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The prayer below is based on the book “The Wonders
of Gratitude” written by Rabbi Shalom Arush. In it he particularly emphasizes
three things, amongst many others. The first is that anyone who prays to God
for half an hour every day will have actual miracles performed for them. He
brings tens of real-life stories from people who have written to him telling
him about the salvation they had after they read his book and started praying
every day. Some after 40 days, some after 7 and some people were answered
literally immediately. Secondly, we are required to be happy always, at all
times, with everything that happens to us. Thirdly, this prayer we pray must
be filled with giving thanks to God, even for the bad things that happen to
us. There is one story from a police inspector who related how he had had
cancer, he read the book, started praying to God every day and thanking Him
for the cancer, and suddenly it went away! Just saying the words of the prayer at a
normal reading speed it takes about half an hour. Just read it out loud. As
the Sages teach: The heart is drawn after the mouth. Even though there may be
things that you don't feel and even don't agree with or even totally reject —
just read the words! Or not. As you wish. I wrote this prayer for my brother who has
cancer. Based on the copious number of true-life stories the Rabbi brings in
the book of people having absolute miracles done for them, some of them even
immediately after starting doing the half an hour prayer every day: ailments
cured, debts disappearing, court cases cancelled etc., I promised my brother
that if he were to say this prayer every day, even just for seven days, his
cancer will be cured. Well that didn’t happen, but
we live in hope. Just as it says about Miriam, the sister of
Moses when she was struck with leprosy, “Moses prayed to God” and immediately
she was cured. Muslims say Allah for God. This prayer was sponsored by Mark Mazel of
Woodmere.
The Final Prayer Master of the Universe, I have written this prayer
down in order that I should be able to say it fluently, without having to
struggle and think about what to say next. Basically, the reason I come
before You is to say thank you. Thank You for all the good that You give me
and do for me, both since my birth up until now and also for the good that
You do for me every second of my life. But more importantly, I also want to
thank You for all the bad. At least, all the things that I have perceived up
until now as bad, and in particular for my ill health and all the suffering
that I am going through because of it. It would never have occurred to me that I
should have to thank You that I have cancer, for all the anguish and the
problems that it causes me and the distress that even just the treatments
cause my family and I, but it has now been brought to my attention that that
is indeed the case, and I will now read out this prayer that does exactly
that. Please help me to come to pray this prayer
with all my heart and feeling, and most of all with humility. Also, I understand
that it is important for me to speak out everything that is in my heart
clearly and unambiguously, and not just to assume that You know what I mean! First of all, I fully acknowledge that You
owe me absolutely nothing at all! Not millions of pounds, not success in
business, not many descendants, a Rolls Royce, a Lear Jet, and not even my
good health. I appreciate that internalising this mindset, this awareness
that You are not obligated to me in any way whatsoever is not going to happen
overnight, but I now take upon myself to study, contemplate and pray that I
should come to truly believe it. Furthermore, I understand from so many
teachings of our Sages that You genuinely care for me and love me with an
infinite love, that Your only desire is to bestow
eternal goodness upon me. The fact that You don’t give me everything I desire
is not at all because You don’t care for me, rather that it would not be good
for me to have that particular thing or that the time is not yet right. I also understand that I am required and
obligated to be happy at all times, that I have a duty and responsibility to
You to be only and always happy with my life and everything that happens to
me. I understand that this feeling of entitlement that I have, thinking that really I deserve better, is actually nothing other than an
accusation against You, that if You are not running the world according to my
requirements You obviously got it wrong! I appreciate that so much as the slightest
feeling of sadness or dissatisfaction or even depression on my part is
nothing less than my being angry at You for not running the world properly!
Moreover, to have the slightest feeling that really
I deserve more is basically doing nothing other than accusing You of not
fulfilling Your commitment to me, of cheating me out of my due, in effect,
saying that You are corrupt which would be an impertinence, brazenness and
ingratitude beyond belief! If I had a signed contract specifying
exactly what You owe me then I could go ahead and sue You. But I don’t, which
means that I am also not allowed to be sad or bitter about anything that I am
going through, since anything other than accepting everything that happens to
me with happiness is behaving as if I have some kind of claim against You!
And anyway, so often things look good initially but afterwards turn out to be
bad, that also works to the contrary, only time will tell. It happened that
the police seized a dozen people from the village and they were exiled to
Siberia. Back-breaking work in a labour camp in sub-zero temperatures. They
didn’t feel too good about it, and the ones left behind thought they were the
fortunate ones. Until a couple of weeks later the Germans arrived and
massacred every single person in the village, men women and children! So, to conclude this point, not only do You
owe me nothing but I actually owe You very much indeed. Firstly, I owe You an
enormous debt of gratitude for all the myriad acts of kindness that You do
for me. Secondly, I owe You a most emphatic apology for all that I afflict
You in acting against Your will and transgressing Your commandments. Finally,
and most important of all, I am indebted to You for giving me the means and
the ability to do everything that I am able to do! In short, if I were to truly appreciate how
much I owe You and how much You don’t owe me I would never come to be sad or
impatient, disappointed or to complain about anything whatsoever ever again!
Just the very fact that You have given me life, air to breathe, shelter, food
to eat, clothes to wear etc., simply out of Your pure benevolence, without me
being in any way deserving of so many free gifts, is enough reason for me to
spend the rest of my life thanking You! I am forever indebted to You for all
that You give me, and it all comes from Your kindness and generosity, as a
free gift. It is a commandment to remember Your
kindness constantly, “And you shall remember all the journey along which the
Lord your God led you for forty years in the wilderness...your garment did
not wear out, your feet did not swell.” We are commanded to remember the
kindness that You do for each and every one of us at every moment. Similarly,
it is incumbent upon us to thank You constantly for everything, thank You for
this chair, thank You for this table etc. We are also obliged to thank You
for when it hurts, thank You for this pain I am suffering, please help me to
thank You always for everything, even the bad things! It is written, “Beware
that you do not forget the Lord your God,” please help me not to forget that
everything I have is not due to my own cleverness and ability but rather a
gift from You. It can be so easy to mistake the whole
matter of “cause” and “effect.” A person thinks he lost his money because he
had a hole in his pocket but actually the truth is the opposite. The cause
was Your decree that he should lose his money, and that’s why he had a hole
in his pocket. A person has a bad experience in a certain place and wishes he
hadn’t gone there. In fact, it was You that wanted him to have that
experience which is why You put it into his head to go there. We cannot see
the chain of cause and effect, by which the events that occur here on Earth
descend from Heaven. We see only an external reflection of a world that is
hidden from our eyes. How often we are confused and upset by the seeming
injustices and apparently arbitrary and senseless tragedies that plague the
world. We are inclined to reach a false conclusion that the world is not a
fair place. This is based on a superficial view of things, which can lead to
pain, anger and frustration. The truth is that everything is perfectly just,
and everything is taken into careful account, but sometimes there are
accounts that stretch over decades or even centuries. We cannot see how
things come full circle in the wisest and fairest possible way. Please help
me to never question Your ways but to always accept everything that is
happening to me with joy. Dear God, please help me to live a life of
absolute faith in You, to believe that everything that happens in my life is
for the very best. I should strive to know You and to be connected to You at
all times. Because of the suffering I am going through because of the cancer
I am troubled in mind and confused as to what I should believe and what not,
so please help me to constantly hold in my head that everything that happens
to me comes directly from You and that it is bestowed upon me by You in Your
great compassion and that also this is for the best. Please help me to feel in my heart a true
and enduring love for You and a sincere gratitude for all that You do for me.
It is tempting to think that I am carrying the whole weight of this cancer on
my own, but it is simply not so, I have to try and fix it in my head that You
are with me at all times. I
have so much to thank You for I don’t even know where to begin. Thank You for
the good life you sent me where I have never lacked for anything. Thank You
that I was born into such a family of good people and that I never suffered
any abuse of any kind, but rather was led by example to lead a righteous,
truthful and upright life. Thank You that I was born in a good country
that provides for its citizens all the opportunities to have a prosperous and
peaceful life, adequate healthcare etc. Thank You that I was sent to a good
school that made it possible for me to succeed in attaining various
qualifications that set me up to be able to earn a prosperous living and to
adequately provide for myself and my family. It says in the gemara
(Psachim 54b), that “There are seven things concealed from a person, and they
are: the day he will die, the day his suffering will come to an end, the
extent of his punishment, what the other person is thinking, the best way to
earn money, when will the Messiah come and when the sinful regime will be
destroyed.” Thank You for opening my eyes to the possibilities, and the
prosperity that I am enjoying with my present enterprise and for the
beautiful apartment it has enabled me to purchase. Thank You for giving me a fully functioning
body, with all my organs and limbs and senses etc. working properly, my arms
and legs, fingers and toes all operating the way they are supposed to, my
heart, brain, liver, lungs, kidneys, various colons, intestines and so on.
Thank You that I am able to go to the bathroom successfully, all the
phenomena. Thank You that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells, that I
can speak and eat, taste all my food and drink etc. Please help me to bless
You constantly for all the good that You do for me. Thank you for sending me a wonderful,
loving family that worry about me and take care of me and ensure that I have
everything that I need. Please help me never to forget that my wife owes me
nothing at all! Help me to truly appreciate everything that she does for me
and to thank her every time she washes my clothes, prepares my food, washes
the dishes etc. In truth I should be ashamed of myself over so much that she
does for me with so much self-sacrifice and I just take it for granted. If a
complete stranger were to do me a favour I would at the very least say thank
you, even if I could do nothing for him in return, so how much more so should
I appreciate all that my wife does for me. What my life would be like without
her I cannot even imagine. Furthermore, even if someone treats me badly I am still obliged to treat them well since You
teach in Your Torah that such a reaction guarantees one a long and good life.
As Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches: “He who repays evil with good will merit
a long life.” So, whatever anyone does to me, even an attacker or a thief, it
is always in my own best interest to forgive them and treat them well. As
people say: Don’t be right, be wise! Since nothing I have actually belongs to
me, it is all a gift from You, even my own body, I now appreciate that
everything depends upon my own attitude, especially whether I will live my
life in happiness or unhappiness. So even if I think that someone owes me
something, rather than live a life of bitterness and frustration about it, it
is better for me to forgive them since it is acting wisely that brings one to
a happy life. Furthermore, focusing on another person’s qualities rather than
their faults, and regarding them positively can also have a good effect on
them! In fact, the greatest acclaim for the Creator is when a soul that was
far away comes closer; as we see when Jethro said, “Now I know that God is
greater than all the gods.” And the Zohar comments: When Jethro said that,
God’s glory in Heaven was greatly increased, and because of that the Torah
was finally given in its entirety, that it may reign over all (Zohar, Shemos,
68a). I should also beg You for Your forgiveness
and repent for never having really concentrated on how much good You have
done for me my whole life that I have never thanked You for, and for all the
times that I was miserable and complaining. The Kabbalah teaches that one
receiving from another without the slightest effort on his part is nothing
but a humiliation and disgrace for him, which they describe as the “bread of
shame.” You created this world in order to lavish upon us Your complete
goodness and give us the merit of being able to earn our bread as a reward
for all our effort and struggle, so that it almost appears as if all the good
that You do for us is in our own merit. Please help me never to forget that You
don’t abandon us for a second and You are constantly by my side, even though
it is up to me to make my own choices. My main task is to know, understand
and believe with complete faith that there is nothing apart from You. You own
everything and everything that happens in my life is through You, everyone I
meet, every comment I hear, every event I experience, every sight I see and
so on. Help me to feel genuinely ashamed before You and to stop all my
complaining, even in my heart, and only then will I be able to accept rebuke,
because a person who never stops complaining is unable to accept the
slightest criticism. Most of all, thank You for this sickness
You have sent me. I have absolute and complete faith in You that it is the
best possible thing that could have happened to me at this time and the only
thing that I am truly lacking is that I have not given thanks for it enough!
I don’t even understand myself how I could have so misunderstood the situation,
that I was so sad and miserable about being sick, and not appreciating that
if I was ill it could only be because You sent me
this ailment and that therefore it must be for my own good. It simply has to
be that this is the best thing that could have happened to me, since You do
only what is best for me, since You love me more than anyone else in the
world and You only want to give me perfect good. As the Sages say, More than the calf wants to nurse the mother wants to feed
her! I cannot believe that I have been so ungrateful and insensitive to think
that You were capable of doing anything bad to me, that I was actually
complaining about You! Please help me to truly repent for my lack
of faith in You, and from now on to put my trust in You completely and only
to give thanks for all my suffering, since in fact it is not a suffering at
all but rather my ultimate salvation. With all this thanks I am giving I am
not giving thanks for sins or physical passions or for bad character traits,
only for the suffering I have. Each person’s soul was created in and descends
to this world from a very exalted place in Heaven, and it is not fitting that
we should indulge ourselves in any kind of debased or depraved behaviour.
Sometimes a person really should stop and ask himself, “Is this really the
way I should be behaving?” It is very precious to You when a person controls
himself and refrains from even the slightest desire! It is true that I have transgressed and not
always succeeded in overcoming my improper desires, and it is known that
negative feelings can actually create bad luck, and vice versa, so please
help me to be always happy and positive and avoid being angry so that I
should always have good luck. Dear God, please help me to totally rejoice
in my suffering, since it is for my eternal good and until I am able to
rejoice in it, I don’t want You to give me anything else at all, or send me
any salvation or cure. I want only one thing, to have absolute faith in You
and to believe that everything is for my own good and to thank You with a
joyful heart. For all that You have given me and for all that You will give
me please help me to be truly grateful and to truly rejoice and to feel Your
love for me and all the goodness You do me. Also please help me to never ever have the
slightest fear from any person, animal or situation but only to always see
You before my eyes and trust in You completely. If I were to be constantly
mindful of the multiple kindnesses that You do for me every moment of my
life, how You are always there for me, watching over me, protecting me,
providing for me, why should I ever fear? I should always fear only You and
also not come to believe any heresy of any kind. I’m not talking about the
little stupid heresies like evolution that has been disproven already a
billion different ways and only the brain-dead are still hanging on to it. I
mean even the big ones that both make sense and are convincing and can
actually separate a person from You. Regarding evolution anyone who can see the
endless wisdom, beauty, design and order in the creation is forced to admit
that the theory has failed, and yet people have a blind spot that prevents
them from seeing the obvious, that You created the world. Please help me
never to fall in to this stupidity, rather to recognise You in every single
aspect of the creation.
This
next paragraph is not part of the prayer and is taken from the book Mysteries
of the Creation by Rabbi Dovid Brown. “Naturalism
is not something about which Darwinists can afford to be tentative, because
their science is based on it. Proof that Darwinian style evolution has
produced important biological innovations is non-existent. Darwinists are
certain that the mutation-selection mechanism can produce wings, eyes and
brains not because the mechanism can be observed to do anything of the kind,
but because their guiding philosophy assures them that no other power is
available to do the job. The absence from the cosmos of a Creator is
therefore the essential starting point for Darwinism” (Darwin on Trial). “The
theory of natural selection is nothing other than a dish of rank materialism
cleverly cooked up and served, merely to make us independent of a Creator”
(Adam Sedgewick, Darwin’s teacher and close friend). “The
whole theory of evolution is not supported by the slightest proof. It is
simply a religious belief. Not even that, it is nothing but a superstition
based on no evidence whatsoever” (J. Eccles, Nobel prize winner). “The
theory of natural selection is a tautology. It states that the fittest
individuals in a population (defined as those that leave the most offspring)
will leave the most offspring” (C. Waddington). “The
Evolutionists complain that it is absurd to say that there is a God who
created everything out of nothing, and they claim that what actually happened
was that nothing turned itself into everything” (G.K. Chesterton).
Please help me to believe in the teaching of our
Sages that the ultimate remedy for all ailments is to accept them with love.
The only true goal is to come closer to You. I want it and I will never stop
wanting it, whether You help me to achieve it or not. I am prepared to wait
as long as it takes but I will never stop wanting it. I want to fill myself
with the belief that You love me and want only my best. Only You know what is
best for me and when I should receive it. There is no evil in the world and
everything that happens to me is in Your hands and according to Your will.
Nothing is decreed by the manager or CEO, police or judges, assailants or
anyone else. You make all the decisions as to what happens to every person at
all times, there is no other power in the world but You, and everything that
You do is good. Evil absolutely does not exist and if I could only start to
give thanks also for the things I don’t understand
how they could happen and to search to find the way that they are truly in
fact good, I would be able to see how everything really will turn out for the
best, even events that seem to be utterly catastrophic! Thank You for giving me the gift of this
cancer. You are my Father and I am your child and
everything that You do for me is motivated by Your love for me. If I were to
sincerely evaluate all the good You have given me up until now, I would be
completely ashamed to ask for anything more, especially I would not ask to be
cured! That would be simply ungrateful and negate all that You have done for
me. Thank You for this wonderful world that You
created for me, to serve me and help me to achieve my goal in this life, and also
for all the emissaries You send me to interact with me in my life in all the
different ways to benefit me. Thank You for sending me a wonderful, beautiful
wife who takes such good care of me and whose only intention is that I should
have the best life possible. Thank You for giving me a heart and a brain
and the strength to do good, to serve You, to believe in You, to keep Your
commandments, to have good character traits and to praise and extol You. For
everything that I am and do is only because of Your help and by Your power.
Thank You for all the times You help me to overcome my evil inclination and
to turn away from evil and for every success I achieve in Divine service. Please help me to believe in You with an
absolute faith and to discard all my understanding and logic when it
contradicts that. I know it doesn’t make any sense logically to thank You for
having cancer, but having genuine faith in You requires me to do exactly
that. Having faith means that I must see You before my eyes at all times, as
the creator of the world, who supervises all that happens and does kindness
to all people at all times. What that kindness looks like from the point of
view of logic is hard to justify but only because all that You do is far
beyond the level of our understanding. Please help me to step out of the world of
logic and enter the world of faith. How it can be that having cancer is a bad
thing and having cancer is a good thing is only according to which world you
are in. Logically it’s bad, but in the world of faith, believing in You and
knowing it’s from You, then it becomes good. To say that having cancer is bad
is true, it is obviously right, but I didn’t come into the world to be right.
You sent me here in order that I should believe in You, which results in
having to accept that bad is actually good! So, what is the point of all this
gratitude? The answer is that giving thanks is what brings one to faith, to
believe in You. It is impossible to give thanks for suffering, so failing to
give thanks means that I am still stuck in the world of logic and I am unable
to see all the miracles and wonders that You are constantly doing for me. By
giving thanks, even if I don’t do it wholeheartedly at first, I am slowly
going to leave this world of human logic and darkness and ascend to the world
where everything is light and compassion. Questions only apply to this world,
but there are no answers, however in the world of faith there are no
questions. In the world of logic there is only nature
and everything happens by chance, but in the world of faith there is only You
and everything happens exactly as You dictate. In the world of logic I am controlled by the doctors and according to the
laws of nature they are right, but in the world of faith everything that they
say is simply irrelevant. Being sad and miserable and not giving thanks
confines me to the world of logic, but giving thanks even without
understanding transports me to the world of faith where all the natural laws
are annulled and miracles happen. Truly we are literally incapable of
understanding what is good and what is not good. Dear God, please help me to believe that
all this gratitude I am expressing here is not in order that I should be
cured. Rather it is to bring me to a level of complete faith in You.
Certainly, I would very much like to put this whole episode behind me, but
what is far more important is my connection to You, since that is something I need now and always. You owe me nothing and
everything You do for me is only for my own good, and I have to believe that
this attitude applies also to my cancer, that You sent it to me for my own
good and You will take it away when the time is right. My mission at this
time is not to entreat You for a cure but only that You should help me attain
perfect faith in You. Thank You for the downfalls and failures
and the stumbling and difficulties I have and for the times I feel sad and
bitter. I believe that all that happens is designed in a precise manner and
sent to me specifically to bring me closer to You. I have so much to thank
You for, all the times that You helped me and saved me and rescued and
protected and supported me. All the times that You cheered me up and
encouraged and strengthened me. Thank You for always listening to me and
accepting my prayers. Master of the Universe, it is known and
revealed before You that I do not have the spiritual awareness to understand
and see that all that You do with me is for my own good. Still, I ask Your
forgiveness for having questioned Your decisions and for not having valued
Your actions and for having become sad and for having complained, instead of
rejoicing and thanking You. I ask Your forgiveness for all the times I was
not satisfied and for all the regrets and self-pity, and also for not having
appreciated all that You have given me. Please help me to become a truly
humble person, to never take anything that You give me for granted and to
never become angry with anyone and to not harbor any
complaints in my heart against anyone. Even people who argue against me, I
should not be strict with them or irritated by them. Quite the contrary, I
should be happy about their success and sad about their sorrows. I should
pray for them that no bad should happen to them because of their opposing me. Please help me to fulfil the verse, “My
soul should be like dust to everyone,” and I should be silent to those that
curse me. The Sages teach that there are four types of reaction to
frustration, and the highest one is the person who is hard to anger and
quickly appeased. They ask, “What about a person who doesn’t get angry at
all, isn’t that a higher level?” They answer, “Such a person doesn’t exist!”
You didn’t create us to be angels, we all have bad character traits and
inclinations and desires and it is our task to try to improve ourselves.
Please help me to overcome any improper desires I have and to stay away from
bad friends and influences. I should go beyond my nature in serving You and
then You will alter the rules of nature to help me. Please help me to constantly keep that in
mind and always try to improve myself. I should have endless patience for
every person and situation and to always avoid becoming angry. To always
respond with soft words and not feel bitter, even in my heart. Becoming
nervous or anxious or upset is a sure sign that I do not have sufficient
faith and belief that everything is from You. Even when people do good for me
or bad to me it is not them doing it, it is only You putting such thoughts
and desires into their hearts to behave in such a fashion. One who truly
believes that You created all the worlds and universes and Milky Ways and us
to inhabit them and to serve You, to such a person all situations are the
same. Joseph was released after twelve years in prison and appointed viceroy
over the mightiest country in the world. He didn’t show the slightest sign of
happiness. To him it was all the same. His only desire was to worship God and
it made no difference to him whatsoever whether he was a prisoner or a
viceroy! The Sages teach that the first question we
will be asked when we come to the next world is “Did you trade with faith?”
The simple meaning of this question is whether every material business one
did was done with faith, that is, with honesty and integrity, without lying
or deceiving anyone. But this question can also be interpreted to mean did
one trade in this world by giving and receiving faith. Please help me to
achieve maximum faith in You and also to pass it on to others. If it is Your
will that I should suffer and be in pain then I will be content with the
pain. Not only that, I will try to say thank You and to actually be happy
with every pain and to publicise my happiness! There is a teaching of the Sages that, “If
one loses a silver coin, he should praise God as though he had found a silver
coin. And if he loses two silver coins, he should be happy as though he had
found two silver coins. The same goes for every bad thing that happens to a
person; he should think that the bad is good, because the extent of the good
is in accordance with the extent of the bad.” This means that when things
seem very bad, it is Your kindness coming down to us to an even greater
extent. Please help me to internalise this teaching and truly believe it. Please help me to give thanks even for
being able to repent for anything I might have done wrong, to forsake all my
arrogance and my feeling of entitlement that everyone owes me everything. I
should cultivate the trait of humility and never become haughty, as it is
written, “A humble and contrite heart God does not reject.” At the very least
I should stop all my lamenting and complaining. The all-important point here
is that I should strengthen my faith and belief in You, and to be always
happy. Not only because You want me to be happy but also because it is
actually healthier and conducive to a better and longer life to be happy! And by happiness I don’t mean more
possessions and better food and entertainment and places to go, I mean simply
understanding how lucky I am to have what I have! I mean to be happy without
all the superfluous things in life which only make one yearn for more, rather
to have a genuine satisfaction even from the simple things, from what I
already possess. As it is said, “Who is a rich man? The man who learns to be
happy with what he has,” and doesn’t yearn for more or different or better,
and especially not for extras and luxuries, travelling etc.! Similarly, by
happiness I don’t mean foolishness and light-headedness, frivolity and
stupidity. I mean a genuine happiness in You. Also, now that I am saying this prayer,
please help me to not start to get the feeling that You are now obliged to
help me, to send me my salvation. Since I am now praying for half an hour
every day You are bound to help me. The very essence of gratitude is to feel
that I deserve nothing and that everything is pure kindness from You and it
is for that that I give thanks. You owe me nothing and I don’t deserve
anything and I just want to accept with total gratitude and praise every
single thing I receive. I just want to thank You for everything that I have
and for everything that I lack, since the only true purpose of everything is
to come closer to You. Dear God, please never put me to the test
of wealth. So many people fall down from this test, they get given large
amounts of money and don’t use it properly. All these program makers, social
media owners, hedge fund managers, vaccine manufacturers etc., they all
become multi-billionaires and then all they do is hog all this money that You
have sent them to themselves. It’s like the waiter bringing a tray piled high
with food for all the diners and plonking it down in front of one of them. Is
he supposed to eat the whole lot himself or distribute it to everyone?
Anyway, there are people that have ten mansions all over the world, but no
happiness or peace of mind! Please help me to bear in mind at all times
that everything I am and have is from You and it is
all in order for me to strive to have complete faith in You. Not to enjoy it
all myself and not share it out to those that need it. If I am successful,
and even if I am not successful, any thoughts that come into my head that I
am such a success or such a failure are nothing but heresy. Even the things
that You didn’t give me are also for the best for me. Am I in pain? Then I
thank You for the pain, for all my suffering. What really hurts me is that I
don’t give thanks to You for everything, that I don’t have sufficient faith
in You. It hurts me that I don’t believe that everything that happens to me
is directed to me from You and that it is for the best. If my livelihood is
insufficient, thank You. If I am not in good health, thank You. I just want
to have perfect faith in You and to be always joyful and to give thanks
wholeheartedly. This is the secret of having a good life, that everything is
good, therefore I will always be happy and as a result I will live my life in
total contentment. Simply by actually “living” gratitude and belief in You I
am absolutely guaranteed a good life, even in my present situation! Please help me to internalise that the
world, all the universes, everything that You created was solely for our
actions and behaviour. (Out of billions of planets, ours is the only one that
has a moon that produces a perfect, total solar eclipse.) We should recognise
that You are the owner of everything and You want us to be aware of all the
goodness and kindness that You do for us and to thank You and praise You at
all times. I am required to put my strength and effort into making a living
and taking care of business, but I am equally required to believe that the
end result is all from You and depends upon Your compassion. You give us
life, air to breathe, rain, sun, water, everything that we need. All we are
required to do is to recognise that it is all from You and to be thankful.
This requirement that is imperative upon us, to give thanks to You, is
actually an essential part of the creation and it is incumbent upon us not
only to give thanks to You for all the good that You do for us, but also for
all the good that You have ever done for us, all the previous kindness and
miracles that You did for us up until now. I hereby accept upon myself to try my very
best to live my life joyfully. Not only because it’s no fun at all being
miserable and sad, but also because being sad is actually a very great sin,
there is no “permission” to be sad. Even a person who commits a very great
sin is forbidden to be sad. Who gave him permission to be sad? Because he did
something wrong does that mean he should now commit an even worse sin and be
sad about it? Certainly, he should regret it and be repentant, but then he
should return to a state of happiness. Being sorry you did something wrong
does not bring you closer to God, actually it distances you from Him. He
should repent and say sorry, and then remind himself of all the good that he
has done and that You have done for him and, as people say – a child works
himself up into a rage, he should work himself up into a happy! The most important part of repentance is
confession. One must confess every detail of every single fault to You.
Please help me to be constantly in contact with You, to speak to You just
like a child speaks to his father, to say sorry, to say thank You, to pour
out my heart to You at all times and hold myself on the right track of being
bonded to You. I should never get lost from You, especially when I don’t even
realise that I am lost. Also please help me to completely forget about the
past, I should never dwell on anything that has happened to me previously,
especially events that drop me into depression. I should always keep my mind
only in the present. Please help me to truly believe that my
praising and thanking You brings You great happiness, even when I am
suffering so much that I myself don’t even feel a connection to the words I
am saying. I certainly have no doubt that You are fair and just in all that
You do for me. As the philosopher said, or should have said: I believe
therefore I am. Also please help me to never speak the slightest word of
heresy, even in jest, since that can have a detrimental effect on my soul.
Life is not always easy, I see people around me who suffer physical and
mental problems, anxiety and panic attacks, people who fall into physical
passions and addictions simply because they were never prepared in order to
be able to face the difficulties, disappointments and crises that inevitably
crop up in life. Please help me to strengthen my soul in my faith in You that
no contact with people or circumstances can ever diminish my belief. As Rabbi
Nachman said: To the degree that people are distant from the truth (i.e. God), so they consider anyone who spurns evil to be a
complete idiot! Please help me to pray this prayer to You
with conviction and vitality and to discard all my sadness and laziness and
heaviness. To pray it every day with a renewed vigour, as if I had never said
it before. It is so easy to forget You and fall into despair, to forget that
just as You have kept me alive until today, I have to believe that You will
never abandon me. I should constantly notice and pay particular attention
always and only to the kindness You are doing for me and not to that which I
am lacking or suffering. My whole goal here is to raise myself up to a
spiritual level that I will thank You for absolutely everything that happens
to me. Thank You that I am in a sound position financially but even if I were
in debt I would praise You and thank You every day
for my debts. If I were to fail to achieve the position at work that I aspire
to or not get the job I was hoping for I would thank You and praise You for
that. Please help me to remember You throughout
the day and speak my heart out to You about everything. One time Rabbi
Nachman noticed that his student Nasan was missing a button on his coat. He
asked him, “Nasan, did you pray to God for a new button?” The student didn’t
answer, thinking, Am I going to ask God for something so insignificant? The Rabbi
asked him, “Is it beneath your dignity to pray for a button?” This is the
level that I am hoping to achieve, to tell You everything that is in my heart
and in my thoughts. To thank You for everything from the bottom of my heart,
and not just as a lip-service, to express my deepest gratitude and faith in
You. It is known that Your only purpose in creating
the world and us, was in order to bestow goodness and reveal Your compassion
to us, so that we should recognise Your greatness and Your glory and to believe
in You. Because if we don’t believe this then what
do we believe? Is it possible that You created the world in order to abuse
us, that You hate us and are cruel to us and leave us in the hands of
destiny? Obviously not! If we don’t believe in Your compassion and kindness
then we don’t believe in You at all. By thinking we are entitled to anything
what we are actually doing is inventing an imaginary creator who is obliged
to fulfil all our desires. By being sad or disappointed that is exactly what
we are saying and doing. We have a duty to love You and no one can love You
if he feels that You owe him. Only by appreciating that all that we have is a
kindness from You can we then feel Your love for us and love You in return.
And anyway, who are we to declare that what You have done is right or wrong?
Only by living a life of faith in You can we achieve a truly happy life and
receive all salvation. Dear God, please help me to judge all
people favourably and not to be strict with anyone at all, not even in my
thoughts. Help me to believe that no one can do anything to me at all,
neither good or bad, unless You have decreed it, being that Your Divine
Providence is individualized for each and every person concerning all our
behaviours and interactions. I should never condemn anyone as guilty but
rather judge all people positively. Please help me, even as the traffic
policeman is looking through his book deciding which ticket to give me, to
pray to You and say thank You for giving me this ticket. Even if, God forbid,
I should find myself in court expecting to be found guilty, and especially if
I am already in jail, I should simply pray to You and say thank You for all
that I am going through. No one imprisons a man and no one frees him other
than You. I should never ask, Why is this happening
to me, or, What did I do to deserve this? Especially I should never say, If only I had/hadn’t... because even when it is my own
action that causes me harm I should still believe that even a bad consequence
is directly from You and that also this is for the best! Please help me to
always be at peace with the situation I am in, and to accept all problems and
difficulties with love and sincere thanks. Please help me to accustom myself to give
thanks to You with genuine enthusiasm for absolutely everything that has
happened and is happening in my life. To give thanks for every single
kindness You have done for me, both material and spiritual, to ascribe such
value to each and every little thing that I would be ashamed to ask for
anything more. A person who constantly gives thanks is a happy person with an
optimistic attitude to life. Nobody likes being around pessimistic people who
are always moaning and complaining and see everything as black. It is
depressing just having to deal with such people. Everything depends on speech. The way a
person speaks reveals everything that is in his heart. Being frustrated and
negative is the surest way of being found repulsive by everyone you know.
Also, it is now well established the connection between being happy and
positive and having good health. Simply by being joyful the immune system is
strengthened and the body is better able to resist and even cure disease,
viruses and all other sicknesses. Faith depends on gratitude, and gratitude
and also good health, depend on joy! Help me to say thank You and to always
be happy. Nothing else makes it. Conversely, any complaining is actually
eating away at my very vitality. Mostly any speech that is not gratitude is
complaining – jokes, politics, stock exchange, etc. Basically, any speech
that is not praising You is complaining. Complaining is nothing but blaming
You, and is a tremendous impudence and actual heresy. Even listening to
someone else complaining is harmful. All complaining poisons both the
complainer and the listener, please help me to stay far away from both of
them. The wife and eleven children of Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam were
murdered in the holocaust. He himself survived the ghettos, the cattle
trucks, the death marches and the concentration camps and yet he maintained
constantly that there was no power in the world other than You. He would
stand before the SS guards and totally ignore them, even praying out loud as
they were beating him mercilessly. Despite enduring all the German tortures,
he continued to inspire and encourage his fellow Jews to believe only in You,
to see You before their eyes constantly, and never to complain about the
suffering they were going through. The most important thing for me to fix in
my head is that I have to be always happy. Someone humiliates or insults me –
I can’t get out of bed for three days! Everyone suffers being disgraced and
shamed occasionally, and anyway it is the nature of a person to be sad.
Please help me to fight against all types of depression and sadness. Help me
to pray this prayer every day for the rest of my life, or any other prayer
for that matter. Just to spend half an hour a day talking to You. Rabbi
Nachman put it like this, “Prayer to God builds a conduit between us and Him.
The more you pray the larger the pipe you create through which God will be
able to send you all the blessings, peace of mind and salvation that you
require.” The more I connect myself to You the better quality of life I will have. I should be able to accept suffering and disturbing memories the same way that I accept joyous news and plenty. There are people that have no food to eat, no home, people that are born impaired or that suffer damage during their life, either through accident or attack or some other means. People contract cancer and other diseases and physical complications, whether life-threatening or not. People who lost a child or close family member or friend. Whatever happens to me please help me to continue to love You and to thank You for all that I am going through. Help me to spell it all out in my prayer; what happened and what I am going through, every detail, and thank You for it all. I should specify detail by detail and say a separate thank you for each one! I should always have the presence of mind not to forget, and to believe all that is happening to me is sent to me directly from You and that it is all for my eternal good. Like I said, this prayer was written for my brother
who has cancer. Your life circumstances and present situation are certainly
different to his. He grew up in England and had a great life. You might have
grown up in the Congo working as a slave down a mine. So
give thanks for that. You might have been abused as a child or suffered
attack. So give thanks for that. Speak out the
details. Say – Thank You that I was abused as a child. Thank You for all the
suffering and humiliation I went through and all the pain. Thank You for the
nightmares and all the trauma I suffered and still suffer. The only important
thing is to give thanks for half an hour every day. Use this prayer, edit it
and make it all about you, or write your own. Just write it in this style,
giving thanks. Also, forgive the person who attacked you. This is the best
way to bring a completion to the whole episode. And who knows? Perhaps in your previous
incarnation it was you who cruelly abused and tortured them, and according to
the laws of Heavenly justice you should have been sentenced to a billion
years in hell. So God had mercy on you and sent you
back here together, and put it into this person’s head to abuse or attack
you, and thereby cancelled all the strict judgements on you! If one should ask, Why
was I born in such a country, or to such a family or to such poverty and so
on, the answer is that that was God’s decree and it was for a good purpose,
even if we don’t understand it! We have absolutely no understanding of why God
does the things He does to us, we just have to believe that it is all for the
best. He knows us far far better than we know
ourselves, He knows everything that we went through in all our previous
incarnations and what will be with us in the future. He loves us, and all
that happens to us is for our own good. The only cure for everything is to be
happy. Like I said – Work yourself up into a happy! Sing a lot, dance a lot,
laugh a lot, give thanks for everything – be happy! Also, teach it to your children. They also
have to learn how to give thanks, and get used to giving thanks for
everything. They also need to learn to have faith in God. They also sometimes
need salvation. The Rabbi speaks in the book about children who were bullied
or had no friends or suffered in some other way. They started giving thanks
for it every day and it all came to an end. They also have to learn and to
speak it out, God loves me, God takes care of me, God is proud of me. This is
as important if not more important than any other aspect of their education,
but it needs a lot of work and constant, even daily reminding. Finally, first of all, Rabbi Nachman of
Breslov said that the Messiah wouldn’t come until the whole world was full of
his teachings. This prayer is full of Rabbi Nachman’s teachings. Secondly, I
am not publishing this prayer for my own profit or glory, rather to increase
the glory of God in the world and to help raise up the Shechinah from the
dust. Therefore, I hereby relinquish all my Intellectual Property Rights to
the prayer and declare it ownerless. Please feel free to post it on your own
website, post it on your fridge, post it to a friend...let’s just get it out
there! This prayer is dedicated to the memory of my great
friend, Yalon Itzchaki,
to whom I owe so much.
In answer to the question: Can I pray for
someone else? Here is an excerpt from the book “The Wonders of Gratitude” by
Rabbi Shalom Arush. “At the end of a lecture, I was approached
by a man who told me about a young woman in her early twenties who had been a
normal girl, who suddenly began to suffer from increasingly severe mental
problems. Her parents had consulted with specialists and rabbis and had
prayed for her at the graves of Tzaddikim, but, in spite of everything, the
situation went from bad to worse, to such an extent that the young woman was
committed against her will to a psychiatric hospital. The parents were
desperate and didn’t know what to do, but God had mercy on them, seeing their
suffering, and someone gave the mother a copy of my book The Garden of
Gratitude. The mother read the book and started spending a half an hour every
day speaking out her gratitude for all the suffering she was going through
because of her daughter’s illness. She stopped blaming herself and her
daughter because she understood through her faith that this was something
that God had sent her, and she accepted it with love, giving thanks for it.
As if by magic, after a month, the young girl was completely cured and was
released from the psychiatric hospital. This story teaches us something very
important: people who heard this story asked me if the girl was cured because
the mother said thank You. I told them Yes. In practically all cases,
suffering is not limited to the sick person alone but extends to all those
around them. In Heaven it was decreed that a certain number of people must
suffer. And when several people who are related to each other suffer, if one
of them accepts the suffering with love, immediately the bad decree is
annulled for all of them, because the moment one of them rectified what he
needed to, he no longer needs to continue suffering and then the suffering
ceases for all of them. When the mother of this young girl accepted the
suffering with love and gave thanks for it, the problem ended, both for her
and for her daughter. This teaches us an important lesson: that
every suffering that a person goes through involves suffering also for other
people. Therefore, it is enough if only one of those people give thanks for
the suffering to bring salvation and healing to all.” The Rabbi is answering the question, Can one person pray for another, but obviously it is much
better if the sick person prays for themself. As it says by Hagar, that when
she saw her son was dying “She raised her voice and wept.” But that didn’t
help, so obviously the child decided to pray for himself, since next it says,
“Then God heard the voice of the lad.” It was his prayer that made the
difference! A sick person prays from the depths of his heart because he feels
his distress with all his heart, and such a prayer will always be
answered! (Eli Yablonka
was wounded during the fighting at Jiddi, when
dozens of Egyptian T62 tanks suddenly attacked the battalion. We then heard
over the radio Battalion Commander Chaim Ziv’s clear and thunderous cry:
“Soldiers of Battalion 106, we must not retreat! We must stop them! There is
no other force between us and Tel Aviv!” Eli and his crew members
answered the call and stopped the Egyptian forces with their very bodies. As
Eli later related: “Suddenly I couldn’t see anything. A missile had taken my
hand, my face and my eyes. But I could still speak. I tried to speak into the
walkie-talkie but received no answer….” A person should look at his
limbs– his hands, his legs, his feet and toes etc. and thank and praise God.
Nothing can be taken for granted! Taken from the book, The Yom Kippur that Never Ended.) Copyright © 2021 Breslov Institutions,
Yeshivat "Shuvu
Bonim", |
