Prayer Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe from TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Prayer Podcast.

00:08 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Alright, welcome back everybody. Good morning, and we are now going to do another segment on the introduction to prayer. Now you're probably thinking we already did five introductions to prayer. How many more introductions? But when we understand the awesomeness and the power of prayer, we'll understand that we can talk about the introduction to prayer for forever and we can give endless introductions. But because prayer is so powerful and is so important in our day-to-day lives, I think it's important for us to have the proper perspective to what prayer is and how it functions before we go into learning the actual words of the prayer.

00:57
You know there's a story that's told about the Chavitz Chaim. Chavitz Chaim was approached during World War I, when many, many Jews were enlisted in the armies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet armies, that they didn't know where their husbands were. Many of these women didn't know where their husbands were or when they would come back, if they would come back, if they died or if they didn't die. They had no idea. So they came to the Chavitz Chaim, a group of these women, and they asked the Chavitz Chaim what do we do. Can you pray for us? Chavitz Chaim said of course I can pray for you, he says, but you need to pray also. He said pray. What do you mean? Pray? We only know the words that are in our prayer book. What are we supposed to say? He says no, pray the prayer of your heart. When a baby wants something, he doesn't say oh one second, give me my prayer book, let me ask for food. That's not the way he yells and screams. The mother understands the yelling screen and the mother responds it's when you go and pray in front of God, pour out your heart. Chavitz Chaim understands your cry, your cracks. That's the way you need to pray. And he sent it into his synagogue. He says go to the synagogue and open the ark and tear up the heavens. Tear up the heavens Because God wants your prayers. That cry, that sigh, that pain that you're feeling is the most potent prayer. It's the most powerful prayer and that's the prayer we're trying to get to.

02:55
The problem is is that we have become machined, we've been turned into robotic prayer-ers when we go into synagogue and we follow the prayer book and we just open up and we don't have the emotions of prayer, the calling out of prayer. You know that when the Jewish people left Egypt, they didn't have enough merits to leave Egypt. They didn't have enough merits. You know what got them the ability to leave, to get out. The Exodus came from prayer and we'll see in a minute that they didn't even have the ability to pray because they were so squeezed by the Egyptians. Like our sages teach us that the big task of the Yitzahara Pharaoh, the big task was to keep the Jews so busy that they don't even have a second to think about praying. They don't have a second to think, to scheme a plan.

04:11
So I want to read to you an incredible introduction that I found and again, I've been searching through many, many books to get the and to internalize, hopefully Together. This is a work of my own wanting. I want to learn how to pray and hopefully you'll come along on the ride with me. It's not like I'm here at the captain of the ship and let me show you what I'm doing. This is my learning, this is my journey. Then I'm hopefully together, going to include everyone on this journey so that we can all grow while I selfishly take my own path.

04:54
Prayer A measure of one's heart longing and yearning, a release of bottled up emotions, an expression of one's internal conflicts, woes and joys. Prayer, it is all of the above and yet so much more. It can move mountains, it can move heaven and it can move us. Prayer has been with us since the days of our forefathers. Actually, it predates our patriarchs From the time of Adam and the creation. However, it was Abraham who established the Shacharist, the morning prayer, and Yitzchak who established Minchah, the afternoon prayer, and Isaac and Jacob who established Mariv, the evening prayer.

05:51
Most people view the Exodus which we just mentioned as the deliverance of the Jewish nation from slavery to freedom, but a little known fact is that speech, which was trapped in Egypt, was also freed as the freedom of speech. The Torah states that when Pharaoh died, the Jewish people groaned from their labor and cried out, and their outcry from their subjugation went up before Hashem. But we do not find that we prayed. Why not? We don't find that we prayed. It was an outcry, but we don't find that we prayed. It was due to a combination of factors. One was the enslavement and distress that we were going through. The second was that their belief in God and in prayer was weak. People had a weak faith in prayer. What's it going to do for us? The mixture of both factors combined made praying to God an almost impossible task. They didn't have the strength to speak with God and to express what they were feeling.

07:04
The Arizal explains that the Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, which comes from the word Maitzar, which means narrowness and represented by the neck of a person, the narrowest part of the human body. We find that Pharaoh had three important ministers the chief baker, the chief wine steward and the chief butcher. These three ministers correspond to the neck the baker represents the esophagus where food is absorbed, the wine steward parallels the trachea and it allows for fluids to absorb into the body, and the butcher parallels the carotid, arteries and veins which bring the blood to the brain. This teaches that Pharaoh and his ministers subjugated the Jewish nation to such an extent that even their necks, through which the vocal cords deliver speech, were under their control. They completely squeezed the ability of the Jewish people. Why do we see only the mention of these three ministers of Pharaoh? Because this is the neck of the Jewish people. They weren't even able to talk to God. They weren't even able to pray.

08:24
After the Exodus, the Jews were finally able to pray. And when pursued by Pharaoh and his army, they indeed turned to God and cried out in prayer. When they found themselves trapped by the sea, impassable cliffs on one side, a forest with wild animals on the other, the Egyptians pursuing them from behind and, of course, the Red Sea before them, they felt they had no chance of survival. Still, they prayed and God caused the sea to split before them. As the commentaries explain, they grabbed the craft of their ancestors and prayed. They grabbed the craft of their ancestors and prayed.

09:08
You know we use the word davening. Davening is a word that's become commonly understood as the word for prayer. I'm going to daven, I'm going to pray, for now I have davening, I have prayer time. Where does this word come from? Most people think it's a word in Yiddish, but it's not true. If you look back, it's actually a word in Aramaic. What's that word? The word daven means de avu hon. De avu hon means in Aramaic of our ancestors, of our patriarchs and matriarchs De avu hon. When we say it fast, it's daven. But I found the source for this it's da vu hon. You know what we do when we say we're going to daven, we're going to grab the craft of our ancestors, and we're going to see in a moment that when challenges befall us, it's for those prayers that those challenges come before us.

10:24
How many times have we found ourselves facing similar circumstances? Maybe our circumstances are not that extreme as the sea in front of us, the Egyptians behind us, the wild animals, the cliffs, but they certainly brought on feelings of being trapped, with no apparent way to escape and or survive the problem. How many times have we let out a crept, a moan or a groan, a scream of anguish or a woeful cry Help, help me. And how many times afterward have we seen a solution to the problem? We find ourselves in a bind. Then the problem is solved, then another problem comes along. To infinity we have this endless recurrence, problem solving, problem solving, problem solving constantly.

11:27
Do we ever entertain the idea that prayer itself is the key to our salvation? Why not? Why don't we pray and pray again? Why don't we exert ourselves even just a little bit more to pour out our hearts in prayer and supplication? Perhaps it's because we don't grasp the potency of prayer? Is it reasonable that we can open our hearts and reach out to an unseen God who hears and listens to every word we articulate.

12:03
Do we find it so hard to understand that there is a God who created us and wants us to turn to Him for help in every difficulty we experience? God is the One who, aside from His blessings, sends illness, financial strain and other types of suffering, such as floods and earthquakes and tornadoes, upon people. If so, asks Rabnachman, the great disciple of Rabnachman, how can we pray to God to remove that suffering, since it is His will that dictated our anguish? If Hashem put us in the problem, why are we praying for that problem to be resolved? Hashem put us there to begin with. He is the One who gave us this difficulty. He is the One who gave us this challenge. Why are we praying for those challenges to be removed, if God put us there to begin with? Rabnachman answers that God is not seeking to have His creations endure pain. In fact, it's just the opposite. He just wants us to turn to Him. Hashem just wants us to turn to Him. He wants us to look up and beseech Him to cancel His decrees and make us well.

13:24
We see this with our matriarchs. Our matriarchs, their sages, tell us they were barren. It's not that they were, you know. It says that Sarah didn't even have a womb, it's not like, okay, maybe a little infertility, they can go for IVF treatments. You know they can do something. It didn't even exist, say our sages. She didn't have the tools with which to bring a baby to this world. She didn't have it. It didn't exist. Why did Hashem do that? Why did Hashem do that? Why does Hashem give Rebecca and Rachel? We know Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob. She wanted all she wanted was a child. Why does Hashem take it away from her? Why does Hashem make it so difficult for her? Only one answer Because Hashem wants the prayers, the example we gave for this.

14:29
You know, my daughter now is a year and a half old. She's just starting to say words and it's the cutest thing in the world. You wanted to say it again. Say it again, say it again, say it again, say it again. We do this all the time. We see our children and we're so excited by each developmental stage that they're going through Like, oh, you had to hear that, you missed it, I didn't get enough video, I didn't get enough. Say it again. You see sometimes children when they start saying the word please, please. So what do you do? You have a lollipop. You say it again. Say it again. You know what you're doing by holding that lollipop behind your back saying, telling them to say you're torturing them. You're torturing them. It's the equivalent of adult hurting a limb. It's the equivalent to an adult their home being burnt in front of their eyes. How painful that is. But Hashem is doing the same thing we're doing.

15:29
Hashem is saying I want to hear it again. I want you to pray, Because what is prayer? Prayer is building our relationship with God. God says I love the words that you use. I want more of them. It's no different than us wanting that, please, from that child. Again, say it's just one more time. One more time. I'll give you the lolly, I'll give you whatever your heart wishes. I'll take away the illness. All I want is the relationship. Cesar of Nussan, he wants us to look up and beseech him to cancel his decrees and make us well. That's what God wants. He puts it there. Say oh, I want to see how you're gonna cry out to me now. And, by the way, it's not only about challenges, it's about joys as well. Hashem says I want to see your happiness. I want to see that when you're overjoyed, you stop and you say thank you, hashem, for the goodness that I'm bestowing upon you. Hashem desires our relationship with him. That's what he wants.

16:47
Soon we will glimpse at the power of prayer, to where it ascends, how much it can accomplish, and how we can involve ourselves in prayer to the extent that we too can witness the answers to our prayers. Using the sitter as our guide, we will take the reader, god willing, from the casual look to daily prayers to an incredible comprehension of what we as corporal human beings can achieve with prayer. Nothing is beyond us, nothing is out of our reach. It's all like the Torah tells us in Deuteronomy De ficha u bilvav chala soso. It is all in our mouths and our hearts. As the Torah states, it is very close to you. Kikaro ve lecha adar meyot. It's so close to you With your mouth and with your heart, you can do it. La soso, de ficha u bilvav chala soso. You can accomplish it. There is no such thing that we are too far from being helped. There is no such thing that we can't attain the closeness that we desire.

18:07
From Hashem I saw say just tell us the following Change is very difficult, but with prayer anything is possible. With prayer, one can succeed in changing his ways and negative habits. We always think I just have to work hard. Oh, I just have to, you know, invest more. And this is, by the way, with our livelihood, and this is with our character, and this is with our relationships, this is with our children, with their education, and this is with everything in life. Me, I have to try harder. What happened to prayer? Prayer is the most important part of our success.

18:58
One of the great Lubabacher Rebbi's said that people think that all we need is Mashiach, all we need is the Messiah to come and we have the redemption. He says no, we need to pray for the Mashiach, we need to pray for the redemption. That's what we need. People think like oh, when Mashiach comes, that's when everything is going to be solved, that's when there's going to be peace in the world. No, now, in our prayers, now we have to pray. It'll only happen. We see this with Egypt.

19:36
The final redemption only came about when the Jewish people were able to pray and sing thanks to Hashem. We had two portions ago where the Jewish people were so overwhelmed with gratitude they said we have to stop everything, stop what you're doing. This is a time to sing thanks to Hashem. That's prayer. In that merit we were able to get out. You think, oh, only the miracles of Hashem. No, no, no. Without the prayers we can't do anything. Prayers is the closer In baseball. We know this is a concept of a pitcher who is a closer. If you don't have that pitcher who can close the game for you, you lose every game. The idea here is that that's the clinch of everything. The clinch of everything is the prayer that we put in.

20:34
There's a story that's told about a woman. She tells her husband our walls in our home are not soundproof and our neighbor can hear everything. Our neighbor can hear everything. You know, build a thicker wall, soundproof it somehow, because the neighbors for sure can hear everything. The husband says there's nothing to worry about. The wall is soundproof. No one hears what's going on outside. You're just imagining things. A minute later there's a knock on the door and the neighbor is standing there. He says you don't need to build a soundproof wall, I don't hear anything. There's nothing for you to worry about. I don't hear anything.

21:18
You know the Yetzahara tells us Hashem doesn't hear your prayers. Hashem doesn't hear anything. Your prayers aren't heard. When the Yetzahara tells you that, you know Hashem hears everything. The Yetzahara is that neighbor who says, no, it's the waste of time, don't do it, don't even bother.

21:41
Hashem hears everything and we need to know this, that every single moan and groan and crept and cry that we screech out to Hashem with every challenge that we have is heard and is felt and is being responded to. Hashem gives us those challenges so that we call out to Him when is my Yeshua going to come from? Where is my salvation going to come from? How many times do we each and every one of us in our lives, on a daily basis, experienced situations are like how in the world am I going to get out of this? How in the world? And people start stressing out and like, oh my goodness, what's going to be? And they're like pulling their ear out, pacing back and forth. What am I going to do? How am I going to close that business deal? I have bills to pay, I have things to do, and every time Hashem comes through, hashem comes through, every single time. We know we say this so many times that Moshe, I can't believe I forgot to use the microphone again that Moshe says to Hashem I want to see your glory, I want to see your greatness. Show me the future. Show me the future. Show me how justice works. Show me how Rebekah, who is so great, the greatest.

23:22
They say that Rebekah had the nishamah of Moshe Rabbenu. He was the reincarnation of Moshe Rabbenu, and then he dies in such a miserable death. They comb his body with combs of steel. I mean, where's your justice? So God says quiet. I don't want to hear from you. Stop pestering me. What does God say? What does God say, if you continue to pester me, I'm going to have to destroy the world. It's like if you start asking the child too many questions, he'll just throw the whole Lego and destroy it and like no, no, no, just answer the question. Don't be a baby, right? Moshe is asking God a question and God is not giving him an answer. God is saying if you continue to pester me, I'm just going to destroy the world. Say just tell us, god is not shying away from the answer. God is giving him the answer. And that is if you really want to understand everything, you have to see the world from the beginning, all the way through to the end. You have to see a full picture. It's like a guy walks in.

24:37
They say about the Chavitzchayim that someone once came into the shul and said, hey, what's going on here? This is the way you run a shul. You give this guy this aliyah, that guy that aliyah, you give this guy this and this guy that, and you well, what's going on here? You don't give the rabbi the aliyah, you don't give this prominent person the aliyah. Why are you giving this child the last aliyah of the Torah? What's going on here? So what does the God? By telling him. He says listen, you weren't here last week, you're not going to be here next week, you're just traveling through and you're taking a picture and not understanding the context. But this child, it's his bar mitzvah this week and this is his father and this is his uncle. And this we don't see it. We walk in like, oh, how come they don't respect the rabbi here the way he should? We don't see a full picture. We come and we're asking Hashem, where's the justice in your world? We don't see a full picture.

25:47
God tells Moshe you can only see my back, you can't see my face. The back means the past, the face means the future, the front, the future. Moses wanted to see God's face. God says no, you can't see my face. Now we know that God doesn't have a face. God isn't a human form, god doesn't have facial features. God doesn't blink and wink. So what type of expression is this? You can only see the back. Oh, thank you so much. I can see the back of your face. I can't see the future. I can't see your face. I say just tell us, the back means the past, meaning God is telling Moshe you'll never understand the future, you'll never be able to see my face.

26:38
But if you look back, look back at your last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years it always worked out. I was always there to take care of it for you. I was always a step ahead of you, for 100,000 million steps ahead of you, preparing your ways, preparing everything for you. And when we pray, what we're praying is God, make us worthy of your kindness, make us worthy of your goodness. We want to build our relationship with you, hashem, don't hide from us. We want to see your glory. Give us the opportunity to connect on a higher level. Give us the opportunity to take it up a notch.

27:27
My dear friends, prayer is such an important work. Or say, just say it's in avodah shabalayv, it's the work of the heart. That means you can't do prayer with your hands. Prayer you have to do with your heart. We have to connect deeply. You want success in a certain area.

27:49
Talk to Hashem. You want to overcome certain challenges. You're struggling with overcoming a trait you have anger and you went to the Muslim master class and you're like I want to overcome my anger. How am I going to do it? Pray for it, hashem. I need your help. You want success in your livelihood. You want success with your children. You want success with every endeavor that you're trying to do Be ficha or bevavchalah.

28:20
So we can do it when we open our mouths and put our hearts on our lips and talk to Hashem. Hashem should bless us all, that our prayer should always be accepted. Our prayers should always be loved by Hashem and our prayers should always flow from our mouths like a song, like the Jewish people saying at Yamsuf before the splitting of the sea. That it should be a song to us. And we need to work on our prayer and we should succeed in our prayers, because we're going to ask Hashem for success. When we don't know how to pray, we can ask Hashem. Please help me learn how to pray, hashem. I want to express myself. I don't know how. Help me express myself. In God willing, all of our prayers will be accepted with love, amen.