The Gemara has a few different explanations of what it means to be ose tefilato keva, and one is that it's dome alav kemasoi, that the attitude that one has to tefila is that it's a burden. The mashal, the image which it conjures up, if a person has a knapsack on his back and he's carrying very, very heavy textbooks, so he can't wait to be able to take the knapsack off. So that attitude is what it means to be ose tefilato keva, which the Mishnah is ruling out of order. The Rambam quotes that understanding in Hilchot Tefila: לא יעשה תפלתו כמי שהיה נושא משאוי משליכו והולך לו לפיכך צריך לישב מעט אחר התפלה ואחר כך יפטר.
And the way one objectifies, the way one manifests the correct approach, the correct attitude is that one spends a little bit of time after davening and only then does one leave. What's so remarkable though is the broader context of where and how the Rambam is quoting this. We sort of just parachuted in to the middle of a halacha. The fuller context is here in Perek Dalet where the Rambam enumerates chamisha devarim am'akvim et hatefila, which are indispensable for tefila in contradistinction to the list of eight things in Perek Heh which are lechat'chila, but these things are actually me'akev. The last of the five that the Rambam lists and deals with is kavana. The Rambam says in Halacha Tet-Vav that כל תפלה שאינה בכוונה אינה תפלה. And then in Halacha Tet-Zayin the Rambam writes: כיצד היא הכוונה שיפנה לבו מכל המחשבות. A person clears his mind of all thoughts ויראה עצמו כאילו הוא עומד לפני השכינה לפיכך צריך לישב מעט קודם התפלה כדי לכוין את לבו ואחר כך יתפלל בנחת ובתחנונים ולא יעשה תפלתו כמי שהיה נושא משאוי משליכו והולך לו לפיכך צריך לישב מעט אחר התפלה ואחר כך יפטר.
So the Rambam attaches this din of ose tefilato keva to the din of kavana, which is strange, right? The din of kavana is something which needs to be present during davening. The ose tefilato keva of נושא משאוי משליכו והולך לו, which is manifest by how quickly, how abruptly a person leaves, is something which comes into play after davening, and yet the Rambam combines them, it's be-neshima achat that לפיכך צריך לישב מעט קודם התפלה כדי לכוין את לבו ואחר כך יתפלל בנחת ובתחנונים ולא יעשה תפלתו כמי שהיה נושא משאוי משליכו והולך לו.
So it's quite clear that the pshat, and it has remarkable implications, the pshat in the Rambam is as follows: whether or not tefila was undertaken and experienced as is reflected and measured not only by where one's thoughts are while davening, but it's also reflected and measured by how one conducts oneself after davening, because there's no such thing as being omed lifnei ha-Shechinah and then sort of abruptly ending that audience. Sorry, Ribbono shel Olam, but I've got a early meeting in the in the office, so I do hope you'll excuse me for running out before before our session is complete. Vidomeh alav kemasoi is a stirah to the tefillah. Agam that it's something which is manifest later, but it retroactively undermines and is megarea the tefillah. Yitachen that it's also a gilluy milta, but we don't need to commit ourselves on that, but yitachen that it is that as well, that it's not simply that it's lemafreia undermining and and being pogem the tefillah, but it's a gilluy milta that the tefillah had to have been pegumah initially. But either way, the point is, if I run out of shul, it undermines the tefillah. It contradicts the tefillah. There's no such thing as running out abruptly, precipitously, from being omed lifnei ha-Shechinah. And hence, that's what the Rambam says, it belongs to the din of kavanah in tefillah. Agam that chronologically it's something which will surface, which will be manifest externally only after tefillah, but it's something which relates הן לטוב הן למוטב to the kavanah of tefillah. The running out of shul precipitously, or for that matter the racing the clock during davening as well, is a tartei desasrei to tefillah in another sense as well. The essence of tefillah, the Maharal has this, the Rav has this, the essence of tefillah is that a person recognizes his absolute dependence upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's what the essence of tefillah is. The reason bakashah is so central and so significant, why should bakashah be so significant, just that I'm looking for self-gratification, Ribbono shel Olam, here's my shopping list? I'd like this, this, this, and this. So why is that so religiously meaningful and significant is because of the To feel that, to recognize that, to feel that, to acknowledge it, and that's what animates bakasha. When I run out of shul to attend to whatever pressing concerns I have, and on a certain level they are pressing concerns. Although sometimes when we're running out of shul, someone stops and wants to talk to us for a minute, somehow or other there is an extra minute available that wasn't available for davening, but alright, that's tzorich iyun on that side, we'll leave that on that side. But how can it be that I run out of shul to attend to, take care of, some pressing concern? The whole essence of tefillah is recognizing a person's absolute dependence, his chovos hishtadlus notwithstanding, the chovos hishtadlus in all areas where it exists notwithstanding, recognizing a person's absolute dependence. So again, אין לך סתירה גדולה מזה, אין לך סתירה גדולה מזה,
that I can only allot 25, 30 minutes or whatever to davening. אין לך סתירה גדולה מזה that I have to leave davening quickly, precipitously, even prematurely because I have to take care of something. The whole essence of tefillah is recognizing a person's absolute, absolute dependence. If a person is traveling somewhere and you want to save time, the one thing you don't do to save time is you don't pull out of the gas station before you put the gas in the tank. I mean, save time on other things. Don't go into the convenience store and get a cup of coffee after you fill the tank, but you can't save time on filling the tank. If there's no gas in the tank, so a person's not going to save any time. So on that level also, the constraints that we place in terms of how many minutes we can allot to tefillah, the again precipitousness with which we sometimes run out, it also contradicts. And again, here too, is it only contradicting or is it even more than that? Is it a giluy milsa in terms of what was all along? You know, having kavana is something which I think most of us struggle with. Tosafos says that that's pshat in iyun tefillah, that one of the things that a person is not, that every day a person is not nitzol from having adequate kavana. So it's certainly a very, it's always been a very real and formidable challenge. And bistama the challenge is greater in recent doros, in this dor than in earlier doros. Our attention span and our certainly our habits in terms of exercising powers of concentration lag behind what they were in earlier doros. None of which is to suggest that we should be complacent about that, none of which is to suggest that we should have a defeatist attitude. But again, Tosafos says that that's what ein tefillin means in the context of things that people are not nizhar in and ayen sham how much of a לימוד זכות לגבי שמיא that it becomes. I don't know. But m'kol makom one thing is clear. There are many things about tefillah which it's very much b'yadeinu to do properly. It isn't easy, it's difficult, it's very difficult for most of us to sustain kavanah for all of tefillah, even for Ashrei, it's something, it's very difficult. It's objectively not difficult to come on time and to stay for the entire davening and not to run out afterwards. The habits of concentration and focus and attention span are not, none of those are relevant, none of those are extenuating circumstances because again, it's something that we're more comfortable with. It's externals rather than, rather than the internals. There's no objective impediment, there's no objective difficulty that the schedule of the minyan should include that the minyan says all korbanos, not that there's some optimistic assumption that people are saying korbanos before they come to the minyan because the minyan fast-forwards from the Kaddish d'Rabbanan to Rabbi Yishmael. Those are the easy parts of tefillah. Whatever potential limud zechus or extenuating considerations there are when we struggle with kavanah, l'chora to be entitled to that, we have to at least show that we're conscientious enough that the easy parts are things that we take seriously and that we do and that we implement. The middah of למען ספות הרוה את הצמאה says that oneis is something that excuses a person, again I don't mean literally to classify this as oneis, but that oneis is something that excuses a person if you see that when he's not oneis he's nizhar. But if when he's not oneis not nizhar, so there's no reason to attribute it to the oneis, there's no reason that one can invoke that. The years that one is zocher to spend in yeshiva are years where a person establishes and lays foundation for his whole life in terms of his attachment, commitment to talmud torah, foundation. Minimally we need to take advantage of the opportunity and the blessing of being within the koslei beis medrash to lay a foundation for tefilla, to lay a foundation where there's no plan lechatchila to skip, where there's no plan lechatchila that I attend a minyan which I know ends around five minutes later than whatever morning commitments I have begin, and because of that it's a lechatchila plan that I'm gonna have to leave early. When the Gemara in Shabbos talks about if a person is overly ma'arich bitfilla at the expense of talmud torah that he's neglecting חיי עולם ועוסק בחיי שעה, the Gemara lechora did not mean if shacharis took more than 30 minutes. It meant something on a different scale than that, and it didn't mean if a person says all of kavanos, it didn't mean if a person says pesukei d'zimra slowly enough to be aware and understand what he's saying. It means something a time which goes beyond that. Both on a human level as well as on the level of siyata d'shmaya, when we don't impose a constraint as to how long davening should take but we daven and then we just see how long it takes and then we know how to schedule and plan accordingly. When we don't skip, when we say what we're supposed to say, we say kavanos, we say pesukei d'zimra. On the human level, keshe'leatzmo, it's a דבר העומד ברומו של עולם, it's conducive to when we stand up in shemoneh esrei to having kavana and having a better chance to sustain kavana a little bit more, and certainly it invites the siyata d'shmaya of haba litaher.