A Prayer for the Holy Days of Hanukkah

B"SD (With the help of Heaven)

Master of the Universe, full of mercy, Who gives strength and power to the people, Who bestows upon us strength and power from the Sefirah (Divine attribute) of Netzach (Eternity/Victory), from the forty-nine foundations, which flow into the seven branches of the Menorah the oil of Chochmah (Wisdom), Binah (Understanding), and Da’as (Knowledge). Please, grant us Binah and Da’as to seek the True Tzaddik, who is in the aspect of Matityahu, who bestows the light of Hanukkah in every generation.

Please, Father of Mercy, whose mercies never end, merit me to all the wonderful tikkunim (rectifications) that can be attained during the days of Hanukkah. Merit me to the elevation of the 288 sparks (Rapa"h nitzotzos), hinted at in the verse, "And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a plucked olive leaf" (Genesis 8:11), which is the secret of the light of Hanukkah that rectifies all the 288 lost sparks in every generation and every year. Merit me to the "plucked olive leaf in her mouth," which hints that if Noah had strengthened himself and empowered himself in prayer with all his might and strength, he would have tilted the scale from the side of guilt to the side of merit, and saved his generation from the waters of the Flood. For through his prayers, he could have awakened thoughts of teshuvah (repentance) in the people of the world until they became complete ba’alei teshuvah (returnees to the faith), and he would have merited to bring down the Torah to them with voices and lightning.

Please, merit us now in these holy days of Hanukkah to hear the voices and lightning that burst forth from the Hanukkah candles, in the aspect of "hearing that which is seen," for we have no permission to make use of them but only to look at them. Merit me to see and hear the wonderful voices that burst from the Hanukkah candles, which are the voices of the Giving of the Torah.

Master of the Universe, Who bestows strength and power, give us a heart to know and to fulfill that which You requested of us: "Ascribe strength to G-d; His majesty is over Israel, and His strength is in the skies" (Psalms 68:35). For as much as we find the beauty within every single Jew of Your people Israel, and judge every single Jew favorably—seeing that Your pride and glory rest upon them—so too do we give You strength and power to perform miracles and wonders for us. We shall reawaken Your love for Your people, the House of Israel, and Your eternal desire to always perform miracles and wonders for us that are above nature. Please, merit us that the verse may be fulfilled in our days: "At that time I will search Jerusalem with candles" (Zephaniah 1:12), which is the secret of the Hanukkah candles, through which we merit to rediscover Jerusalem, to return her to her Father in Heaven, and to re-establish within her the Kingdom of the House of David, upon whose throne no stranger shall sit.

Master of the Universe, Who chooses songs and praises, please merit us to draw upon ourselves the spirit of the prayer and song of the Sweet Singer of Israel (King David), the holiness of his joy, and the grace of his humility—"David was the youngest" (I Samuel 17:14)—who merited to sit on the throne of Hashem and return the Kingdom of Israel to its source through his immense joy in You. Please, merit us to the pleasantness of his melodies and the power of his songs and praises that he sang before You, praising and singing from Chatzos (midnight) until the morning, until the light of dawn—the morning light of Israel—until the time he merited to say: "Spread your hands into the troop," in the secret of "Cut down the tree," which is said regarding the end of the kingdom of the idolaters. Please merit me, through the power of Your true tzaddikim, to the aspect of the stone that David merited, in the secret of "The Shepherd, the Stone of Israel" (Genesis 49:24)—Father and sons (Av u'Vanim), which include the aspect of "Son" after creation and the aspect of "Father" before creation, in the aspect of "There is none else besides Him." Please, merit me to the stone from which the world was founded, "The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (Psalms 118:22). Merit me to David's stone with which he subdued the one who defied the ranks of the Living G-d, as it is said: "So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone" (I Samuel 17:50).

Mighty G-d, great and awesome, Warrior and Man of War, Master of Wonders and Owner of Salvations, merit Your people Israel, Your children, Your treasured nation upon whom Your Name is called, with the stone of which it is said: "And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth" (Daniel 2:35), which Daniel saw in his prophecies when he envisioned Matityahu and his sons subduing the wicked kingdom through their prayer and their cry—the King of Greece, of whom it is said: "And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people" (Daniel 8:24).

Please, give us the Da’as (knowledge) to understand and remember that "his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power," for the power of the kingdoms of the idolaters is not in their own strength or advantage, but in our deficiency and our sins, in our iniquities and our blemishes—and specifically in the blemishes of the eyes. For through our blemishes, we ourselves give strength and power to the kingdoms of the idolaters; through our transgressions, we ourselves bequeath them our inheritance; through our foolishness, we ourselves make them wise and grant them the light of the Moach (intellect) and Da’as, in the aspect of "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field" (Genesis 3:1), for he was cunning enough to make Adam stumble through the blemish of the eyes in order to rob him of his immense Divine wisdom. Please, You Who graciously grants man knowledge, Who desires the teshuvah of Israel, save me from the filth of the serpent which has grown strong through our transgressions, which diminishes our wisdom and brings it down to the Klipos (husks of evil), to the kingdom of the idolaters, which uses its power to create weapons of destruction to destroy us completely, G-d forbid (Rachmana Litzlan).

Master of the Universe, we have reached the end of the generations and we are still with You; we have reached the secret of the "heels" of Adam Kadmon, of which it is said: "Wherewith Thine enemies have reproached the footsteps (heels) of Thine anointed" (Psalms 89:52). And there is no moisture of holiness within us, not even a drop of a mitzvah, but rather we are surrounded by endless blemishes and sins: "For Thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, and the flood was round about me; all Thy waves and Thy billows passed over me... The waters compassed me about, even to the soul; the deep was round about me; the weeds were wrapped about my head" (Jonah 2:4-6). Our Father in Heaven, we know full well that You brought all this about in Your mercy, so that we would cry out to You just as Jonah cried out from the belly of the fish from the depths of the sea. For specifically then did You reveal to him the secret of the Even HaShtiya (Foundation Stone), which is the root of the whole world and all souls. Anyone who merits to enter there between the poles in the aspect of the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), the secret of the light of Hanukkah is revealed to him, in the aspect of "Pardon, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Thy lovingkindness, and according as Thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now" (Numbers 14:19), which is revealed to the Kohen Gadol and all those joined to him in their prayers on Yom Kippur—only then did You reveal it to him, and only then did he understand in the belly of the underworld that You are ready to have pity even on the nations of the world who do not know between their right hand and their left.

Master of the Universe, pardon and forgive all our transgressions, atone for and purify every trace of our sins, as You revealed to us through Your true tzaddikim—that on Hanukkah, whose light is drawn from Yom Kippur, You pardon and forgive all the people of the world, and especially Your people Israel, Your beloved children, most of whom in this generation are like "captured infants" (tinokos shenishbu) who do not know between their right and their left. Please, forgive us and atone for us now, and renew our days as of old. Just as You brought Jonah down to the lowest depths of the abyss in the heart of the seas so that he would cry out from the depths over his troubles and the loss of the world, so too now, You have only brought us down to the spiritual and physical depths—depths into which Israel has never fallen before—only so that we would cry out to You and You would redeem us. For You are close to all who call upon You in truth, and only to bring us closer to You do You send us signals every day and severe warnings of harsh decrees that threaten us every moment with total destruction and loss, spiritually and physically. We know, our Father in Heaven, that these troubles and decrees have intensified, and the fear and dread permeate us, only to open the blockage of our hearts and remove the foreskin of our hearts which prevents us from crying and screaming to You. For You do not desire the destruction of Israel, Your treasured people, nor the destruction and ruin of the world; every revelation of Your judgments is nothing but an immense kindness to return us to You, that we should call and cry out to You from the depths of the heart (umka d'liba), that our hearts should be torn and we should seek You without any barrier, in immense attachment (dveikus).

Please, merciful and gracious Father, Who yearns for the prayer of Israel, merit us to plead for our lives, merit us to request for our spirit and our soul, for our existence, and for our inheritance, that it should not belong to strangers. Please, give us the strength to pray to You like all the tzaddikim and prophets who lifted their eyes to heaven and asked for Your mercy, like Daniel who offered a prayer before You and said: "And I prayed unto Hashem my G-d, and made confession, and said: 'O L-rd, the great and awful G-d, who keepest covenant and mercy with them that love Thee and keep Thy commandments; we have sinned, and have dealt iniquitously, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from Thy precepts and from Thine ordinances; neither have we hearkened unto Thy servants the prophets, who spoke in Thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Unto Thee, O L-rd, belongeth righteousness, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither Thou hast driven them because of their trespass that they have trespassed against Thee. O Hashem, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee. To the L-rd our G-d belong mercies and forgivenesses; for we have rebelled against Him; neither have we obeyed the voice of Hashem our G-d, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed Thy law, even turning aside, that they should not obey Thy voice; therefore hath the curse been poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the Law of Moses the servant of G-d; for we have sinned against Him. And He hath confirmed His word, which He spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; so that under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet have we not entreated the face of Hashem our G-d, that we might turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in Thy truth'" (Daniel 9:4-13).

Full of Mercy, Father of Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge, You revealed to us through Your prophets that it is impossible to do teshuvah unless we first have discernment in Your truth; and You revealed to us through Your true tzaddikim that it is impossible to have discernment in Your truth before we do teshuvah. And we do not know where the beginning is, or how we shall discern Your truth and do teshuvah. Therefore, You emanated upon us the lights of Hanukkah, regarding whose lighting Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel disagree—whether we begin from the Sefirah of Binah (Understanding) or from the Sefirah of Malchus (Kingship), which is the secret of "Men of understanding (Bnei Binah) established eight days." According to Beis Shammai, we begin from the light of Binah, which is the eighth upper Sefirah, and slowly diminish the light until the Sefirah of Malchus, the lowest. Whereas Beis Hillel—who know our lowliness and our diminished worth, and who are the tzaddikim of all generations who descend to the low level and lowliness of every single person, in the aspect of "Who remembered us in our low estate, for His mercy endureth forever" (Psalms 136:23)—hold that we should begin with Malchus and continue to increase and ascend every day until Binah. For there is no fear of revealing the light to those of low degree, and it is proper to elevate and exalt them, to add and increase their holiness every day, to reveal to them a greater light every day, in the aspect of "increasing and going forward." And now, our Father, Merciful Father, You too should find merit, and give hope even to the outcasts and those of low degree like us. Just as You acted for our sake when the children of Israel in Egypt reached the mouth of the abyss where almost all hope was lost, and then specifically You turned the attribute of Judgment upon the heads of the Egyptians and all the evil decrees were decreed upon them, and You granted as a free gift to Israel Your people great Moachin (intellects) so they would be worthy of good decrees, in the aspect of "To Him who divided the Red Sea into parts, for His mercy endureth forever" (Psalms 136:13)—so too now, shine the light for us, in the aspect of increasing and going forward, until we are worthy that You turn all the decrees You have already decreed upon Your people the House of Israel, with endless mercy, upon the heads of the enemies of Israel who plot to destroy them, G-d forbid. Please, nullify our evil decrees even if they are after the final judgment, G-d forbid, and bring us out in the merit of the lights of Hanukkah from sorrow to joy, from servitude to redemption, from darkness to a great light.

Master of the Universe, Who alone performs great wonders, Who informs us through His true tzaddikim that in every generation there exist tzaddikim in the aspect of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and Aaron and Joseph, David and Solomon, Matityahu and his sons, and other holy and awesome tzaddikim. Please, merit us to find the tzaddikim who will save our generation from the mouth of the pit; merit us to find the tzaddikim who are in the aspect of Matityahu and his sons, who cry out "Who is for Hashem, come to me!", whose entire purpose, yearning, and desire is for Hashem alone and they have no other interest at all. All their actions, words, and thoughts are in the aspect of the attachment (dveikus) of King David, who says: "As well the singers as the players on instruments shall say: 'All my springs are in Thee'" (Psalms 87:7). All the springs of their heart and their meditation are in You alone; they are in the aspect of David and Matityahu and his sons, who merited to return Israel to their dwellings—the Levites to their song and melody and the Priests to their service—and enabled every single person to find the root of his soul and emerge from his darkness. They lit up all the darkness and nullified all the decrees with their song and melody, with their prayers and their cry, until they nullified all their own personal interests, even the shadow of the body, and merited the aspect of "My heart is hollow within me" (Psalms 109:22). They drew the light of teshuvah from the Sefirah of Binah and revealed the essence of teshuvah, which is Higher Teshuvah (Teshuvah Ila'ah)—endless attachment to You without a moment's pause, and they merited to be bound to You in a single knot all the days of their lives, from the day they reached maturity for all eternity. For their souls hover around us in every generation and seek in whom to be impregnated (ibbur), in the aspect of "There is no generation that does not have one like Abraham, etc.", for Your entire will is only that we should be ashamed and confounded by all our evil ways and our crooked deeds, in the secret of the forty-four candles, in the aspect of "Be silent (Dom) before Hashem," so that blood (Dam) may be turned to silence (Dom)—(the back of the name Ehyeh = Dam/44)—and we shall merit the name Ehyeh, which is the secret of the Redemption, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (I Will Be What I Will Be), which Moses our Teacher alone merited. Therefore, according to the aspect of the Ehyeh that we merit in every generation, so we merit before Moses, to the light of the sun—to "And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun" (Isaiah 30:26), to the aspect of "But let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might" (Judges 5:31), to the aspect of Matityahu and his sons, who merited these wonderful levels.

Master of the Universe, in these days when the light of the High Holy Days concludes, we stand before You in supplication that You grant us a good final sealing (Chasima Tova). For we believe in You that You are a powerful Redeemer, Who judges alone all the inhabitants of the world, and everything is in Your hand and Your authority, and who can tell You what to do or what to act? And who can stand against the greatness of Your mercy and the power of Your forgiveness? For I am full of sin, iniquity, and transgression, and You are full of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness for transgressors. Hashem our G-d, our Redeemer and the Redeemer of our fathers, Who is called by the name "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh," spare us and be gracious to us, ransom us and redeem us with this holy Name, just as You redeemed us from the servitude of the kingdom of the calf, and with Your great hand You brought out the treasured nation, and Pharaoh and all his seed went down like a stone into the deep. Please, hear our voice even now in these days of Hanukkah, and merit us to be a treasured nation through the name "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh," as You revealed Your love and Your choice of us: "Hashem did not set His love upon you... because ye were more in number than any people... for ye were the fewest of all peoples" (Deuteronomy 7:7). For when we are attached to the name Ehyeh, and diminish ourselves before every person, You desired us. Please, merit us also to focus every single day of the days of Hanukkah on the name Ehyeh, and to be truly included through this name, to be as naught and nothingness, in the aspect of the coat of many colors (Ketonet Passim) that Joseph the Tzaddik merited, which is the secret of "Aps-mi" (nothingness), through which he merited to father Ephraim—the secret of "Apr-mi" (dust)—and Menashe, in the aspect of forgetting his lineage and his toil, becoming like a newborn baby, like a weaned child with its mother.

Master of the Universe, please spare us and have mercy on us, and bring us close to You in complete teshuvah. Sprinkle pure water upon us and purify us from all our impurities and our sins, for our strength to endure has failed. May there be fulfilled in us: "And I will save you from all your uncleannesses; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye may receive no more the reproach of famine among the nations. Then shall ye remember your evil ways, and your doings that were not good; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sake do I this, saith the L-rd Hashem, be it known unto you; be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel" (Ezekiel 36:29-32). Please, merit us to return from the evil of our deeds and to be ashamed of the cloudiness of our actions, to confess our transgressions and to draw upon ourselves the highest of high shame, which is the root and beginning of all creation, in the aspect of "Yira Boshes" (Awe/Shame), and may we merit to be ashamed and confounded every moment and second, and from the intensity of the awe and shame, to praise You with every single breath.

Please, Merciful and Gracious Father, look to the covenant and do not turn to the evil inclination; even if we are as we are, please do not hide Your face from us. Bring down to us, to the lowest level, the tzaddikim of all generations, and let them gather and elevate every single good point, even from lowly people like us who have fallen descent after descent, level after level, down and down, to places that cannot be told or mentioned. For specifically to these places, which are already below ten handbreadths, below all levels, inside all the impurities in the depths of the turbulent waters—specifically there the true tzaddikim strive to reach, and to pull us out from there with all their strength, in their great kindness and humility, to gather even from there every good point of every single person who truly regrets his blemishes and merits to truly feel the intensity of the pain of his sins—for there is no pain more terrible and awful than this—and cries out terribly from the intensity of the suffering of body and soul, for there is nothing more terrible than them. For even if all the sufferings that have existed since the beginning of time were gathered upon one person, they could not equal the intensity of the soul's pain from the lightest of light sins that it stumbled in even in a momentary lapse of attention, how much more so the pain of one who, like me, has transgressed the entire Torah millions of times. Woe is me, my Father, my Father, for there is no pain like my pain, and no wound like my wound.

Therefore we shall thank You, praise You, and glorify You, and Your praise shall be in our mouths at all times, because in Your great mercy You gave us these eight days of Hanukkah, which are drawn from the Sefirah of Binah, and You ruled the law for us like Beis Hillel, so that we can receive the light even from only one candle, in the aspect of "If there be for him an angel, an intercessor, one among a thousand" (Job 33:23), in the aspect of one out of a thousand. For the true tzaddikim in the aspect of Hillel, in the aspect of "Blessed be the L-rd day by day" (Psalms 68:20), can lower themselves to every single point of every single Jew, even if it is in the ultimate darkness and gloom and sunk in the miry clay; when he awakens even the slightest awakening, they draw to him all the lights of the candles of the Menorah, in the aspect of "Blessed be the L-rd day by day" (The candles of the Menorah on Hanukkah equal the number of the word "Yom"/Day).

Please, Merciful Father Who has compassion on the poor and those impoverished of knowledge, Who dwells with the contrite and humble of spirit, send us a tzaddik like Hillel, who will teach us to search with forty-four candles for the good points within every single Jew, which cannot be found except through the aspect of "Dom" (Silence/44). Forgive us, our Father, for our distance from the love of Israel and from the illumination of this love, which the giants of Israel like Hillel planted within us—who held "increasing and going forward," saying that one must always continue to bring a new soul closer to its Father in Heaven. Please forgive us for the blemish of the love of Israel, and merit us to rise above the blemish of smallness of mind (katnus hamochin) of dispute and baseless hatred, which caused us to lose twelve candles which correspond to the twelve tribes—to hint to us that we still do not know how to include the twelve tribes within one another and turn them into the aspect of "one," like one man with one heart, as Moses our Teacher merited when he brought the people to "And there Israel encamped before the mount" (Exodus 19:2), to draw for them Torah from within the fire with voices and lightning, in the aspect of "And all the people saw the voices" (Exodus 20:15), seeing that which is heard. And now we shall thank and praise, glorify and exalt our Creator, Who therefore gave us these days of Hanukkah, which are in the aspect of hearing that which is seen, so that through them we may merit to hear anew the Giving of the Torah with voices and lightning through the eight candles, which are drawn from the Sefirah of Binah, in the aspect of "Men of understanding (Bnei Binah) established eight days of song and melodies." And may we merit to increase in song and melodies, which are the only way in these generations to reach the level of the Giving of the Torah. Merit us to the aspect of David's harp, through which he drew the five books of Psalms, corresponding to the Five Books of the Torah, and through it he merited to reveal and gather all the good points within every single Jew, and through them he continued the building of the Holy Temple. Please merit us to be included in the virtues of the tzaddikim, who gather every good point in every Jew, and establish through this gathering and collecting the Tabernacle and the Temple. Please merit us to be included in the virtue of Matityahu and his sons who in this way purified the Temple, with their holy boldness, in the aspect of "the goat that strikes with its horns," which is drawn from the light of Hanukkah, which is in the Sefirah of Netzach, in the aspect of "I have triumphed and I will triumph," which the true tzaddik merits—in such a way that no gloom or types of darkness in the world can hide from him the good point in every single Jew in every generation, through which he draws anew in every generation the light of the Temple and the light of Hanukkah, and renews it every single year with greater strength and greater power, doubling it millions of times from year to year.

Master of the Universe, full of mercy, Light of lights, and the root of all joys, please merit us to be included in Your fifty gates of holiness through the lighting of forty-four Hanukkah candles, which ascend to one hundred lights (when combined with the fifty-six candles of the Menorah that burned for eight days in the Holy Temple). Their special power is to ransom us from the fifty gates of impurity and to include us in the fifty gates of holiness. Please merit us to the purity of the oil of the Menorah, sealed with a seal within a seal, with the two seals of the High Priest, which correspond to all the seals of the Sitra Achra (the Other Side) against any touch of a stranger. Merit us that this pure and sealed oil should protect us, even if we have already been sealed, G-d forbid, with all the seals of the Sitra Achra. Purify us and sanctify us from any touch that is foreign to Your service and Your will, through the holiness of the High Priest who is found in every generation, who seals us every year with all the seals of holiness. In his merit and through his power, merit us to emerge from all the seals of the Sitra Achra of the public domain, and from all the ten crowns of impurity into which we have fallen, and because of which we were exiled from our land and distanced from our soil, and we cannot go up and appear and prostrate ourselves before You, and perform our duties in Your chosen House, in the great and holy House upon which Your Name is called. For because of our many sins, iniquities, and transgressions, the Land of Israel is still in the hands of the Klipos. "Servants rule over us; there is none to deliver us out of their hand. For this our heart is faint, for these things our eyes are dim; for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it" (Lamentations 5:8, 17-18).

Master of the Universe, You informed us through Your tzaddikim that this calamity and destruction are drawn upon us from the sin of Adam, through whose sin his limbs fell away and were scattered throughout the whole world, and his light was diminished, until everything that is holier than its fellow is more desolate than its fellow—until the Land of Israel, which is sanctified with ten holinesses, fell under ten terrible Klipos, which even Joshua could not subdue except with the sound of the Shofar. And even now You revealed to us through David Your servant that it is impossible to redeem our inheritance, "The pride of Jacob whom He loved, Selah" (Psalms 47:5), except with a blast (Teruah) and the sound of a Shofar—"G-d is gone up with a shout, Hashem with the sound of a horn" (Psalms 47:6). And through melody and song—"Sing praises to G-d, sing praises; sing praises unto our King, sing praises" (Psalms 47:7). Please, Redeemer of Israel, merit us to the sound of the Shofar and the sound of melody and song, until we merit that the verses be fulfilled in us: "For Hashem is most high, awful; a great King over all the earth... G-d reigneth over the nations; G-d sitteth upon His holy throne" (Psalms 47:3, 9). Please, merit us to the secret of "Maskil" (which is the six orders of the Mishnah given in forty days). Merit us to persevere in the study of the Oral Torah, which awakens the soul to melody and song, to joy and the Shofar blast, through which we crown the King of kings over the entire world, and sanctify the Name of Heaven like Matityahu and his sons—"O clap your hands, all ye peoples; shout unto G-d with the voice of triumph... G-d is gone up with a shout, Hashem with the sound of a horn" (Psalms 47:2, 6).

Please, Knower of Secrets, Revealer of Depths, merit us to reveal the True Tzaddik who will teach us the way of the Teruah and the Shofar, which is the secret of the Simple, Double, Triple, and Quadruple Song, which is merited only through "Singing praises with a Maskil," in the aspect of meditation upon the harp (Kinnor), which is the secret of the Hanukkah candles (26 Ner—the candle of Hashem), from which the sound of the harp is drawn—for one who merits to hear from them the sounds of melody and song, which is the secret of "Men of understanding established eight days of song and melodies." For then the song and melody are heard, bursting from the Hanukkah candles, and then "It is a good thing to give thanks unto Hashem, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High... with an instrument of ten strings, and with the psaltery; with a solemn sound upon the harp. For Thou, Hashem, hast made me glad through Thy work; I will exult in the works of Thy hands" (Psalms 92:2-5). And then we shall understand—"How great are Thy works, Hashem! Thy thoughts are very deep... When the wicked spring up as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they may be destroyed for ever" (Psalms 92:6-8). "Surely Thou settest them in slippery places; Thou hurlest them down to utter ruin. How are they become a desolation in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh; so, O L-rd, when Thou arousest Thyself, Thou wilt despise their image" (Psalms 73:18-20).

Master of the Universe, "The Eternity of Israel (Netzach Yisrael) will not lie" (I Samuel 15:29). Remove wickedness from us, and hasten salvation for us, for still "Thine adversaries have roared in the midst of Thy meeting-place; they have set up their own signs for signs... They have set Thy sanctuary on fire; they have profaned the dwelling-place of Thy name even to the ground. They said in their heart: 'Let us make havoc of them altogether'; they have burned up all the meeting-places of G-d in the land. We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet; neither is there among us any that knoweth how long" (Psalms 74:4-9). For the hand of the Hellenizers (Mityavnim) that strikes us in body and soul is growing stronger, and there is none among us who knows how long. For they say, there is no prophet in the land through whom You perform signs and wonders for us like Matityahu and his sons and the other tzaddikim of the generations. "How long, O G-d, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme Thy name for ever? Why withdrawest Thou Thy hand, even Thy right hand? Draw it out of Thy bosom and consume them! Yet G-d is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth" (Psalms 74:10-12). "Do Thou unto them as unto Midian; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook Kishon; who were destroyed at En-dor, they became as dung for the earth" (Psalms 83:10-11). "Nevertheless I am continually with Thee; Thou hast holden my right hand. Thou wilt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me with glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And beside Thee I desire none upon earth. My flesh and my heart faileth; but G-d is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever" (Psalms 73:23-26). "My soul yearneth, yea, even pineth for the courts of Hashem; my heart and my flesh sing for joy unto the living G-d" (Psalms 84:3).

G-d, exalted and high and great to save, save us quickly just as You saved our fathers in the days of Hanukkah, and You heard their cry and their groan, and You saved them from the hands of the Hellenizers and from the hand of the wicked Antiochus. Please ransom us from the pit, and redeem us also in this generation as we are today; even if we are not worthy of any miracle or any change of nature, nevertheless, nothing is hidden from You, and You perform miracles and wonders beyond investigation in every generation and every day for those who are worthy and those who are not worthy, when they cry out to You in truth and sincerity, and seek the True Tzaddik with all their heart and soul—the Tzaddik who is in the aspect of "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men who were upon the face of the earth" (Numbers 12:3), who is in the aspect of dust and ashes, who threw straw and it turned into arrows, dust and it became swords. And when such a Tzaddik is revealed, then our soul becomes precious in Your eyes, and despite our truly being lowly as dust and ashes—You will save us. Specifically out of our lowliness and our inferiority, You will shine Your face upon us and redeem us. And may there be fulfilled in us: "Then the L-rd awaked as one out of sleep, like a mighty man recovering from wine. And He smote His adversaries backward; He put them to a perpetual reproach... And He chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which He loved. And He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which He hath founded for ever" (Psalms 78:65-69). And then You will return and build for us our Holy Temple, and return us to our land, to our holy city, "And gather our dispersed from among the nations, and our scattered ones from the ends of the earth. And bring us to Zion Your city with song, and to Jerusalem the House of Your Sanctuary with everlasting joy" through the Hanukkah candles, which publicize Your miracles and magnify Your faith and illuminate the face of the whole earth with the light of holiness and self-sacrifice.

Master of the Universe, full of mercy, we are still sunk in all the ten crowns of impurity, and all our prayer is that the Hanukkah candles—which are below ten handbreadths—should illuminate all the darkness and all the dark places that are hidden from knowledge and far from rectification. Our Father, Merciful Father, despite our being in the hiding within the hiding, in the darkness within the darkness, despite everything, merit us in Your great mercy that the thirty-six (L"V) Hanukkah candles—which correspond to the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim who are found in every generation—should illuminate all the paths we have lost, and all the holy ways from which we have strayed in the haughtiness of our hearts and the greatness of our transgressions. Please spare us and have mercy on us, for our eyes are only hanging upon Him; straighten our paths for us and prepare ways for us, until we reveal the True Tzaddik, who is the secret of the Shamash (the servant candle), who stands and serves on high, who lights all the thirty-six candles, and through his prayer and his Torah illuminates the tzaddikim of the generation, so that they may be able to illuminate all the children of Israel Your people.

Master of the Universe, please merit us to search anew for these tzaddikim of the generation, and to receive their illumination. Grant us an illumination from the weekly Torah portion, from the brothers' search for the Tzaddik (Joseph), so that we may search for him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might, and surrender our bodies to be killed and to die until we find him. For through our sins he is hidden, and he is bound in chains; woe to us, for in the absence of a head of the house, we crown ourselves, and say "our G-d" to the work of our hands.

Master of the Universe, merit us to this Tzaddik, who is the Light of lights, so that we may merit through his power to illuminate the light of Hanukkah in the hearts of all the members of Your people, even in the hearts of those most distant. For the Jewish point, hidden in the depths of the soul of a Jewish man, is ignited by the light of the candle, and awakens the soul to yearn for the light of Hashem, for the light of the Redemption. Please, Merciful and Gracious G-d, give us pure and clear knowledge to fulfill the mitzvah of lighting the candle with all its intentions (kavanos) and to illuminate through them all the holy Names, and specifically the name "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh," whose multiplication is Emes (Truth). For it is impossible to merit any point of truth except when we know faithfully that we have not yet begun to come into being at all. And in our distance from You, we still have no existence in the world of eternity. Please, G-d of Knowledge, Who graciously grants man knowledge, educate us in these days of Hanukkah and bestow upon us true knowledge, in such a way that now we shall begin to come into being and be educated—to be illuminated with the light of life. Merit us to the lights of eternity, until we merit to reveal and find and illuminate the good suppressed within us through Your mercy and Your great power, and in the merit of the thirty-six candles—the hidden tzaddikim in the generation, and in all generations, and specifically in the merit of the True Tzaddik, who is the Shamash who stands and serves on high and illuminates them all. Please merit us through the light of this Tzaddik to bring to light the hidden and concealed good suppressed within our souls, and even the good suppressed in those more distant and in the members of the nations of the world, until their evil traits can no longer harm us. For they shall all return to You and rejoice when they see those who fear You; they shall rejoice because the evil within them will fade and disappear, be nullified and become as nothing. The Divine point will be revealed and will shine the image of G-d within man, and the pure and bright inner light will be redeemed from the hiding, and will shine with a great and wonderful light. The outer layer of gloom will be peeled away and removed, and the letters of the Torah clothed in all the people of the world will shine with a holy halo. To the light of the lower Hanukkah, the letters that give life to every silent, growing, living, and speaking thing will be joined, and an immense and great light from above will be added to them, until from all the good suppressed in all the creatures of the world, we shall merit to build buildings of holiness. The light will continue to empower itself and the good to be revealed, until Your Holy Palace is built from it. And then we shall go up to the House of Your Glory, and in the holy Menorah we shall raise the candles for Your honor, until the flame rises of its own accord, and light will break out from the windows to the entire world, and invite all the people of the world to the House, which shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.

Please Hashem, full of great mercy, Who has compassion on the poor, Who hears the groan of the needy, Who sees the insult of the insulted, Who desires the teshuvah of the wicked and does not desire their death—You know my reproach and my shame and my confusion: "Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to show compassion, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none" (Psalms 69:21). Behold, I am before You like a vessel full of shame and confusion, full of reproaches and disgraces. What shall I say, how shall I speak, and how shall I justify myself, when I see the greatness of the abundance of Your kindnesses, and the greatness of Your lights, which You sent to our dark world—the splendor of Your majesty and the glory of Your radiance that shines and rejoices toward us from within the flames of Hanukkah, which are emanated in eight days, which are the aspect of the World to Come in the merit of Matityahu, Your righteous man, the head of all the children of Israel and the aspect of Rosh Hashanah (whose light of the dawn of teshuvah that is renewed in it extends until the 25th of Kislev, the time when the cold prevails and the daylight is short). Please, merit us to ignite the flame of our heart with Your lights and to grow within it the light of complete faith so that we may see tangibly that against the coldness that grows in our heart from day to day—the light goes against it, growing and growing, until the light breaks the blockage of our heart, and its heat melts the frost that prevails within us. The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold as the light of the seven days. And from the rain (Geshem/7x7x7) and from the physical (Chomer), wonderful vessels will be formed for holy lights of revival and salvation, and for an abundance of rain and rains of blessing, to saturate the face of the parched earth, which cries out for a moisture of purity and holiness. And the physicality, which fills the face of the whole earth, will be turned into Hanukkah menorahs of silver and menorahs of refined gold and bowls of grace and glory for pure and clear olive oil, sealed with a seal within a seal, which spreads a wonderful radiance that will illuminate the darkness of our gloom, until night turns to day, darkness to light, and we shall all be illuminated with the light of life, with the light of eternity, which is neither day nor night, through the power of the Sefirah of Netzach, which shines in the days of Hanukkah.

Master of the Universe, please, merit us in Your immense kindness to draw close and truly connect to true tzaddikim, who do not rest day or night, and the light of whose Torah and prayer illuminates all the darkness. Merit me to draw close to the tzaddikim who are the roots of the collective souls of Israel, to speak with them face to face, and to hear from their holy mouths holy words—words that settle upon the heart. And may I merit to connect my heart to the holy words of their mouths, to their holy point, and may their holy point rule over me and shine from their mouths to my heart. And through this, all the reproaches of the heart, and all the foreskin of the heart, and all the crookedness in the heart shall be nullified from my heart, and my heart shall be straight with Hashem always.

Master of the Universe, You gave us the eight days of Hanukkah, which correspond to the eight days of circumcision (Bris Milah), in which You assist us and give us strength and power to circumcise the foreskin of our hearts out of light and joy, out of song and melody. For this is Your true will—that we should always draw close to You through song and melodies and praise You with psaltery and harp, with melody and dance, which is the root of the forgiveness of all sins. Beloved of the soul, Merciful Father, draw us after You, until our soul is bound to You in a bond that shall never be broken, and all our service and our Torah shall be out of passion, yearning, and longing for You, out of yearnings that do not cease day or night. Please, merit us to strengthen ourselves in prayer and supplications until the soul expires, in songs and dances, with supreme self-sacrifice, as one must truly sacrifice the soul for every matter of holiness. And just as Matityahu and his sons and all those joined to them sacrificed their souls and bodies to You, so merit us, we too, to sacrifice the soul in prayer and supplications in songs and dances. And may our prayer always be out of true self-sacrifice, until we truly agree to be nullified to You until the soul expires, and we truly and sincerely accept upon ourselves in every single prayer, and in every reading of the Shema, all the four death penalties of the Beis Din. And let us know that we now have no way to bring the light of the Redemption closer except through prayer and supplications, song and melodies, performed out of the nullification of our entire essence and our thoughts, until the soul truly expires. And we ask You for true and sincere pardon and forgiveness, and we shall not return to folly, and we shall regret with a true regret from the depths of the heart all our sins and transgressions. Please, merit us to remember and know the roots of things. To know that our sins are what were our downfall; they are the partitions between us and You, and they are what crowned the Hellenizers over us, and put a sword in the hands of our enemies, and incited all the nations of the world against us. Therefore we entreat the face of the Master of Mercy: please strengthen us and empower us in prayer and supplications with supreme strength, and let us give You no rest until You are gracious to us; we shall call to You until You answer us, until we awaken Your true mercy upon us. Merit us in these days of Hanukkah which are drawn from the Sefirah of Netzach to conquer (Lenatzeach) You with our prayer and our supplication, until You return Your face to us and have mercy on us and return us in complete teshuvah before You in truth with all our heart and soul. May we merit that all the holy points we have merited since our beginning until today, and in every single reincarnation in all parts of the Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah, should all join together and shine for us with a precious light, and bring us out of the darkness of our exile, and illuminate for us the way to be illuminated with the light of life, in such a way that we shall no longer desire anything of the vanities of this world, which darken and hide the light of G-dliness from us. For like a small coin over the eyes that hides the light of the sun, so are all the fallen lusts and desires, like a thin web of spiderwebs, which are made through an optical illusion from the many blemishes of the eyes. Please merit us to rectify the light of our eyes, to look into Your holy Torah with intense passion and great longings which never cease, and to see the holy points within each and every one of us and within all Your people Israel, until they illuminate one another with additional light in great strength and power, and nullify the darkness that surrounds us, until all the darkness of the world is turned into the radiance of the Infinite (Ein Sof), through the power of all the holy points within all Your people the House of Israel, which join in infinite combinations in these days of Hanukkah.

G-d of Israel, Who chooses His people Israel with love, please merit us to the light of love and kindness and to the light of purity and holiness which were poured out every single day upon Your people Israel, and illuminated the entire world from the seven branches of the holy Menorah, whose candles Aaron the Priest prepared and elevated every single day, evening and morning. Please merit us to build a sanctuary within our heart and our mind and to prepare the candles in the Menorah of the head. Merit us to purify and refine the oil which is in the brain, and to sanctify the light of the candles—the eyes, the ears, the mouth, and the nose—to prepare them and refine them from any trace of pride, from any trace of forbidden seeing, hearing, and speaking. May we merit the true humility of Moses our Teacher, who is the aspect of the nose, who did not become angry over his insult, and in this aspect of his he was praised above all men who were upon the face of the earth, and You exalted him above all mortals, and revealed to him Your Torah, Your wisdom, and all Your desires, and the conducts of every single person until the end of all generations. And You hinted to him that Aaron and his sons would merit to continue the light of the holy Menorah in all the exiles for all generations until eternity, and they would merit through the light of Hanukkah to continue the light of holy love, of which it is said: "But love covereth all transgressions" (Proverbs 10:12), and they shall atone for Your people Israel with love and mercy.

Master of the Universe, just as You revealed Your love to Matityahu and his sons and all those joined to them, and You forgave them for all their transgressions, and You merited them to enter the inner sanctum of Your House, and to clear Your Palace, and to light candles in Your holy courtyards, so in Your great love merit us to complete teshuvah, and pardon, forgive, and atone for us for all our sins, iniquities, and transgressions, and gather our reproach. And be from now on our help, that we should never sin again, whether unintentionally or intentionally, whether under duress or by choice, and save us from all kinds of blemishes in the world, and may we merit to be truly according to Your good will. And may we merit to continue the light of the eight days of Hanukkah to the entire year. And through the power of Joseph the Tzaddik, who is revealed in the days of Hanukkah, may we merit to be in the aspect of "increasing and going forward" (Mosif v'Holech), until we merit every single day to entreat before You and increase with You in this conversation of prayer, in confessions and entreaties, in the aspect of "With mighty wrestlings (Naptulei) have I wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed" (Genesis 30:8), until we merit the sweetness of Torah and prayer, and our bones shall be fattened from the words of Torah and prayer, and "your bones shall flourish like the grass" (Isaiah 66:14), and all our bones, sinews, and senses shall say, "Who is like Thee among the mighty, Hashem" (Exodus 15:11).

Master of the Universe, just as You performed wonders for Judah the Maccabee, who engraved on his banner "Who is like Thee among the mighty, Hashem," and with prayer and a cry fought his wars, and You showed him and his brothers and all Israel Your great and strong hand, "What G-d is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to Thy works, and according to Thy mighty acts?" (Deuteronomy 3:24), and the weak stood against the strong, the few against the many, the pure against the impure, and You delivered the arrogant into the hands of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah—so too in this generation, even as we are, please, perform miracles and wonders for us as in those days at this time, and cast down all Your enemies under us, and those who rise against You under our feet, and may there be fulfilled in us: "He subdueth peoples under us, and nations under our feet. He chooseth our inheritance for us, the pride of Jacob whom He loved. Selah" (Psalms 47:4-5).

Master of the Universe, if our mouths were full of song like the sea, and our tongues with melody like the multitude of its waves, and our lips with praise like the expanses of the firmament, and our hands spread out like the eagles of the sky, and our feet light like hinds, we could not sufficiently thank You for even one of all the favors You have done for us until now. And even if we thanked You with thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads of blessings and thanks, we could not thank You even for one drop of rain or one letter of Torah or prayer that You merited us from our beginning until this day. What shall we say and what shall we speak, for despite all the favors You have done for us until now, our hearts are still blocked and closed with all kinds of blockages and closures, and thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads of walls surround us in such a way that we cannot see the intensity of Your myriads of myriads of kindnesses and favors, which are poured out upon us at every moment and every hour. For if we felt even the slightest bit of Your true love for us, we would immediately be nullified in reality from the intensity of the soul's yearning and longing for You. For we have no vessels to contain the abundance of Your immense kindness and Your great love, and there are no deeds within us that would merit us to see and feel the pleasantness and the delight that flows upon us from Your eternal love, as You wrote in Your Torah: "But Hashem hath not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day" (Deuteronomy 29:3). And if regarding the generation of the desert, who merited to perceive face to face, You wrote thus—what shall we say after them, for we are full of sin, iniquity, and transgression intentionally, in rebellion and in trespass? And I am like a fool brayed in a mortar, whose foolishness will not depart from him, and like a dog that returns to its vomit. And You are good and do good to all, good and doing good always, good and doing good to the evil and to the good.

Master of the Universe, please do good in Your will with one as far from good as I, who rebelled against Your goodness unintentionally and intentionally, under duress and by choice. Thousands and myriads of times You did good with me spiritually and physically, endless times You bestowed upon me true and eternal good, and I pushed away with my own hands Your true good without knowing how many times, until I ceased to count because there is no number. Please, Good G-d, whose goodness never ceases, merit me from now on in the merit of these days of Hanukkah, which shine anew in every generation and every year, to be satisfied with Your eternal goodness and to be truly included in Your unity, and to know that there is none else besides You, and nothing but You, and I shall place before my eyes nothing but Your awesome and unique Name—"I have set Hashem always before me" (Psalms 16:8). In the merit of these days of Hanukkah, I shall not fear any creature, and I shall not make any movement to find favor in the eyes of anyone, but all my movements and thoughts, my words and meditations shall always be given and surrendered to You alone. I shall not consume my years in vanity and emptiness, in thoughts of vanity and forbidden lusts, and I shall not incline my heart to any matter of the world that passes and perishes, which is all false imaginations and deceptions that never were and were never created, and are nothing but an optical illusion from the blemishes of the eyes.

Merit me in these days of Hanukkah to strengthen myself anew, and to strengthen myself and my 248 limbs and 365 sinews and all my senses in Your holiness. And just as You added the letter "He" to Abraham when he merited to rule over all his senses and limbs, until the whole world was worthwhile for him and existed in his merit, in the aspect of "These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created (Behibar'am—with Abraham)," so too merit me to rule over all my senses and limbs. Please merit me in the merit of the seven branches of the Menorah to emerge from all the seven vanities of the Sitra Achra, and to merit the seven holy vanities (Hevel), which are drawn from the charity of the Land of Israel, which are the Hanukkah coins (Ma'os Hanukkah), which must be increased during the days of Hanukkah, in order to draw upon ourselves the breath (Hevel) in which there is no sin, which includes all the seven holy breaths, through which one merits to holy longings and words that never cease. Please merit us to the seven holy breaths through which King Solomon merited to build the Holy Temple and to subdue seventy nations. Merit me to draw the holy breath of the mouth to all the nations of the world, and they shall be nullified before our people, as King Solomon, peace be upon him, merited to awaken in all the people of the world longings for Hashem and yearning for the Holy Temple, by raising the great light to the entire world in the ten Menorahs, which spread the light of Hashem to the seventy nations through the seventy branches.

Master of the Universe, holy and pure King, please illuminate our eyes with the seven holy breaths, which nullify all the vanities of the Sitra Achra. Merit us to know with a clear and bright knowledge that without You everything is vanity of vanities, and let us not have, G-d forbid, longings for any matter of transgression, or for what is not according to Your will. Rather, let all our springs be only in You, and all our longings and passions be only to do Your will in total nullification, in the nullification of all senses and feelings, until all Israel Your people, and with them all the seventy nations, shall long for You alone, and yearn to nullify their will before Your will, as it is said regarding the future: "And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of Hashem's house shall be established as the top of the mountains... and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say: 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Hashem, to the house of the G-d of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem. And He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:2-4).

Please, Merciful Father, Who performs the will of those who fear Him, Who gives grace to the humble, please merit us to true humility and lowliness, until we merit to draw the entire world to You, through the power of Your true tzaddikim, with whom Your great and holy glory is found. Through the power of Your tzaddikim who are purified of any self-interest, and whose desire and wish is holy to glorify and magnify Your great Name, like Matityahu and his sons, who sacrificed their fat and their blood, their soul and their might to publicize Your G-dliness in public. For this is the entire matter of Hanukkah—publicizing the miracle (Pirsumei Nissa), to publicize Your G-dliness in the world, among all the nations of the world who are in the public domain and in all the ten crowns of impurity, in the secret of "And I will stir up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece" (Zechariah 9:13). For the war between the Sitra Achra and holiness, and between light and darkness, continues in every generation, and intensifies from day to day with terrible trials and awful dangers, until the strength to endure has failed in this eternal war, which does not cease even for a small moment. Master of the Universe, great, mighty, and awesome G-d, behold only You know the essence of this terrible war, and for this You are called a Man of War. Behold You perform mighty acts every single day, doing new things, Master of Wars, and You are the One Who gives strength and power, force and intensity to anyone who wants to enter this great war. And You send in every generation immense and awesome tzaddikim, in the aspect of Matityahu and his sons, who fight the wars of Hashem with supreme self-sacrifice without pause and without respite, and teach the ways of war to all who walk in their ways. Please, exalted and high G-d, Performer of mighty acts, Master of Wars, just as in these holy days of Hanukkah You empowered tzaddikim over the wicked, the pure over the impure, so too in this lowly and weak generation reveal Your mighty acts, empower us and strengthen us and increase our forces. Bestow upon us higher forces, in the aspect of "He giveth strength and power unto the people" (Psalms 68:36), to overcome every day and at every time the forcing and delaying force. Help us to stand firm against this force, which intensifies without respite against the force that pulls toward holiness, in order to distance people from Hashem and from His true tzaddikim. Please, Merciful and Gracious One, Who gives a hand to those who return and desires their justification, give us support in this great war, for You know how many souls have sunk in it, until they were excluded from both worlds, because the forcing and delaying force stopped them and separated them from the true tzaddikim, until it distanced them from Hashem and lost them from the world. And we are orphans of orphans, what shall we do and what shall we act? Who will fight for us to subdue and break, to crush and nullify the forcing force that stands between us and You, our Father in Heaven, between us and the force that pulls toward the true tzaddikim?

Master of the Universe, "Hashem strong and mighty, Hashem mighty in battle" (Psalms 24:8), upon You we have cast our burden, that You should fight for us; Hashem will plead our cause and fight our wars, for "Thou, Hashem, art on high for evermore" (Psalms 92:9), and Your hand is always on top. Spare us and be gracious to us and have mercy on us and save us and purify us in the merit of the true tzaddikim, like the House of the Hasmoneans, who have the force that pulls truly to You, in the aspect of "Who is for Hashem, come to me!", so that we may cast down and crush all the walls of the Sitra Achra that surround us. And just as You helped Judah the Maccabee and his brothers, in such a way that no wall stood before them, so help us too in this generation, now in these days of Hanukkah, to cast down all the walls of the Sitra Achra that surround us, and to break all the iron walls that partition between us and You, and between us and the true tzaddikim. And in the merit of these days of Hanukkah, may all the partitions turn into brilliant lights, and the obstacles into pleasantness, and from all of them may wonderful vessels be formed for infinite lights. For You revealed to us through Your true tzaddikim that according to the intensity of the obstacles and the multitude of partitions that surround and encompass us, so shall we merit an abundance of lights twofold and manifold, when we stand ready against all the trials and do not fall into any despair in the world, even when we see that the trials and partitions increase from day to day and from moment to moment. Nevertheless, we shall not fall in spirit even for a small moment, but we shall know and believe that the burden is according to the camel, and the trials increase from day to day and from moment to moment because Your will is to merit us with emanated worlds and upper lights without number.

Master of the Universe, You revealed to us through Your true tzaddikim, who rectify and protect against the S"M (Satan), who came to entice Adam and Eve riding on a serpent in the form of a camel, which is the secret of the camel laden with flax, which goes in the days of Hanukkah to entice the whole world. For the flax was the offering of Cain, who thought to rectify the world with it with a haughty spirit that denied all the heavenly entourage and increased the darkness in the world, until his sons came and denied that there is indeed a Master of the Palace. For in the days of Hanukkah, the fire of the candles burns the flax of the camel, and their light illuminates the entire Palace with a precious light, which is the secret of the spark (Nitzotz) that comes out from under the hammer from the "Lamp of Hardness" (Botzina d'Kardinusa), which sets the world on fire with evil lusts and forbidden thoughts, which is turned in the days of Hanukkah into pure and bright lights. Please, merit us to see on Hanukkah this spark in its elevation and its rectification; merit us to see it illuminating the world with the light of truth, until the Master of the Palace peeks through the lattices, peeks from all the windows and announces and says: I am the Master of the Palace! There is a Leader to the world!

Master of the Universe, full of great mercy, have mercy on us just as You had mercy on Jacob our father, peace be upon him, for immediately after his hip socket was strained—which hints at the Sefirah of Netzach—You helped him to defeat the guardian angel of Esau, and You caused the sun to rise for him, which is the secret of the Hidden Light, the secret of the Hanukkah lights. But still his heart was worried and faint over his descendants, until he built a monument and poured a libation upon it, and poured oil upon it. Anyone who knows how to estimate how many logs of water are in the Sea of Tiberias would know how many libations Jacob our father poured at that time, for he poured specifically corresponding to the waters of the Sea of Tiberias, which is the secret of the harp (Kinnor) of the Land of Israel, in order to continue melodies forever and for all eternity, which are the root of all wisdoms, in the aspect of "Singing praises with a Maskil" (Psalms 47:8), which are drawn from the seven branches of the Menorah, which correspond to the seven-seven that were said in the portion of the Red Heifer. For the Moachin (intellects) which are the soul, and they are the Surrounding Lights (Oros Makifin) which are renewed every single day in each and every person through a broken heart and a lowly spirit—they purify from all impurities and elevate the seven breaths from the depths of the heart to be a strong wind that breaks mountains and shatters rocks, which consume all the nations that want to harm Israel. And with the voice of Hashem upon the waters (pouring out the heart like water), He turns the voice of the holy breaths into the voice of Hashem that hews out flames of fire, which burns all the evil in all the worlds.

Master of the Universe, Redeemer from the pit and Redeemer of His people Israel with great mercy, please pour upon us a spirit from on high, and awaken us to be zealous for Your Name and to fight Your wars like Your holy Priests who sanctified Your Name and redeemed Your people. Merit us to act perfectly for the rectification that will hasten the complete Redemption, for the House of the Hasmoneans did not manage to complete the perfect rectification in the Sefirah of Netzach, which is worthy of eternal redemption, but were still in the aspect of "And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained" (Genesis 32:26), but only continued an illumination from the Sefirah of Netzach to the Sefirah of Hod, which helps for one generation only. Therefore afterward "all the day faint (Davah)" (Lamentations 1:13), for all "my glory (Hodi) was turned in me into corruption" (Daniel 10:8). Master of the entire world, Who speaks and fulfills, all of whose words are truth and justice, please elevate us to the Sefirah of Netzach in perfection, as You desired: "And also the Eternity of Israel (Netzach Yisrael) will not lie nor repent" (I Samuel 15:29). And may all the promises that You promised us from the beginning of time through Moses Your servant and through Your holy prophets and Your tzaddikim in all generations be fulfilled in perfection without any delay. For the Redemption is ready and prepared to come at every moment and every second like the blink of an eye, when we are prepared to come to You as naught and nothingness. For the Sefirah of Netzach is acquired through purity (tzachus), through the nullification of the trait of victory/argumentation (hitnatzechus), in the aspect of "To the Chief Musician (Lamnatzeach), a Psalm of David"—sing to Him who is conquered and rejoices; in this aspect may the Sefirah of Netzach shine upon us in perfection. Then we shall be able to continue the light of the Redemption, the light of the Messiah, who stands at the gate of Rome and is ready at every minute to be revealed, until he unties one and binds one, for in every single second he is ready to go out, toward even one single act, even the smallest, performed truly for the sake of Heaven.

For this is the secret of the creation of heaven and earth, which are renewed every single day, for the world is renewed and redeemed even through one act of true kindness, through one whose heart is truly broken within him into tiny fragments and dust, as he elevates the entire world to the highest heavens (Shechakim), the place where they grind manna for the tzaddikim, the place of laughter and joy forever and for all eternity.

Please Hashem, Merciful One full of mercy, Redeemer and Savior, powerful Redeemer, Who thinks thoughts so that no outcast be banished from Him, stand at my right hand and support me, just as You supported Matityahu and his sons and stood at their right hand, and elevated them to the Sefirah of Netzach, from which they continued the light of Hanukkah. Please, Merciful Father, Who has compassion on the poor and is great to save, help us to complete in this generation all the rectifications that have not been completed until now (even though they ascended to the Sefirah of Netzach, they did not succeed in elevating the Sefiros of Rachel to Netzach and she remained in Hod). And this is the secret of all the destructions and all the Holocausts, and all the seven waters in the world that have passed over us until now, whose rectification is through the seven branches of the Menorah, upon which the light is drawn from seven-seven foundations, which are the secret of the forty-nine Sefiros, and the bowl (Gulah) that is above them, which is the secret of the Fiftieth Gate, which shall be revealed quickly in our days, and be ready and prepared to be revealed to us in these days of Hanukkah, which are auspicious for the rectification of the sins of Cain and Abel (whose sin, according to Rabbi Eliezer, was during the days of Hanukkah)—this one with an excess of light and that one with a deficiency of light, which are the root of all sins. Master of the Universe, Father of Mercy and Master of Forgiveness, guard our souls and save them from every mishap and iniquity, for we suffer from deficiency and excess, and the two sins of Cain and Abel have been fulfilled in us. At every time and every hour we stumble in an excess of light, or we become weak and lazy and fall into a deficiency of light, and imagine every spark of light to be an excess of light. Help us and ransom us from the oppression of sin and iniquity; save us from these two blemishes now in the eight days of Hanukkah, through the wicks and the oil that descend to below ten handbreadths and illuminate all the darkness, until they burn the camel and consume its flax—burning the camel which is the serpent that caused Adam to stumble, and the flax which is the secret of Cain's sin. For You revealed to us that in the days of Hanukkah it is possible to draw the light from the seven branches of the Menorah and nullify the flax, which denies the ground for seven years, which is the secret of all the seventy years of a man, whose rectification Solomon performed through the seventy branches in his ten Menorahs, until the light of the moon was like the light of the sun, and the moon stood in its fullness, in the aspect of the nullification of all evil inclinations. And in his generation the verse was fulfilled: "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace" (Psalms 144:12), and regarding this it is said: "Happy is the people that is in such a case; happy is the people whose G-d is Hashem" (Psalms 144:15). For in the days of David and Solomon the sin of Cain was rectified in perfection, which is the secret of "A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day" (Psalms 92:1), which rectifies the soul of Cain and Abel. And just as on Shabbat one ascends to the world of Atzilus (Emanation), so on Hanukkah we receive garments from the world of Atzilus, hinted at in the word "Ner" (Candle), which is the three unifications: Hashem-Adonai; Hashem-Elohim; Hashem-Ehyeh, with which you ascend to Keter (Crown), in the secret of "And this man went up out of his city" (I Samuel 1:3), for he elevated Hannah to Keter, in the aspect of the secret of Hanukkah (Hannah-26/Hashem), who ascended to the name of Hashem. And this is what Leah saw in her holy spirit, and Hannah in her song—that from her would come Priests, who through their self-sacrifice would continue the lights of the seven branches of the Menorah through the eight Hanukkah candles for all generations, in such a way that those who merit can continue them to every day and every hour, until we merit the light of the Redemption and the building of the Holy Temple in which the Priests shall wear linen (Peshet/Flax) garments, and the secret of the Vacant Space (Challal HaPanui) shall be revealed—the secret of the flax—and we shall all ascend to the Sefirah of Keter, to see Hashem face to face, "For they shall see eye to eye, when Hashem returneth to Zion" (Isaiah 52:8).

Master of the Universe, please merit us to all the virtues and levels prepared for every Jewish man. Please, merit us that the body be nullified to the soul, which is the aspect of the light of Hanukkah, and may we merit the level of Matityahu and his sons, who nullified their bodies completely, until we merit the general peace, and all kinds of disputes and wars, decrees of destruction, killing, and loss shall be completely nullified. May everything that has any hold of any judgment be sweetened through the power of the immense illumination that shines in the days of Hanukkah. Please, merit us to be nullified to this wonderful illumination, and to attach to the Infinite Light, in order to truly see our lowliness, and to feel that we are lower than our own level, until all personal interests and motives are nullified, and we shall be in the aspect of "Who is for Hashem, come to me!" (Exodus 32:26), may we all be in our entire body, soul, and might "only unto Hashem alone!" (Exodus 22:19).

Therefore we have come before You in these days of Hanukkah, to fall and plead before You, and to prostrate ourselves before the glory of Your holiness, that You should be gracious to us in Your mercy, and bequeath to us knowledge and good understanding through the illumination of the wonderful aspect hinted at in Hanukkah (Chen-Koh/Grace-25). Please be gracious to us with grace (Chen) and kindness and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us; grant us a grace of truth, purified from any grace of falsehood and haughtiness of heart, and may there be fulfilled in us "He giveth grace unto the lowly." Bless us, our Father, with the blessing of "So (Koh) shall thy seed be," with which Abraham our father, peace be upon him, was blessed through the aspect of "We will go as far as so (Koh)." Pour upon us from on high a spirit of might, ignite our heart with the flame of the light of self-sacrifice which was at the Binding (Akeidah), from which the light of Hanukkah was emanated on the 25th of Kislev—the light that the Binder and the Bound bequeathed to their seed and their seed's seed forever.

Please merit us to the revelation of this wonderful light of self-sacrifice, which the holy Patriarchs planted within us, that we should always be willing and pleased with a whole heart to be bound for the sanctification of Your Name. And let us know faithfully that until the coming of the Messiah, this is our purpose, and let us feel in our 248 limbs and 365 sinews that this is our entire desire, in the aspect of "When will it come to my hand that I may fulfill it," until at the time our soul departs for the sanctification of the Name, we shall not feel suffering at all, but our soul shall depart out of supreme attachment to the Infinite Light. Please, our Father, Merciful Father, Who loves His children and always bestows upon them His eternal goodness, merit us to continue this light, the light of self-sacrifice in the days of Hanukkah, until our soul is included in Your pure and emanated light at the time it departs for the sanctification of the Name. And may the departure of our soul and its separation from the body be sweeter to us than any pleasure in the world, for we are willing and pleased at every time and every moment to sacrifice our body and soul like Matityahu and his sons, and specifically when we accept upon ourselves the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and call out, "Hear, O Israel: Hashem our G-d, Hashem is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Master of the Universe, Master of the entire world, Life of lives, Who revives the dead with great mercy, give me life that I may live and not die; give me true life, eternal life, truly good life, long life, life in which there is fear of Heaven, life through which we shall merit at every time and every moment to achieve the true purpose for which You created all the worlds, and for the sake of this purpose we came from the upper world, from the height of levels, to this world. Have pity and compassion on me, and give me hope, that I may not perish. Strengthen me and empower me, that I may merit from now on to sacrifice my body and soul to You at every moment like Matityahu and his sons, and I shall no longer do anything that does not involve achieving the ultimate purpose. I shall sanctify Your Name at every moment in truth, and specifically I shall truly sacrifice my soul for the sanctity of the Covenant (Bris) and the guarding of the eyes. Have compassion on Your handiwork, and rejoice in Your works, and may those who trust in You say to You, those borne by You in Your righteousness: may You be sanctified, L-rd over all Your works, for those who sanctify You have You sanctified with Your holiness; it is fitting for the Holy One to have glory from the holy ones.

Master of the Universe, Merciful and Gracious Father, Who chooses His people Israel with love, merit us to yearn for You at all hours of the day and night with longings that have no end or purpose, until through these longings all the damages and compulsions, all the libels and decrees that the Hellenizers decree upon us at every time and hour shall be nullified. And may the lawless of Your people who rise up in every generation to establish a vision and stumble, as You helped Your holy Priests who were few against many to frustrate all the advice of the lawless and their decrees that were in their time—so too sanctify us in this generation with all kinds of holiness and purity, until in us too it is fulfilled: the strong in the hand of the weak, and the many in the hand of the few, and the impure in the hand of the pure, and the wicked in the hand of the righteous, and the arrogant in the hand of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah.

Our Father in Heaven, in the merit of the Name "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (Exodus 3:14), have compassion on me and on all Your people the House of Israel, and stand at my right hand of righteousness, and be my help at all times, that I may merit to drive away all the disturbing thoughts and all the confusing ideas, specifically during the time of prayer. In such a way that I may merit to pray my prayers before You with all my heart with great intention from the depths of the heart in truth with pure and holy thoughts, in such a way that the thought shall be bound to all the words of the prayer with a strong and firm bond in total unity. And let no personal interest or foreign thought enter my heart during the time of prayer, but only may I merit to remove from my mind during the time of prayer all personal interests and disturbing thoughts. And let no thought of folly enter my mind, of any side of vanity of greatness, to think that I am of high lineage and a man of family, or to imagine to myself that I already have toil and labor in the service of the Creator, blessed be His Name. Rather, I shall recognize my deficiency and know my lowliness in truth, and I shall forget all my family and my father's house and all kinds of thoughts from which any side of personal interest of greatness and exaltation comes. I shall only stand as a poor and needy person and know my inferiority and my badness and my lowliness in truth of truth, but I shall be confident in Your great kindness, that You dwell with the contrite and humble of spirit, and You are close to the broken-hearted, and in Your great kindness alone I shall expand my heart to pray before You with true joy. I shall exult and rejoice in Your salvation, in such a way that my prayer shall be in ultimate perfection, pure and clear and correct and fluent in my mouth, in such a way that You will hear and accept our prayers and our supplications and our requests, and we shall merit to rule through our prayers, that they should act for whatever we want, even to change nature. And may You fulfill all the requests of our heart for good with mercy, and may You be delighted and adorned and play with our prayers always, and through this You shall establish Your world and all that is in it through the power of the Ten Utterances, and continue upon us good kindnesses always, and sweeten and nullify from us and from all Israel all the judgments in the world. And may You break and nullify from us and from all Your people the House of Israel all the judgments, whether before the final decree or after the final decree, through the days of Hanukkah which are the days of the final sealing—for good, for grace, for kindness, and for mercy.

Master of the Universe, You know that I still have no existence in the world, and I have not yet begun to live at all, and I have not yet entered even the aspect of pregnancy (ibbur), and there is no Nefesh, Ruach, or Neshamah within me. Not even a Nefesh of Nefesh, but only the animalistic soul of cloudy blood, which pulls me to every abominable and loathsome thing, until I became worse than an animal. And the pure and clear intellect that You planted within me I defiled with all kinds of impurity, from the day I was born until now. And now what shall I say, and what shall I speak, after You have done with me goodness and kindness without end and without investigation, in order to bring me out of the lowest pit and below it, and I with my own hands rebelled against all Your good advice, and pushed away all Your kindnesses, and ignored Your good hints? For if I had looked at even one hint, my entire body would have already been nullified to the soul, and through this all the evil decrees would have been nullified from all Your people the House of Israel. For already all hope is gone, we have come to the end of the generations, and they are standing to decree upon us all kinds of decrees of destruction as in the days of the Greeks and the Hellenizers, may their names be blotted out. For only at the hearing of the ears does trembling seize all loins; only at the hearing of their words that hide their plots do our bones hover with fear, until no soul is left within us. For faithful people have ceased from the nation, and there is none who stands in the breach, and already Your tzaddikim who occupy themselves with the rectification of the world and the nullification of every evil decree before it arises in thought have been hidden or have departed from the world. "Hashem hath delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand up" (Lamentations 1:14). "My flesh and my skin hath He worn out; He hath broken my bones. He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail... He hath hedged me about, that I cannot go forth; He hath made my chain heavy. Also when I cry and call for help, He shutteth out my prayer. He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone, He hath made my paths crooked" (Lamentations 3:4-9). "Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heaven; they chased us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Hashem, was taken in their pits; of whom we said: 'Under his shadow we shall live among the nations'" (Lamentations 4:19-20). And even the Tzaddik who said, "I can return the entire world in teshuvah," is hidden from us, for we have fallen into the hiding within the hiding, until we do not feel his absence at all. And what shall we do, for we have missed the aspect of "double portion," the aspect of "If thou see me when I am taken from thee" (II Kings 2:10).

Please, Merciful Father, open my eyes, and remove the pride of my crooked spirit, and let me see my lowliness, and how lacking I am, for I still walk in the stubbornness of my heart, and think that I am master of myself, and I do not feel the greatness of Joseph, of whom it is said: "And without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt" (Genesis 41:44). And I think that I am master of myself over my hands and feet, over my heart and thoughts, until because of my many sins the Holy Temple was destroyed, and the pure Menorah was hidden. "Hashem hath accomplished His fury, He hath poured out His fierce anger; and He hath kindled a fire in Zion, which hath devoured the foundations thereof" (Lamentations 4:11). Woe is me, for I with my own hands, with the fire of my lust, ignited the fire in the Holy Temple, and delivered Israel to the sword and to plunder. And now "By whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small" (Amos 7:5), if not for Your great mercy and kindness. Who will arise for us if not for Your great light poured out upon us now, which is drawn from the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim who are in every generation, who are the aspect of Matityahu and his sons, who sacrificed their souls for the sanctification of Your Name at every moment and second. Would that I could find them, would that I could take refuge in their shadow. I would go on my hands and feet throughout the entire world, perhaps I would merit to benefit from their holy light, perhaps I would merit to breathe the holy breath of their pure mouths even one minute before my death, in order to merit the complete rectification, to continue the holy and pure air to the entire world, until all the nations of the world return in teshuvah. For the nations who tend to believe anything would easily merit to believe in the true truth, if not for the hiding within the hiding that I continued to the world through my many sins, if not for the darkness with which I darkened the world with double and manifold gloom, if not for the plague of darkness that I brought to the world, in the aspect of "He sent darkness, and it was dark" (Psalms 105:28). For light I turned into gloom, until the letters of Pele (Wonder) were turned into Aphel (Darkness), and instead of seeing miracles and wonders (Nifla'os)—the letters (Oth) fell (Naphal), and all the worlds and letters fell, for I used the holy letters for words of vanity and emptiness. For if I had focused even on one letter properly, and said it with awe and love, all the wisdoms of the world would have melted away, and all the wars would have been nullified, and the whole world would have cried out: "Hashem, He is G-d, there is none else!" (I Kings 8:60).

Please, bring us close to You, and reveal to us the way of Your teshuvah now in these days of Hanukkah, in which You want to educate us (Chanchenu), like a newborn baby, and like a convert who converts, how to be Jews, and how to unify every movement and thought to You, so that we should not be like all the nations, so that we should not learn from their deeds and think like their thoughts, G-d forbid. Please draw us after You, in such a way that we shall have no will at all besides Your pure and clear will, in such a way that we shall not crown ourselves over any creature, but we shall feel ourselves like clay in which there is no interest, and like dust which the wind shall carry. For then the Kingdom of Hashem will immediately be revealed in all its radiance, and the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold as the light of the seven days. And all the nations will give You the crown of kingship.

Master of the Universe, we stand trembling and afraid before the glory of Your holiness, before the brilliant lights that illuminate all Your Sefiros and Your world. For Your pure and clear light descends in these days to below ten handbreadths, to all the outcast and dark places, which cannot be mentioned by the name of a place at all, to the places where Israel has never fallen before. And You stretch out a hand to everyone who stretches out a hand toward You, who is ready to remove from himself the garments of physicality, his filthy clothes, and to wrap himself in garments of splendor, in garments of light, in the secret of the words of Rav Nachman in the name of Rabbi Meir: even if he found it in the refuse and sealed it and gave it to her, it is valid. Please, spare and have mercy on those of low worth like us, and continue for us the light of Hanukkah, just as Rav Nachman in the name of Rabbi Meir continues coats of light even to those found in the refuse, and seals them with a seal of holiness, and elevates them to the Holy Shechinah, like the aspect of the Hanukkah candle, which we light facing the public domain, until the feet cease from the market, until the business and the lust for money are nullified in the holiness of the light, and each man shall help his brother, and to his fellow he shall say, "Be strong." And the nations of the world shall also be illuminated with this light, and they shall come to serve Israel: "And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and aliens shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers" (Isaiah 61:5). "In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew..." (Zechariah 8:23).

Master of the Universe, our Father, Merciful Father, "Thou wilt make me know the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy, in Thy right hand bliss for evermore" (Psalms 16:11). "Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which Thou hast crushed may rejoice... Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and let a willing spirit uphold me" (Psalms 51:10-14). Master of the Universe, You know how far I am from true joy in body and soul, for I have corrupted very much without measure and value and number, until the combinations of letters have ended to name with them the matters of my corruption, my blemish, and my immense liability. My Father in Heaven, living and enduring G-d, what shall I say, what shall I speak, and how shall I justify myself? Behold, because of all these it is very hard for me to draw joy upon myself, even if in Your mercy You have bestowed upon me and upon all Your people the House of Israel many favors forever.

Indeed You know the thoughts and plots that the Sitra Achra advises against us, to violate the holiness of the individual and the collective. You know the advice that the Hellenizers and the lawless who rule over us today plot against us at every time. You know their plot against us for evil, G-d forbid: "They say: 'Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance'" (Psalms 83:5). Please, do not abandon us and do not forsake us in their hands. And just as You saved our fathers in those days at this time from the hands of the Hellenizers and the lawless who decreed upon them to desecrate the Shabbat and to nullify the circumcision and other decrees of destruction like these, so too in this generation, please nullify from us the decrees of destruction—those that have been decreed and those that are about to be decreed upon Your people the House of Israel by the Hellenizers and the lawless who rule over us now. "Servants rule over us; there is none to deliver us out of their hand" (Lamentations 5:8). There is no one to save us and ransom us from the jaws of this Sitra Achra except through self-sacrifice, through tzaddikim who will sacrifice their entire soul and might in the hours of prayer in every single letter. For in every single letter are hidden endless salvations, and through the power of one letter, said with true intention, it is possible to save the entire world. And the wise and understanding person should pray all his days that he should merit once in all the days of his life to speak one word of truth before Hashem as is proper.

Therefore, we have come to ask and plead before You, please give us strength at the very least to cry out before You "Please Hashem, save us now!" (Psalms 118:25), in truth, twice every day in the Hallel on Hanukkah. For through the power of one word of truth it is possible to return the entire world in teshuvah, to turn hearts to Your service, and to incline even the heart of the wicked and the lawless to seek Your face in truth. For "The wicked walk on every side" (Psalms 12:9). And the entire war of the Sitra Achra is aimed only at the upright and the simple, who already know the secret of prayer, and the key of Redemption is in their hand. Specifically them the Sitra Achra confuses every day in every single prayer, and finds for them endless excuses and arguments to exempt them from intention in prayer. But if we believed with complete faith, and felt and sensed that the Blessed Hashem stands over us, listening and eavesdropping on every single word that comes out of our mouth, there would be no prayer in which we would not have intention, and no letter that we would not sacrifice our soul for. And specifically in the days of Hanukkah, when the spirit of self-sacrifice is awakened from above, to give strength and power to the people, when we strengthen ourselves in the aspect of Hannah-26 (Hashem), to give strength to G-d to save us, when Hashem pours a spirit from on high to awaken us to pray with self-sacrifice, out of the knowledge that the whole earth is full of His glory, and He, blessed be He, stands and waits for every meditation and movement of the lips, for every sound of a letter from the mouths of the upright and the simple, so that He can bestow through the power of the letter spoken with trembling and shaking an abundance of all good upon us and upon the entire world. For the letter and the word, illuminated and raised with the intention of prayer, will awaken to search for the souls of the wicked that are in its root, to return them in complete teshuvah, until through the multitude of illuminated letters all the people of Israel and with them the entire world shall return to You and call in Your Name.

Master of the Universe, Who hears every prayer, Who desires the prayer of Israel, merit us to a clear knowledge, to a vision in a clear mirror, that You stand over us and wait for our meditations. Please give us a heart to know You, a warm heart in Your love to sacrifice our soul in Your prayer, and to focus on every letter and word for Your great and awesome Name. And specifically may we merit, at the time we say the great and awesome Name of Hashem, may we merit to say it in holiness and purity, so that the spirit and the holy breath that comes out at the time of saying the Name of Hashem shall go before us and over the face of the entire world, and cast down for us the slain, and consume all the enemies of Israel: "We will make mention of the name of Hashem our G-d. They are bowed down and fallen" (Psalms 20:8-9). And the Hellenizers and the troublers of Israel shall bow down and fall, their knowledge shall be nullified and their advice frustrated, for they too shall return to You and recognize the power of Your kingship, that there is none besides You and nothing but You.

Master of the Universe, Father of Mercy and Master of Forgiveness, pardon and forgive all our iniquities in these days of Hanukkah, in which the final sealing (Chasima) is finished, and seal us with a seal within a seal of holiness, like the jar of oil, which was sealed with a seal within a seal of the High Priest. Merit us to reveal the True Tzaddik, who is greater than the High Priest, who girds his loins to elevate us and bring us into the innermost sanctum, to the Foundation Stone (Even HaShtiya). Please, Merciful Father, Who eavesdrops and listens to the prayer of His children, may our prayers and our entreaties and all the confessions that we shall merit to confess before You like the three confessions of the High Priest—for himself, for his house, and for his people—through which he was able to enter the Holy of Holies, to the Foundation Stone, ascend before You.

Please merit us in the days of Hanukkah, in the wonderful days of thanksgiving before us, to awaken in complete teshuvah and to confess before You for every single blemish that we blemish at every moment and second, specifically the blemishes of thought and the eyes, from which are created terrible destroyers who are impregnated in the nations of the world and in the lawless of Your people, until they seek to destroy us at all times, and to blot out our name from under the heavens. For You revealed to us that there is power in the confession that one confesses at every moment and second, out of true regret for every forbidden thought and sight, to immediately draw upon us the light of Yom Kippur, and to merit us with illumination from the Foundation Stone and from the Holy Temple, all of whose stones fell and were split by the Shamir worm, which bursts through all kinds of walls of stone and iron. Please merit us to the aspect of this worm, to be lowly before You and before all men, and to burst through all the myriads of iron partitions that surround us day and night, specifically at the time of prayer, and darken us with all kinds of darkness so as not to strengthen ourselves in faith—that You are all-powerful, and everything is in Your hand, and that only through prayer with intention and through confessions, which are connected to the True Tzaddik, the High Priest, who includes all Israel in the Foundation Stone, in the root of all sweetenings and forgivenesses, atonements and salvations, shall we and all Your people the House of Israel be saved.

Master of the Universe, merit me to come to the House of Hashem out of the pouring of the heart like water: "These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I passed on with the throng, and led them to the house of G-d, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping holyday" (Psalms 42:5). Merit me to come to the House of G-d and seek Your face out of song and praise, out of holy longings, and may I be longing and yearning for You always, and pining for Your service in truth, and may my eyes fail all day to achieve Your true service: "My soul fainteth for Thy salvation; I hope in Thy word. Mine eyes fail for Thy word, saying: 'When wilt Thou comfort me?'" (Psalms 119:81-82). "My soul yearneth, yea, even pineth for the courts of Hashem; my heart and my flesh sing for joy unto the living G-d" (Psalms 84:3). "My flesh and my heart faileth; but G-d is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever" (Psalms 73:26). "O G-d, Thou art my G-d, earnestly will I seek Thee; my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee, in a dry and weary land, where no water is" (Psalms 63:2). "My soul thirsteth for G-d, for the living G-d: 'When shall I come and appear before G-d?'" (Psalms 42:3).

Master of the Universe, merit me to draw close to true tzaddikim and to upright, simple, and truly honest people in their hearts, who truly sacrifice their souls for the sanctification of Your Name. And send us in Your great mercy also in this generation a faithful shepherd like Moses our Teacher, peace be upon him, a Faithful Shepherd (Ra'aya Meheimna), who will carry us as a nurse carries a suckling, and will teach us the ways of Your service, how to serve You with true self-sacrifice, and with wonderful presence of mind, until he brings us into the ways of holiness and teshuvah out of true lowliness. And may we merit to enter in these days of Hanukkah, which are the final sealing, into the world of teshuvah, until our entire essence is teshuvah. Please help us to be according to Your good will all the days of our lives, and to fulfill the verse: "Trust in Hashem, and do good; dwell in the land, and cherish faithfulness," until we are worthy of the Faithful Shepherd, our righteous Messiah, who shall come quickly in our days, Amen.

Master of the Universe, merit me in these days of Hanukkah to truly see my lowliness; merit me to true humility and true lowliness, until I am lowly in my eyes below my very lowly level. At the very least, let me not emerge from my level and my place, and let me not deceive myself, G-d forbid, that I already have some level or virtue. Let me recognize my very lowly and low place without measure, value, or number, and let there be no hidden pride in my heart, G-d forbid, which pushes me away every time from Your presence. Let my prayers and my offerings in the days of Hanukkah not be pushed away, as happened to Cain, of whom it is said: "But unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect" (Genesis 4:5). And let me not stumble in the failure of Abel, who was killed because of hidden pride. Rather, may I merit to see my lowliness in truth, always, and through the power of the Hanukkah candles may I merit to search in the holes and cracks for every trace of pride and defect and distance it from me. May the light of Hanukkah illuminate for me and penetrate into the depths of my soul, until I merit to see every single blemish that I blemished, from the days I have been on the earth until now. I shall recognize my infinitely many deficiencies, and I shall merit a clear and upper vision, the eyes of the tzaddikim, the aspect of "The eyes of Hashem are toward the righteous" (Psalms 34:16), who merit with their eyes to truly see their lowliness. I shall not deceive myself anymore, G-d forbid, that I already have some virtue, or some perception, or understanding in the service of Hashem. Rather, I shall be in the aspect of Menashe, about whom we read on Shabbat Hanukkah, to hint that at this time lowliness shines with a special illumination. For humility and lowliness are the source of life and joy, which illuminate our souls with a precious light. Merit us in these days to the aspect of Menashe, to nullify our pride, and to forget our lineage and our toil. Merit us to achieve the true ways of humility, which are the source of life, joy, and gladness, so that through them we can see the greatness of Your holy people Israel, and the importance of every single Jew, and truly sacrifice our soul for each and every one of Your people Israel, a holy nation.

Our Father, Merciful Father, Who yearns and longs for the prayer and longing of Israel, You desired praise from lumps of earth, from creatures of clay. My soul longs for Your courts and also faints for Your will to take refuge in Your shadow. Please, merit us to these wonderful levels of higher humility and wonderful love of Israel, through which one always longs for You with true holy longings, until I merit in these days of Hanukkah out of song and praise and joy, to teshuvah from love, until all my iniquities turn into merits. And may I merit Moachin (intellects) and holy mind, to a pure and clear mind clean of any dross and waste, like pure silver refined sevenfold, which is drawn from the seven branches of the holy Menorah. And may I merit to renew my mind at every moment in great holiness and purity. Help me and save me always, that I may merit to learn and to teach with a clear and pure and holy mind, and may I merit to always understand with great speed in every place that I learn, and specifically in the thirty-six (L"V) tractates, which are poured out from the thirty-six Hanukkah candles. And in the merit of the light of Hanukkah I shall not need to investigate at all, but immediately every single word of our Sages of blessed memory, Rashi and Tosafot and the other commentators and other books, shall illuminate for me. And may my mind continue to grow from day to day, in the aspect of increasing and going forward in great holiness and great alacrity, in clarity and brightness. And may I merit to be swift in the work of Heaven, in the aspect of "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean (dark) men" (Proverbs 22:29), which is said about Moses our Teacher who merited in his humility to receive Torah from the mouth of the Almighty, and to understand every matter correctly and truly in the words of Your holy Torah with great speed, without any confusion at all.

May it be Your will, Hashem our G-d and G-d of our fathers, Who hears the prayer of His people Israel with mercy, that just as You heard in the days of Hanukkah the prayer of Your holy Priests and all those joined to them for the sake of Your Palace and the glory of Your Name, so too may Your mercy and Your kindness be awakened upon us for Your sake and for the sake of Jerusalem Your city, Your Holy Temple, and the glory of Your Name. And prepare our heart to pray to You with all our heart and soul, and may our prayer be fluent in our mouth always, and let us have no obstacle or delay or confusion in our prayer at all.

Master of the Universe, Who leads Joseph like a flock, Who sits upon the Cherubim, appear upon us in Your great mercy with the light of Your holiness, which is drawn from the pure and clear oil, sealed with the seal of the High Priest, in such a way that a spirit of holiness and purity shall be drawn upon us, until we merit to raise our voice with a pleasant melody of song and praise. For You choose songs of melody, as You chose the Sweet Singer of Israel. Help us in Your great mercy, that we may merit to raise the voice of melody; give us strength, that we may merit to arrange before You melodies, songs, and praises, the voice of gladness and song, and we shall play our melodies over the House of Hashem all the days of our lives, with a pleasant and pure voice as You loved, until You have mercy on Your Shechinah which has been wandering from exile to exile for about two thousand years already. And raise and exalt the Congregation of Israel from its fall, until we merit the sound of the melody of the harp and the praises of King David, peace be upon him, in whose merit the Land of Israel was conquered before him, and he subdued all the Sitra Achra, in the aspect of a pleasant harp with a psaltery, until that stone that sank into Goliath's forehead shall continue to grow, as it is said: "And he shall bring forth the headstone" (Zechariah 4:7), and all the kingdoms of the idolaters shall be nullified before it, as it is written: "And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth" (Daniel 2:35), "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Hashem, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).

Full of Mercy, merit us in these eight days of Hanukkah to ascend to the world of Atzilus, to which only one who binds (Aked) himself for the sanctification of the Name like Isaac ascends—who entered immediately after the Binding with his body into the Garden of Eden—and like Matityahu and his sons and all the members of their generation who merited to continue an illumination from the Fiftieth Gate, which no intellect or idea can grasp. For no illumination is drawn from there except to one who sacrifices his soul in prayer in truth, in the aspect of "all to Hashem," in the aspect of a burnt offering (Olah) which is entirely for the Most High, as Abel longed for in the days of Hanukkah, as it is said of him: "And Abel, he also brought" (Genesis 4:4), for he wanted to offer himself as well. Please in Your great mercy send us an illumination from the world of Atzilus to serve You with self-sacrifice, and from the world of Atzilus continue upon us the lights of Hanukkah, from the Fiftieth Gate, until we merit to be truly included in You with true self-sacrifice in a single knot (Chad Katira) forever and ever.

Master of the Universe, merit me specifically in these days in which the luminaries of light are revealed, to pour out before You a conversation like water at every Chatzos (midnight), at the hour auspicious for the nullification of the luminaries of fire. And merit me to soothe the conflagration of the fire of lusts through the pouring of the heart like water, at the time the gates are opened and the partitions between us and our Father in Heaven are removed. Merit us to pour out before You a heart like water, until all the breaths (Hevel) of our Torah study shall be holy breaths, which create new heavens and earth, and all the impure breaths shall be nullified—those drawn from lust, jealousy, and honor, which create false firmaments and a false earth, from which come all the decrees, wars, and Holocausts. And may all the breaths of the Sitra Achra that seize our eyes in a heaven and earth of vanity melt away, in the aspect of "They are vanity, the work of errors" (Jeremiah 10:15, 51:18), which awaken the world to deceive us and to decree upon us all kinds of decrees, which cannot be nullified except by a change of creation, through teshuvah from the depths of the heart, through holy breaths and longings, as Aaron the Priest merited at the time of the lighting of the Menorah, and continued from the branches of the Menorah the seven holy breaths to every single Jew, from which the seven Clouds of Glory were formed, which lowered the high and raised the low, and showed those who dwell on high "Where is the place of His glory," and to those who dwell below "The whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3). They rolled away light before darkness, and darkness before light, straightened all the crookedness, and settled all the difficulties, until no mishap or destroyer had any rule over Israel.

Master of the Worlds, Dweller on high, Light of lights, Who rolls away light before darkness and darkness before light, please, merit us to the inner holy service of Aaron the Priest who raises the candles, until the flame rises of its own accord. Send us Your light even now in our lowliness and in our place, and shine for us the light of seven and seven foundations, which are forty-nine springs, which flow into the seven branches of the Menorah, through which it is possible to elevate the entire people of Israel to the Fiftieth Gate of holiness, and to rectify the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, which cannot be rectified now (since Adam prioritized wisdom over prayer), but only through true self-sacrifice, which shines in the eight days of Hanukkah, to awaken us to pour out our heart in prayer and supplications so that the luminaries of fire that consume us shall be nullified, and they shall turn into luminaries of light in the seven branches drawn from forty-nine springs, until the light of the seven days shall be doubled seven-seven, and shall be like the light of the Faithful Shepherd (Ra'aya Meheimna), who is called: "For that he (Beshegam) also is flesh" (Genesis 6:3), who dims all the worlds were he not hidden by the veil on his face, the secret of Ehyeh (the secret of the Aleph of Ehyeh which is the numerical value of Masveh/Veil).

Our Father, Merciful Father, Master of Forgiveness and Pardon, in whose place of greatness You find His humility, please merit us to the aspect of the radiance of the light of the face of Moses our Teacher, peace be upon him, who merited humility in the aspect of "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (Exodus 3:14), which doubled his light every day more and more until it reached below ten handbreadths, below the ten crowns of impurity, in places that cannot be called by the name of a place at all, for they are below any point of place. And Moses pulled from there those drowning in the miry clay, and redeemed them from the ultimate impurity to the ultimate purity, and brought them out from servitude to redemption, from darkness to a great light.

Master of the Universe, woe to us, for we have fallen into a place of drought and the shadow of death, the underworld and destruction, wonder and desolation, forgetfulness and oblivion. We have forgotten and lost the source of our holiness, and we do not know at all what to cry out for, for even the knowledge that we need to cry out is hidden from us, and our senses are too dim to know that there is something to cry out for. Please, do not abandon us and do not forsake us; look to the covenant and the merit of the Patriarchs. Please, do not hide Your face from us, and save us through the power and in the merit of the groans and cries of Matityahu and his sons. Please grant also in our heart to cry and scream, until we see eye to eye the Sanctuary on its foundation, and the Menorah on its base.

Master of the Universe, have mercy on us and on our seed and on the remnant of our escapees, for we have remained like a mast on the top of a mountain, without helper or supporter, and there is no one who will stand for us. Save, save and deliver us now, and rescue our seed and our seed's seed in Your great mercy from all kinds of external wisdoms, that we should have no part or business in them, and may our hand be removed from them, and our mind and heart be clean of any trace of foreign culture. For our portion is not in these, nor is our lot in these, for we are of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, believers the sons of believers, and we merited to stand on Mount Sinai and receive Your holy Torah through Moses Your prophet, the faithful of Your house. Please help us that our portion should be in Your holy Torah always, in "The law of Hashem is perfect, restoring the soul" (Psalms 19:8), which is "a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is every one that holdeth her fast" (Proverbs 3:18). And may our entire heart and thoughts, all our senses, our 248 limbs and 365 sinews, all be attached and embraced only in You, as it is written: "Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave; the flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of Hashem" (Song of Songs 8:6). And may all our senses be ignited with the holy flame of the candles of the Menorah which awaken to love and attachment to You, until we merit that angels and Seraphim shall be impregnated within us, who will ignite our heart for Your love and Your knowledge alone (which are merited through Seraphim—Saraf-Yam—fire and water, by pouring out the heart like water and rivers of tears). Please merit us that rivers of tears shall flow from our eyes, and in a sea of tears our feet shall wallow; then our heart shall be completely purified, and holy fire and flashes of the flame of G-d shall fill our hearts, and refine all our kidneys, and we shall be pure and clear, clean and holy, occupying ourselves with Your Torah for its own sake, until You deliver into our hands all the impure and the arrogant, and they shall no longer be able to harm, not us and not our seed forever. Master of the Universe, spare and have mercy on Your empty and lacking world, on Your ruined and desolate world, and pour upon it a spirit from on high, and grant also in the heart of the enemies and the wicked to do complete teshuvah. And may the holy breaths that come out of us be impregnated in them and turn them from evil to absolute good. Father of Mercy, Dweller in the heavens, pure and clear, holy and awesome is His Name, "Create in me a clean heart, O G-d; and renew a steadfast spirit within me." Cast us not away from Your presence, and may a willing spirit of holiness and purity uphold us, and may there be fulfilled in us: "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for Mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall blossom as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon... They that dwell under his shadow shall again make corn to grow, and shall blossom as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon" (Hosea 14:5-8). Please merit us to all these in the days of Hanukkah coming upon us for good, as hinted in the final letters of the words: "Yifrach kashoshana veyach shorashav kalevanon" (He shall blossom as the lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon).

Master of the Universe, just as You made seven covenants with Noah after his emergence from the Ark, which are drawn from the seven branches of the Menorah, so too make with us in this generation a new covenant, as it is written: "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Hashem, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their G-d, and they shall be My people; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know Hashem'; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Hashem; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more" (Jeremiah 31:32-33).

Holy and awesome Master of the Universe, please sanctify me with Your holiness, and may I merit the sanctity of the Covenant (Bris), for already the strength to endure has failed from the multitude of foreign thoughts that wash over my mind, which are like the waters of the Flood, G-d forbid. Redeemer from death, and Ransomer from the pit, ransom me from the depths of the sea, ransom me from evil thoughts, rescue my soul from evil meditations that blemish the soul of Israel very, very much. Save me from the folly of the heart and the foreskin of the heart, ransom me and be gracious to me and rescue me in Your great mercy from evil thoughts and from evil wisdoms, which are the essence of the evil inclination in the heart. Spare and have compassion on me, spare and be gracious to me and save me. Please save me in the merit of the holiness of Your holy Priests, who sacrificed their souls for the sanctification of Your Name. Be gracious to me, be gracious to me, ransom me and redeem me, rescue me and save me, save me please in Your mercy from the evil inclination. For because of my evil thoughts which knew no rest, and because of the blemish of the breaths and the evil words that come out of my mouth constantly, this generation has fallen to the depths of the lowest pit, until the name of Israel is forgotten from it. Woe is me, for I too forgot my holiness and lost my place, and abandoned the root of my soul and was uprooted from the source of my quarry, until I myself in my evil thoughts gave a hand, G-d forbid, to the Hellenizers in our generation, and poured into them a spirit of confusion to deceive those who fear Hashem and His tzaddikim, as it is said: "But they mocked the messengers of G-d, and despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of Hashem arose against His people, till there was no remedy" (II Chronicles 36:16), until even the tzaddikim among our people are given to plunder, for once permission is given to the destroyer, he does not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. Please Hashem, gracious and merciful G-d, slow to anger and abundant in kindness and truth, blot out and remove our transgressions from before Your eyes, and even though we are brazen-faced, do not hide Your face from us. Behold You are full of endless compassion, and the G-d of Mercy and Forgiveness You are called, and You do not desire the death of the wicked "but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11), as You hinted to Noah with the olive leaf—that he could through the light of Hanukkah return his entire generation in teshuvah. And You bestow every single day a new light upon the entire world, as we ask every day: "Shine a new light upon Zion and may we all quickly merit its light," all the more so in the days of Hanukkah, in which the light bursts from all the entrances of the houses, through all the windows, in the aspect of "He looketh in at the windows, He peepeth through the lattice" (Song of Songs 2:9), and enters and penetrates into the depths of the heart and the soul, and awakens all kinds of hidden and concealed points found in the inner part of every single Jew.