Second vaad Elul – preparation for tefila

We are continuing to prepare for Rosh Hashonah, after a year which has been filled with tzoros.

Rosh Hashonah is not a question of sechar veonesh. If you did something wrong on the day of Rosh Hashonah, this does not mean that you will be punished and that something bad will happen to you in the coming year because of that.

Hashem has many different considerations why a person should be rewarded or punished, besides for how a person behaved on Rosh Hashonah. If a person pulls a nasty face at somebody at 9:53 on Rosh Hashonah morning this does not mean that on 3rd Adar sheni he will be punished.

Rather, how we are on Rosh Hashonah will determine how the tzura for the following year will be. For example, if somebody is working in a school and needs to be harsh, the tzura of how he will be harsh has different options. He could scream at the children. Alternatively, he could give somebody an important position or job to do, but tell him, harshly, that he needs to do the job all by himself without any help. Alternatively, he could take out a baseball bat and start chasing after them and hitting them.

I cannot really say that this last year Hashem has taken out His ‘baseball bat’. However, He certainly has been hitting us the whole year. The situation with the hostages is terrible. Halevai that I am wrong but the human seichel tells us that not one of them will come back alive. They are being held by a terror organization. Similarly, the antisemitism that we have seen this last year has also been terrible.

Torah-one central theme

If this is how the tzura of the last year has been, then it means that the tzura of klal Yisroel, last Rosh Hashonah was also wrong. The truth is we could even say more than this. It sounds like a big chiddush, but there is such a thing as a tzura of kol hatorah kulah– meaning to say that there is one central ingredient to the entire Torah. We have had a problem with this tzura from the last Rosh Hashonah.

Let’s explain this idea of there being one central theme in kol hatoah kulah, from looking at the Nefesh Hachaim, Shaar 4, Perek 2. He brings a medrash that says that when a person goes to the next world, having only learnt pessukim but no mishnayos, Hashem will ask him why he only learnt pessukim of the Torah and Hashem will turn His face away from him and He will send the man to Gehinnom. The man who has learnt two or three sedorim of mishnayos will be asked by Hashem why he did not learn halachos. Then, another man who has learnt all the halachos will be asked why he did not learn Toras Kohanim. Finally, another man will come in having learnt all of Toras Kohanim and Hashem will ask him why he didn’t learn Chamishah Chumshei Torah, which has in it Krias Shemah, tefillin and mezuzah.

Now, let’s understand what is being said. At first Hashem criticized the man who had learnt all the pessukim of the Torah. Clearly pessukim are not enough. But then we see that the best thing is Chamishah Chumshei Torah. How does this make sense-we already said that the pessukim are not sufficient for Hashem?

We see from here that all the pessukim are not enough. However, when a person has the whole of the Chamishah Chumshei Torah with shema, tefillin and mezuzah in it, then he has one entirety-the whole Torah as one. This has one essence to it and one central ingredient. This is the tzura of the Torah.

We are in Hashem’s world

What is this essence and tzura of the whole Torah which is contained within the shemah, tefillin and mezuzah. These 3 express one central idea that the world we live in is not our world. It is Hashem’s world.

The idea of Shema is that Hashem is one. This concept means that Hashem is the only existence in the world-not us. It is His world.

The idea of tefillin is that this concept of Hashem being the only one, is not just a concept to be spoken out. Rather, it is a concept that becomes your first thought. You put the tefillin on your head and it becomes a part of your thought process. You now think about the fact that this is not your world.

Then there is the mezuzah. This is commonly understood in a superficial way. People tend to think that the mezuzah signifies that when you leave your house and go out into your world, Hashem comes with you. This is a mistake. Rather, when you go out of your house, you are going into Hashem’s world.

This is very similar to our problem with davening. We might have asked the question why it is that we are unable to daven our own tefillah, where we chose the words. This surely would be much better as I could ask for what I want and need.

This way of looking at tefillah assumes that we are in our own world and we bring Hashem into it. We would then daven with the Emunah that Hashem is in our heart and He knows exactly what we need and He will give it to us.

No.  This is a mistake. The mezuzah and tefillah are not like this. Tefillah is all about being in Hashem’s world.

You shouldn’t think that us Jews are similar to the non-Jews, only that we have a turbo power behind us (tefillah). No. We are not like the goyim at all. We are something totally different, because we live in the world of Hashem.

Therefore, the words that we need to use in tefillah are not words of our own will. They are the terms from Hashem’s world. This is why we need to use the specific words which Chazal gave us to say.

Concepts from our world are different to concepts in Hashem’s world

For example, let’s compare the simchah in our world with the simchah from Hashem’s world. If we would ask Hashem to give us simchah, we would ask that all the Jews should be able go on vacation. What is simchah in Hashem’s world? Hoshiva shofteinu kevorishonah veyoatzeinu kevatchilah vehoser mimenu yogon veanachah… Hamelech hamishpat. The Vilna Gaon explains the topic of this beracha from the shemoneh esrei as being about simchah . But this talks about judgement-this is not happiness, this is scary?! However, this is what simchah in Hashem’s world looks like and this is what we ask for in our tefillah.

Another example is birchas hamazon. We are coming to thank Hashem for the bread that we ate. It starts by thanking Hashem for the food. But why, does it continue after this to speak about Eretz Yisroel, Bris Milah, Yetzias Mitzrayim, Bris Torah and binyan Yerushalayim? What does this have to do with my food? 

If the whole point is that Hashem is with me in my world, then all I need to speak about is food. However, it is not that Hashem is with me. Rather, I am a part of the world of Hashem. This is what I am. I therefore need to speak in the terms of Him, in His world (the way how everything exists there).

(You might ask that if the concepts being discussed are not in our terms, then how can we hope to have any connection with our tefillah, since we cannot understand what it is that we are saying. The answer is that Chazal chose words from Tenach, so that we will understand what we are saying. True, though that the general topics are those of Hashem’s world and we do lack an understanding of these.)

Why do we need to daven 3 times a day. Why is one time not sufficient? Our world changes throughout the day. The world that we experience is different in the morning, afternoon and evening. Through our davening we make that our world that is changing becomes a part of the world of Hashem.

So, this that the Nefesh Hachayim says that the tefillahs of the year are like the tefillah of Rosh Hashonah is not a chiddush. This is just what tefillah is. Tefillah is always the speaking to Hashem in His terms because we are living in His world. And, this is the essence of Torah and this is the essence of Klal Yisroel.

It appears that last year we didn’t get the tzurah of Klal Yisroel correct. We didn’t grasp correctly the essence of the Torah and of Klal Yisroel.

One year the Mashgiach needed to be in Sweden for Rosh Hashonah. He needed to daven alone and he needed to blow the shofar for himself and for the girls who were there with him. He said that there were girls who he met on the first day Rosh Hashonah and they had passed away by the second day. They were very ill and it was terrible.

The mashgiach was never a man to be nostalgic. He never spoke about how good it was by R Yerucham and how he wished he could be there again. However, this Rosh Hashonah which the mashgiach spent in Sweden was special. The day after Rosh Hashonah he experienced that the world was a different world- it was a world of the Borei Olam. His whole life he wanted to go back to this experience because this was not nostalgia. This is exactly what the world really is and this is what we all need to work on, and the Mashgiach wanted to return to this experience.

This that we said in the last shiur that we begin the shemoneh esrei with Hashem sefosai tiftach etc.- we are asking Hashem to open our lips. This means that since we are speaking using the terms from Hashem’s world, we therefore cannot speak them by ourselves. The only option is for Hashem to put His words in our mouth.

Practical work of Preparing our tefillah before saying the words

What I am saying is not a hashkafah. It is something very practical. It is going to require a lot of work.

Our kavanah works after we have said the word- only then do we think about what we have just said. This though is not kavanah. The poskim in hilchos kriyas shemah say that kavanah is done either before saying the word or when saying the word but not afterwards.

We daven without first preparing. We need to know what we are saying before we say it. We should know the topic of each berachah that we say in the shemone esrei. If I would ask you which is the first berachah where we say shem Hashem in the middle of the berachah do you know? Refeainu. Which is the first berachah where we say Hashem elokeinu in the middle of the berachah? Barech Oleinu. Which is the next berachah when we say Hashem Elokeinu? Al Hatzaddikim. You need to know these things off the top of your head.

We need to be prepared what we are going to say. It is not sufficient just having our auto pilot prepared! When we don’t prepare beforehand then what can happen is that we get inspired from thinking about what we have just said. This is not the right way of doing tefillah.

We can be emotionally uplifted from our tefillah, just that the emotions have to come from what we know that we are about to say and not the other way around. Because, if the emotions come from what we have already said, then this is when the imagination kicks in, because it did not come from preparation.

I no longer have the kochos to prepare beforehand each word that I am going to say in shemoneh esrei before saying it. I prepare myself that I know all the topics of each of the berachos. This means that the tefillah goes much quicker. It means that I do not lose concentration because I know the whole-time which topic that I am about to say.

Since it is that tefillah is about going into Hashem’s world, therefore the only way that it is possible to enter into this world that is not ours, is to first connect beforehand with the topics from this other world.

This is what you should do. You should learn to prepare the topics. The Acharonim say that this is what we need to do. However, we think that they are saying this in order to be a strategy of how to help up us keep our kavanah. The truth is more than this. It changes our approach to tefillah. It makes that you are in this topic in tefillah. It allows us to put ourselves into the topic and then to daven from within this. If you do this then you are entering and being a part of the world of the Borei Olam the whole time in your tefillah.

(You might ask that when we daven it is all very impersonal since it is not coming from us in our world, with what we want. However, it is not impersonal. It is you speaking to Hashem in His terms. But it is you who is speaking to Him and it is you having a say of what should be in His world. The way of preparing for tefillah of thinking of the topics and the words (see nefesh hachaim, shaar 2 where he speaks about seeing the words going up to Hashem) beforehand is also not technical.)

To daven like this is the correct tzurah of davening. This is the tzurah of klal Yisroel, that we are living in the world of the Borei Olam. 

You need to try and do this. Try to do this for the first and second berachah of the shemoneh esrei. You can do it in the middle berachos.

We feel that if we have it all prepared then it is boring. We know it all already! It’s not boring. We are entering into a knew world. We are entering into the Borei Olam’s world. We should be so happy that we are able to have our own say in this world of the Borei Olam. He gave us the opportunity that we can speak to Him in His terms.

We need to know that we are not just a better version of the goyim. I was in a taxi and the Arab driver has such Emunah. They also believe that G-d is with them. They believe even better than us. If so, what is special about us Jews?

They believe that everything that they have, comes down to them from G-d. However, all of this is just that Hashem is with them in their world. We on the other hand believe that we enter into His world. We have a say in His world.