Opening of Darkness

The prime objective in all our prayers should be that we merit in attaining the wonderful spiritual awareness that everything is from Hashem and all for the best. The Shmona Esrei prayer particular helps us to do just that, for its an opening out of the darkness.

In the Chonen Hadaat blessing of the Shmona Esrei prayer, we ask Hashem for wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Say this slowly and with intent, for we are asking for the knowledge that everything comes from Hashem and it’s all for the best! We shouldn’t attribute anything to anyone – only Hashem! We ask to merit the ultimate knowledge – spiritual awareness – to get to know Hashem!

Why fly through your prayers? Take your time. Say them over and over again, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, even half an hour. Beg Hashem to merit the wisdom, understanding and knowledge of knowing Him.

During every Shmona Esrei prayer, one must pray to acquire the knowledge and spiritual awareness that enable a person to wholeheartedly thank Hashem. First, pray for this in the Chonen Hadaat blessing as we explained. Second, we pray for this in the Hashivenu blessing, where we ask Hashem to bring us close to His Divine service. How? The Divine service that the blessing refers to is the service of prayer, especially personal prayer, and expressing our gratitude and praises to Hashem. We beg Hashem to enable us to get closer to this lofty Divine service.

In the Slach Lanu blessing, where we ask Hashem’s forgiveness, our intent should be apologizing to Hashem for not thanking Him. Re’eh na b’anyenu – “look at our poverty” – this is our spiritual poverty from our lack of spiritual awareness and failure in knowing that everything is for the best. Riva rivenu – “fight our battles” against all the negative thoughts that try to weaken our emuna. Maher tigalenu – “redeem us soon”, for if each one of us attains real emuna, the Geula – our full redemption – will come right away. Rebbe Nachman says that Geula is emuna, for the lack of emuna is what caused exile and Diaspora in the first place. So with emuna, we merit our own private redemption as well as our collective, national redemption. This is the Geula shlema, the complete redemption that we all pray for. It’s emuna! We beg the redemption lema’an Shmecha, for the sake of Your Holy Name, Hashem, which the whole world will sanctify, as we say in Kaddish, “May Your Holy Name be blessed forever and forever, blessed, praised, exalted, uplifted…” – it’s all for Your honor, Hashem! Please redeem us so that we may all have complete emuna and praise Your Name with songs of thanks always!

Refa’enu – heal us, Hoshi’enu – save us, from what? Save us from the rampant heresy in the world. Save us so we can live lives of emuna, Ki tehilatenu Ata – for You are our glory and we should therefore thank You incessantly. Help us fulfill our purpose on earth, to truly get to know You and to thank You always, and that way, we’ll all be healed and healthy.

Barech alenu – bestow a blessing upon us, why? Ki e-l tov umetiv Ata – for You are good, Hashem, and You do good for everyone. Master of the World, everything You do is good. Bless us so that we should never forget this!

Tka B’shofar gadol l’cherutenu – sound the great shofar that heralds our freedom. Rebbe Nachman says that the sound of the shofar straightens the heart, resulting in what King David says that the “straight of heart” have joy. When a heart is straightened from the crookedness of heresy, a person merits redemption and every other blessing.

Al hatzadikim – on behalf of the truly righteous, yehemu na rachamecha – may Your mercy be invoked. We pray to Hashem that by virtue of the tzaddikim, may all the stern judgments be mitigated with mercy, Ve’tane sachar tov l’botchim b’Shimcha b’emet – reward those who have attained the level where they know that everything You do is not only good, it’s the best, for Your Holy Name is all mercy. V’sim chelkenu imahem – enable all of us to attain this level of emuna where we can thank You for everything wholeheartedly. Who truly trusts You? The ones who know that You are only good and merciful – they’re the ones who truly trust You! Let us be one of them, for we all want to attain real, complete emuna. We all want to trust You and know that there is no bad in the world, for You are good and merciful. Velo nevosh – and we will never be ashamed for we thank You always!

Now we reach Modim, praise G-d! Modim – we thank You! Hatov, ki lo chalu rachamecha – the Good One, whose mercy never ends, vehamerachem, ki lo tamu chasadecha – the Merciful One, whose loving-kindness is infinite; vechol hachaim yehalelucha sela – all of living flesh shall praise You always! With emuna, everyone will praise You and thank You for the good and for the seemingly otherwise – for everything! Why? L’olam li tov – our liturgy says explicitly that everything is good always. We say this three times a day, therefore: Vihalelu viyebarchu et Shimcha hagadol b’emet – we praise and bless Your great Name truly, with all our hearts, because everything is good!

This is our constant Divine service, to see how we can pray so that we’ll attain the emuna that everything is for the best and that there’s no bad in the world! From this moment on, I believe! I cast my intellect and all logic aside! Logic and intellect say that things are troublesome, not good. Emuna says, “You’re wrong! From this moment on, I’m doing nothing but thanking Hashem, singing His praise, and rejoicing. I will learn to thank Him with all my heart!” The minute a person says this, he’s on the fast road to redemption. He will now bravely combat the negative thoughts that tell him things are bad and that thanking is ridiculous. This is the heresy that every one of us must combat. Discard those heretical thoughts, for everything is good! Such prayer is an opening out of whatever darkness envelops a person. Take advantage of it and have a wonderful New Year!