Tfilah is freely accessible — and we want to keep it that way. If these prayers have helped you, please consider a small donation. Support our work →
Coming up

Tefillah le-Erev Rosh Chodesh – Prayer for the Eve of the New Month (Nadvorna)

Tefillah le-Erev Rosh Chodesh (Nadborna)
About this prayer

This prayer was found among the writings of Rabbi Mordechai of Nadvorna, a Hasidic master, and is traditionally recited on the eve of every Rosh Chodesh — the new month. It is a sweeping personal petition, moving from confession and forgiveness through prayers for livelihood, family, health, and protection, to hopes for the world to come and the messianic redemption. Rooted in deep Hasidic spirituality, it speaks the intimate language of the soul before God. Whoever you are and wherever you come from, you are welcome to pray these words.

When
On the eve of every Rosh Chodesh
Tradition
Universal
Duration
~10 minutes
Share
Read for understanding

My prayer comes before You, Adonai, at a time of favor,

my heart and my limbs prepared — what is within me and what is without —

and I bow before You in awe and reverence,

in trembling and shaking and dread,

with a broken heart and bowed body, with hands outstretched,

and I lay my supplication before You:

that You receive in mercy and goodwill my prayer

and grant my request,

and show me grace as a free gift, beyond what the law requires,

even though I am not worthy of this.

Let Your mercies overflow Your attributes of judgment,

open my heart through Your Torah and let it be purified,

and guard it in my mouth,

and place in my heart understanding to comprehend and to discern,

to listen, to learn and to teach,

to observe, to do and to fulfill

all the words of the study of Your Torah in love,

and guard us from all sin and iniquity and transgression, so that I may sin no more against You,

and forgive, and pardon, and grant me atonement

for all my transgressions and iniquities and sins —

the light and the grave,

the revealed and the known,

and everything I have done,

whether unwittingly or deliberately,

under compulsion or willingly,

in rebellion or by intention,

whether in thought, in word, or in deed,

whether through seeing or through hearing —

and everything in which I have acted faithlessly against You,

let all of it pass away and be forgiven and be erased through Your great mercies,

and not through suffering and grievous illness.

Place in my heart the will to do Your will with a whole heart,

and raise up my fortune, and lift high my standing and my star

to wealth and honor, and to good children and grandchildren,

and send blessing and success into all the work of my hands, my endeavors and my affairs,

and sustain us and provide for us with abundance and not with constriction,

through what is permitted and not through what is forbidden,

in ease and not in sorrow,

in quiet and not in turmoil,

and do not make us dependent on the gifts of flesh and blood.

Grant me the privilege of sitting at my own table with all my household in dignity,

that I need not look to the tables of others,

nor be enslaved to any person,

and save us from poverty and destitution and degradation,

and may I merit to welcome guests and to practice kindness and tzedakah with worthy people,

and may I not stumble through people who are not worthy,

and may I raise my sons and my daughters to Torah, to the wedding canopy, and to good deeds,

and may they and all who descend from them

engage in Torah, in commandments, and in good deeds,

and may they be possessed of wealth and honor and a good name,

and may they not die in my lifetime,

and may their days be fulfilled in goodly old age and good fortune,

and may we raise them with love and with affection,

in peace and in tranquility,

in quiet and in security, for length of days and good years.

Save us from every kind of calamity

and from every harsh and evil decree,

and from all the troubles that surge to come into the world,

from an evil person and an evil accident and the Destroyer,

from harsh judgment and a harsh accuser,

from bandits and murderers,

from every enemy and foe,

whether in the city or on the road, in every place I go,

by day and by night.

Save us from evil spirits, from harmful demons and night-spirits,

and from evil occurrences,

from plague and from pestilence,

from captivity and from exile,

and from every harm and loss in the world,

whether to my body, to my property, or to all that is mine.

Grant me and my household long and blessed lives

in goodness and in pleasantness,

lives that hold no shame or humiliation,

and heal us and guard us from grievous illness

and from every kind of affliction and disease,

whether within the body's cavity or outside of it,

and remove from me all worry and evil musings and evil thoughts,

and distance us from all that You hate

and draw us near to all that You love,

and show me grace in all that requires mercy and compassion.

Lengthen my days and the days of my wife and my children

in goodness and in pleasantness,

and let me depart this world with a good name,

and may we not be put to shame — neither in this world nor in the world to come.

And let my soul not wander through the world,

nor be reincarnated — neither in a human being nor in anything that is not human.

And let me not depart this world

until I have fulfilled all that I am meant to do,

in such a way that I will no longer need to return.

But the very moment my soul departs,

may it rise above to dwell in honor in the world to come,

among the righteous who abide there,

gazing through the luminous mirror,

and there may it find rest without fear.

Save us from maggot and worm,

and may I merit to stand at the resurrection of the dead

without any suffering of the transmigrations of illness.

And grant us merit on the day of judgment,

and vindicate us on the day of reckoning.

And grant us to behold the coming of Your Messiah.

And fulfill the desires of my heart for good,

and my request and my petition — in mercy fulfill them for good.

Amen, and so may it be Your will.

Common Questions

Rabbi Mordechai of Nadvorna (Nadborna, now in western Ukraine) was a Hasidic rebbe whose teachings were collected in the work Ma'amar Mordechai. He was a disciple in the tradition of Ukrainian Hasidism and was known for his emphasis on prayer, repentance, and closeness to God. This prayer, found among his writings, reflects the characteristic Hasidic style of pouring one's entire self — body, soul, fears, and hopes — before the Creator.