Prayer Before Placing the Ashes at Midnight by the Esteemed Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a

With Hashem's help

Master of the Universe, grant me the merit to weep and recite Tikkun Chatzot with tears over the destruction of the Holy Temple and the burning of the House of our God. May this ash come to sweeten the harsh judgments in which I am immersed, which are all the terrible desires I have sunk into day and night, instead of learning Torah day and night, which is the secret of the Garden of Eden.

Daytime             96 Garden 53

Night               81 Eden        124

177             177

For then Hashem enters at midnight into the Garden of Eden, which is created through learning Torah for its own sake. Through the ash placed beforehand on the forehead, all the harsh judgments are sweetened, which are all the desires I stumbled into during the past day. Only through this can one merit to join with Hashem in the Garden of Eden that night. Then one merits that a thread of kindness is drawn throughout the day, which is the Torah for its own sake, as our Rebbe writes in Torah 3, that whoever rises at midnight merits to learn Gemara for its own sake and Torah for its own sake, and merits the sound of the melody from the strings of the cherubim, the secret of the two Messiahs, Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David. Then he merits to be included in the two Messiahs, Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David, 2+ gematria and Torah for its own sake.

And Torah   617

for its own sake   375

992

Mashiach        358 Mashiach 358        566

Ben    52      Ben     52      424

Yosef 156   David   14    990

566          424    2 +

992

Please, Merciful and Gracious One, in the merit of the ash that I am now going to place on my forehead, nullify from me "and the forehead of a harlot was yours, you refused to be ashamed," and I will no longer look at any woman in the world at all, nor at any girl at all. Through the Tikkun Chatzot that I am now going to recite, may all the harsh judgments be sweetened from me forever and ever. In the merit of the ash and in the merit of the Tikkun Chatzot, may I merit to learn Torah for its own sake, and through this, may I merit to be included in the two Messiahs, Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David.