The Tools for Prayer
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. Welcome back, everybody, to the Prayer Podcast. Today we're going to do another introduction about the tools for prayer. We know that you would not entertain being a dentist without the right tools, without the proper tools, and you wouldn't entertain doing any type of task without the proper tools. The same thing is, you wouldn't pray without the right tools. So what are the tools for prayer?
00:40
So the Torah speaks about serving God with your mouth and with your heart, and this is Deuteronomy, beficha ul bilvavchola. Soso the Talmud speaks of prayer as the service of the heart. Simply put, what is that? It is because that when one turns in prayer to God, he obviously has something in his heart that he wants to say to God. That something, be it a deep feeling of gratitude or a painful ache from which he seeks relief and salvation, it is an expression of the heartfelt emotions that cause the words to be said. When we say something, there's something we're trying to express, there's something we're trying to share. That's our prayer. Furthermore, our heartfelt prayers express our yearning for a connection with God. Does God need our prayers? We already discussed this. God doesn't need our prayers. He has myriads of angels who serve Him. Hashem doesn't need our prayers. But Hashem created us and he wants us to turn to Him. Just as we seek the connection to Hashem, hashem desires the connection from us too. So, yes, hashem awaits our prayers. In fact, the Hallaah says we mentioned this in our everyday Judaism podcast that God waits for us at our place of prayer.
02:13
The Hallaah says that, even one who does not pray, if someone prays in synagogue, the Hallaah says they should pray in the same place every time. They should have a set seat. Why? Because God waits for them in that seat. The Hallaah says even if one is praying in their home, they're not able to make it to synagogue. You should set yourself a set place in your home where you pray. Why? Because God loves your prayer so much that God waits for you. God waits for you by your seat.
02:43
God says, oh, eliana's coming to talk to me now. I can't wait. You know it's like. Imagine you're about to get that. We talk about that press conference. You're about to announce your presidency for the United States of America. All of the television microphones are there, all the radio microphones are there, everyone's cameras are set, everyone's ready for you to come out and make your announcement. Very exciting, very special time. Everyone comes a half hour, an hour, two hours, three hours in advance in anticipation. And now we go straight to Houston, texas, to our reporter, who is live on scene, where they're about to come out and make their announcement.
03:25
Imagine that's Hashem preparing for us who are coming to pray. That's how precious the prayer is in the eyes of Hashem. Hashem says can you imagine my most precious person, my precious human, is coming to talk to me. I am coming early. I'm so excited.
03:50
Hashem awaits our prayers. But how can we pray if God is so exalted above us? God is so high. What can we give Hashem? Can we buy him chocolates? Can we give him a gift? Can we write him a card? What can we do for Hashem? The answer is we can give over to Hashem our heart. Hashem wants our heart. Rahmanah liba bayi, hashem wants our heart.
04:21
The prophet Isaiah rebukes with your lips. You honored me. It's Hashem saying through the prophet. Yet your hearts are distanced from me. You talked words, but you didn't feel it. You weren't connected.
04:34
Often, when we pray, our minds and hearts are elsewhere. With your mouth and with your heart you can serve God. But are your words pouring forth from your heart or being recited by rote. Which is the big challenge. You learn the prayers as children. We just recite it and sing it and we love the song, so it makes us feel good. Is that real prayer? Prayer is when we feel it in our heart. The important thing is to make that connection between the heart and the mouth so that you can truly mean every word that you say.
05:14
Why do we need to pray? After all, god knows our thoughts. Why must we articulate our prayers? The obvious answer that we mentioned previously is because, just like, if you ask someone for a drink, they'll say, sure, I'll give you a drink, but they don't give you a cup to contain that drink. They pour all of this drink but you have nothing to hold it in Hashem. When Hashem hears our prayers, hashem says here comes. We have to create that vessel that can contain that blessing. That is, prayers by prayers, we are making ourselves a worthy vessel to contain God's blessings. So now that we understand our need to pray, the question naturally flows how can we know whether our prayers have any effect?
06:19
Rabbnachman points out the conflict between two verses in Psalms. One says Hashem ori v'ishi. Hashem is my light and salvation. The second verse says Hashem is near to all who call him and all who call him in truth. When we say our prayers, we are calling upon Hashem.
06:44
If we recite our prayers with honesty and sincerity, then we connect with God, who is truth. Obviously, since we connect with God, we also connect with his light and his salvation. The greater the degree of sincerity and truth in our prayers, the greater the degree of connection we will have with Hashem. Understanding this, we can understand that if we reach out in prayer, it will be received and will be answered. It all depends on the sincerity of our prayers and the concentration of our heart. That is the essence of prayer.
07:29
Therefore, it is important to make the effort to concentrate in what we are saying to God. This is called Kavana. Praying with Kavana requires effort, but it is what makes the prayer meaningful. By the way, it's not an odd thing to sit before you pray. Write out some things, of course, not writing on Shabbos. We mentioned that previously in our Partia podcast. Write it out. What is it that I'm praying for? Who am I praying for? Write out those things. That is Kavana. Or say, just teach that.
08:13
The main Kavana is to understand the simple meaning of the words that we are enunciating when we read Mo De Ani Lifanecha I am thankful to you, hashem, for restoring my soul within my body. With mercy, with compassion. God believes in us. We read these words and we understand what we're saying. That is true, kavana. He also teaches about the beauty of prayer, comparing each letter to a most beautiful flower. Every letter of prayer is a flower. When we join the flowers together, we create a beautiful bouquet. So too are our prayers, our beautiful combination of letters and words, making them meaningful. By saying the words with emotion and Kavana, we have a most beautiful impact, most incredible impact. Now there's something that we need to address here, which is so fundamental when we talk about prayer and you'll see from many of our other classes that we talked about, you'll see, oh wow, I didn't realize there's so many common threads here.
09:24
Creation was intended for the world and its inhabitants to be harmonious. God created the world for all of the different elements of this world to be harmonious. Unfortunately, it doesn't always seem to work. Wars disrupt peace between people, greed wrecks the environment, poaching and other cruelties can decimate animal species, and so on. The cure for this discordance is prayer, which brings unity into the world. It's interesting that at the end of our Amida. How do we conclude the Amida? The 19 blessings Shalom? We ask for peace, seem Shalom, the bottom line of everything is peace. That's what we're really aiming for is when we have peace in this world, peace in our own lives, peace in our marriages, peace with our children, with our families, peace with our neighbors and friends, and keep on expanding that further and further between states and between countries, between nations. That's what we're praying for.
10:36
We know that Hashem's holy name of Yud, hei and Vavhei is four letters. The name of Hashem stands for Hayah, hoveh, viyah. Hashem was, hashem is and Hashem will be. These four letters are the origin of creation and sustain everything within it. So these four letters created the world and its combinations.
11:06
The Kabbalists teach that there are several ideas or concepts of four, and they all reflect in one way or another the harmony that should be present in this world. We will now introduce some of these ideas and what harmony can attain and where our focus should be during the prayers. So the first is the four elements. The four letters of Hashem's name are the origin of the four elements. What are the four elements? We know that we have.
11:36
The four elements are fire, which is hot and dry. Ear, which is hot and damp, water, which is cold and damp. And earth, which is cold and dry. For example, a human being is comprised of fire, his digestive system, which consumes all of what he devours. Ear that he breathes, water, the bodily fluids. And earth, the substance from which we were all formed. So we have all four of these in our own bodies, our own physical bodies. When these elements are in harmony, the person is in good physical condition and can go about his daily routines in a healthy manner. Should any of these elements be out of sync, then illness sets in. Thus, the purpose of prayer is for us to focus on unity. We should, for example, pray for the elements of our body, white, so that we can survive, so that we should be in harmony and lead productive lives. So we're asking for that unity the four parts of our existence, of our physical existence, the four elements also manifest in human characteristics.
12:58
Fire represents the characteristic of arrogance and haughtiness. We talked about this in our Musur Masterclass. Arrogance and haughtiness, just as fire always rises and arrogant person feels that he is above others, as if people should pay attention to him. Likewise, anger is an offshoot of arrogance, since the person feels he should be listened to and thus his anger fliers when people do not do his bidding. On the positive side, when a person displays humility, he controls his fire.
13:34
The element of ear is represented in a person's speech. It can be used for good, such as to encourage and support others, or it can be used for bad, such as to speak slander, profanity or falsehoods. Since water brings pleasure to people, water represents sensual pleasures as well as one's control over his inclinations. And, just as the sea never stops moving, water represents a person's emotions, which are forever flowing and changing Love or hate, admiration or jealousy, and so on. The element of earth represents laziness and depression. On the positive side, a person can take hold of himself and learn how to energize himself when things turn against him, so that he can still be creative and productive.
14:27
So we see that we all have each of these four elements and we can't just say well, that's just who I am. We have to always bring out the positive in each of the elements that we have. So if a person has a tendency towards anger, that doesn't make him a bad person. He just needs to learn the tools to overcome that anger or that arrogance. If a person has any bad trait, it's natural, perhaps, or it's learned. We can teach ourselves to make changes to those negative traits. Now we know that there's the four realms of existence.
15:07
Another idea of four is found in the four realms of the world mineral, vegetable, animal and man. We know that there is domem, tsomeach, chai and medaber. There is domem, which is rocks, minerals. We have things that grow like vegetables. We have things that live, animals, and then things that can talk like humans. God put Adam into the Garden of Eden to tend it and to guard it. He could eat from its fruits and enjoy its cool shade, but he must also take care of the environment. Everything in this world was made for man's benefit. Everything that there is in this world was created for us to enjoy. But he is not allowed to abuse the planet and its environs.
15:56
The Torah speaks of the sacrifices that were brought in the temple. A careful study shows that all four levels were present in these sacrifices. A human would bring an animal sacrifice to the altar. Together with that sacrifice, there was wine and libation, oil, which is from the vegetable realm, water, libations, and then salt offerings, which is the last level, which is the mineral realm. In every offering, you had to combine the four elements. The Zohar teaches that the sacrifices were meant to elevate the physical. We would bring an offering. We would elevate the entire world, since the sacrifices ascended to the most exalted levels of heaven. This would be an unbelievable, pleasing offering to Hashem. Thus, each of the four levels of this material world had its place in the sacrifices, and we know that our prayers parallel the offerings and the sacrifices. We know that there are four levels of Torah study.
17:03
It is the introduction to the complete Bible crash course that we started about six weeks ago. One of the first things we talked about is the four levels of Torah study, which is pardes. Pardes, which is pshat, meaning the simple meaning, remes, which is allusions and hints, drush, which is homiletics and discourses, and so which is mysteries and kabbalah. By studying these four parts of Torah, man can attain perfection in the corresponding parts of his body and soul. Additionally, the Talmud and the Midrash both speak of the importance of learning and reviewing one's studies. At least how many times? Four times, remember we talked about this, that we review everything we learned four times, which is why, on the top of every page of Talmud, you look at the Rashi commentary. Any page, pick a page, every page looks exactly the same. On top of the Talmud, which is this part in the middle, there's always four lines of Rashi and four lines of Tosafot, the commentaries. To remind you, before you turn this page, review this page four times. Each one of these four represents another layer, another depth of understanding. Similarly, a person should never try to teach a lesson to others until he has reviewed the ideas four times. God himself, as it were, reviewed the Torah four times before delivering it to Moshe. And, by the way, if you look in the commentaries on the first Mishnah in ethics of our fathers, you notice that Moses learned the Torah four times. Aaron learned the Torah four times. His children learned it four times. The elders, each one heard it, each one, reviewed it, each one. It wasn't just that. Oh, one time I got it. Let me just give it over Gotta, review it and review it and review it.
19:06
The Torah laws we have today in the Shulchan Aruch are grouped into four sets of laws. We have the Orachaiim, which is laws of observance of daily routines as well as Shabbos and holidays. We have Yoradel laws applying to oneself, such as what constitutes kosher food, family purity, mourning, ebenezer, laws of marriage and divorce, and Khoshem Mishpat's civil and financial law. So we see it's divided up into four categories. Then we have the four worlds, yet another manifestation of the four letters of Hashem's holy name seen in the spiritual realms. We have the world of atzilut, of nirnis, the world of bria, of creation, the world of yitzira, of formation, and our world, the world of asiyah, the world of action. These are again the concept of four, you'll see everywhere.
20:03
So how does this relate to prayer? Ah, there are four sections to our prayers. The morning prayer is divided into four parts. The first part is called Karbanot, the sacrificial offerings, which contains Torah passages of the sacrifices. The second part is the Psukhadezimr, the verses of Song. This part is a collection of verses mostly from Psalms from King David and includes other verses from the Torah in the book of prophets and the book of writings, which all praise Hashem and recount his creation and miracles. The word Zimra also translates into pruning or cutting, since the praise we offer to Hashem means to cut and tear away the forces of evil. We're showing our commitment and dedication to Hashem. The opposite of prayer, prayer means I'm totally there, I'm totally connected, I removed all the barriers.
21:04
The third part comprises of the Shema, our declaration of faith, our mission statement and its accompanying blessings, and then the fourth part is the Amida, which is the silent prayer, also known as the Shmonesre, the 18 blessings, which we know are 19. We've added an extra one. The prayers are intended for us to connect to Hashem and thereby unify all the aspects that are in the world. Doing so invokes Hashem's blessings and causes Hashem to send down his bounty to us. After the Amida, after the prayer, there are four remaining parts of the morning blessing which are meant to act as the channels to bring down God's blessing and bounty to us. So we asked, we asked, we asked now gotta help him come down. And they're known as Tachanun, where we ask for forgiveness. Ashray, where we praise Hashem and have very special, powerful blessings there. And then we sing the song of the day. Every day has a special song that we say at the end of prayer, and finally, alayno.
22:13
Through prayer, we in this lowly world can join with all the realms of the physical and spiritual worlds to access the loftiest of places above. The idea of prayer is a means of elevating oneself to the highest of levels. That whole idea of connecting ourselves. We're going to talk about that next week, but this is the idea that we're able to unify the worlds, unify every dimension of our lives In our prayer, so powerful, and that's what we hope and pray that every single day. We merit. We merit to bring that unity into our own lives by giving proper thanks to Hashem for everything that he does to ask in the proper way, which is why our sages, in their incredible wisdom, with the assistance from the Almighty, have constructed a prayer that doesn't leave out a thing Every one of your thoughts, every one of our thoughts, every one of our oh, I don't know how I'm going to remember to express that feeling All the prayers that we have.
23:29
Which is why it's dangerous to change things. Our sages say that there are different customs. The German Jews had one custom of how they organized the prayer. You had the people who were in the Middle East. They have a different, but they all kept the same principles of the prayer. They didn't change the principles. The principles are the same, why? Because they're touching on all the different worlds, all the different forces of our existence. Hashem should bless us all that not only we should have thoughtful, kavana-filled prayers, but they should all be lovingly accepted by the Almighty Hashem should fulfill our wishes and we should be tremendously blessed throughout our days, every day of our lives. God willing, we should merit to see that third temple speedily in our days, amen.
