Rav Berland's Prayer to Merit to the Trait of Happiness

Translated to English from Tefilah L’Ani: Leket Tefilot u’Vakashot

Prayer to Merit to the Trait of Happiness

Ribono Shel Olam – Master of the World, Awesome and Terrifying, Master of happiness and joy, the only Master, that about You it is said, “Glory and majesty are before Him, might and joy are in His place” (I Chronicles 16:27), please, let me merit to enter the continuous circles of happiness, which do not cease for even a moment, to happiness that has no end or limit.  Let me merit that You should shine onto me happiness in its light over the course of all the days of the year without interruption for a second, true happiness and joy in You and in Your true Tzaddikim, happiness through which I will merit to escape from all the transgressions and blemishes, from all the falls and despair, in a way that I will no longer make any mistake and I will no longer stumble in any sin or iniquity. Ribono Shel Olam, our Father, Merciful Father, “Make known to me the path of life, the fullness of joys in Your Presence, the delights that are in Your right hand for eternity” (Tehilim 16:11).  “Make me hear joy and gladness, may the bones that You crushed exult… Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and with a generous spirit sustain me” (ibid. 51: 10, 14).  Ribono Shel Olam, You know how distant I am from true happiness in body and soul, because I ruined a great deal, without measure, estimation, or number, until the combinations of letters in which to describe my terrible corruptions, blemishes and guilt have been exhausted.  My Father in Heaven, Living and Enduring God, what can I say?  How can I speak?  How can I justify myself?  Behold, with all of this, it is very hard for me to draw onto myself happiness.  If in Your compassion You have bestowed to me and to all of Your people the House of Israel abundant goodness for eternity without measure, and You have given me the merit to be from the seed of Israel, and You have helped me in Your compassion to perform so many mitzvot and to learn Your holy Torah, through which there is for us – for every Jew – hope for a good end, and at the end of the day You will certainly rectify us and bestow us with Your eternal good, and give us a taste of the pleasantness of Your radiance in which we have with which to rejoice all our days forever. Ribono Shel Olam, let me merit to all the lofty levels which the righteous men and women merited to through their awesome joy in You, joy which had no end or limit.  Let me merit to be like Yosef HaTzaddik of whom it is said, “a successful man” (Bereshit 39:2), because he would always be cheerful and happy, jump and dance even in prison, even in the pit of the netherworld where he didn’t see a ray of light, because You were an eternal light for him, because he never took his mind off of You, and did not see anything other than You.  Let me merit to happiness like “a fruitful (PoRat) son is Yosef, a fruitful son on the fountain (ayin)” (ibi. 49:22), that he merited that all his life was to him an aspect of Purim, because he never opened an eye (ayin).  Let me merit to happiness that never ceases.  Let me merit to circles of happiness that have no end or limit.  Let me merit to the happiness that You thought of at the moment that You created the world and said, “Let there be light” (ibid. 1:3), and the light of the moon was like the light of the sun.  Because You created the first man only to thank, to praise, to sing to Your name, and if he had done so, he would have merited to return to the moon its light [to be] like the light of the sun, [and] would have remained in the Garden of Eden forever and drink from the wine [whose taste is] preserved [in its grapes] all the days of his life, wear garments of light, and his heel would have shined more than the sun. Then I will rejoice endlessly, be glad and exuberant without end, skip and dance from evening until morning, until in the merit of the singing and the dancing I will merit to words of prayer, joy, and faith, that will fly like an arrow from a bow, until the arrow will puncture the liver of the Samech-Mem, until all the hidden, suppressed good that is in the heart of each and every person will be revealed, even in the hearts of the nations of the world, and many converts will be added to the Jewish people, like Ruth, the mother of the monarchy, who sweetens all bitterness – the bitterness of the Jewish people – with the sweetness of the pleasantness of the sweet singer of Israel.