The Rambam defines the d'oraisa of tefillah, which in Halacha Aleph he quoted Chazal's description of it as avodah shebaleiv. So in Halacha Beis the Rambam follows that up by saying, חיוב מצווה זו כך הוא שיהיה אדם מתפלל ומתחנן בכל יום ומגיד שבחו של הקדוש ברוך הוא ואחר כך שואל צרכיו שהוא צריך להם בבקשה ובתחינה ואחר כך נותן שבח והודיה להשם על הטובה שהשפיע לו כל אחד ואחד כפי כוחו.
So as we mentioned yesterday, there's no trace kihu zeh within the Rambam's description, definition of the chiyuv tefillah of that equation between tefillah and the avodas korbanos, which for Rabbeinu Yonah is what the term avodah shebaleiv means. So there are other indications also, maybe I didn't bring it, but maybe bli neder tomorrow we'll take a look in Sefer Hamitzvos, there's further confirmation of this fact. So then the question is, so what does the phrase avodah shebaleiv for the Rambam mean? So in order to understand that, the first thing we have to do is understand what the word lev means. So we generally translate lev as heart. And we would translate avodah shebaleiv as a service of the heart. So that lev, that its primary meaning is heart is certainly true, but the Rambam explicitly tells us that lev has other meanings as well. So for instance, in perek beis of Hilchos Avodah Zarah when the Rambam is talking about the lav in Parshas Shlach of לא תסורו אחרי לבבכם, so the Rambam writes as follows, כל מחשבה שגורמת לו לאדם לעקור עיקר מעיקרי התורה—every thought, right, any thought, kol machshava, which could lead to, Rachmana litzlan, a person uprooting one of the ikarei HaTorah—מוזהרין אנו שלא להעלותה על ליבנו. Right? Any machshava which could lead to, Rachmana litzlan, a person uprooting one of the ikarei HaTorah, so there's a lav that a person should not be ma'aleh such a thought al libo. ולא נסיח דעתנו לכך ונחשוב ונמשוך אחר הרהור הלב מפני שדעתו של אדם קצרה ולא כל הדעות יכולות להשיג האמת על בוריו ואם יימשך כל אדם אחר מחשבות ליבו נמצא מחריב את העולם לפי קוצר דעתו.
V'al inyan zeh—I'm skipping a few lines—v'al inyan zeh והזהירה תורה ונאמר בה ולא תסורו אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם אשר אתם זונים אחריהם כלומר לא יימשך כל אחד מכם אחר דעתו הקצרה. לא תסורו אחרי לבבכם
means לא יימשך כל אחד מכם אחר דעתו הקצרה וידמה שמחשבתו משגת האמת.
So it's quite clear that lev, the Rambam says it explicitly elsewhere also, but it's totally, totally muchrach from here that lev also means sechel, machshava. That lev is used to denote that as well. And that's where the Rambam says כך אמרו חכמים אחרי לבבכם זו מינות, meaning Rav Elchonon has a famous, very, very, one of the most famous parts of Rav Elchonon's Chiddushei Aggados is this question of how does לא תסורו אחרי לבבכם translate into minus. And Rav Elchonon has his famous insight into how we become meshuchad. So the insight avada is emes l'amita, but in terms of the context of this drashas Chazal, it's clear that the way the Rambam understood it is that לא תסורו אחרי לבבכם זו מינות is that levavchem over here doesn't mean heart, levavchem over here means your mind. And that the lav of לא תסורו אחרי לבבכם means that a person is not allowed to be intellectually undisciplined. The same way a person in behaviorally, the Torah, halacha requires us to be disciplined, so a person has to be intellectually, has to be cognitively disciplined also. He can't just randomly, gratuitously entertain all kinds of thoughts and let his mind roam again in an undisciplined way. for no purpose. That's what לא תתורו אחרי לבבכם means. And then the Rambam himself again, not only do you find it in lashon hatorah then the Rambam uses the term lev that way also again to mean machshava to mean sechel and and machshava. So when the Rambam describes Avraham Avinu: כיוון שנגמל איתן זה החל לשוטט בדעתו והוא קטן ולחשוב ביום ובלילה והיה תמה היאך אפשר שיהיה הגלגל הזה נוהג תמיד ולא יהיה לו מנהיג ומי יסובב אותו?
And and the Rambam describes ulibo meshoteit umeivin, his heart is probing and his heart is discerning, his lev, not his heart, means his mind, his sechel. So the peshat is, and again there's further confirmation, further corroboration for this bli neder to come im yirtzeh Hashem. So the the peshat is that for the Rambam, what the phrase avoda shebalev means is avoda doesn't have the association with avodas mikdash. Avoda has the association of avodas Hashem and what's unique about tefilla is that it's avoda where the ikkar of the avoda is with one's mind, is with one's machshavos. That's what the ikkar of. Other mitzvos, you take a lulav, you eat matza, you can't say that the ikkar of the mitzvah is the lev, is the machshava of the adam, that the ikkar instrument for the mitzvah is the machshavos adam, is the sechel ha'adam. What identifies tefilla is that it's avoda shebalev, it's avodas Hashem where the ikkar is balev. The Rambam in Sefer Hamitzvos quotes the Sifrei that there are two things which are considered avoda shebalev: that it's ibduhu again bitfilla and it's ibduhu bitoraso. That's the other example of avoda shebalev because there too the ikkar of the avoda is through machshava. So comes out according to the Rambam a fascinating, fascinating definition of tefilla, that the definition of tefilla is that a person is supposed to be thinking about Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's the ikkar of tefilla. The ikkar of tefilla is that it's an avoda shebalev, an avoda that is accomplished primarily and fundamentally through the lev, through the machshava of a person. Bli neder we'll continue im yirtzeh Hashem.