The Gemara says that for when Rav Masna would, before he would begin darshaning the Megillah, so he would provide a context for Megillas Esther by quoting the pasuk in Va'eschanan of כי מי גוי גדול vegomer כה' אלהינו בכל קראנו אליו. And the Maharal comments about the relevance of this pasuk to the Megillah, the way it provides perspective on the Megillah is that in the encounter with Amalek, so the way Klal Yisrael prevails is through koach hatefillah. And he, the Maharal, cites the Targum on parshas Beshalach, והיה כאשר ירים משה ידו וגבר ישראל is כאשר ירים משה ידו בצלו בתפלה, the Targum taitches. Part of the inyana deyoma of Purim is tefillah, so perhaps we'll take just a few minutes to reflect a little bit about tefillah. The Gemara already says in Brachos that tefillah is דברים העומדים ברומו של עולם ובני אדם מזלזלים בהם. The problem of zilzul bitfilla is a problem which is atikas yomin. The zilzul rachmana litzlan in tefillah undermines tefillah, but it's even more far-reaching than that. Too often we don't calculate how much time we need for tefillah. We calculate how much time we have available and then tefillah has to be adjusted to accommodate that. So we eliminate korbanos, we keep things on the fast track because we only have so much time that's been allocated to tefillah. Even the time that's been allocated to tefillah sometimes becomes even more abbreviated if we're not there on time. What such a mindset indicates is just a complete lack of understanding and sensitivity on our part to what tefillah is. Chazal implicitly, and then the Rambam more explicitly, define tefillah as omed lifnei hamelech. Chazal distinguish between shasuy and shikkor in context of שתוי אל יתפלל ואם התפלל תפלתו תפלה. שיכור אל יתפלל ואם התפלל תפלתו תועבה
as whether יכול לדבר לפני המלך. So implicitly the definition is there that tefila represents being medaber lifnei HaMelech. The Rambam when he defines kavana in tefila is more explicit on the issue. There is no such thing as coming late to an audience with a melech. There is no such thing as sort of dictating to the melech how streamlined that audience has to be in order to accommodate our schedules. So it doesn't just diminish the tefila, it just undermines the tefila because a mindset which allows us to again truncate tefila to fit our schedule. A mindset which allows us, not due to an oness, not in a highly unusual circumstances, but with some periodic regularity to come late is just completely antithetical to omed lifnei HaMelech. Obviously there are realities in terms of by when we need to finish davening, but the way the calculation should work is to see how long it takes to daven properly and then work backwards and see what time we want to be finished and then begin, set the haschalas hazman accordingly. And the zman should allow to daven everything. The zman should allow to say korbanos. It should, and it should allow to daven at a pace which lets us optimize and maximize kavana, whatever that pace is. But the emes is that we all intuit that tefila isn't just an individual mitzvah within our lives and that the fallout, the consequences, or maybe the underlying causes for being mezalzel in tefila go beyond just rachmana litzlan, the zilzul in a single mitzvah, the lack of appreciation or understanding of a single mitzvah. There are two fundamental aspects of really shnayim sheheim echad, but we'll distinguish them as two. There are two fundamental aspects of the mindset, of the awareness, of the consciousness that a ben Torah, that one who aspires to be an oved Hashem is supposed to have, and mitzvas tefila is pivotal in helping us develop and reinforce those aspects of awareness. The Maharal, the first point we'll discuss, the Maharal has this in Nesivos Olam. The Rav also has it in one of his essays on tefila. Tefila expresses when a person davens he expresses his absolute dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The significance of bakasha is not is not the gratification shebalo. The significance of bakasha is the underlying awareness of our absolute dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu for anything and everything. That's why bakasha is so significant, why bakasha is so central, because when a person is mevakesh, there's an acknowledgment that he's not self-sufficient. If I could fend for myself, I wouldn't have to ask someone else to do for me. So the experience of tefillah is supposed to be, a person is supposed to experience the reality of his absolute dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When tefillah doesn't occupy the place in our lives that it should, when the experience of tefillah is interfered with, is prevented by not having the mindset for tefillah, so we also don't reinforce or help instill within ourselves that fundamental awareness that we're supposed to have of absolute dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Whether in devarim ruchniyim or in devarim gashmiyim, so we spend the day, not we spend the day making hishtadlus. Engaging in hishtadlus can be misleading. It can be mistaken for a notion that one's hishtadlus determines and dictates. And what contextualizes everything we do all day is tefillah. That's what frames the hishtadlus and that's what puts it in the proper perspective that it is hishtadlus, hishtadlus that is crucial and critical and mandated, but hishtadlus. Because in tefillah, before a person יצא אדם לפעלו ולעבודתו עדי ערב, before the person goes out, so there's an acknowledgment, there's a deep awareness of the absolute dependence that we have upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu for our very existence, and kal vachomer anything and everything involved with our lives. So tefillah is intended, it's however many minutes it occupies, however many minutes or hours that it does during the course of the day, but it's meant to, it's designed to also help reinforce an awareness which is supposed to be with us throughout, which is why the consequences and what's at stake in tefillah is not just those moments of tefillah and not just a discrete mitzvah of tefillah. We mentioned before the gemara's implication. explicit definition, the Rambam's explicit definition of tefillah's omed lifnei hamelech. And here we come to the second again pivotal dimension of tefillah which is intended to be incorporated 24/7 into our lives. And that's an awareness of living in the presence of Hakodesh Baruch Hu or in the phrase of Dovid Hamelech of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. The Rambam says that the way a person strives to achieve that madreiga of Dovid Hamelech of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד it begins by saying Krias Shema and davening properly. הדבר הראשון שתשתדל לעשותו הוא שתרוקן מחשבתך מכל דבר בשעה שאתה קורא קריאת שמע ומתפלל.
al tispallel bekavana, אל תסתפק בכוונה בקריאת שמע בפסוק ראשון ומן התפילה בברכה ראשונה.
That's the first stage, the foundation for aspiring to realize the life goal of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד is to say Krias Shema with kavana, to daven with kavana. And then the Rambam says that a person builds on that and gradually expands the times and occasions and hours when he seeks to be explicitly directly focused upon Hakodesh Baruch Hu with that awareness of being in the presence of Hakodesh Baruch Hu with his mind on Hakodesh Baruch Hu. But the lynchpin, the foundation for it all is how we daven. When you read in the Rambam the impression you get he says again אל תסתפק בכוונה בקריאת שמע בפסוק ראשון ומן התפילה בברכה ראשונה.
Listen to this next phrase: כאשר זה יעלה בידך וישתרש במשך שנים. When you achieve that and it takes root over the course of years so then you're ready for the next stage. ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה, if this is the very first stage and this is several years so avoda, avoda ma tehei aleha but it's quite clear that the initial breakthrough, that's the crucial pivotal breakthrough and it accelerates from there. It accelerates from there. It's implicit because then the Rambam says then a person the next stage is that when a person is kora batorah so he should be totally focused on that. And here already it's כאשר גם זה ישתרש לך במשך תקופה. Not kama shanim. But now we're even talking about conceivably longer periods of time, longer stretches of time no but it's that initial investment in Krias Shema and tefillah that the Rambam says is the breakthrough and it provides again a foundation. foundation off of which a person can progress at a faster pace in pursuit of this ultimate goal of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד.