Tefila L'Ani -- Prayer to Merit to Pray with Kavana by Rabbi Eliezer Berland

To Merit to Prayer with Kavana (Focused Intention)

From "Tefilah L'Ani - Leket Tefilot U'Vakashot"

Beloved of the soul, Compassionate Father, draw us after You until our souls are bound to You with an inseparable bond, and that all our Divine service and Torah will be amidst desire, yearning, and longing for You, amidst ceaseless yearning day and night. Please, let us merit to strengthen ourselves in prayer and supplication until total self-nullification, with singing and dancing with the ultimate self-sacrifice, just as one truly must sacrifice oneself for every matter in holiness. Let me merit to sacrifice my soul in prayer and supplications, in singing and dancing, and may our prayer always be amidst true self-sacrifice until we truly are willing to nullify ourselves to You to the point of total self-nullification. May we truly and wholeheartedly accept onto ourselves in every single prayer and in every Kriyat Shema all four court-imposed death penalties.(*) May we know that we now have no other way to bring close the light of the Redemption except through prayer and supplications, song and joyous praise – performed amidst total nullification of ourselves and our thoughts, until total self-nullification in truth. And we will request from You true forgiveness and pardon, and that we will never again return to our folly, and we will truly regret from the depths of the heart all our unwilling sins and rebellious sins. Please, let us merit to remember the root of these matters – to know that our sins are what have blocked us, that they are the barriers standing between us and You, and they are what have caused the Hellenizers to rule over us, have placed the sword in the hands of our enemies, and have incited all the nations of the world against us. Therefore, we entreat the Master of Compassion: please strengthen and fortify us in prayer and supplications with supreme might. Do not remain silent until You show us grace. We will call out to You until You answer us, until we arouse Your true compassion upon us.

Our Father in Heaven, in the merit of the name “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (I Will Be Who I Will Be),” have pity on me and on Your entire people, the House of Israel. Stand [for me] with “My righteous right hand” (based on Yeshaya 41:10) and be my help at all times, so that I merit to drive away all disturbing thoughts and all confusing ideas -- especially at the time of prayer – in such a way that I merit to pray before You with all my heart, with tremendous kavanah, truly from the depths of my heart, with pure and holy thoughts, in a way that my thought will be bound to all the words of prayer with a strong and powerful bond, with complete unity. May no ulterior motive or foreign thought enter my heart during prayer; rather, may I merit to remove from my mind during prayer all ulterior motives and disturbing thoughts. May I be certain in Your great kindness, that You dwell with the afflicted and lowly of spirit, that You are close to the brokenhearted, and that through Your great kindness alone do I dare to pray before You in true joy. I will exult and rejoice in Your salvation, in a manner so that my prayer will be in the ultimate completeness – pure, clean, proper, and fluent in my mouth, in a manner that You will hear and accept our prayers, supplications, and requests. May we merit to rule through our prayers, to bring about all that we desire, even changing the course of nature. May You fulfill all the wishes of our hearts for good and with compassion. May You constantly delight, adorn Yourself, and take pleasure in our prayers, and through this, sustain Your world and everything in it, through the power of the Ten Utterances [of Creation]. Draw upon us good kindnesses constantly, and sweeten and nullify from us and from all the Jewish people all judgments in the world. Shatter and nullify from upon us and from upon all Your people, the House of Israel, all judgments, whether before the decree has been issued or after the decree has been issued – for good, grace, kindness, and mercy.

Let me merit, my Father, to multiply my prayers all my days and years, despite my many blemishes. Open for me the gates of prayer and supplication, the gates of humility and submission, for You have revealed to us through the Tzaddikim of the generations that it is possible to accomplish through prayer great and awesome things, even more than through mortifications and fasts. Therefore, open for me, Merciful Father, gates of favor. Open my heart and mouth with holy words, so that I may merit from now on to express my thoughts before You each time with words of grace and entreaty, with new [words of] favor and closeness. May I merit to pour out my heart like water before You, to plead and request to do Your will. For You have known my heart, how much I long to cry out and call out before You, to weep from the bitterness of my soul – to pour out my heart like water, requesting Your mercy, to run in devekut (cleaving to Hashem) until total self-nullification for Your sake.

(*)Stoning, burning, decapitation, and strangulation

Artwork by R' Yehoshua Wiseman