Prayer for Repentance and Finding Favor with Hashem

 Parashat Ha’azinu

Prayer for Repentance and Finding Favor with Hashem

 

Hashem, why do You hide Your face?

Please grant us compassion and grace!

 

Sometimes life feels like a race,

without a rest to find my space.

 

Please do not my soul debase!

Let me feel Your kind embrace!

 

May I repent and all my sins erase!

Help me to remove any impure trace!

 

Throughout each and every case,

help me all evil to replace!

 

Hashem please don’t let Your anger burn!

Your people all desire to return.

 

Merits like the pomegranate let us earn!

Teach us our true friends from our foes to discern!

 

Drawing close to You is our main concern.

To dwell in Your house eternally we all yearn!

 

Toward Your holy Presence let us kneel.

Please do not strike us with a hand of steel!

 

Let us not Your blazing anger feel!

Before any strike will You please heal?

 

Even if our actions may be far from ideal,

have compassion and grant us a favorable deal!

 

Please do not regard our outer rotten peel!

Allow us Your sweet inner secrets to reveal!

 

Do not Your judgement upon us congeal!

Permit us to make a final appeal!

 

You know that our repentance is for real.

Please, in the Book of Life grant us a seal!

Based on Devarim Chapter 32:20-43

 

ספר דברים פרק לב פסוק כ וַיֹּאמֶר אַסְתִּירָה פָנַי מֵהֶם אֶרְאֶה מָה אַחֲרִיתָם כִּי דוֹר תַּהְפֻּכֹת הֵמָּה בָּנִים לֹא אֵמֻן בָּם:

“He said, ‘I will hide My face from them. I will see what their end will be, for they are a generation of changes; they are not [recognizable] as My children whom I have reared’” (Devarim 32:20).

 

ספר דברים פרק לב פסוק כב כִּי אֵשׁ קָדְחָה בְאַפִּי וַתִּיקַד עַד שְׁאוֹל תַּחְתִּית וַתֹּאכַל אֶרֶץ וִיבֻלָהּ וַתְּלַהֵט מוֹסְדֵי הָרִים:

“For a fire blazed in My wrath, and burned to the lowest depths. It consumed the land and its produce, setting aflame the foundations of mountains” (Devarim 32:22).

ספר דברים פרק לב פסוק לט רְאוּ עַתָּה כִּי אֲנִי אֲנִי הוּא וְאֵין אֱלֹהִים עִמָּדִי אֲנִי אָמִית וַאֲחַיֶּה מָחַצְתִּי וַאֲנִי אֶרְפָּא וְאֵין מִיָּדִי מַצִּיל: (מ) כִּי אֶשָּׂא אֶל שָׁמַיִם יָדִי וְאָמַרְתִּי חַי אָנֹכִי לְעֹלָם:

(מא) אִם שַׁנּוֹתִי בְּרַק חַרְבִּי וְתֹאחֵז בְּמִשְׁפָּט יָדִי אָשִׁיב נָקָם לְצָרָי וְלִמְשַׂנְאַי אֲשַׁלֵּם:

“See now that it is I! I am the One, and there is no god like Me! I cause death and grant life. I strike, but I heal, and no one can rescue from My Hand! When I sharpen the blade of My sword, and My hand grasps judgment, I will bring vengeance upon My adversaries and repay those who hate Me. I will intoxicate My arrows with blood, and My sword will consume flesh, from the blood of the slain and the captives, from the first breach of the enemy’” (Devarim 32:39-41).

ספר דברים פרק לב פסוק מג הַרְנִינוּ גוֹיִם עַמּוֹ כִּי דַם עֲבָדָיו יִקּוֹם וְנָקָם יָשִׁיב לְצָרָיו וְכִפֶּר אַדְמָתוֹ עַמּוֹ:

“Sing out praise, O you nations, for His people! For He will avenge the blood of His servants, inflict revenge upon His adversaries, and appease His land [and] His people” (Devarim 32:43).