“Elokim, Do Not Be Silent” • Prayers for the Salvation of the People of Israel

In the wake of the “Swords of Iron” war raging in the Holy Land, we are bringing you several prayers that The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, wrote a number of years ago—for reading and downloading:

A PRAYER FOR THE SALVATION OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL FROM THE HAND OF THOSE WHO SEEK HIS LIFE

Master of the Universe—merciful and gracious, filled with compassion—our hearts are poured out like water over the blood of Israel that is being spilled like water. Victor above all victors, Mighty above all mighty ones, Powerful above all powers: please see our affliction, fight our cause, and look—how we have become plunder and mockery in the eyes of all nations, and they have abandoned us to slaughter and burning, murder and stoning. And every single day the nations of the world set upon us the ravenous wolves, thirsty for blood, and they sentence us to slaughter and burning, strangulation and stoning—each day’s curse greater than the day before.

And this has already been close to two thousand years that we have gone from exile to exile—into captivity, famine, and disgrace. In the days of the Inquisition they raised us onto the stake, and in the days of the Holocaust they threw us into fiery furnaces. And still the nations of the world have not been satisfied with our flesh and our blood; they still hunt for the blood of Israel, and they declare against us wars of annihilation and destruction—like the blood-soaked crusades in the era of Rashi, Rabbeinu Tam, and the Ba’alei HaTosafos. And the blood of Israel is spilled in the streets day and night, at every hour of the day; and from every corner we hear the cries of widows and orphans and bereaved parents, and almost entire families are wiped out week after week.

Death has climbed through our windows, and our steps are constrained from walking in our streets. Every heart melts like water, and our wounds are grievous. “For it has come to Judah; it has reached the gate of my people, to Jerusalem. For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make a lament like jackals and mourning like the daughters of the ostrich.” (Micah 1:8–9)

Elokim, do not be silent; do not hold Your peace and do not be still, O G‑d. For behold, Your enemies roar; those who hate You lift up their head. Against Your people they plot in secret; they take counsel against Your treasured ones. They say: “Come, let us wipe them out from being a nation, and let the name of Israel be remembered no more.” For they take counsel together with one heart; against You they make a covenant: the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moav and the Hagrites; Geval and Ammon and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assyria also has joined with them; they have become an arm to the children of Lot, Selah. Do to them as You did to Midian, as to Sisera, as to Yavin at the brook Kishon. They were destroyed at Ein Dor; they became dung for the ground. Make their nobles like Orev and like Ze’ev, and like Zevach and like Tzalmunna—all their princes—who said: “Let us take possession for ourselves of the dwellings of Elokim.” My G‑d, make them like whirling dust, like straw before the wind. As fire burns a forest and as flame sets mountains ablaze—so pursue them with Your tempest, and terrify them with Your storm. Fill their faces with shame, and let them seek Your Name, Hashem. Let them be ashamed and terrified forever; let them be disgraced and perish. And let them know that You—Your Name is Hashem alone—are Supreme over all the earth. (Psalms 83)

For one day in Your courtyards is better than a thousand; I have chosen to stand at the threshold of the House of my G‑d rather than dwell in tents of wickedness. For Hashem Elokim is a sun and a shield; Hashem gives grace and glory; He will not withhold good from those who walk with integrity. Hashem of Hosts—fortunate is the person who trusts in You.

And fulfill for us the verses: “Comfort, comfort My people,” says your Elokim. “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her term is fulfilled, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the hand of Hashem double for all her sins.” A voice calls out in the wilderness: “Clear the way of Hashem; make straight in the desert a highway for our Elokim.” “Go up onto a high mountain, herald of Zion; raise your voice with strength, herald of Jerusalem; raise it, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah: ‘Behold your Elokim!’ Behold, the Lord Hashem will come with strength, and His arm will rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. Like a shepherd He will tend His flock; with His arm He will gather lambs, and in His bosom He will carry them; those that nurse He will gently lead. Every valley shall be lifted, and every mountain and hill shall be lowered; the crooked shall become level, and the ridges a plain. And the glory of Hashem shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, for the mouth of Hashem has spoken.” (Isaiah 40)

To download:

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AWE-INSPIRING PRAYER OVER THE BLOOD OF ISRAEL BEING SPILLED LIKE WATER, Rachmana litzlan

Please, Hashem—King filled with compassion—Who hears the cry of the People of Israel calling out to You from the depths of the heart over the blood of Israel spilled like water in the streets of the city; over precious souls, refined as pure gold, being trampled—given over to slaughter and destruction—with no one opening a mouth or chirping a protest. Please, have pity and mercy on the widows and orphans—multiplying, Rachmana litzlan, from day to day. See their grief that has no comforter, and the blood of their loved ones that has no one to seek it. Place their tears in Your flask, and let Your compassion overwhelm the measures of strict judgment. Look upon their terrible pain—when the delight of their eyes and the burden of their soul is taken from them—and they have no power to save.

Please, our Father in Heaven—hear our plea and listen to our groaning. How can we be silent, how can we be still, while bereaved families, widows, and orphans wander dazed through the streets of the city, refusing to be comforted? Please, have pity and mercy, and say to the Destroyer: “Stop!” For You have already struck us with wondrous blows—astonishing and terrible. We have become a mockery and derision in the eyes of those who seek our lives, who drink our blood in thirst with joy and song. We have no redeemer and savior except You, and only to You alone are our eyes lifted—for salvation and redemption.

Master of the Universe, You know the anguish and harsh pain of bereaved families, widows, and tender, pure orphans—whose eyes pour tears day and night without pause in their distress, with no comforter for their sorrow. You know the terrible disgrace when our enemies rejoice and celebrate, and the wicked revel in pleasure, for their plot has succeeded.

Compassionate and gracious Father—we will not hide it from You: we know that the blame is ours. We know how far we have become from prayer with kavanah, from holiness and purity, from learning Torah for its own sake, and from doing mitzvos with joy and a good heart. We know, our Father, that the blame is only ours. For with every blemish we create a destructive force; with every impure thought we create a destroyer and a damager, Rachmana litzlan—and we draw vitality to the wicked of Israel and to the nations of the lands.

Yet You, too, are a G‑d filled with compassion—Your mercy has no end and Your greatness has no limit. You truly feel the anguish and pain of bereaved parents and orphaned children; You sense and understand the grief of their families and the depth of pain of the children of Your people who still have a Jewish heart. Indeed, You know that the precious ones of Your people are wrapped in sorrow and grief, with no rest for their souls until they see the salvation of Your people. For how can food and drink be sweet to them while they behold the blood of the holy ones of Your people flowing like water? And how can their sleep be sweet while their land is sold to strangers and their inheritance to murderers?

Please, compassionate Father—have mercy on us and redeem us from the hand of the harsh klipah that has ruled over us; from the hand of the wicked kingdom, a “kingdom without a crown”; from the hand of brazen dogs who prey upon Your flock. Please, draw us out of the arrogant waters of foreign culture that threatens to drown us, Rachmana litzlan. Save us from the hand of those who destroy us and those who demolish us—who came from among us—who are unjustly called “Jews,” and who seek to erase the name of Israel from the world; who sell us for nothing into the hands of murderers who ambush our souls at every time, in every alley and corner.

Please—let our souls be precious in Your eyes, and save us for life from the hand of those who seek our lives. Please, G‑d Who sees me—Who sees the tears of the oppressed—please redeem their tears from the hand of their oppressors; they have power, and there is no comforter for them. Have compassion on the boiling tears and the anguished cries of the children of Your people—on all who are called by the name of Israel—and say to our troubles: “Enough!”

Master of the Universe, please do not deal with us according to our sins, and do not repay us according to our iniquities. For You, Hashem, are good and forgiving to all, abundant in kindness to all who call upon You. Please, see the humiliation of the humiliated who go on dwindling from day to day, and their children—plundered and trampled under the feet of wild men.

Merciful and gracious G‑d—our living Redeemer, the Last Who will rise upon the dust—Who desires the world’s endurance, and above all the success of His children and the eternity of the People of Israel: see how they blaspheme us—those who blaspheme Your great and awesome Name that is called upon us. Our enemies are Your enemies, and the destroyers of Your world. Please save us from their hand, and nullify their faith and their religion, in whose name they decree death upon us and say to us all day: “Where is your G‑d?” Please shatter the culture of these sinful men who desire to annihilate us from beneath the heavens of Elokim, to erase from the world Your Name that is called upon us, to drive us from our land, and to lead us like a despised branch into waters of mire.

You have seen, Hashem, our wrong; judge our cause. Do not hide Your face from us, and do not turn away from our supplication. Let Your kindness be to comfort us: before we call to You, answer us; before we speak, You will hear—Rachmana Who answers the poor. Answer us—Rachmana Who answers the brokenhearted, answer us—Rachmana Who answers the crushed in spirit, answer us. Rachmana, answer us; Rachmana, have pity; Rachmana, redeem; Rachmana, save; Rachmana, have mercy on us. Say to the Destroyer: “Stop your hands,” and let his sword return to its sheath. Let Your mercies and Your graciousness be aroused with love and extra compassion upon Your holy People of Israel. Help and save them all, so that all the families of Israel—fathers and sons, mothers and their children—may live each and every one in calm and tranquility until the fullness of their years: long and wholesome lives, blessed with abundance, wealth and honor, with Torah learning and fear of Heaven. May they all merit to raise their sons and daughters with joy and expanded awareness—toward Torah, toward the chuppah, and toward good deeds—for length of days and good years. May they all see from their sons and daughters grandchildren and great-grandchildren and descendants of descendants; and may they all grow and live מתוך calm and tranquility, joy and expanded awareness. May they merit to bring their sons and daughters to the chuppah and to see from them גדולי ישראל. May they sow fields and plant vineyards and produce fruitful harvest. May they never again see any pain at all; rather, draw upon them all life and length of days from the Source of Life. May each one merit to reveal the root of his soul and reach the complete tikkun You have designated for him—through calm and peace: Torah learning with joy, and doing mitzvos with gladness. And may we all merit to rejoice and be glad all day in Your unique Name that is called upon us. Place You before our eyes always, and let us no longer look at the vanities of the world—emptiness and delusions, false burdens and seductions—that have been our downfall in all the terrible disasters that visit us day after day.

Please, have mercy on the congregation of Yeshurun. Forgive and pardon their sin. Let the Akeidah of Your children—who are slaughtered and butchered, stabbed and killed day after day—appear before You. Let the cry of bereaved families and the tears of widows and orphans rise to the Sanctuary of Your holiness, to awaken mercy and compassion upon us—until we see the salvation of Israel from the hand of those who hate them, from within and from without. Give them a shield of heart; bring upon them Your curse; pursue them in wrath and destroy them from beneath the heavens of Hashem. And show us rejoicing and glad in the rebuilding of Zion Your city and in the consolation of Jerusalem, the city of Your Sanctuary.

“How has gold grown dim, how has the fine gold changed! The stones of holiness are poured out at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion, weighed against pure gold—how are they regarded as earthenware jars, the work of a potter’s hands!” How did this come upon us? How have we become mockery and derision in the eyes of all who see us—by the wicked of Israel, who fill their mouths with laughter at our downfall? Please, merciful G‑d, see their thoughts against us—the lips of those who rise against me and their murmuring against me all day; their sitting and their rising—we have become their song. The children of Your people have become cruel like ostriches in the wilderness. Look and see: those purer than snow and whiter than milk—now their appearance is darker than blackness, and their blood is spilled in the streets.

Master of the Universe—because sins have multiplied, You have poured out Your wrath upon us and taken from us every delight of our eyes. Even infants who never tasted the taste of sin have been killed because of our iniquities, to atone for us. When there are no tzaddikim standing in the breach, You take pure kids, clean of any trace of sin—while the wicked live in tranquility and our enemies celebrate with every kind of revelry. “You have covered with anger and pursued us; You have killed and not pitied. You have covered Yourself with a cloud so that prayer cannot pass; You have made us filth and refuse among the nations to annihilate us.” Woe to us, for they have found those walking among the destroyers of our people—uprooters of Israel who rejoice to sell us and delight to erase every remembrance of Judaism from the world.

Master of the Universe, You have taken from us precious and beloved souls—nursing infants who did not sin, weaned children who did not rebel, the children of the schoolhouse who sustain the world and all it contains with the breath of their mouths. For when we do not merit the level of “like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me,” and through this we do not ascend to the level of Atika Kadisha—where all judgments are sweetened—then nursing infants who did not sin are taken from us, children of the schoolhouse who did not rebel. And the Shechinah glorifies herself: “See with what children I come to greet You”—these infants who have no sin at all. And pure, refined souls who merit to die al kiddush Hashem—when there are no tzaddikim who know how to unify and connect the worlds, to bring forth Your praise and splendor by making awesome yichudim through the souls that merit to ascend in a סערה heavenward. Yet You revealed to us through Your awesome tzaddikim that You can make these awesome yichudim through every single person who learns Torah for its own sake, who merits to pray every word with kavanah, who rises at Chatzos and pours out his heart like water before You—fulfilling: “Elokim, do not be silent; do not hold Your peace and do not be still, O G‑d”—until the letters of “al dami” transform into the letters of “Elokim”: the dalet becomes filled and turns into a hei—chametz into matzah. Then “Rebuke the beast of the reed,” and the verse will be fulfilled: “First to Zion—behold, behold them.” The “reed” becomes “behold”; the straw-reed upon which the kingdom of Rome arose will turn into “behold, behold them” [the leg of the letter kuf breaks and turns into a hei]. And we will see with our own eyes how saviors will ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Esav, and the kingdom will be Hashem’s.

Master of the Universe, filled with compassion—you know that even for the apikorsim who want to annihilate us there is still hope, as long as the name of Israel is still called upon them. For through their blemishes and the blemishes of their fathers they were born without a heart; and through prayer with kavanah we can sweeten them and create for them a new heart and a new spirit—until all of them return in complete teshuvah, returning to their root and to their mother’s embrace.

Have mercy on the congregation of Yeshurun—have mercy, have mercy—Father of compassion, Father of pity, Father of graciousness, Father of kindness: please have mercy on us, like a mute dove today, for there is no one to stand for us—only Your great Name will stand for us in a time of trouble. Have pity on us and on all Israel with Your abundant mercy, and do not pour out Your wrath upon us, for Your Name is called upon us. Do not abandon us, do not forsake us, do not cast us away. Let Your inner compassion stir for us. Do not turn to our wickedness; do not hide Your face from us; do not turn away from our supplication. Let Your kindness be to comfort us. Please, not in Your anger—lest You consume us—for we are Your children, the children of Your graciousness. As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant look to the hand of her mistress—so our eyes are to Hashem our Elokim until He shows us favor. Favor us, Hashem, favor us, for we are greatly sated with contempt. Greatly has our soul been sated with the mockery of the complacent. We have become a shaking of the head among the nations, a rebuke among the peoples. Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; on the mountains they chased us; in the wilderness they lay in wait for us. The breath of our nostrils, the Moshiach of Hashem, was captured in their pits, of whom we said: “In his shadow we shall live among the nations.” “Is it nothing to you, all who pass by the way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain, which was dealt to me, with which Hashem afflicted me on the day of His burning anger…” (Lamentations passages) “…Return to them recompense, Hashem, according to the work of their hands. Pursue in wrath and destroy them from beneath the heavens of Hashem… You, Hashem, sit forever; Your throne is from generation to generation. Why do You forget us forever, abandon us for length of days? Return us, Hashem, to You and we will return; renew our days as of old.”

Our Father, our King—where shall we turn, when our salvation is far from us? We have only Your abundant mercy: the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, upon which alone we lean, and in which we trust. For Your compassion has not ended, and Your kindness has not ceased. For no plan is beyond You, and who can say to You what You will do and what You will accomplish? Reveal to us the hidden seichel—the wisdom that overturns the whole world, that sweetens every decree and brings us salvation as a free gift. Shine Your face and turn Your face back to the People of Israel, for all our enemies have opened their mouths against us. And we—streams of water our eyes flow over the shattering of our people; our tears pour and do not cease, without pause day and night, for we find no rest for our souls until Hashem looks down and sees from Heaven. Bring us back to Him; revive us after two days. Merit us all to prayer with kavanah, so that we will not be like a body without a soul. Please, merciful and gracious G‑d—breathe into our spirit a נשמת חיים, and blow into our bones from Your רוח קדש; let the dry bones live, and let pure, clean blood flow in our veins. Distance us from imagined honor, so that we no longer give vitality to the wicked and to the nations. Please, compassionate and gracious Father—pour upon us a spirit from on high and fill our hearts with Your awe and Your love, until we sweeten all decrees and are redeemed and are brought to a complete Geulah speedily in our days, Amen.

Reveal to us the hidden seichel—above all thought and contemplation, that unlocks every mystery, above every vision—that will overturn the world without a single explosive shot. In it תלויה the Geulah: every soul will have rest, and every person will dwell beneath his vine and beneath his fig tree. The entire world will unite under one Moshiach: the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the lamb with the kid together; the cow and the bear will graze, and a small child will lead them. They will not harm and they will not destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.

To download:

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A PRAYER OVER THE AWESOME TROUBLES OF ISRAEL

Master of the Universe, Almighty—Whom no plan can restrain—grant me from now on to truly feel the awesome troubles of Israel, and the blood of Israel spilled in the streets of the city day and night, until there is no house without a dead. Therefore I have come before You—Master of kindness and compassion—please have pity, please have mercy on the flock led to slaughter. For before You all mysteries and all hidden things are revealed from the beginning; and I only yearn and long and ache for You—that You Yourself should repair everything I have damaged. Here I return in teshuvah and long only for You, as it is written: “As a deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for You, Elokim.” And I know faithfully that I am guilty in all the attacks and disasters and terrible murders—for only because of my blemishes of the bris did all these terrible disasters come.

And therefore I have come to beg before You, Master of compassion, Whose greatness is beyond measure. Grant me the wholeness to repair all my blemishes of the bris. From now on, help me guard my eyes and not to blemish the holy bris with any blemish, Heaven forbid. Through this, may it be fulfilled: “He swallowed wealth and will vomit it out,” and may all the sparks of holiness return to their place. Through this, may the soul of Rebbe Nachman—holy and awesome—be drawn anew, and may the complete Geulah come speedily in our days, in the blink of an eye. Amen, netzach selah va’ed.

To download:

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