Planning or willpower fourth Vaad – the plan of the Shmone Esre

Planning or willpower fourth Vaad – the plan of the Shmone Esre

In the last vaad, we spoke about the importance of connecting with the process rather than just the end goal. To succeed in this, the ratzon must be connected to every step in the process. For example, when a person makes a cake, every step of the process is focused towards there being a cake in the end product.

I was just in Mexico, and I went to a house where the baalas habayis had donated money to a certain tzedakah, and she won a prize in the lottery. She won a ‘termo mixer’ -one of the most sophisticated mixers on the market, worth over $2000.

Imagine that you come to make a cake using this termo mixer. Curiosity will pull you away from making the cake, and instead of getting involved with the baking process, you will first want to experiment with all the different features of the mixer. 

The problem that curiosity poses for your involvement in the process is not that it interrupts the progression from one stage to the next. Rather, when you have curiosity when involved in a process, the ratzon is no longer present. The ratzon is lost from the process. For example, if curiosity gets the better of you when you are making a cake, you lose the ratzon of making a cake and instead are simply trying to discover the interesting features of the machinery, which has nothing to do with making a cake. 

The topic in the process

In every process, there is a topic. Our job is to ensure that we do not go off the topic. We are describing something more significant than just remaining connected to the whole process. Rather, we are describing that every process has a certain topic that is present at every stage. When we are involved in a process, we must not stray from the topic.

Before modern civilisation, it was very natural to stay focused on the process. They used to be involved in topics such as milking the cow. They always needed to be involved in topics. Nowadays, we are forever breaking away from the topics whilst being in the middle of them.

What we are saying suggests that we are not always under pressure to reach the end product. We can go slowly. The only thing that matters is not to leave the process because the whole process is a manifestation of the topic.

The seder of tefillah

Let us illustrate this from the seder of tefillah. (Tefillah is a seder, as we see from the word siddur.) The seder of tefillah does not refer to the ordering of one thing after the other. It also does not refer to the product that comes out at the end of the seder because there is no product at the end. Rather, seder refers to the process of tefillah. This means that there is an ongoing topic that runs throughout our process of tefillah. A process means that the topic develops. Whenever there is a seder, there is always a topic and a ratzon. Without a topic and a ratzon, there is no seder.

Davening is not the topic. Davening is just the matzav that you are in, standing in front of the King. What is the topic that is developing during the process of tefillah?

We daven before the King, whom everything is possible for Him. This begins with the words Hashem sefosai tiftoch, where we say that it is very scary to stand before the One Who can do whatever He wants. We therefore begin with the words ‘yagid tehilosecha’ (to say the secret of Hashem’s praise).

Tehillah refers to praise, which is best expressed through silence. We put aside the topics of the Shemoneh Esrei and stand silent. We then proceed to praise Hashem Who could have made anything He wanted but chose to make a very defined world-for this we praise Him by saying hokel, hagodol, hagibor. All of this that we are describing is all one topic-that there are endless possibilities before Hashem, but only one is realised.

The second beracha is techiyas hamesim. I understand this berachah to be an expression of gadlus haodom. Cows will not have techiyas hamesim. Only that which is important to Hashem will undergo techiyas hamesim.

The next berachah is kedushas Hashem. Hashem wants kedushah in the world.

In other words, we begin the Shemoneh Esrei by asking Hashem to open our lips because we cannot ask for anything due to the endless number of options that stand before Hashem. We then praise Hashem for doing specific things that are good for us, with the awareness that He didn’t need to make things so good. This is all one topic that flows through Shemoneh Esrei.

Refoeinu, for example, means that Hashem wants to give life despite all the endless possibilities. Recently, a man came to me saying that his 93-year-old father had ALS (he couldn’t move), which he had had for seven years. I told him that I thought that he should daven for his father to die, as the gemorah tells us. The next day, his father died! This, I think, is part of refoeinu because Hashem can give life to a person also without a body-this is another option of refuah.

Since Hashem made the world specific therefore we can also ask Hashem for specific things.

Tefillah is not about discharging our obligation.

It follows from what we are saying that it is not that we are obligated to say certain berachos. Seder of tefillah is also not about knowing where everything is in tefillah, to have it all well organised in your head beforehand. Rather, the saying of the berachos of the Shemoneh esrei means to be connected with the process.

The talmidim of the Vilna Gaon said in his name that if a person lacked kavanah in say borech oleinu, then they can make up for it by having kavanah instead in veliyrushalayim or any other berachah. How does this help? We want to have kavanah for good parnassah in borech oleinu. How will kavanah in veliyrushalayim help us with our parnassah?

The pshat must be that we can regain the topic. We lost the topic, but when we regain kavanah, then we get back into that one topic that runs throughout the Shemoneh Esrei.

The end part of the Shemoneh Esrei of retzei, modim, and sim shalom-we express our gratitude for being the recipients of all the good (that theoretically has endless possibilities) that comes from Hashem to us. 

Sim shalom is our gratitude to Hashem for giving us all the klei kibbul to receive all the goodness from Hashem.

We started the Shemoneh Esrei with ‘ufi yagid’, referring to the secrets. This is because we start the seder hatefillah with all the goodness of Hashem that is not given over to expression. At the end of the Shemoneh Esrei in modim, we say ‘unesaper’, which means that by now we state everything explicitly. By the end of the Shemoneh Esrei, we are now in a place where all the goodness comes down from Hashem to us, and we receive all the specific goodness.

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Written by Rabbi Rapport