Amidah: Elul: Sefatai Tiftach: Tzidkat HaTzaddik

The 9th of Elul is the Yahrtzeit of Rav Tzadok HaKohen Rabinowitz of Lublin: “O God, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise (Psalms 51:17).” The Divine Name used in this verse, A-D-N-Y,  denotes the presence of denotes the presence of His Shechina in the hearts of the children of Israel. We entreat the Shechina, coming from the heart, to open our mouths in prayer, so that our mouths will not speak by themselves mechanically. For the Holy 18 is indeed the heart of Israel, as it is written, “God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever (Psalms 73:26),” referring to the Divine Name mentioned, as is well known.

The prayer concludes with, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before You, O God, my Rock and my Redeemer (Psalms 19:15).” This is a plea to accept the meditation of the heart just completed, even if it happened to be adulterated with fantasies and alien thoughts, since “You are my Rock,” meaning, “the Rock of my heart,” and thus You are the source of all my thoughts.

“My Redeemer,” refers to the redemption, symbolizing the redemption of the truth from the fantasies in which it is entangled. (Tzidkat ha-Tzaddik #208)