The Shlah’s Prayer for One’s Children

Known as the Shlah after the title of one of his major works "Shnei Luchos Ha-Bris", was a halakhist, kabbalist and communal leader. The Shlah's Prayer for Children on Erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan is a powerful tefillah to raise righteous offspring.

4 min

Breslev Israel staff

Posted on 19.05.23

 
(1565 – 1630) Rabbi Isaiah ben Avraham HaLevi Horowitz, known as the Shlah after the title of one of his major works Shnei Luchos Ha-Bris, was a renowned halachist, kabbalist, and communal leader.
 
Born in Prague he moved with his father to Poland in his youth, and after building a reputation as an exceptional scholar, he gained a number of positions as head of beit dins (religious courts) in the area. By 1606 he reached the level of the head of the Frankfort on the Main beit din, one of the most influential Jewish courts of the period.
 
After the Jews were expelled from there in 1614, he returned to his native Prague, where he remained as a rabbi. In 1621 at the death of his wife, he moved to Eretz Israel, remarried and settled in Jerusalem as one of the heads of the Ashkenaz community there. In 1625 he was captured by the Arab ruler, and ransomed for an exorbitant sum. The Shlah died in Tiberius, Israel and is buried near the Rambam. During his life the Shlah was a wealthy and active philanthropist, supporting Torah learning especially in Jerusalem. In his many Kabbalistic, homiletic and halachic works, he stressed the joy in every action, and how one should convert the evil inclination into good, two concepts that impacted on Jewish thought through to the eighteenth-century, and greatly influenced the development of the Chassidic movement.  
 
 

Prayer of the Shlah Hakadosh

This special prayer was composed by the Shlah Hakadosh to express the prayers of parents on behalf of their children. The Shlah said that the optimal time for parents to recite this prayer is Erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan, but it may be recited anytime.

You are Hashem, our G-d, before You created the world and You are Hashem, our G-d, after Your created the world. Forever and ever You are our G-d. You created Your world so that your divinity would be revealed through Your divine Torah, as our Sages said (may their memory be blessed): “ Bereshit, in the beginning for the Torah and for Israel”. For they are Your people and Your inheritance which You chose above all people. And You gave them Your holy Torah and brought them close to Your great name.

Because of the creation of the world and the creation of the Torah we received from You, Hashem our G-d, two commandments. You wrote in Your Torah: Be fruitful and multiply, and You wrote in Your Torah: And you shall teach them your children, and the meaning of both of them is one and the same.

You did not create the world in vain but to be inhabited, and for Your honor You created, You formed and You also made so that we, our children and the children of all Your people Israel will know Your Name and learn Your Torah.

Therefore, Hashem, King of kings of kings, I will come to You and will beg You, my eyes raised to You, to have compassion and hear my prayer and bestow on me sons and daughters that they shall too shall be fruitful and multiply, they, their children and their children’s children, until the end of all generations, so that they and I, and we all should engage in the study of Your holy Torah to learn and teach, to guard, to do, and to fulfill all the words of study of Torah with love.

Enlighten our eyes to Your Torah and bring our hearts to cling to Your mitzvot, to love and fear Your Name. Our Father, merciful Father, grant us all long life endowed with blessings.

Who is like You, merciful Father who remembers His creatures and gives them life in Your compassion? Remember us for eternal life, as Avraham, our father, prayed: “that he may live before Thee.” And our Rabbis (may their memory be blessed) interpreted this as “ in fear of You.”

Therefore, I have come to ask and beg before You that my children and my children’s children shall be, eternally, worthy. That there shall not be in me or in my children or in my children’s children, for all time, anything unfitting. Only peace and truth, goodness and justice in the eyes of G-d and in the eyes of man.

May they be masters of Torah, masters of the written Law, masters of Mishna, masters of Talmud, masters of kabbala, masters of mitzvot, masters of chessed, masters of noble character, and may they serve you with love and true fear, not with false fear. Grant each one of them all that he needs with honor, give them health, honor and strength, give them stature, beauty, grace and kindness.

 

May there be love, brotherhood and peace between them. Bestow on them worthy spouses from the offspring of the “Torah scholars, students of the sages” and from the offspring of the “tzaddikim, the righteous ones.” And may their spouses be like them in all that I have prayed for them, for they are all one for eternity.

You, Hashem, know all the secrets of the heart and before You is revealed all that is in my heart. For my purpose in all this is for the sake of Your great and holy Name and for Your holy Torah.

Therefore answer me, Hashem, answer me for the sake of our sacred fathers Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov and for them save the sons, that the branches shall resemble the roots. And for David, your servant, the fourth wheel of the divine chariot, the poet who sang with divine inspiration: “Song of Ascents: Fortunate are all who fear Hashem, who walk in His way.

The toil of your hands, you will eat the fruit thereof and it will bring happiness and be good for you. Your wife is like a fruitful vine within your house, your sons are like olive plants around your table. Behold, thus will be blessed the man who fears Hashem. He will bless you, Hashem, from Zion. See in the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. And see your sons of your sons; peace over Israel.”

Please, Hashem, who hears prayer fulfill in us the verse: “ As for me, this is my covenant with them, says Hashem, My spirit that is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed’s seed, says Hashem, from henceforth and for ever.”

May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be favorable before You, Hashem, my rock and my savior.

 

You can find the Shlah’s prayer with commentary and stories in Tefillas HaShelah.

Tell us what you think!

1. Carlos Hernández Quiroz

5/31/2022

Muchas gracias, que Hashem nos bendiga, y a todas nuestras generaciones…Gracias por darnos lo que Hashem reveló a Israel, cuanta bendición y gran misericordia….ruego a Hashem, para que los bendiga siempre….

2. Carlos Hernández Quiroz

5/31/2022

Muchas gracias, por enseñarnos esta plegaria, para que Hashem nos bendiga, y a todas nuestras generaciones…Gracias por darnos lo que Hashem reveló a Israel, cuanta bendición y gran misericordia….ruego a Hashem, para que los bendiga siempre….

3. Enrique Sánchez Carbajal

5/30/2022

Gracias por enseñarnos hacer plegaria, para que nunca nos falte nada y Hashem nos bendiga sobre todo
En estos tiempos de pandemia de unos malos gobiernos, que nos quieren tener sumisos a sus caprichos mientras ellos se hacen ricos y a todos nosotros nos tienen sin trabajo que Hashem se apiade de nosotros amén

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