The Fiftieth Gate - BRESLOV CHASSIDUS

The Fiftieth Gate

Likutey Tefilot – Volume I

Rebbe Noson de Breslov (1780-1844

Rebbe Noson was the closest disciple of the outstading Chassidic luminary, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Rebbe Nachman taught that prayer is our main way of becoming connected with God, both through our formal and our informal prayers.

This is an inspirational text for use when wish to reach out to God and express our personal needs and spiritual yearnings. It is perfectly in order to improvise and add your own personal prayers and requests at any point during recital of these prayers.

Rising beyond oneself through prayer 

Loving God, bring me to true prayer.

Throughout the day let me always pray in the proper way, truthfully and sincerely. Arouse my feelings until I pour out my very heart to You in prayer and supplication. Help me bring all the goodness concealed within my inner good “point” out into the light. Let me draw the words of my prayers and supplications from the very depths of my heart, until the goodness concealed within me will be revealed and the good will outweigh the evil, enabling me to subdue my evil side and remove it completely. Bring me from evil to good, from darkness to great light.

Help me pray with complete surrender, until I lose all sense of my own independent existence and material being. Let me not pray for my own benefit. Help me to rise beyond all the limitations of self, as if I am not in the world at all. Let my only aim in my prayers be for the sake of Your Name, to lift up the Divine Presence from the exile and reveal Your Godliness throughout the world.

Loving God: You have already begun to reveal Yourself to the world. Through the true Tzaddikim, You have taught us to offer You songs and praises, prayers and supplications. You have sustained us by teaching us Your holy Names and attributes, thereby permitting us to address You and call upon You. This is the only support we have in our hopes of drawing close to You with all our hearts and knowing You. Now too, help all of us in every generation. Help every Jew, including me. Through the Torah that I study, give me holy understanding and help me offer You constant songs, praises, prayers and supplications all the days of my life. Let me pray with perfect sincerity, with faith, complete calm and full concentration. Guide me toward the truth, so that I will call to You and address You in fitting terms, and my requests and praises will find favor before You and arouse Your love and good will.

Taking responsibility for the world

Master of the Universe: Help us fulfill perfectly the teaching of our Rabbis, of blessed memory, that “Every single person is obliged to say, “The world was created for my sake” Help me keep these words in my heart constantly, in order that I should always steer clear of even the smallest sin or anything else that goes contrary to Your will, so that I never become the cause of any kind of deficiency, damage or impediment, whether in myself or in the world as a whole. Instead, let me always be watchful for anything I can do to improve or benefit the world, or provide for its needs, and let me pray for the world.

In Your abundant love and kindness, help us to be able to pray for the entire world and thereby bring about the fulfillment of its needs. Help us nullify all evil decrees through our prayers. Grant us the knowledge of whether the decree has already been sealed or not, so that we may know how best to pray to You, and whether we should clothe our prayers in the form of narrative at times when this is necessary. Even though we may be very far from this level of understanding at the present time, even so, everything is in Your hand, and for You nothing is impossible.

 “HaShem, do not hold back Your love from me; Your mercy and Your truth will always protect me.” Help me come to everything I have requested of You. Sanctify me with Your mitzvoth and delight my soul with Your salvation. Purify my heart to serve You sincerely with the service of the heart – namely prayer – so that I will be able to pray to You with all my strength and to fulfil Your mitzvot joyously at all times.

 “Let the words of my prayer be sweet to Him.” “I will rejoice in HaShem, and my soul will exult in HaShem and delight in His salvation.” “All my bones will declare: HaShem, who is like You? You save the poor from those who are too strong for them, and the needy from those who would rob them.” “Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for those who are pure of heart.” 

*Rising beyond oneself through prayer, page 391
*Taking responsibility for the world, page 101

Articles taken from Likutey Tefilot book.

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