Jewish people through song alone. Hear our song, may it sound sweet to You so that You will have mercy on us and save us. 
21.   May we be worthy of singing and making music before You. Singing and praising You, and truly serving You always. Through this may we awaken the Song of Songs and all the ten types of song that make up the book of Tehillim, which is derived from all the good points in every Jew, which King David revealed. They say that the chazan sees from where the children read. This is the true Tzaddik who is the true chazan. He raises up the prayers by finding an abundance of good points in each and every Jew. The good points want to become incorporated in the Tzaddik, for he constructs beautiful melodies from them. Because he finds so much good in every Jew, he has revealed to him every melody that has ever existed. The heavens and the earth become revealed to him and he gives all of creation—even the wicked—the benefit of the doubt, for he knows what an integral part of the plan they are. He knows that Divine sparks from the endless light and the endless melody are within them, which come from the very root of creation. 
22.   That is why we usually read VaYikra before Purim during a leap year, when there are two Adars, which is the aspect of Menashe and Efrayim, “Menashe” is from, “G-d made me forget,” as if I forget everything and begin again, as if I was just born today. The little children begin to study Torah from VaYikra, for that is where the good points are revealed—the good that lies within each person. And the Tzaddik is worthy of being able to see them. He is the holiest—the most removed from materialism; he guards the Covenant in the most absolute way. It is this quality that makes him able to see the good that lies within every single Jew. By doing this, he makes melodies and sweetens all the judgments. 
23.   Please, our Father in heaven, Merciful Father, let the spirit of the Tzaddik who is like Mordechai fill us and cleanse us from all trace of arrogance, so that we will be unable to see even the slightest blemish in any other Jew. Have him send out his hand into the crevice and open a space up in our hearts, in our hands and feet, and in every limb. Have him remove the impure husk that comes from Haman-Achashverosh, that crouches within us and stops up our minds and our senses. 
24.   Please, Merciful Father, send us the Tzaddik who will blow his spirit into us and awaken us to song and dance, who will split the sinews of our stiff necks and all of our insensitive and stopped up limbs and senses. 
25.   Please, Hashem, may it be Your Will that our singing and dancing will break through all of the blockages in our hearts and minds, our limbs and sinews, and in our arteries and senses. And may we merit to dance and sing for the honor of the House of G-d. 
26.   Master of the Universe, King who is full of Mercy, nullify all evil decrees from upon us and save us on this day. And even if the messengers have already gone out at breakneck speed, it is within Your power to turn them back and transform them into messengers who race to bring good news. And even if  “it has been sealed with the King’s signet and cannot be brought back,” it is within Your power to renew our minds and seal us with Your signet for salvation, life, and peace, for health, success, holy wealth, and everything good. For You can do anything—no one can dictate to You. 
27.   I beg of You, Hashem, there is no limit to Your kindness. Have mercy on us. You have pity and send salvation to anyone, no matter where he is, if he will only rely on Your great mercy and endless salvation. Please, send us help from the limitless wellsprings of Your salvation, that constantly renew themselves with increasingly greater force. 
28.   Our Merciful Father, in the merit of being joyful on Purim, nullify all our bad inclinations that remain from our youth that are like leaven. As the Baal Shem Tov says about the commandment not to see chametz or leaven within our precincts on Pesach—that we should not, Heaven forbid, find fault with any Jew in the world. I beg of You, Hashem, make us worthy of loving each other with all our hearts and souls, that we should only see the good points of our friends, and not their weaknesses. Then the heavenly accusation against us of our being, “a scattered and divided people” will be stilled. And we will be, again, like one being with a single heart, we will only find favor in each other’s eyes. If we could only accomplish this, we could hear the Ten Commandments again. For, when we love each other, we become able to see the light of the Torah, to receive it all over again and hear the Ten Commandments from the mouth of G-d. 
29.   Please, Hashem, save me from this foolishness that tries to persuade me to find fault with well-meaning, G-d-fearing Jews. Purify our hearts so that we should not be so bold as to harbor suspicions about Torah scholars. Any blemish that I would find would, anyway, only be a projection of my own flaws. And these flaws have split our hearts so that the seventy-two Tzaddikim that exist in every generation are hidden from us, and we don’t clearly know even one of them. How terrible, that our sins and divided hearts have caused all this! 
30.   Master of the Universe, help me to always remember that I am the guilty one. Because I haven’t forced myself to love others. The accusation of, “a scattered and divided people” can be applied to me. And because I can’t stand to see my friend be more successful than I am, my eyes have been corrupted and my consciousness of G-dliness has left me. Because I spoke before seeing, suspected without the slightest proof, I myself actually destroyed the Temple. I have destroyed the entire world. I myself brought these harsh decrees upon the Jewish people with my own hands and once again have shattered the vessels that I should have repaired. My G-d! Such an awful destruction I caused in all the worlds! If I had only put others first and done their will, I could have unified all the sefirot! Instead of seeking peace like Aharon, instead of seeking good for the people like Mordechai, I went to the opposite extreme. I kindled the fire of controversy and spoke evil of my betters. I even spoke against scholars. I was like Korach and his band who argued with Moshe, Aharon, and the entire community of worthy Jews. I have almost completely destroyed the whole world on my own. 
31.   My G-d! How I’ve strayed from the straight path! Instead of joining right and left together, instead of believing that I am the left and my friend is the right, I’ve done the very opposite. I made the enmity that exists between Jews even worse with my lies and my slander. I lost my Tzelem Elokim, [G-dly appearance] and fell from loving G-d into animalistic love of the material. Because I slandered others, I lost my G-dly awareness and fell into foolishness. How terrible. I acted like the Serpent and fell into a place that is even below that of the Serpent’s. I destroyed all the worlds and all the sefirot, I myself shattered the vessels and turned the world back to a state of chaos. I created empty heavens and a worthless earth. I have been like the seven ill-favored cows that swallowed up the seven good ones without changing for the better, for, instead of being worthy of the ashes of the Red Heifer—of making myself like “dust and ashes”—instead of being like Yosef who merited to clarify his faculty of imagination and thereby interpret the dreams, I fell into musing over things that never happened at all. I brought hell out of its place of concealment. I kindled its fires and blew its flame into life by destroying peace which is the foundation of all creation. And Your Name is peace. Master of the Universe! Make us worthy of always praying for the peace of the entire Jewish people, and that we should never be even an indirect cause of bloodshed, either through our actions, or through hurtful speech. Especially me, who has already spilled the blood of good and worthy people by shaming them. How did I do this to myself? If I had only taken care not to do this, I would have been worthy of drawing all types of healing power into simple bread and water, and my food would have been like the manna
32.   Master of the Universe! I beg of You, bring me to all the spiritual levels that are hidden within the commandment to send portions of food to our friends on Purim. For sending out portions on Purim can make us see the unique beauty of every single Jew. And when we discover the unique beauty inherent in everyone, we uncover the secrets of the creation in all its detail, from the minute gnat to the lion who is king of the beasts, from the lion’s mane down to the tiniest worm in the sea. 
33.   Please, G-d, help me discover every facet of unique beauty that is within every single Jew, from that which the simple person who gives a penny to a poor man possesses, all the way to the Torah scholar who never rests. Help me to only see their infinite unique beauty, their beauty that glorifies You, for that is what You take pride in—the worthy actions of each and every Jew. What have I done! Instead of judging all Jews favorably, I did the very opposite, and I even found fault with those commandments that all Jews observe. 
34.   Master of the Universe, Your Mercy has no limit. I believe with absolute faith that You have the power to change any of Your creations from one extreme to the other, even from evil to good. And it is within Your power to change me as well. For, although it is written, “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard his spots,” You can do anything. You can make changes that are beyond human understanding. You can square a circle, and reconcile the paradoxical. That is why I believe completely that You can even refine someone as faulty as I am. And I am the worst person who ever walked the earth, for my entire nature and all my thoughts are negative. And only You really know what I am, what kind of terrible thoughts flood my mind constantly. They muddy my spirit and pull me into despair. I almost feel as though my life is meaningless. As much as I try to gain wisdom, as much as I try to do hisbodedus, I just don’t manage to accomplish anything. I haven’t stepped as much as a hairsbreadth into the realm of holiness! But I know, oh I know, and I believe with all my heart, that even though I’ve been swallowed body and soul by the impure husk of Haman, I’ve been transformed into the ten sefirot of the Other Side, and I’ve become stuck in every one of the fifty gates of impurity. Even so, You can fulfill, “and it was turned to the contrary” in me, and completely turn me around. Just as You grabbed Yeravam ben Nevat by his garment and said, “Return” and You promised to bring him into Gan Eden, have mercy on me too! Grab me by my garment, hold onto me by the locks of my hair so that I should never fall again. 
35.   Please, Merciful Father, don’t abandon me! Help me to get up at midnight and do hisbodedus the right way—with singing and praise, by pouring my heart out before You like water. Make me worthy of truly loving my fellow Jews, leaving the aspect of “dispersed and divided” behind and never harboring hatred or suspicion of any Jew in my heart. Grant me the merit to completely repent of my anger and contentiousness, of my jealousy and scorn of others. 
36.   Master of the Universe, pull me out of the stormy waters, of my obsession with money and honor, and save me from the desire for food, which is so difficult to overcome. For all of these foul me up and keep me from experiencing any taste of holiness. Please, save me from all these, especially from the lust for money, which is twice as bad as any other lust. It is the impure husk of Haman-Amalek, and it swallows us up along with all the good that we do. Save me from this tough impure husk. We should be begging that You help us subdue, break, and uproot this lust for money from ourselves, and from the world, twenty-four hours a day. We must beg of You that we would be worthy of extracting all the life-force and holiness from it and returning all the holy sparks and Divine life-force back to their source in the upper world—to turn them back into Torah once again. 
37.   Master of the Universe, make us worthy, even now, of all the spiritual aspects of sending portions of food to our friends that each and every Jew in the time of Mordechai and Esther experienced. Make us worthy of the true self abnegation that everyone achieved then by virtue of their true mutual love. Help us to break all of our base desires, especially the lust for money, for by eradicating them, we become capable of merging together and illuminating one another. And this is the secret of sending out portions and giving gifts to the poor. Make me worthy of attaining that which they did in the days of Mordechai and Esther, that the Jews became like a single entity and, through this, received the Torah anew—willingly, out of love. 
38.   Father, make us worthy even now of this merging together. With it, each person can illuminate the other with his perceptions, with his Torah, with his advice, and with his Divine service. And when it is done graciously and generously, it is a taste of the light of Moshiach ben David. It is the force that removed Vashti from the world. Make us worthy of fulfilling the demands of the day, by singing and dancing. And, through this, may we draw down the light of Moshiach. 
39.   Master of the Universe, reveal the secret of drinking wine to us, for doing so can bring about a rectification of the Covenant. Reveal this secret to us, for drinking can release the Divine spark from the impure husk of Haman and bring about a rectification of Adam and Chava’s sin. She squeezed grapes and gave him to drink, and his heel that had shone brighter than the sun was darkened. All the worlds fell from their original level. Make us worthy now, that our drinking of the wine, which is rooted in the sefira of Binah, which has as it's source the guarded wine that will be revealed in the ultimate future, will help to return all the worlds to their source, as they were before the sin. And just as Rabbah woke Rabbi Zeira from the dead through the power of his drinking on Purim, let us also draw down the secret of awakening the dead with our drinking on Purim. Make us worthy on this Purim to experience the arrival of Moshiach ben David and the rebuilding of the Temple, the complete redemption and the resurrection of the dead, speedily and in our days. 
40.   Master of the Universe, my Father in Heaven, make me worthy of experiencing this amazing illumination, the light of the “resurrection of the dead” which is drawn down on Purim. By drinking wine in holiness, the “squeezing of the grapes” is rectified. Just as Rabbah merited to reawaken Rabbi Zeira from the dead, with this illumination, every single person can begin to live a completely new life, a life he’s never known before, in the aspect of “I haven’t yet even begun to live.” [From the story of "The Seven Beggars"]. This is the eternal life that the true Tzaddik lives. It comes from an amazing egolessness, and from the true self-effacement that is the mystical key to the resurrection. 
41.   I beg of You, Hashem, open up the heavenly gates of love, favor, and kindness for us and shine Your countenance upon us, especially on this day of Purim that has the power to revive the dead. Rabbah resurrected Rabbi Zeira on this day. Rabbi Zeira was also called the “small one” and he would enter into a fire without being burned every thirty days. Please, grant us true and eternal life on this day of Purim. For Purim is the end of the week of mourning over Moshe Rabbeinu, whose humility is engraved on every one of our two hundred and forty-eight limbs. Help us to attain an awesome level of shame before You and to experience new understanding of the Torah. Its hidden paths have the power to save even a lost sinner like me, for the paths that I knew have already been swallowed up by the Other Side. You are prepared to “lead the blind in a way they knew not,” to lead even such a damaged person as I am down a path that had been hidden from me until now. 
42.   Master of the Universe, please help us to always rise higher and higher, to great heights, so that we can fulfill the words of our holy sages. They told us that a person must say, “When will my deeds approach the deeds of my forefathers?” There is no generation that does not have its Avraham and Yaakov, its Shmuel and Moshe. Moshe's soul is secreted away in Gan Eden that is in the world of Atzilus, the place that “no eye saw but You, oh G-d.” He was worthy of this because he never opened his eyes. He never saw anything but Hashem, for wherever he looked, he only saw G-dliness. 
43.   Master of the Universe, this day has the aspect of midnight; it is like Yom HaKippurim. On this day they give to all who stretch forth their hands. On this day when all prayers and requests are received, I, the destitute one, have also come to pour my prayer out before You with a feeling of endless love and attachment to You. Please, Hashem, may the force of my love and attachment give me the merit to shake off my leprous body and don Shabbos garments—a holy body from Gan Eden. Bring me to the level of Serach the daughter of Asher who, by giving the news that “Yosef is still alive!” merited to enter into Gan Eden together with her body. Please help me to also call out, “Yosef still lives!” during these days of Purim, and to sing and dance just like Serach the daughter of Asher. For it was in the merit of her song and dance that her body was transformed into a holy body from Gan Eden. Make me worthy to attain the level of Chanoch, Eliyahu, Moshiach, Basya, Serach, and Yehoshua ben Levi who merited to enter Gan Eden together with their bodies. 
44.   Master of the Universe, I know that one can only attain all of this through guarding the covenant. So please make me to be like Yosef the Tzaddik who sanctified the whole universe by guarding his eyes. Help me to no longer damage the covenant or damage my eyes. Then I will be like Moshe Rabbeinu who experienced the revelation at the burning bush in a holy body from Gan Eden during the first week of Adar. Then all of my depression and cynicism will be transformed into joy and happiness, and the mazal of wealth will be revealed. All the sorrow that stems from corruption of the covenant will be nullified, and all negative passions will be changed into holy love. And all the lights of fire will become true lights. I will then be worthy of receiving a Torah of truth and seeing the world created anew. The light of the moon will then be as the light of the sun, and my two eyes will shine like the sun and the moon. Eliyahu’s blessing to Elisha, the blessing of “twofold” will then devolve upon me. It is the blessing that was given when a chariot and steeds of fire separated them, as Eliyahu ascended in the whirlwind to heaven. His body was secreted away in the lower Gan Eden as his soul ascended to the upper Gan Eden. 
45.   Master of the Universe! Bring me to all of the exalted levels that the righteous men and women attained through their powerful and endless joy in You. Help me to be like Yosef the Tzaddik who was called a “successful man,” for he was always jubilant. He leaped and danced even in prison, even in a pit as dark as the grave. You were his light, for he never lost sight of You or saw anything but You. Bring me to feel the joy of Yosef whose entire life was like Purim, for he never opened his eyes. Bring me to feel a ceaseless joy, to dance in circles of joy that go on forever. Bring me to feel the joy that You had in mind when You created the universe and said, “Let there be light,” when the light of the moon was like the light of the sun. For You created Adam HaRishon so that he should praise and sing to Your Name. If he had only done so, he would have again made the moon’s light like the light of the sun. He would have remained in Gan Eden forever, he would have drunk the wine of Eden every day of his life. He would have worn garments of light and his heel would have shone brighter than the sun. 
46.   Help me, Hashem, in Your great mercy, to strip off my leprous body that comes from the skin of the serpent, from the pollution of the serpent that stems from Haman-Achashverosh. Then I will don my Shabbos garments—a holy body from Gan Eden. 
47.   Master of the entire Universe, You heal the undeserving, so please heal both my body and soul in Your great mercy. Heal me, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved. Heal me of my leprosy and quickly remove my leprous body from me. In Your kindness, dress me in a holy body from Gan Eden so that my mazal will ascend and I will be worthy of attaining wealth. Bless me with Your blessings and shower great wealth upon me in holiness and purity. Empower my good inclination, remove this heart of stone from me. Grant me a heart of flesh so that the sadness and cynicism that comes from melancholy will be nullified. Then the poverty and the suffering that comes with it will be nullified as well, for the burden of poverty is too much for Your nation Israel to bear, particularly the great need and stress of the worthy Jews who want to enter into the truly holy path. Have mercy on us in Your amazing kindness and shine the mazal of wealth upon us so that all of the wealth should be found among the worthy Jews who long to truly serve You, so that Your Name will be glorified and sanctified. And may the sarcasm and jibes of all those who oppose worthy and G-d fearing Jews be nullified from within us. Give us strength so that the wise heart, which is to the right, should overpower the foolish heart, which is to the left. This “right” will then raise the fallen, from false passions and terrors to holy love and heavenly awe. And the “right” will drive the darkness from their eyes so that they can see wonders. 
48.   Master of the Universe! In Your great mercy, make this Purim festival the beginning of Pesach, for Purim is the path to Pesach. Draw the holiness of Purim and Pesach down upon us. Help us so that we should always speak about Your wonders and Your Torah, and we will merit to always reveal true Torah. Have mercy on us and quickly save us. Make us worthy of driving away the darkness that covered the face of the abyss so that the light of truth will shine in the world. Then it will be as if we, ourselves, created the universe. 
49.   Master of the Universe, You cause the dumb to speak. Grant us a mouth to speak about Your Torah and Your true wonders always, so that we should be worthy of telling our children, grandchildren and every Jew forever about the wonders that You did for us from the time we left Egypt until now. Merciful One, help all of us to have true vision, eyes that always see the truth, so that we can look and really see Your wonders always. Open my eyes, and open the eyes of the entire Jewish people, so that we should see wonders from Your holy Torah that You revealed through Your true Tzaddikim. And only You know the wonder of the lessons that they revealed in this world. By having true vision, all our pleas and requests that we pray opposite the Temple Mount will ascend. Through this, the redemption that depends upon the heart will be awakened. 
50.   Merciful and Compassionate Father, what will become of me? I am so much worse than Lot was, for I see how You send Your holy and fearful angels to save me from all that comes upon me. They grab me by the hand and drag me out of the deepest hell; they drag me with all their power and say to me, “flee toward the mountain!” And the earth already gapes open beneath me and I, worse than Lot, continue to race after my foolishness, after my lusts and my crooked ways. I cast shame on the true Tzaddik and desecrate his great name. Because of my many sins, he continues to be hidden from the understanding of people. And the exile goes on from year to year. My G-d! What have I done?! I have desecrated the very name of the holy Tzaddik who brought me close to him! I even blamed him for my troubles and failed to realize that it was my sins that brought them upon me. For I ate forbidden foods; I was not entirely pure with regards to strange women. I bowed to the idol of my own accomplishments. I had faith in the work of my own hands—in my intellect, and my wisdom. I transgressed the command of the prophet, “Let not the warrior praise his own strength, or the rich man his own wealth.” All my senses, my eyes and ears, have becomes stopped up. I can no longer feel any vitality in my study of the holy Torah that is said to be like butter and honey. And instead of completing the Talmud every year and rising from one level to the next, I invented my own festivals and ate butter and honey every single day. 
51.   Master of the Universe! In Your great mercy, make us worthy of always drawing the holiness of Mordechai the Jew and Queen Esther upon ourselves. And help us to reveal and illuminate all the supernal colors that exist in gold, silver, and copper with great holiness, in accordance with Your good will. Have pity on us, in Your great mercy, and bestow the attribute of true mercy upon us so that we will be able to have mercy on others and give much charity. 
52.   Act mercifully with us from Your heavenly place and grant us abundant sustenance, good and blessing, charity and mercy, life and peace. Please, bestow complete and holy awareness and all good things upon us and nullify all controversy in the world. Remove all forms of hatred, jealousy, provocation, and conflict from among all Jews forever, and send down mercy and peace into the world, truly great peace among all Jews and for the world as a whole. Then all the people of the world will have mercy on each other out of great and true love and mercy. And give us a good livelihood from heaven. Just as You sustained our forefathers, and the entire Jewish people in the wilderness for forty years by providing them with the manna and all their needs, so too, be compassionate with us in Your incredible kindness and send us an abundance of good sustenance from heaven. Provide us with all our needs without our having to exert ourselves at all so that we will be able to do Your will, to observe Your commandments and occupy ourselves with Your Torah day and night, constantly. Hashem, help us to receive the Torah anew on this Purim day, to receive it out of love and joy and delight. For our lives are so transitory; they are like nothing, and our days are like a passing shadow. And if not now, when? 
53.   Master of the Universe, full of endless mercy, Knower of all. You perform unimaginable wonders, limitless miracles. Nothing is impossible for You; You can do anything. You know all about the straits we are in right now during these crazy times, when we are besieged from all sides. All the nations stand over us to destroy us and we can hardly walk the streets. “Outside the sword kills, and terror reigns within.” The angel of death is breathing down our necks, and everywhere we go he sets up physical and spiritual ambushes for us. Please, merciful and compassionate G-d! Only You can save us from his hands! What have we done? We ourselves drew him close with our many sins; we corrupted all of our limbs and senses, our minds and vision, and—what is worse—we became arrogant. For after all of the damage that we have caused, we still say, “we are righteous, we have not sinned.” We behave like Zimri and demand the reward of Pinchas. But You, in Your great mercy, are prepared to forgive us even now, and overturn all of our thoughts from evil to good, from arrogance to humility, humility which is the epitome of self-effacement and egolessness. Until we should come to the understanding that we are many times worse than everyone, and even worse than ourselves! 
54.   My Father in Heaven, teach me. Show me the way and give me strength to come to this, to always know my true worthlessness and lowliness. And even so, I should be able to strengthen myself before all those who try to prevent me from serving You and who try to wear down my grasp of the truth. Help me that I should never nullify myself to them at all, and in everything that is the absolute truth, that I should be like Mordechai who did not prostrate himself. Even so, I must really know that I am worse than everyone, even the most wicked person who says, “if I only had a Torah scholar here, I would bite him like a wild ass.” I must know that even he is much closer to true repentance than I am, and he will easily repent. For I have spent my whole life thinking useless and abhorrent conceitful thoughts, thoughts that have distanced me from You utterly. And they have hidden all the ways of the Tzaddikim from me, ways of salvation that could have helped me to rise along the road that would bring me to You. But mounds of dust, dirt of laziness, depression, despair, and arrogance have covered those paths, and they all stem from this feeling of, “all of this is worthless to me.” My G-d, what has happened to me? I have overturned the whole order of creation into something evil! For when You created Adam HaRishon, You planted him among all the trees of the Garden and said to him, “See how sweet and well-made are My works. Make sure You don’t destroy my world.” And from the time that he sinned and ate from the Tree of Knowledge through his arrogance, we have yet to come out of this fearsome flaw. He made trouble for us and brought us to stumble and sin. He led us to be gloomy before the Lord of Hosts, and dragged us down into ever deeper sadness until we lost all connection with the circle dances of joy and delight, and we stumbled into false humility. We were self-effacing before people when it was easy for us, and abandoned the true Tzaddik who is like Mordechai, who guides us and shows us the true path in ways of pleasantness. For his ways are pleasant, the ways of learning Torah while singing and dancing. And if we had only been worthy of going in his ways, we would have come to true humility, and we would have merited to have the Tzaddik embodied within the six sections of our hands and the six sections of our feet. He would have led us and showed us the straight path to reach the true humility, genuine egolessness and absolute self-effacement. 
55.   And this self-effacement is the nature of the month of Adar, whose letters teach us about humility. Aleph,the small aleph, is to be like a sheep that is led. Dalet, representing poverty and humility, is to be one with nothing of one’s own. Reish, is poverty and penury, “for the arrogant person and I cannot dwell in the same dwelling,” for he drives the Shechinah from him and all the paths and ways are hidden from him. 
56.   Master of the Universe! Draw us close to You, spread Your wings over us and allow Your Presence to dwell within us during this month, the month of Adar. The name of the month means “to dwell,” and You asked of us, “Set aside a corner for Me and I will dwell among you.” It is the time when You graced us with the favor of Your Countenance and You Yourself wanted to return Your Shechinah to us. 
57.   Allow me to come to the level of  “Then Moshe sang” by first attaining the humility and silence of Moshe Rabbeinu, for the melody of the Tzaddik who is like Moshe raises souls up and out of heresy. Moshe attained all of this during the week of revelation at the burning bush, which occurred in Adar. The name of the month is also related to the melodies of the Torah reading, which are called “weapons of war.” With them, the Jewish people vanquish their enemies, drive away all the impure husks, and become worthy of, “And it was overturned.” 
58.   Master of the Universe, Lord of joy and delight, before You there is no sadness at all, and Your eyes never close in slumber. You promised us, “I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you up.” But now, it is already one thousand nine hundred and thirty years that we are sleeping deeply in the grip of this awful exile, and the trouble and spiritual destruction surrounds us on all sides. And the deepest aspect of our slumber gets stronger every day: it is that we forget You. And as we sleep, You stand over us and beat us to wake us up from our slumber, to arouse us to get up and cry out to You, for You are full of endless mercy. And there is no end to Your ability to help us and instantly save us. And all You want is that we should just cry out to You a little bit. 
59.   I beg of You, merciful and compassionate G-d, just as You saved Your nation Israel through Mordechai and Esther in a mere three days, save us also, instantly, in this generation. Oh, if we would only stand up and cry out! If we would only wake up and cry out! 
60.   My Father, compassionate and merciful Father, please save me and wake me up from my deep slumber, for I only sink deeper and deeper into sleep with every passing day. And if I might have cried out and woken up before, by now I’ve already made peace with my situation and fallen into a profound slumber and awful despair. And You only want what is good for me: to awaken me from my sleep that I should cry out and be saved, that I should rend the heavens with my crying and screaming like Moshe whose prayer was like a double-edged sword. There was no heavenly barrier that did not split before his prayer. And even though the very heavens and earth shifted and the order of creation was disrupted and all the heavenly angels locked all the gates above, Moshe’s prayer tore through and ascended nonetheless. 
61.   Master of the Universe, help us and the rest of the Jewish people that our dances and songs on this day will be the vehicle through which You forgive us for all of our sins. Bring us to true thoughts of repentance, and to truly repent of all our misdeeds. Help us to really feel the truth of Your G-dliness and to know that only You exist. Help us understand that it is not Haman or Achashverosh who smite us, but You alone in Your great mercy and kindness who does this in order to wake us up from our deep sleep that has been dragging on for almost two thousand years, so that we should again attain all the holy awareness that we lost. 
62.   Master of the Universe, You hear all cries and hearken to the prayers of Your nation with mercy. You revealed to us that cries ascend to the highest realm, and with them, even such a fallen one as I am can draw down new holy awareness. I, who have fallen from all seventy facets of the Torah, from all fifty gates of understanding, who lost all the thirty-two paths of wisdom—I wandered on paths that never were before, and innovated false and confused ways that no human being every trod on in the history of the world. 
63.   I beg of You, have pity on us, for we still wander from one error to another, from one sorrow to the next, from one complication to another. And You have already sent us amazing Tzaddikim in every generation—Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Arizal, the Baal Shem Tov, and their students—to wake us up. And we go on dreaming, loving our nap. We fall into deeper sleep every day—immeasurably deep! And yet we can still cry out to the King? For You are diligent every moment and send us amazing and truly merciful Tzaddikim to wake us up, who exert themselves to arouse us with song and dance. These Tzaddikim revealed to us that, on this day, the light penetrates through all barriers and illuminates even that which is hidden in casks, vaults, and secret places. Every single space is lit up with the most precious light. They revealed to us that all sins can be transformed by repenting out of love, and that the broken heart becomes a vessel to receive the Infinite Light, and that melody and song in particular, even though it appears as though they embody no more than one facet of Torah, can actually raise up those who have fallen away from all seventy facets of the Torah. They revealed that dancing, which has no letter form to it at all, can raise up those who have fallen away from even the forms of the letters. For, in truth, melody and song are higher than all seventy facets of the Torah, and all the seventy facets are rooted and hidden within them. All the wisdom and sciences, and all intellectual achievement, concepts and ideas, stem from them. The ten types of song parallel the ten commandments, for with them the broken Tablets and broken hearts can be put back together. And with them, the true Tzaddik heals us. 
64.   Master of the Universe, have pity on me and purify me from the impure husk of Haman on this holy and fearful day that is thirty days before the Exodus from Egypt, a day about which the Torah says that all of the Jewish people had “light in their dwellings.” It was a day on which they merited to see what was in the cracks and crevices, until even their flaws and sins, their shortcomings and failings, were revealed to them. They then knew what to ask for and what they needed to repair so that they could emerge from slavery to freedom in the ensuing thirty days, and, beyond that, to receive the holy Torah after fifty more days. Sanctify me and raise me up on this holy and awesome day, this day when we begin to learn the laws of Pesach. On this day You reveal to us just how to go from slavery to freedom, how to rise from Asiyah to Yetzirah, from Yetzirah to Beriyah, and from Beriyah to Atzilus, and how to subdue the spiritual root of Haman that prevents us from ascending from world to world and from one heavenly chamber to the next. For, it was he who caused Ben Azzai and Ben Zoma to stumble, and who brought about what happened to “Acher.” But even the guardian of the gate of Gehinnom could not stand before Rabbi Yochanan when he went to release “Acher.” 
65.   Master of the Universe, have pity on me! Redeem me and save me, even though I am so much worse than “Acher”, even though I sinned and caused others to sin countless times. For You revealed to us that You send to every generation the most wondrous Tzaddikim, about whom it is said, “Even the guardian of the gate did not stand before you.” I beg of You, Hashem, in Your great mercy, reveal them to me! Enlighten my eyes with their holy writings and their incredible prayers, and do not afflict me with blindness any longer because of the terrible defilement of the covenant that I caused. 
66.   Master of the Universe, bring me to experience the amazing lights and exalted worlds that Mordechai and Esther themselves attained. Through absolute self–nullification to the Will of G-d, they also made the rest of their contemporaries worthy of it too. Mordechai made himself into nothing at all, and so he merited a “great golden crown,” and the light of the moon became like the light of the sun for him. He ascended to the hidden world, to the world of Leah, until he reached the world called “the head that is not known.” He merited to know nothing, to not know or see what will be. He cast his entire burden on Hashem, and His Will alone was in his sight. And Esther followed in his footsteps and said, “and if I perish, I perish.” In this way, they both ascended to amazing worlds and brought light from there all the way down to this physical plane and to all the ten sefirot of the Other Side. They revealed His G-dliness in all the hidden places and lit up all the darkness until, “many of the people of the land became Jews.” And Mordechai the Jew—“mara dachya” who is like pure myrrh, “ish yemini”—is connected to Yesod of Abba. He brought light to Esther who is connected to Yesod of Imma—the light of true egolessness, which is to be able to become absolutely nothing for the sake of G-d’s Will. And she ascended to the world called Abba, and was herself called, “Avichail’s daughter.” Through this, they drew down illumination from the highest realms, and with them, they raised up all the holy sparks from the impure husks until they managed to separate the holy spark from Haman himself. And so Haman’s descendants converted; they learned and taught Torah. 
67.   Master of the Universe, source of all light and mercy, have mercy on us despite the fact that we have fallen into the ten sefirot of the Other Side during this exile and have lost all seventy facets of the Torah. Send us true Tzaddikim, like You sent in those days, at this time, like Mordechai who brought illumination to the lowest levels with the light of his holiness. He brought the Jewish people out of the great slumber that descended upon them over the course of seventy years. He restored the holy awareness of the seventy facets to them that they had lost during those seventy years. He righted them after their fall into the ten sefirot of the Other Side, for Haman and his sons who are the sum total of all impure husks came upon them when they fell. And Mordechai, in his great righteousness and holiness, in his purity and humility, with his complete egolessness before Hashem, merited to subdue them, until he was worthy of a great golden crown from the side of Abba, greater than them all (which is the mystery of Adam Kadmon). And from there he drew down the illumination of the resurrection that is drawn down every Purim. It is the mystery of the rectification of the Tree of Knowledge, the rectification of death itself that Adam brought to the world when she “squeezed grapes and gave him to drink.”
68.   I beg of You, merciful G-d, don’t hide Your Face from us! For even if we have drowned in a bog of quicksand so that we have no footing, even if we are buried from head to toe in fearsome impurity which is even worse than the ten sefirot of the other side—still, don’t hide from us! For You can save even us in the merit of the amazingly pure and holy Tzaddikim that You send to us in every generation, Tzaddikim who are like Mordechai and Esther. They are completely hidden and are elevated beyond our wildest imaginings. They were never broken in the world of Tohu—they remained pure and free of any blemish or stain. Their souls predate the breaking of the kings. They are like Esther—they inflame the hearts of Your nation Israel with a holy fire, a fire that burns everlastingly. They kindle the hearts with a holy fire that burns on in their breasts, a fire that feeds upon itself and is drawn from the fire of the Angels of the Heavenly Chariot—a heavenly fire that nothing from the Other Side can stand against. With this fire, they kindle the Jewish hearts that they should not rest or relax by day or by night, that they should continue to fight Hashem’s war, “continuing even on the fifteenth.” In the merit of these Tzaddikim who surround us with a holy seal of total humility and egolessness and with a wall of burning fire, please shine the light of Your Face upon us and save us. Please, Hashem, in the merit of these Tzaddikim, draw down to us new holy awareness, mental faculties that were never shattered, from the wellsprings of Binah, in the merit of Queen Esther who entered Achashverosh’s chambers on Purim itself and destroyed the impure husk of Haman and his ten sons. She then requested another day to continue Hashem’s war—the war against Amalek in every generation—especially in those cities surrounded by a wall from the time of Yehoshua ben Nun. For Yehoshua, in his total egolessness, also fought the war against Amalek. Esther drew down the light of Moshiach for all time, with the power of the Tzaddikim who are called “a wall” and “a seal,” who inscribe us with the “seal within a seal,” who inscribe the entire world from its beginning to its end. They descend in every generation to inscribe us with the seal of holiness, the seal of fire and the wall of fire that have as their source the hot wellsprings of Binah, the sefirah of fire. These are the gevurot that are the golden scepter that destroys all of the impure husks and from which emanates all the holy wealth which itself comes from the light of self–nullification. 
69.   I beg of You, merciful and compassionate G-d, may our Purim joy, our feasting and drinking on Purim, bring us to experience the highest level of G-dly awareness which is drawn from the fiftieth gate. Help us to experience Your supernal Will, to know “nothing at all,” not even the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai.” May the illumination of “blessed is Mordechai” give us the strength to separate out all of the divine sparks buried within the impure husk of “cursed is Haman” and rectify the mistake of King Shaul, who was meant to separate all the holy sparks from the depths of the impure husks, and particularly from the husk of Haman-Amalek. 
70.   Our Father, merciful Father, reveal to us the ultimate conclusion of all the holy advice, the incredible understanding which comes only from “the fiftieth gate,” for with it one can separate out the divine sparks that are trapped in the depths of impurity. With the power of faith of Shmuel the prophet, who is the true Tzaddik in every generation, one draws down this amazing intelligence with the advice to “sit and do nothing”—by having simple faith in the true Tzaddik. For our ability to destroy all the impure husks and the Other Side and its minions is only as strong as our faith that we have in the Tzaddik of the generation. With this faith, King Shaul would have been able to utterly annihilate Amalek. With it, Esther remained silent and so allowed the highest point of light to shine through. With it, we can receive the light of the Torah anew. This faith enabled Yehoshua to receive from Moshe. And Moshe, who received this light even more powerfully, merited to receive the Torah from Sinai. This is the secret of the shame and humility one can be worthy of on Purim. Moshe merited it completely, such that even the skin of his face radiated light. 
71.   Master of the Universe, merciful and compassionate Father, make us worthy of the complete redemption, of the time when the moon will shine like the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold stronger—like the light of the seven days of creation. Make us worthy of experiencing this incredibly complete light through the power of our joy and our singing and dancing on this holy and awesome day. 
72.   Hashem, help us, on this day which is the preparation for Pesach, to see the light of, “I, and not an angel. I, and not a seraph. I alone, and no other.” Help us to know that all that occurs in the world in all its diversity is orchestrated by You alone, for only You can overturn the hearts of all the enemies and accusers and transform them into loving friends. Only You can instantly change all the trouble into salvation, pain into light, affliction into delight, evil into wealth, and obstacles into sweetness. All this happens in the merit of the Tzaddik. It is all a preparation for Pesach, when it was revealed to us that there is none but You. For there is no hiddenness before Him. He breaks through all the veils and draws salvation down to us. 
73.   I beg of You, Hashem, bring us to true faith in the sages on this day, that we should merit complete faith in Mordechai the Jew who is the Tzaddik in every generation. Help us not to veer from his advice to the right or to the left. Let us not be like the generation that participated in the feast and bowed to the idol and to Haman. Rather, let us resolve to do everything he says, down to the last detail. Even if, to our limited understanding, his words seem out of sync with reality and even dangerously subversive, let us be like Queen Esther who said, “And if I perish, I perish.” By virtue of this steadfastness, we will merit, in even this generation, to draw down all of the salvation and wonders that come from the act of giving charity. For giving charity can change the natural order of things and transform the hearts of kings and officers. It can change frightening decrees into amazing salvation, spiritual destruction into being desirable before G-d, and apostasy into amazing faith, until faith will brighten the entire world, including all the gentile nations, just as it did during the days of Mordechai and Esther when, “many of the people of the land became Jews.” 
74.   I beg of You, merciful and compassionate Father, please arouse me to repent through the humility that stems from the true joy that animates the six sections of the hands and feet, especially on this day, when the spirit of the Tzaddik spreads forth and blows the spirit of arrogance right out of us. Help us to hear the “voice of my beloved knocking,” the “voice of the turtledove that is heard in our land.” This is the voice of Esther who is the Shechinah whose “turn came.” For, on this day, the Shechina’s turn comes for her voice to be heard within our limbs, our hearts, and our senses. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, we hear the voice of the evil inclination battering away within our every artery and vein, in our three hundred and sixty-five vessels and our two hundred and forty-eight limbs. It runs through every vessel and every bone, every sense and limb, until Esther’s turn comes, the turn of the Shechinah . May it be Your Will that her voice be heard crying and battering away from within us, from within our limbs, our vessels, and our bones. May we look forward to waking up from her voice that blows through the six sections of our hands and our feet, and to repenting out of humility and endless joy. 
75.   Master of the Universe, open my eyes and I will see the wonders of Your Torah. I beg of You, make us worthy of understanding wonderful new Torah concepts—interpretations that can bring us to feel a profound humility and shame. This shame which has as it's source the light of Purim, the pure light of Hashem that existed before the breaking of the vessels, from a place that remained pure and undamaged by the breaking of the vessels, a place where there is no mention of Haman-Amalek. It is a completely good, pure, and brilliant light, a light that puts even the sun and the moon to shame. It is the light of the seven days of creation that illuminates the week of the anniversary of Moshe Rabbeinu’s death, the pure light of faith, where no enemy, oppressor or accuser holds sway. May we merit to draw down this light all year long, and all our lives long, forever—for the entire generation and every generation, especially the light of Moshiach, the light of the resurrection. 
76.   Master of the Universe, allow me to become incorporated within the attributes of Moshe Rabbeinu, in the holy spirit of the chief of all prophets, on the seventh of Adar. He was the most humble person who ever lived and from the moment of his birth, was himself a part of the light of the seven days of creation. For he comprised all of the light of all of the souls of the Jewish people, for his soul was literally hewn out of Your Essence and includes all of the souls of Your treasured people. 
77.   Master of the Universe, Your mercy is limitless, and there is no end to Your great kindness and wonders. But what is greater than all is Your humility. For just as Your greatness is infinite, so too is Your humility. You allowed its light to extend to Moshe who was the choicest of Your prophets. Empowered by it, he even went back to Datan and Aviram, his detractors, to try to appease them and make peace. He even said to Korach, “I too would like you to be the Kohen Gadol.” 
78.   Please, merciful and compassionate Father, make me a part of Moshe Rabbeinu’s humility, his peace-seeking and kindness, and his love of others. These pure virtues allowed him to see the greatness of each and every Jew and believe that they would all certainly repent, as long as they still had breath within them. Help me to receive from the light of the crowns You gave to him that emanated from the spirit of holiness, and from the sapphire that had been secreted away in the two hundred and forty-eight worlds. You constructed his holy body from it, a body that had nothing material about it at all. 
79.   Bring me to become a part of the humility of Moshe Rabbeinu who carried us all in his bosom like a nursemaid bears an infant. Help us to be dazzled by his light and to ascend in his crowns. You crowned him with four hundred and twenty-five lights, and with them he made the Jewish people feel such longing and yearning for You that they said, “we will do and we will hear.” With every word, he brought them a new soul, and You crowned him with three hundred and sixty-five crowns. With them, he renewed himself every single day. 
80.   Master of the Universe, help me to become a part of his pure soul. Even before his soul came down to this world, You raised her up before Your Throne of Glory and entrusted her with all of the keys of loving kindness and mercy, for the sake of those who do Your Will, and all of the keys of judgment to punish all those who abandon You and who oppress Your children. 
81.   Even before he came into this world, You crowned him with the letter “mem,” which corresponds to the Throne of Glory itself, with the letter “shin,” which corresponds to the three legs of the Throne which are the three Patriarchs, and the letter “heh,” which corresponds to the sefirah of Malchut, the fourth leg of the Throne. You led him through all of the lights of Gan Eden and past all the heavenly hosts, until all of the angels and seraphim trembled. A terrible voice that shook the very firmament was then heard: “This soul will one day descend among humankind and give the Torah, the most hidden treasure of all, to cause to tremble all the upper and lower worlds.” At that moment, all the angels on high accepted his supremacy and said, “You have caused men to ride over our heads.” 
82.   Master of the Universe, in Adar, whose sign is Pisces (the fish), You helped Moshe Rabbeinu to pray five hundred and fifteen prayers, and he sang before You so that his prayers would be accepted. Help us also to begin each and every one of our prayers with songs, praises, and dances so that they should ascend before You and be accepted. Master of the Universe, make me worthy of becoming a part of Moshe the faithful shepherd’s love of his fellow Jews. He prayed to save them from all the four future exiles and from the destruction of the two Temples with complete self-sacrifice during the month of Adar
83.   Make me worthy too of praying for the sake of the Jewish people as Moshe did during the first week of Adar. The sign of the month is Pisces , and he prayed to save the Jewish people who are likened to fish. 
84.   Hashem, help me to mitigate all the judgments that are on me, on the Jewish people, and on the world as a whole. Those judgments are drawn from “techeiles.” Let me be like Mordechai who “went out before the king in garments of techeiles,” who came before the King of the Universe and merited to mitigate all of the judgments that stem from techeiles . He wore garments of “chur/white” and awakened the soul of Chur who sacrificed his life to save the Jewish people from idolatry. And Mordechai, with his great crown of gold was the aspect of “the righteous who sit with their crowns on their heads.” He merited to mitigate all of the gevurot that are called “gold” and experienced the light that comes out of Eden where the gold is to be found. He made himself like dust, and he was willing to throw himself into the muck and mire to save the Jewish people. He therefore merited to wear a great golden crown, to draw down light from Adam Kadmon, and to be surrounded and protected by angels. 
85.   Master of the Universe, make us worthy of this incredible light that Mordechai drew down for us, in each and every year. Make us also worthy of the five aspects: to be like dust, earth and ashes, and throw ourselves into the muck and mire for the sake of Hashem's honor, just as Mordechai did. Through this, we will come to wear the “techeiles,” and to mitigate all of the judgments that derive from techeiles, so that the Tzaddikim like Chur who sacrificed their lives to sanctify Your Name will be embodied within us. And then we will wear the golden crown “inside our heads” and internalize and understand those concepts that were beyond our understanding before, until even our free will is nullified and we become like angels. Then we will be worthy of the protection of the angels Uriel, Refael, Gavriel, Michael, and Nuriel. They will surround us by day and night and guard us from all harm.
86.   Master of the Universe, You drew down the light of Purim for us from the very highest realms, from the fiftieth gate itself even while we were still in exile and had no Temple. Hashem, draw light down for us from the fiftieth gate, amazing new Torah concepts that come from there, both now and all year long. That is where the light of redemption and salvation comes from, the light of Moshiach ben David who will destroy all of our enemies and oppressors, our tormentors and persecutors. Esther ascended to that place to draw down the lights of Purim by making herself into “perurim” (crumbs). Esther became “Istahar” ("like the moon"). She repaired the moon, bringing to it the light of the seven days of creation with her awesome humility. Through Mordechai, the light that existed before the sin was drawn down to her. For Mordechai, together with the Men of the Great Assembly understood the mystery of Chessed and Chochmah. By putting the words, “the Great One, the Mighty One, and the Awesome One” into the Amida for all time, they revealed that salvation sprouts from every calamity, and that there is a treasure trove of light to be found in all kinds of darkness. 
87.   So too, draw upon us now this “Great” light, in the merit of the Amida that Mordechai the Tzaddik and his companions set down, the prayer that begins, “G-d of Avraham, G-d of Yitzchak, and G-d of Yaakov, the Great, Mighty, and Awesome G-d.” In the merit of this prayer, send us the three Patriarchs just as You sent them to Queen Esther and reveal the secret of “Great, Mighty, and Awesome” to us. Then we will see Your true Greatness, that even the calamity before us is really a revelation of Your Might. Then we will draw upon us the light of Purim forever and ever, and the light of Purim will not leave us or abandon us. Then the Tzaddik and faith will surround us. It will strengthen us and protect us all year long with Your eternal and unending light. 
88.   Master of the Universe, Giver of the Torah, in Your great mercy, You gave us yet another day during the year to receive the Torah once again out of love. And if we had only merited to do so at Sinai when we were totally pure, then the Tablets would have forever remained in Moshe’s hands, Moshe, who was like the Ark of the Covenant, who carried those who bore it. Each and every student would have seen new concepts and details and all of the practical advice he needed according to his own strength and understanding in them. The words of the Torah would have been engraved on his heart forever. Moshe’s light would have been a thousand times brighter than the light of the second Tablets, and the Torah would have never been forgotten. Then we would have remembered everything we learned for all time. Our hearts of stone would have left us and we would have been given hearts of flesh. We would have risen forever with endless humility and limitless holy understanding. Moshe Rabbeinu would have entered the Land of Israel immediately, into Zion, the epitome of beauty, and would have built a Temple to stand forever. He would have come to Ma’aras HaMachpelah, to the gates of Gan Eden, and removed the Keruvim and the flash of the revolving sword from there, to uncover the path to the Tree of Life for the righteous nation who guards its faith. If it had only been this way, we would have immediately been worthy of the resurrection, to the light of the moon becoming as bright as the sun, and the sun’s light being sevenfold the light of the seven days of creation. 
89.   In Your great mercy, You sent Mordechai and Esther to us during these days, at this time, and they are like the sun and the moon. They shared the light of receiving the Torah again out of love with us just as it had been at Sinai, just as the Jewish people shone with a supernal light at the time that the first Tablets were given. They shone from one end of the earth to the other, and Moshe shone a thousand times brighter than the rest of the Jewish people. 
90.   And now, on this holy and awesome day, You want to restore all of these lights and high levels to us. And in the ultimate future, all of the elderly Torah scholars and Tzaddikim will shine with an even greater light than that which shone during the seven days of creation. Then we will drink from the wine of Eden and eat from the wild ox and the Leviathan, and You will spread the Leviathan’s skin out over the walls of Yerushalayim until they shine from one end of the world to the other. 
91.   Then the daughter of Zion will sing and be joyous, and the nations will receive understanding from the shining of your light. The children of those that afflicted us will bow before us, and all who despised us will realize our true worth. And we will be called the people of Hashem, and Zion, the Land of the Holy One of Israel. 

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Home Lessons given by  the Rav HaRav Levi Itzchak Bender, zt"l.