From Tefilah L’Ani: Leket Tefilos u’Vakashos
Prayer to Rectify One’s Character Traits
Ribono Shel Olam – Master of the World – “Who supports all the fallen, and straightens all the bent” (Tehilim 145:14) – Take pity and be gracious to us, and turn all of our falls into ascents, our failures into successes, our sins into merits.
Please, redeem from the recesses of the bottom pits of purgatory also a sinner and one who causes the masses to sin, one swallowed up inside the serpent and who has already turned into its essence exactly, one who is a messenger of the Evil One – such as me, G-d save us. Because it is in the endless power of the true Tzadikim to turn also a serpent such as me into a staff of G-d, into a staff of sapphire and diamonds, into an aspect of “just like me,”[1] if he turns his heart to their ways and his ears to their advice. Please bind me to You with my 248 organs and 365 sinews, with all my innards, flanks, and kidneys, with all that’s hidden in my heart, and with all my strategies, so that they should be subordinate only to You, serving only Your will and beautifying the greatness of Your Name with endless devotion to Your Torah.
Please Hashem, incline all my internal and external powers to do Your will. Turn all the powers of will within me, rejection and refusal, to listen to You, to Your Torah, to Your advice. Please guide me in the truth of Your will in every single movement within me, in a way that I will refuse the filth of the lusts of my body and my evil traits with all types of refusal, and will choose good, with desire, yearning, and longing as befits Your good will with the ultimate completeness, in a manner that there will not be upon me from now on any sin, iniquity, or rebellion, G-d forbid, and all that I sinned and corrupted in action, word and thought, and all that I have been negligent in in this reincarnation and in other reincarnations will be rectified from now on and turned into merit, in a manner that there will be no decree or judgement upon me from now on, G-d forbid – not in this world and not in the next world, and my mind and heart will be purified for feeling joy in You and Your true Tzadikim, with an eternal, awesome and exalted feeling, until also in my lifetime I will merit to be encompassed within You with running and returning as befits Your good will, from now and forever.
Ribono Shel Olam – Master of the World, help me and save me, free me and redeem me, and turn all of my desires to You alone. Just as an Egyptian maidservant turned all her desires into attachment to You, and just as Pharaoh’s daughter was purified from the idolatry of her father’s house in order to save and raise Your Messiah, let me also merit — even if I’m worse than all of these endless times over — to subjugate my desires to Your desire, to serve Your Tzadikim [who are] mighty warriors to do Your will. Let me merit to publicize their names and their Torah and to fulfill their advice, in a way that I will refuse evil with the ultimate refusal, and be disgusted by the filth of lusts and the evilness of traits, and that I will fulfill what is said of Yosef: “He refused” (Bereishis 39:8), will all types of refusal, and with all types of screaming, with thundering and great tumult, with shouting and great fear, with true binding to the true Tzadikim, until I will be attached to and be encompassed in his [Yosef’s] awesome righteousness to split the sea for all the Jewish people and to reveal to each person his path according to his soul root.
Please, let me merit through the power of Yosef HaTzadik to refuse with the ultimate refusal everything that is an evil lust, every evil trait, anger, rage, gratuitous hatred, until all my iniquities are atoned for, whether in this reincarnation or other reincarnations, and there will be no decree or judgement upon me, G-d forbid, not in this world and not in the next world.
Purify my mind and my heart — at a time when all creatures are singing and shouting with gladness, exulting and rejoicing in You and Your true Tzadikim — to feel joy only in Hashem alone and in those who fear Him and do His will with an eternal, awesome, and exalted feeling, in an aspect of “They believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant” (Shemos 14:31), and let me merit to be encompassed in You as befits Your good will, in truth, from now and forever.
My G-d and the G-d of my forefathers, Who graces man with knowledge – Please, endow me graciously from Yourself with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, that I shouldn’t falter again in sins, iniquities, evil lusts, or disgusting traits. Please, have mercy on me in Your kindness, and teach me Your ways, and let me merit to grasp Your holy traits, the ways of Your goodness and Your mercy, which are drawn from the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, through which You behave with all Your creatures, until also I will merit to walk in Your ways and to have mercy on Your creatures with true mercy — with all types of mercy that are included in Your Thirteen Attributes of Mercy — and will merit to be good to everyone.
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[1] See “Tzaddik” (the translation of “Chayei Moharan” by the Breslov Research Institute), p. 247: “I myself heard the Rebbe say many times that the main thing is a person’s work and effort, nothing else. Everything depends on effort. Through work and effort everyone can reach great levels. The Rebbe said: “I can turn a person into a worthy Jew – what they call a guter Yid – and make him just like me! Literally!”
