Pagam HaBrit literally means a blemish to the Brit. The Brit is the Covenant that G-d made with the Jewish People, as it says in the Torah:“And I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land in which thou dost sojourn, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their G-d. “And G-d said to Avraham, therefore Thou shall safeguard my Brit, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations.
“This is My Brit that thou shall safeguard, between Me and you and thy seed after thee, every male among you shall be circumcised,” (Bereshit, 17:8-10.)
The meaning of guarding the Brit, as the Zohar stresses, is not merely the obligation to circumcise our children, but also to guard our sexual purity, and this is what guarantees our settlement of Eretz Yisrael. As the Torah portion of Achrei Mot makes clear – the punishment for sexual misconduct is national destruction and exile from our Land, (Vayikra, 18:28.) Thus, the greatest blemish to the Brit is when the Jewish People are exiled from the Promised Land and living in foreign, gentile lands.Rebbe Natan, the foremost student of Rebbe Nachman of Breslav, composed a heartfelt prayer which everyone should say, beseeching G-d for salvation from these two connected matters – salvation from the exile, and salvation from sexual sin – Pagam HaBrit – which cuts off the transgressor from everything holy. He teaches us that the difficulty people have in coming to the Land of Israel, the Holy Land, their confusion and mental obstructions, stem primarily from this.
Rebbe Natan’s Prayer for SalvationFrom the book, “Likutei Tefilot” Prayer #20.‘Out of my distress I called upon the L-rd; answer me, L-rd, with liberation.’ Have mercy on me, awaken your abundant compassion and saintliness on me, and help me, and grant me the merit to go forth and come quickly to the Holy Land which is the source of our holiness. You know, L-rd our G-d, that all of our holiness and purity and Judaism depends on Eretz Yisrael, and that it is impossible to be a true Israelite, and to advance and rise up, level after level, without meriting to come to Eretz Yisrael, the source of our holiness, the Land that You chose from all the other lands, and gave as an inheritance to Your Nation of Israel, your chosen Nation, the Land that You seek after constantly, as is written, ‘The Land that the L-rd Your G-d seeks after constantly, the eyes of the L-rd Your G-d look upon from the beginning of the year to its end.’ You know the great number of barriers, obstructions, and mental confusions that prevent us from going there, that obstruct us from going to the Land of Israel. Already, we have exhausted our days and our years outside of the Land, outcasts from the Land of life, from the Holy Land, to dwell in the inheritance of the L-rd, which is our life and length of days, to settle in the Land that the L-rd bestowed upon us.Master of the World, have compassion upon us in Your abundant mercy, and awaken in our hearts, and in the hearts of our children, and in the hearts of all of Your Nation, the House of Israel, a great desire, and longing, and passionate yearning for Eretz Yisrael. May we always sincerely desire and yearn to come to the Land of Israel, until You grant us the merit, in Your mercy, to speedily come to the Holy Land, that we may merit through this to truly awaken to Your service and fear. Have mercy and compassion upon us, the Master of mercy, that we not squander our years, G-d forbid, in the Diaspora. For You know all of our present hardships and weaknesses, and we cannot shatter the myriad of impregnable barriers which prevent us from coming to Eretz Yisrael, tens of thousands of obstacles and delays which we lack the strength to overcome, if not for Your might power, and Your infinite kindness. We have no one to lean upon except for You, our Father in Heaven. Have mercy on Your Nation Israel, and bring us speedily to Eretz Yisrael. Grant us the strength in Your great mercy to win the war, to shatter and expel from our midst, and to nullify, all of the evil speech about the Land, from which derives all kinds of obstacles and confusions about coming to the Land of Israel, in such a way that we will merit to shatter and do away with all of the barriers which delay us, that we merit to come in peace to Eretz Yisrael speedily in our days.Master of the World, Master of the Universe, Master over Everything, You know the great and precious splendor of the holy root of our souls, according to its awesome holiness we should be able to constantly innovate true Torah teachings, for which we were created. But for my many sins, I have so distanced myself from You that I feel so heavy that I can hardly ask for this, for there is a veil of disgrace over my face that makes it difficult for me to prayer that I merit to innovate chiddushin – true Torah teachings, for I don’t what to ask for first, for I have greatly blemished my Daat, the center of my intellectual faculties, through Pagam HaBrit, blemishes which I caused to the Holy Covenant, so much so that I don’t even know how to begin to petition You to bring about its rectification/Tikun. If to ask for forgiveness to rectify what I have already blemished from my youth until today, in thought, speech, action, in the sight of my eyes, or through hearing, and all the other senses? Or to ask regarding the future that I merit from this time forth not to have any sexual sins, even in thought alone. You who grants mercy in abundance, have compassion on my utter shame and disgrace, on a perverted and twisted heart. For You know all the sufferings that have come over me, for nets are thrown over us from every side and corner, and I don’t know how to escape them. Even screaming out to you is withheld from me, for I no longer have words or voice to cry out to You, for I have blemished my voice and my speech, and all of my 248 organs and 365 sinews, and we damaged all of the pathways of Daat, so we cannot reason clearly, and we have blemished all of the channels of holiness, so much so that our spiritual intellect has withered and we don’t know any way or path to merit to approach You in truth. Nonetheless, Your mercies have not ceased, and we rely on and trust in the strength of our holy Sages, the true Tzaddikim, upon whom the whole House of Israel rests, and on their mighty connection to You we lean, for they have the power to rescue all of the Jewish People from the realm of the Other Side, and to return them to the realm of holiness. Therefore, I have come before You, my G-d and G-d of my fathers, with a broken and crestfallen heart, with a long and feeble sigh, to beg and plead like a beggar at the door. Poor, enveloped in sin, and humbled, I spread out my hands and lift up my eyes to heaven, like the eyes of a servant toward his master, like a guilty and rebellious servant who comes to find favor with his lord, I beg and plead and petition You to grant me a gratuitous gift, pardon me, pardon me. Extend to me a renewed Daat/intellect and sanctified mind from the elder sages of holiness, and save me this moment from all types of blemishes to the Brit, guard me and rescue me in Your abundant mercy from all types of evil thoughts and fantasies, and all sorts of blemishes to my mind, and I will merit to speedily rectify all types of Pagam HaBrit that I blemished up until now, in a way that I merit to completely rectify the Covenant according to Your good will.Help me and save me that I merit to raise up my voice in a great holiness, in a voice that awakens true intention, to help me to achieve Tikun HaBrit which is Tikun HaDaat, in wholeness, in kedusha/holiness, and in purity without any blemish at all. Just as You liberated our Forefathers from the exile of Egypt, physically and spiritually, and rescued them from 50 gates of impurity, from Pagam HaBrit and Pagam HaDaat, which were the principle afflictions of the exile in Egypt, and brought them to the 50th gate of holiness, and granted them the merit of Tikun HaBrit and Tikun HaDaat, and bestowed upon them Your holy Torah, and brought them into Eretz Yisrael – so too perform great and awe-inspiring miracles and wonders for us, and free us from this bitter exile where we are exiled now, both physically and spiritually, from the exile/galut of our bodies and our minds. Quickly, extract us from all the 50 gates of impurity, and remember us and redeem us and rescue us from all kinds of Pagam HaBrit and Pagam HaDaat, and brings us speedily in Your mercy into all the 50 gates of kedusha. And may we quickly quickly merit in Your mercy to truthfully rectify the Brit and rectify our Daat as is fitting for Your holy Nation Israel. And fulfill what is written, ‘Like in the days of your exodus from Egypt, I will show you wonders,’ may it be Your will.
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Kabbalists' Writings 
