Please Hashem, Extend Protection and Defense Over Our Tender Children • Erev

Tonight is the eve of Rosh Chodesh Sivan (the new month of Sivan). Our teacher, the Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, requested this past Sunday that everyone travel tonight—Erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan—to the gravesite of the holy Shelah (Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz) in Tiberias. He urged them to fulfill the segulah (spiritual remedy) of reciting the awesome prayer he composed for righteous children at his holy gravesite on the day of his yahrzeit (anniversary of passing).

"Thursday, Erev Rosh Chodesh, everyone is traveling to Tiberias; no one stays here. We will recite the Shelah’s prayer for righteous children, righteous grandchildren, and righteous great-grandchildren. All of Israel is traveling to Tiberias; there will be twenty thousand people there. All of Israel without exception! Tonight will be Erev Rosh Chodesh; by Thursday night it will already be the 1st of Sivan."

Before you is the full text of the Shelah's prayer from his prayer book:

You are Hashem our G-d before You created the world, and You are our G-d since You created the world, and from world to world You are G-d. You created Your world so that Your Divinity would be known through Your holy Torah, as our Sages of blessed memory said: "In the beginning (Bereishit)"—for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of Israel, for they are Your people and Your heritage whom You chose from all the nations, and You gave them Your holy Torah and brought them close to Your great Name. Regarding the existence of the world and the existence of the Torah, two commands came to us from You, Hashem our G-d. You wrote in Your Torah, "Be fruitful and multiply," and You wrote in Your Torah, "And you shall teach them to your children." The intention of both is one: for You did not create the world for emptiness but for habitation, and for Your glory You created, formed, and even made it, so that we and our descendants and the descendants of all Your people the House of Israel may be knowers of Your Name and students of Your Torah. Therefore, I come before You, Hashem, King of kings, and I cast my supplication, and my eyes are lifted to You until You favor me and hear my prayer to provide me with sons and daughters. And may they also be fruitful and multiply, they and their children and their children's children until the end of all generations, for the purpose that they and I and all of us together shall engage in Your holy Torah—to learn and to teach, to keep, to do, and to fulfill all the words of the study of Your Torah with love. Enlighten our eyes in Your Torah and attach our hearts to Your commandments to love and fear Your Name. Our Father, Merciful Father, give us all long and blessed lives. Who is like You, Merciful Father, who remembers His creatures for life with mercy? Remember us for eternal life, as our forefather Abraham prayed, "If only [Ishmael] would live before You," which our Sages of blessed memory explained to mean "in fear of You." For this reason, I have come to request and plead before You that my offspring and the offspring of my offspring forever be worthy offspring. May there not be found in me, or in my offspring, or in the offspring of my offspring forever any blemish or taint, but only peace, truth, goodness, and uprightness in the eyes of G-d and in the eyes of man. May they be masters of Scripture, masters of Mishnah, masters of Talmud, masters of secrets (Kabbalah), masters of commandments, masters of acts of kindness, and masters of noble character traits. May they serve You with love and inner fear, and not an external fear. Give to each and every one of them their sufficient needs with honor, and give them health, honor, and strength. Give them stature, beauty, grace, and kindness. May there be love, brotherhood, and peace between them. Provide them with suitable marriage matches from the offspring of Torah scholars and the offspring of tzaddikim, and may their spouses be like them in everything I have prayed for them, for one remembrance rises for both. You, Hashem, know all secrets, and before You the hidden things of my heart are revealed; for my intention in all this is for the sake of Your great and holy Name and for the sake of Your holy Torah. Therefore, answer me, Hashem, answer me for the sake of the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and because of them save the children so that the branches resemble their roots. And for the sake of David Your servant, the fourth leg of the Chariot, who sang with Your holy spirit: "A song of ascents, happy is everyone who fears Hashem, who walks in His ways. When you eat the labor of your hands, you are happy and it is well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants around your table. Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears Hashem. May Hashem bless you from Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. And may you see children born to your children, peace upon Israel." Please Hashem, who hears prayer, may the verse be fulfilled in us: "As for Me, this is My covenant with them, says Hashem: My spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have placed in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says Hashem, from now and forever." May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before You, Hashem, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Below are several prayers for righteous children from the Gaon and Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a:

A Parents' Prayer for Children

To merit that all our sons and daughters will merit to withstand all the difficult trials passing over us, especially in the final generation, and to nullify themselves to the Tzaddik completely without any barrier at all, and our children will perform a Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-d's Name) such as has not been in all generations.

Master of the Universe, Almighty, You know that this generation is the worst of all generations, and who knows what a day will bring, and how our children will withstand the trials of the coming generations, which are becoming worse and worse, from moment to moment and from second to second. The Sitra Achra (the 'Other Side' / forces of evil) rains down floods of iPhones and Internets and other evil maladies. In every moment and second, the Sitra Achra comes with new offers, new revelations, and new techniques on how to drown the souls of our sons and daughters in the miry clay within the deepest depths of the Sitra Achra. Such things have never existed since the beginning of time—not in the generation of the Flood, not in the generation of the Tower of Babel, and not among the people of Sodom, of whom it was said, "For all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth," even the domestic animals, wild beasts, and birds. Especially in these days of ours, there have never been such trials since the beginning of time, as the kelipah (evil shell) of the fly has taken hold of every boy and girl—the initials of "Write this as a memorial in the book and place it in the ears of Joshua" (K'tov Zot Zicharon BaSefer VeSim Be'oznei Yehoshua)—for everyone without exception has fallen into the kelipah of the fly, which is the kelipah of Amalek. This is the strongest kelipah of all the kelipos that have existed since the beginning of time. The kelipah of Amalek takes control over every boy and girl without exception and defiles them with terrible pgam habris (breaches of the covenant of purity) from which it is impossible to ever escape. For anyone who has stepped into the miry clay of the kelipah of Greece (Yavan), "there is no peace for him who goes out or comes in." There is almost no boy or girl today who can withstand the trial of not being enticed by the Internet or the iPhones. Almost no one can withstand this terrible trial, which casts everyone into the lowest pit and beneath it—the lowest pit called Abaddon, from which one never emerges, except for one who discovers the true Tzaddik and nullifies himself to him with total bitul (nullification), not leaving even a single hair outside. This is like "one who immerses in a mikveh (ritual bath)"—he must not be like one who immerses while holding a creeping insect in his hand, performing a repentance that is only a half, a third, or a quarter, remaining stuck in the miry clay with no foothold, continuing to sink and sink without end or purpose. There is no one who can stop him from this immense descent and endless drowning, which continues every single day with increasing intensity. In us is fulfilled what the Gemara says in Bava Batra 143b, "You and a donkey," for a person slowly turns into a literal donkey—"whose flesh is the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is the issue of horses"—whom the kelipah of the fly has swallowed, and the kelipah of Amalek has become their daily bread. For Hashem, blessed be He, wants specifically in these generations that there be the greatest Kiddush Hashem in the world, such as has never been since the beginning of time. He wants a Kiddush Hashem like no other generation has seen—how boys and girls whose intellect has not yet matured, who do not know how to distinguish between good and evil, light and darkness, forbidden and permitted, or impure and pure—specifically these boys and girls will subdue the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination). They will nullify it completely, identifying it in all its severity, all its cunning, all its tactics, and all its deceits. They will declare an all-out war against it without end or limit, to crush it and repel it, blow after blow, thrust after thrust. As it was said regarding Jael: "Sisera, she struck his head, she crushed and pierced his temple. Between her feet he sank, he fell, he lay; between her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell dead (shadud)." "Shadud" (dead/destroyed) has the numerical value (Gematria) of Matatron. Because Jael stood in the trial, she merited that he fell "shadud," for the angel Matatron was enclothed within her. Thus she merited to topple, erase, and crush the temple of Sisera. Just as in the Song of the Well, where Israel merited to erase, crush, defeat, and repel all the armies of the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, and Jebusites—who represent all the forces of the Sitra Achra that have existed since the beginning of time and will exist until the end of generations. These forces only grow stronger from day to day and hour to hour, and every single second they double and triple their strength, in the aspect of "and captains (shalishim - also meaning thirds) over all of them," for they triple all their forces every second with new technologies and innovations of the Sitra Achra that never existed before. This is what the mother of Sisera says: "Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?" For Jael and Deborah succeeded in crushing, repelling, and erasing all the army of Sisera and Jabin king of Hazor. Not a trace remained of that great and fearsome camp, which consisted of 4 billion soldiers—one hundred thousand, each appointed over 40 thousand, or 40 thousand each appointed over 100 thousand (Yalkut Shimoni). For the moment one overcomes this terrible Yetzer Hara drawn from Sisera—who is twice the value of Haman, as it says "From heaven they fought, the stars from their courses fought," twice "Haman"—one merits "spoils of dyed garments for Sisera, a spoil of dyed garments of embroidery for the neck of the spoiler." From all the trials in the world, they become "dyed garments of embroidery for the neck of the spoiler," the inclusion of all colors for all generations.

Protection and Defense for Children

To merit double and redoubled protection and defense for our tender children, that they may be saved from all terrible harms and evil companions.

Master of the Universe, Almighty, please Hashem, extend protection and defense over our tender children, spiritually and physically. Guard them from the Ayin Hara (evil eye), from the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination), from evil mishaps, from evil male companions, and from evil female companions. May the Sitra Achra (the 'Other Side' / forces of evil) be unable to spread a net for their feet, for they are tender and easily enticed by every forbidden thing and every matter of transgression. Therefore, they need double and redoubled protection not to be incited by the Yetzer Hara and evil friends. Save the tender children from the Yetzer Hara and from evil and impure thoughts. May impure thoughts, Heaven forbid, not rule over them, and may they not stumble in any matter of transgression. May no thoughts of the forbidden or the impure confuse them. May we derive holy satisfaction (nachas) from them all the 120 years of our lives. May evil thoughts be unable to topple us, or our sons, or our daughters, Heaven forbid. May we merit from now on to complete the Book of Psalms (Tehillim) every single day, as an unbreakable rule. For only the Book of Psalms can save us; "Day and Night" (Yomam VaLayla) = 177, and through this we shall enter with our bodies into "Paradise" (Gan Eden) = 177, like Serach the daughter of Asher = 1411. Through this, we shall subdue the 11 (Yod-Aleph) chieftains of Esau, and the verse shall be fulfilled in us: "And it was turned about (VeNahaphoch Hu), that (Asher = 501) the Jews (HaYehudim = 355) should have rule (Yishletu = 80) they (Hemma = 50) over those who hated them (BeSoneihem = 414)" [Total Gematria] = 1411.