It is very difficult to receive from the Attribute of Judgement... If not through a great and awesome
merit...What is not so from His attribute of Kindness, His way is to do goodness with the good as well as the evil...
On the holiday of Purim, our custom is not to distinguish to whom we are giving tzedaka, whether they deserve or not. Other days we have to do an accounting lest we end up giving less to a person who needs it more. But some days we simply give freely...
When we stand in front of G-d and demand something...Shouldn't we worry that G-d may inspect us and say - aren't you embarrassed to show your face around here, you dirty lowly creature...This is why we ask from G-d's attribute of Kindness and then he doesn't pay attention whether we're clean or dirty.
What we say in the Avinu Malkeinu prayer [during the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur] - "Do for us in the merit of... and in the merit of... but at the end of the whole list of merits we say: Do with us a kindness and free gift... We realize that even the long list of merits may not suffice for prayers to be answered. So we ask from G-d's unlimited Kindness to answer us without an accounting. Of course, we don't expect such a response to be with "thunder and lightening" [a series of miraculous occurrences on our behalf] but rather a more modest fulfilment of our prayers based on our own humble status.
Prayer must be preceded by a personal accounting so that we should know that our needs can only be fulfilled from G-d's attribute of Kindness that overlooks our many faults. We have to know what G-d sees when he looks at us and how He nevertheless gives us everything we need.
(The text in italics are the words of Derech Mitzvosecha by the third
Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek. The bolded words are Rabbi Adin
Steinsaltz's commentary as heard on his shiurim on hashefa.co.il. The
rest is my commentary.)
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