Tefillah liSfirat HaOmer — A Prayer for the Days of the Omer Counting

A wondrous prayer for the days of the Counting of the Omer —

a wondrous prayer composed by one of the great masters of Israel, may his merit protect us,

for the sacred days between the festival of Passover and the festival of Shavuot —

the days of the Counting of the Omer.

You created Your world from the beginning for the sake of Israel, Your people, whom You chose,

and in Your great compassion You gave us merit and gave us Your holy Torah

through Moses Your prophet, the faithful servant of Your house,

to keep us alive as we are this day,

so that through it we might merit the day that is entirely good and entirely long.

And in Your immense kindness You added for us acts of grace and wonders and wonders of goodness

through all the righteous ones of every generation,

who all made ears for the Torah, watch upon watch.

How many good gifts has the Omnipresent granted us,

until we merited — truly merited — great acts of grace and great compassion,

"the faithful mercies of David,"

through which You added for us goodness and kindness,

and You made great Your kindness toward us to revive our souls,

and You sent us a savior and a master,

"the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet singer of Israel" —

he is David, King of Israel, who lives and endures,

who wrote for us the holy and awesome Book of Psalms,

five books corresponding to the Five Books of the Torah.

How great is Your goodness that You have done for us —

how shall we repay the Lord for all His gifts to us?

In Your great compassion You revealed to us

that through the recitation of Psalms one merits repentance,

for You delight in kindness,

and You desire the repentance of the wicked and do not desire their death,

therefore You sent the remedy before the wound,

and You graced us with this holy Book of Psalms,

which opens for us all the gates of mercy,

all the gates of repentance —

fifty gates of repentance corresponding to the fifty gates of understanding.

Master of the universe, merciful Father,

grant us, in Your great compassion,

the merit to occupy ourselves with the recitation of Psalms all our days.

Help me and all the members of my household, together with all of Israel Your people,

so that every single day I may merit to recite many Psalms

with great awakening, with a whole heart, in truth,

and may I merit to incline my heart well, to make my ears hear what my lips are uttering,

so that I may merit to find myself at every level and every station

within the holy verses of the Psalms, which contain all the souls of Israel

and all the stations in the world,

from the very highest level to the very lowest rung —

for all who have fallen and who are utterly remote

can find themselves within the Book of Psalms,

and each one can stir the heart to return in complete repentance to the blessed God

through the recitation of Psalms,

and come to the gate of repentance that belongs to that soul,

which is set facing the letter that is its own, among the forty-nine letters of the names of the tribes of God —

forty-nine letters

corresponding to forty-nine gates of repentance

through which we must return to the blessed God,

until we merit through this that the blessed God will return to us in complete return,

to have mercy on us with great kindness and great compassion,

to help and sustain us at every moment to draw near to Him continually,

from all the places where we have fallen,

and to return to Him in complete repentance — repentance upon repentance, always.

Please, my Father, merciful Father —

all the paths of Your counsel that You revealed to us through Your true righteous ones —

in all of them I have greatly failed, as You know.

Yet I know and believe with complete faith

that in truth it is impossible to ruin Your counsel in any way whatsoever.

Therefore I still stand and await complete salvation at every moment,

that You will bring me near to You and return me in complete repentance before You,

through all the wondrous and awesome, wholesome and simple

paths and counsels

which You revealed to us through Your true righteous ones,

so that from now on I may merit to be always as Your good will desires.

Master of the universe,

grant me the merit to be very accustomed to reciting many Psalms every day with great intention,

with wondrous awakening and true devotion of heart,

until I merit through this to feel the pain of my sins

and to return from them in complete repentance.

May I merit great joy through the recitation of Psalms,

and stir upon myself all ten kinds of melody with which the Book of Psalms was spoken —

which are the healing of the daughter of the King, who is the community of Israel —

and may I make melody all the days of my life in the house of the Lord

with a voice of joy and thanksgiving,

"for the Lord is good, for His kindness is forever."

Full of compassion,

grant us the merit to go out from the exile of Egypt

and from all the exiles of the soul and body

which are all called by the name of the exile of Egypt.

Grant me the merit to purify and refine and reveal all forty-nine gates of repentance

through the recitation of Psalms, which contains all

"the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt,"

which have forty-nine letters corresponding to forty-nine gates of repentance.

And through this, bring me out from the forty-nine gates of impurity

and bring me into the forty-nine gates of holiness,

and bring me out from the narrowing of the throat,

that my throat not be constricted —

for already I have called to You from the narrowing of the throat many times —

bring me out into the open.

Grant me and lift me from the aspect of the land of Egypt, from the narrowing of the throat,

until I merit to open my mouth wide and You will fill it with all true and eternal good,

so that I may merit to draw near and to return to You in complete repentance, truly,

with my whole heart, body and soul and means.

"Return me and I shall return, for You, O Lord, are my God."

Restore us, our Father, to Your Torah,

bring us near, our King, to Your service,

and return us in complete repentance before You —

for You watch over the wicked and desire his vindication,

and You desire repentance,

for You do not desire "the death of the one who dies, but rather that he turn from his ways and live,"

and until the day of his death You wait for him; if he returns, You will receive him at once.

"You return a person to dust"

unto the very breaking point of the soul,

"and You say: Return, O children of humanity."

"Return us, O God of our salvation, and annul Your anger against us."

"Bring us back, O Lord, to You, and we shall return; renew our days as of old."

Master of the universe,

"Remember Your compassion, O Lord, and Your kindness, for they are from eternity" —

remember, please, the wondrous and awesome kindness that You performed for us,

that You brought us out of Egypt with great power and with a strong hand,

and You revealed to us the truth of the faith in Your divinity in a great, wondrous, and sweet light,

and You performed great and awesome signs and wonders

in order to reveal Your divinity and Your oneness and Your dominion over all.

And from that moment, You brought us near to You as a holy people

and You brought us out from forty-nine gates of impurity

and You brought us into forty-nine gates of holiness —

which are forty-nine gates of repentance contained

within the forty-nine letters in the names of the tribes of God.

And in Your great compassion You commanded us to count corresponding to these

forty-nine days of the Omer counting,

to purify the souls of Your people Israel from their contamination,

so that we might merit through the commandment of the Counting of the Omer

to go out from impurity to purity,

to go out from forty-nine gates of impurity

and to enter into forty-nine gates of holiness.

Master of the universe, full of compassion,

grant us through Your immense kindness to fulfill the commandment of the Counting of the Omer in its time

with great holiness and wondrous and awesome awakening,

so that we may merit to be stirred through the holiness of this awesome commandment

to return to You in truth

and to go out from all our impurities,

to uproot from within us all kinds of impurity and contamination

that have clung to us through our evil deeds.

Master of the universe, Master of the universe,

save us with every manner of salvation,

for You know the power of each and every commandment,

how great is its power to bring us out from the places where we fell because of our many sins

and to bring us near to You —

and especially this commandment of the Counting of the Omer,

which is the preparation for receiving the Torah,

which is the beginning of Israel's drawing near to their Father in heaven —

You gave us this holy commandment

to go out from forty-nine gates of impurity

and to enter into forty-nine gates of holiness.

Grant me, from where I am right now,

the merit to fulfill this commandment to the fullest perfection possible for a person of my standing

to fulfill this commandment,

and You will be full of compassion toward me

and help me and save me through this,

and bring me out swiftly from impurity to purity,

from the profane to the holy, from sorrow to joy,

from bondage to redemption, and from darkness to great light,

until we merit on the holy festival of Shavuot, on the fiftieth day,

that You will return to us,

and open for us the holy fiftieth gate,

and pour upon us great compassion and supreme kindness from there,

so that we merit to repair everything and to return to You in truth always.

Master of the universe,

who watches and sees to the end of all generations,

who devises thoughts so that no outcast is banished from You —

You know the full bitterness of this last exile,

where we have fallen and descended through our many sins,

for our descent has gone deeper than forty-nine gates of impurity.

And because of our many sins it is said of us in this time of distress:

"She has sunk wondrously; there is none to comfort her,"

for "we have sunk in the mire of the deep and there is no footing;

we have come into the deep waters and the flood has swept over us."

"I look to the right and see that there is none who knows me;

every refuge has failed me; there is none who cares for my soul."

I have turned in every direction and salvation is far from me,

and what shall I say — my sins have done to me what they have done.

"Were Your Torah not my delight, I would have perished in my affliction."

For Your kindness is great toward us and You have saved our soul from the lowest depths of the grave.

For though it is true that this last exile has weighed heavy,

and we have fallen and descended to a place further than the exile of Egypt,

yet this is our comfort in our affliction:

that Your word has given us life,

for You already sent the remedy before the wound,

for You have already given us Your holy Torah through Moses Your prophet —

which in the exile of Egypt we had not yet merited,

and we left there before receiving the Torah like a slave who flees his master,

and that caused for us what it caused.

But now You have already made Your kindness toward us wondrous,

and You have already given us Your holy Torah through Moses Your prophet, the faithful servant of Your house,

and we have already merited that there have been for us many great and awesome righteous ones in every generation,

and we have also merited the holy Book of Psalms through David, King of Israel.

Yet in truth I confess and acknowledge before You,

O Lord my God and God of my fathers,

that even so I am still entirely on the outside,

and I have still not passed at all from the profane to the holy.

Day after day I ask what will become of me:

"I hoped for peace but there is no good; for a time of healing, and behold, terror" —

all the appointed times I had awaited for salvation have passed and I have still not been saved,

nor is this enough for me,

for I have continued to add sin upon transgression,

transgressions upon great and terrible transgressions.

Oh, and woe — I do not know how my soul lives in this world

in such bitterness upon bitterness,

in such scattering of the soul, more bitter than death,

in such falls and throwings and castings —

for at every moment I ascend to the heavens and descend to the deep depths,

and I have cast myself from sky to earth thousands and tens of thousands of times beyond number,

and my soul is flung about as if in the hollow of a sling,

until words and the combinations of letters have run out to tell my anguish and bitterness.

Oh and woe — for I longed in any case

to cool my bitter spirit and to pour out my speech,

yet even this is hard and heavy for me;

my hand is heavy on my sighing,

for all the hides of the rams of Nevayot would not suffice to describe

how far the damage of a single one of our days reaches —

or even a single hour.

Master of the universe,

"This is my comfort in my affliction" —

that the true righteous ones strengthened us with seven words that restore understanding,

and revealed to us that there is no despair whatsoever anywhere in the world.

On this alone I have anchored my tent-pegs,

and on their great power I have leaned to await salvation still from where I am.

Therefore at every moment I ask You, full of compassion,

to save me through all the holy paths of Your counsel

which You revealed to us through Your true righteous ones —

for each and every counsel has the power to help and to save even me.

And if because of my many sins I have damaged them all,

I know and believe that You still have great compassion

and rescues and salvations and wondrous counsels

that You revealed to them alone, which have not yet been revealed in the world,

through which I still have hope

of meriting to return to You

and to begin anew to fulfill all Your holy counsels in love and in awe,

so that I may merit to repair everything in my lifetime, soon,

and to be always as Your good will desires.

Master of the universe,

"Without my flesh I behold You,"

for "I am a brute and know nothing; I have been like a beast before You."

And though in truth, through my many sins, I have greatly damaged and ruined

what I knew to be against Your will —

for I have sinned, and done wrong, and transgressed greatly every day and every moment and every hour

from my youth until this very day,

and I have greatly damaged and ruined —

yet, in Your great compassion You revealed to us through Your true righteous ones

that "You, O Lord my God, are very great,"

beyond what we know at all,

for Your greatness is beyond all searching out,

such that even our falling — however each one has fallen,

wherever one has fallen —

even so, Your greatness is greatly exalted,

for there is a place where everything is transformed entirely for the good,

beyond all that we know.

On this alone I still lean and hang and am supported,

for the kindnesses of the Lord have not ended, and His compassions are not spent forever.

Full of compassion,

grant me the merit to multiply the recitation of Psalms with great intention and wondrous awakening with a whole heart,

until I merit that You pour upon me at every moment illumination and great holiness

from the fiftieth gate of holiness which contains all the gates of holiness,

so that You bring me out swiftly from all fifty gates of impurity

and bring me into all fifty gates of holiness —

for we have no one on whom to rely but You, our Father in heaven,

for there is no place void of You.

Help us, please, from now on,

and save us with a complete salvation worthy of You,

so that I merit to be entirely renewed —

that I abandon my evil way and evil thoughts entirely and not return again to folly.

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."

May I merit soon through the recitation of Psalms

to come and to reach the letter and gate of repentance belonging to my soul

according to the root of my soul,

among the forty-nine letters of the tribes of God,

so that I merit to return to You in truth and with a whole heart,

and to serve You in truth, in awe and in love,

"in joy and with a glad heart, from the abundance of all good."

"Return me and I shall return, for You, O Lord, are my God."

"Bring us back, O Lord, to You, and we shall return; renew our days as of old."

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before You,

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."

Amen and amen.