Sefer HaMiddot, Prayer, Part II/ספר המדות·תפילה·חלק שני

1Not pleading for mercy for a fellow Jew causes a person to fall into captivity. He can make amends by providing food for some living creature.

2Prayer is most effective when one faces heavenward.

3A person who requests compassion for his generation is rewarded with a revelation of the Divine Presence.

4Reciting the hymns and praises of God draws His Divine Presence below.

5The prayer leader’s supplication contains an aspect of warfare.

6When one fulfills “Your neighbor’s money should be as precious to you as your own” (Avot 2:12), he merits praying with an attentive heart.

7Reciting Psalms is a segulah for bringing rain. [We learn this from the Hebrew word for Psalms], TeHiLiM, which is an acronym for “Limtar Hashamayim Tishteh Mayim ([the Land of Israel] drinks water from the rain of heaven)” (Deuteronomy 11:11).

8When a person feels the suffering of other Jews and prays for them, even if he directs his words against Heaven, he will not be punished.

9Certain prayers are accepted on high only after sufficient money, equivalent to the number of letters in the relevant prayer, is given to charity. For example, when a person prays, “Give me children,” he must contribute the sum equal to the letters of these very words.

10Through prayer a person can exchange the marriage partner decreed for him in heaven.

11When the masses pray together, their prayers are more effective than when they pray in separate places.

12There are times when salvation will come only when many people pray for it; an individual’s prayers are not enough.

13A person with enemies finds it difficult to concentrate while praying.

14One should be careful to utter God’s Name in holiness and purity. That is, he should sanctify his speech to such a degree that it becomes an aspect of the spirit of prophecy. This spirit will go out and defeat those who put their trust in emptiness and vanity. Thus the verse “B’sheim YHVH Eloheinu Nazkir (we will utter the Name of God, our Lord)” (Psalms 20:8) [the first letters of which spell NAVY, the Hebrew word for prophet,] is followed by “they were subdued and defeated” (ibid. 20:9; see Glossary, “B”).