Transcript

Last week we began to discuss a little bit ויצא יצחק לשוח בשדה לפנות ערב to understand the mashmaus of sicha. I'd like tonight to focus briefly on the hilchosa that Avraham Avinu tiken for Shacharis and in so doing, just to again by way of introduction and disclaimer, just to reiterate that each of the shmuzen seeks to highlight, focus on a specific element or aspect of tefillah, and no one of them is going to, no single one of them alone in isolation is going to give us an overall understanding or balanced understanding of tefillah. Avraham tiken for the Shacharis

שנאמר וישכם אברהם בבוקר אל המקום אשר עמד שם ואין עמידה אלא תפילה שנאמר ויעמוד פנחס ויפלל.

So the pasuk for Avraham Avinu is אל המקום אשר עמד שם. The pasuk for Yitzchak Avinu is ויצא יצחק לשוח בשדה. The pasuk for Yaakov Avinu is ויפגע במקום וילן שם. Now there would seem to be a at first glance a little bit of a disconnect that whereas the psukim of Yitzchak and Yaakov certainly tell us something about the content of tefillah, as we discussed last week lasuach tells us something about tefillah, as we've yet to discuss but we intuit from the verb vayifga that that too is telling us something about the essence of tefillah, the content of the tefillah. But asher amad sham, so superficially that would just seem to tell us something about the posture of tefillah. Obviously that is inconceivable. So apparently amidah provides insight not only into what the proper lechatchila-dike posture for tefillah is, but also tells us something about the substance and essence of tefillah. The fact that a person is omed the tefillah tells us something about the content of tefillah. In Shulchan Aruch following the Tur, the Mechaber writes in

סימן צח סעיף ד: התפילה היא במקום הקרבן ולכך צריך להזהר שתהא דוגמת הקרבן א' בכוונה ולא יערב בה מחשבה אחרת כמו מחשבה שפסולה בקודשים ב' ומעומד דומיא דעבודה,

and then he goes on, also keviyas makom

כמו הקרבנות שכל אחד קבוע מקומו לשחיטתו ומתן דמו שלא יחוץ דבר בינו לקיר דומיא דקרבן שחציצה פסולה בינו לכלי וראוי שיהיו לו מלבושים נאים מיוחדים לתפילה כגון בגדי כהונה.

So all of these halachos the Mechaber says are rooted in this equation of tefillah and korban, and specifically that's the significance of amidah. So what amidah represents again is not just a posture, but what it tells us about tefillah is התפילה היא במקום קרבן. And be-etzam that doesn't come as any chiddush. Tefillah is ikrei avodah, le-ovdo bechol levavchem, so mimaileh, tefillah is bemakom korban. And it's that aspect, it's that dimension of tefillah which Avraham Avinu, what the description of Avraham Avinu is accentuating. Now how do we understand on the albeit superficial nigla-dike level, how do we understand what it means that tefillah is bemakom korban, that tefillah is ikrei avodah? How do we understand it on our level? So the be'ur is as follows. The central component of tefillah is bakashah. Bakashah:

רבונו של עולם חננו מאיתך השיבנו סלח לנו רפאנו ברך עלינו,

bakashah, bakashah, bakashah. Our immediate association with bakashah, especially such persistent and lengthy list of bakashos, is that it seems self-serving. It seems selfish. It seems like we're looking for gratification. So why is this such a tremendous avodah? Why is this avodah shebalev? So clearly the pshat is as follows. The significance of bakashah is the awareness and acknowledgment which underlies bakashah that אתה חונן לאדם דעת ומלמד לאנוש בינה. The significance of approaching Hakadosh Baruch Hu and saying choneinu me-itcha is again the awareness and acknowledgment that Ribono shel Olam I recognize that אתה חונן לאדם דעת ומלמד לאנוש בינה and consequently if I don't turn to You and ask You choneinu me-itcha, I have no da'as. And so forth and so on throughout the seder habakashos of tefillah, the significance of השיבנו אבינו לתורתך וקרבנו מלכנו לעבודתך is that I recognize that without siyata d'ishmaya I can't do it. Without, without Your rachamim I can't attain selicha umechila. Without, without Your hashgacha pratis I can't extricate myself mei'onyi. So the significance of bakashah is the underlying acknowledgment, awareness and acknowledgment of our absolute complete dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Rabbenu Yonah says something similar. The emphasis is not exactly the same. In the beginning of the first perek in commenting on smichas geulah litefillah:

ועוד אמר מורי טעם אחר מפני שכשמזכיר גאולת מצרים ומתפלל מיד הוא מראה שבוטח בהשם בתפילה כיון שמבקש ממנו צרכיו שמי שאינו בוטח בו לא יבקש ממנו כלום.

Okay, so Rabbenu Yonah isn't emphasizing so much the dependence but also he's highlighting that the significance of bakashah is what underlies bakashah. The significance of bakashah is the premise upon which all bakashah is based. He highlights bitachon and we're emphasizing the absolute dependence that one has on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Lich'ora, this is one level of what it means when we say that tefillah is bimkom korban. The famous Ramban in the beginning of Sefer Vayikra where the Ramban says that what hakravas korbanos represents is that a person is supposed to see that as the animal, the different chelkei habeheimah are מוקטרים על גבי מזבח, as its dam is נזרק על גבי מזבח, a person is supposed to see it's ke'ilu damo is being נזרק על גבי מזבח, his own dam. It's ke'ilu that he himself is being offered for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that's what the sod and yesod of korbanos is. So avodah represents, avodas korbanos represents this hisbattlus to Hakadosh Baruch Hu that a person is makriv himself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, he gives his very existence to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. In tefillah, a person acknowledges, a person articulates this awareness of hisbattlus to Hakadosh Baruch Hu because Ribono shel Olam I turn to You for everything from alef through tof, not in... not in a selfish way, not in a way of seeking self-gratification, but in a way of acknowledging my absolute and total dependence upon you. I heard recently a very beautiful tape from Rav Schlesinger, a very very big Talmid Chacham in Monsey about Inyanei Tefillah. And at the end of the tape, well not at the end, at one point in the tape he quotes a Baal HaTurim. Baal HaTurim says at the end of Parshas Pekudei when the Torah has the refrain of

כאשר צוה ה' את משה, כאשר צוה ה' את משה,

so the Baal HaTurim says if you count up how many כאשר צוה ה' את משה there are, says you'll find eighteen of them. That's what it says in the Baal HaTurim. And then he says it's keneged these eighteen that Chazal were mesaken Yod-Ches Brachos in the Shemoneh Esrei. Aye, the Gemara discusses this, the Gemara doesn't give this ta'am for why there's eighteen Brachos, so the Rav Akiva Eiger already on the side of the page is metzayen that if you look in the Midrash Tanchuma there are other reasons also. So the Gemara is tana v'shiyer. So the Baal HaTurim says the significance of eighteen Brachos in the Shemoneh Esrei, it's keneged the Yod-Ches כאשר צוה ה' את משה. So what does it mean? What does it mean? So lichora what I think what the Baal HaTurim means if we understand in this context is the following. That כאשר צוה ה' את משה means that Moshe Rabbeinu oversaw the construction of the Mishkan just totally l'shem Shamayim. It was דלית ליה מגרמיה כלום. There was nothing, nothing of his own intruded upon it, everything was tzivuy Hashem. Everything was tzivuy Hashem. Everything was Moshe Rabbeinu was just carrying out, he was just executing tzivuy Hashem. כאשר צוה ה' את משה. There was no, there was no independence, there was no ego in it, everything was: what are we doing, כאשר צוה ה' את משה. So ha-emes is that's takeh the inyan of Tefillah. The inyan of Tefillah is again this recognition that a person is nothing himself, and that's why a person turns to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and says I recognize, I'm aware that אתה חונן לאדם דעת ומלמד לאנוש בינה. Lichora if you really take this idea to its logical and natural conclusion, so on our madreigah we experience this element of Tefillah again in the sense of recognizing our dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Maybe we understand it a little bit deeper than that also, but our dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We say Refaeinu, so we recognize that our health depends upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We have no independent grip on life, on existence, everything is from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, everything is through Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And halevai that we should at least experience Tefillah on this level. But ha-emes is, and it's good to know, you know, if a person is setting out to drive cross-country, so he has to be patient, he's not going to get to California overnight. But it's good to know, it's good to have a sense of where a person is heading. So the Nefesh HaChayim that we're going to look at now is with that mashal in mind. It's not, halevai that we should experience Tefillah on the level that we just spoke about, but the truth is if you really think about this idea and you take it to its natural conclusion, that Tefillah is Avodah, that Tefillah is Korban in the sense that just as the Ramban explains to us when a person's makriv a korban it's an act of hisbatlus before Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so that's what Tefillah is also. So if a person is holding by the madreigos of the Nefesh Hachaim, so the emes is, so how can a person be mevakesh anything? Even with the awareness, even with the acknowledgment, how can I be mevakesh for myself anything? Ribbono Shel Olam, okay, so I recognize that my parnassah is not up to me, it's up to you. So Ribbono Shel Olam, I bought a stock last week, so see to it that that, see to it that that stock goes up. But if I really, really understood the essence of tefillah, so how can I ask for anything for myself? Isn't that on, on again, a level of a baal avodah, of a baal madreiga, halevai, halevai that we should get there? Isn't that itself a stirah to tefillah? So the emes is, the Nefesh Hachaim says a few times in Shaar Daled, he says tefillah, so the 120 zekeinim מהם כמה נביאים אנשי כנסת הגדולה, they were needed to be mesakein tefillah? No, you find one person who has a good command of the Hebrew language, or has a good pen. People, people write all kinds of new tefillos, a misheberach for this occasion, a misheberach for that occasion. So the Rav zichrono l'vrocho didn't like it. He, even though he was the mare d'asra, the one who really, let's say on Tisha B'Av, said that the Holocaust should be commemorated and the aveilus should be on Tisha B'Av, but he didn't like the, he wasn't in favor of new kinos. He said that to write a tefillah, to write a kinah, which is going to become a part of seder hatefillah, that the Rishonim could do, but we're not in such a madreiga. So the Nefesh Hachaim says:

המשכיל יבין מדעתו שלא לחינם הוצרכו לתקון תחינה קטנה ותפילה קצרה כזאת קכ זקנים ומהם כמה נביאים.

He says ella mai the pshat is that the emes is contrary to the simple understanding and translation of the words in tefillah. The emes is that all of tefillah is ultimately tzorech gavoah. Ultimately, every bakashah in tefillah is really a bakashah that has to do not with what I'm asking, I'm not asking for my welfare, but it has to do with kevod shamayim. Omnam tachlis hakavana, that was in Perek Yud. In Perek Yud Aleph, אמנם תכלית הכוונה צריכה שתהיה רק צורך גבוה. What's the pshat? For instance, כי במקום שיש חילול שמו יתברך כגון tzoras Klal Yisrael באמור עם ה' אלה והמה מוכים ומעונים, so mechuyavim

לבקש ולשפוך שיח לפניו יתברך שמו על חילול שמו יתברך ואך למען שמו יעשה.

So when we ask, again, this is cross-country, this is where we hope to get someday, when we ask that Hakadosh Baruch Hu should be meracheim on us, Hakadosh Baruch Hu should save us from the tzaros, ultimately the goal is to be able to ask that b'lev shalem because we recognize that when Klal Yisrael is downtrodden, that when Klal Yisrael is persecuted, so that constitutes a chilul Hashem. And what a person is really asking for is Ribbono Shel Olam, repair that chilul Hashem, dispel that chilul Hashem.

וגם היחיד על צרו אף אם אין חילול השם בדבר.

If a person has a toothache, no chilul Hashem in that. So how do we understand such bakashos in tefillah? So how do we understand refaeinu Hashem?

יש מקום גם כן לבקש לפניו יתברך על גודל הצער של מעלה בזמן שהאדם שרוי בצער למטה.

Chazal tell us that kavyachol, when a person suffers, so the idea imo anochi vetzarah is kavyachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu, his Shechinah kavyachol is also suffering. also suffering. And ideally, ultimately, the goal is a person's in pain, he sees someone else in pain. Ideally the bakasha should be for the tzaar Hashchina. The bakasha ideally shouldn't be for our tzaar, but ideally it should be for the tzaar Hashchina. And the pshat because if a person is zoche to daven in the fullest sense of tfillah betoras avodah, tfillah bemakom korban, so it means that there's a total hitbattlus to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. A total hitbattlus to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So who am I to ask for anything for me? Ella mai, agam that in some places the Nefesh Hachayim doesn't really present it this way. Vetzarich iyun badavar. But lachora, the same way when a person learns Torah, so we know that we struggle to try to understand pshuto shel dabar. A little bit we should understand just a translation of what the Gemara says. We should have some kind of elementary understanding what the Gemara says. So we know, or we ought to know, that there are levels ein ketz of deeper and deeper meanings binigleh binistar on so many different levels of what we're learning. But it means something on the most exoteric level that we can relate to. So the same way that's true in learning, so the pashtis is that that's true in tfillah also, dehaino, Refaeinu Hashem v'neirafei, so halevai, halevai that we should say that bracha every day and not just recognize that when rachmana litzlan a person is sick that he realizes his dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but halevai we should say that bracha every day, recognizing our dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu that He maintains our health. Without awareness and the mitzvah can be and is experienced and fulfilled on that level, the same way when we learn pshat in Torah without the slightest hasaga of what this represents in nistar. It's also Torah, it's also a correct understanding, it's also a legitimate understanding on one level. So the same type of different levels which you have in learning within Torah, you can have those different levels in kiyum hamitzvos also. So the basic level, one to which we can relate, again, is this understanding of tfillah representing our hitbattlus in the sense of absolute dependence to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Let's call that the nigleh of tfillah. And halevai, halevai that we should be zoche, the same way in learning, if we're ever rauy lekach we should be zoche not only to the nigleh but we should be zoche to the nistar. So too in the kiyum hamitzvos to the deeper levels as well. So when the Torah tells us that אברהם אבינו תיקן שחרית אל המקום אשר עמד שם, so Avraham Avinu's tfillah accentuated this aspect of the hitbattlus of the tfillah bemakom korban. Lachora not unrelated to Avraham Avinu's anochi afar va'eifer, so that's what animated his tfillah of אשר עמד שם לפני השם. One of the things which bli neder in coming weeks we'll have to come back to is to integrate the tefillah b'torat amidah, tefillah b'torat sichah and the different, the different aspects of tefillah. What I'd like to do tonight is, we have a relatively brief time together, so I want to take a look at a sugya which we didn't look at before. We spent a lot of time on tefillat Avraham. And I want to move over tonight to a sugya which is really part of tefillat Yitzchak. And tefillat Yitzchak is characterized in the Chazal by the word sichah. And the source for this, the mekor for this, is in Parshat Chayei Sarah. Let me read to you from the pesukim. The pasuk says,

ויצא יצחק לשוח בשדה לפנות ערב וישא עיניו וירא והנה גמלים באים.

And Chazal in Masechet Berachot, in Masechet Berachot, on דף כו עמוד ב, tell us, ויצא יצחק לשוח בשדה אין שיחה אלא תפילה. And then they quote from Tehillim, תפילה לעני כי יעטוף ולפני השם ישפוך שיחו. Now we mentioned this in our introductory shiurim. But I want to focus tonight on what exactly sichah is and how it differs from other bechinot of tefillah. The Gemara continues and says,

יצחק תיקן תפילת מנחה שנאמר ויצא יצחק לשוח בשדה לפנות ערב ואין שיחה אלא תפילה שנאמר תפילה לעני כי יעטוף ולפני השם ישפוך שיחו.

So Yitzchak Avinu is associated with tefillat mincha. And tefillat mincha is defined as sichah.