Musar sobre Isaías 26:10

The fifth level is a negative commandment that [involves] an action: Our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Makkot 13b), “We give lashes for a negative commandment that [involves] an action.” And the [number of] lashes is forty minus one. And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Sanhedrin 10a) that lashes comes instead of the death penalty. And they said (Sanhedrin 81b), “Someone who was lashed and repeats [the sin], we put into jail (kippah). And it is an obligation upon the reprimanaders to investigate the ways of the people and to know what they are stumbling in. Since there are many [negative commandments] - even though they observe many of the [negative commandments), they [also] negate many of them. For example, they keep most of the prohibitions of work on Shabbat - but there are types of work that part of the people are not careful about, since they are not known to them. And their mistakes are attributed to themselves, since they did not lodge among the sages and seek Torah from their mouths. Hence they transgressed the practices and will be punished, as it is stated (Isaiah 26:10), “But when the evildoer is spared, he learns not righteousness.” And there are rebels that stumble in them; for they did not become accustomed to them in their youth, in the houses of their fathers, to be careful about them. And they inherited [the ways of] the fathers, and did not listen to the voice of their teachers. [Hence] these are doing [these] sins wantonly.

A person must realize just how precious his prayers are when they are prayed with intention, for they bring immeasurable joy to the Shechinah. As the Zohar explains (ibid. 132a): When a person recites songs and praises the Shechinah is adorned with the very crown that the Holy One Blessed is He will one day place upon the head of the Moshiach. On that crown are engraved the same names that were engraved on it when Israel crossed the sea. Therefore let a person direct his will to these things when he recites this song. For whoever merits reciting the Verses of Praise and the Song of the Sea with intention in this world will merit witnessing the Moshiach adorned with this crown and with his weapons of war in the time to come. Moreover, he will merit reciting this song at that time. When one reaches the blessing “Let Your name be praised” [Yishtabach] the Holy One Blessed is He takes the crown and places it in front of Him. [Through this the Shechinah begins to be adorned to come before the King.] Therefore one must incorporate into it the thirteen lofty attributes through which it is blessed. These are the thirteen lofty spices: 1. stacte, 2. onycha, 3. galbanum, 4. frankincense, 5. myrrh, 6. cassia, 7. spikenard, 8. saffron, 9. costus, 10. aromatic bark, 11. cinnamon, 12. Carshina lye. [Either “spikenard”- shiboles neird — should be counted as two or else Cyprus wine should be added to complete the thirteen.] And here [in Yishtabach] the thirteen are: 1. song, 2. praise, 3. lauding, 4. hymns, 5. power, 6. dominion, 7. victory, 8. greatness, 9. might, 10. acclaim, 11. glory, 12. holiness, 13. sovereignty. These correspond to the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy and should be recited in a single breath so that there will be no pause between them. If one does interrupt in the middle of them a flame comes out from beneath the wings of the cherubim and a great voice announces, “So-and-so interrupted in the middle of the praises of his Master!” His merits are also erased so that he may not behold the majesty of the King, as it is written, “And he will not see the King’s majesty” (Yeshayahu 26:10).