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A Prayer for the Work of the Will Regarding Sleep and the exile of the Torah, whose secrets have been
delivered to the “extrinsic forces,” for my tremendous
Master of the universe, Life of lives, You Who revive and many transgressions, wrongdoings and sins, which
the dead and the living, You Who awaken the sleeping have caused all this, and which have extended the exile
and arouse the slumbering, I thank You profoundly for considerably. It is clear to You, Creator of all, how much
having given me the evil inclination of sleep and for I have extended the exile—for our many sins—overall
having given this evil inclination the power to vanquish and in every particular.
me. Throughout my entire life, it has overwhelmed me,
misled me and deceived me into thinking that sleeping Woe is me, woe is me! What shall I say? How shall I
is a mitzvah, and it has filled me with the craving for speak? How shall I justify myself? I stand before You filled
sleep so that I should want to sleep. In my foolishness with vast guilt. May I never fail to get up at midnight for
and senselessness, I thought that it is a good inclination even a single night. Be with me always. Help me and guard
interested in my benefit. Therefore, I obeyed it and I me, so that getting up at midnight will not harm me at
believed it when it said that a person must want to sleep. all. May I not experience any sickness of the head or any
I fell into sleep, and I slept unnecessary hours until I lost other harm. My Father in heaven, lift me up and I will
days and nights, holidays and Sabbaths. And I also lost live. Help me so that from now on I will get up at exactly
the hours that I was required to sleep, because I slept midnight—whether on a weekday or on a Sabbath and
them with the craving for sleep. And so my soul was in holiday, whether I am at home or traveling—-to recite
the grip of the powers of uncleanness. And even when I Tikun Chatzot and afterwards to learn much Torah. Help
woke up, I slept spiritually. It was hard for me to rejoice, me and save me, so that as a result of reciting Tikun
and I did not serve Hashem with joy and a good heart. Chatzot I will sweeten and eradicate all of the judgments
Therefore, I slept away and lost my life. And that loss is against me, against everyone in my family and against
very terrible, beyond measure. all of the children of Israel, Your nation. Help me look
at the sky every morning and in this way draw holy
But certainly, everything is for the good and everything awareness onto myself, pure and lucid awareness, true
is precisely calibrated in keeping with a person’s spiritual awareness, and by means of that may I may truly return
state. During the entire time that I did not work and pray to You and truly live in accordance with Your good will,
to conquer and nullify this evil inclination, I had no vessel from now and forever. Every morning, may a thread
to receive salvation. Had I succeeded without prayer and of kindness from the “morning of Abraham” be drawn
the work of the will, I would have been harmed and onto me, and may the verse be fulfilled, “In the day,
filled with haughtiness. Help me so that I will not fall into Hashem will command His kindness, and at night His
depression and self-recrimination, but that I will accept song is with me, a prayer to my living God” (Psalms 42:8).
this with love. May I rejoice that You have helped me And the verse states, “Hashem, Your kindness is in the
begin to feel the desire to awaken from sleep. firmament, Your faithfulness rises to the heavens” (Psalms
36:6). And another verse states, “New in the mornings,
Master of the universe, You have given me an evil vast is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22).

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