27 Feb GREATLY IMPROVING OUR LIVES THROUGH BETTER TEFILAH

Most of us, upon blunt
and honest reflection, will
sheepishly and ashamedly
admit to ourselves that our
tefilos are very sub-par.
We realize to our dismay
that even though we’ve
been praying for decades,
we don’t even know what all the words mean
and, even when we know what they mean,
we do not understand how to connect the
different sentences into a meaningful whole.
Rather, we say them like a totally disjointed
formula.
And, if only this were the sum total of the
problem, it would be okay. But regularly,
we are not only ‘not-paying’ attention to the
meaning of the words, zipping through them
like looking for a number in the phone book,
but we are not even focusing on the fact that
we are talking to G-d. Rather, we open up
the siddur to dispense with an obligatory
thrice-daily ritual, without any meaningful
conversation with Hashem whatsoever.
How sad this is! What a tremendous waste!
The Rambam teaches us that we know the
mitzvah of tefilah from the verse, “Ul’avdo
b’chol levav’vechem,” to serve Hashem with
all your heart. The commentaries note that
G-d did not give us the mitzvah of tefilah

with the popular term l’hispalel, to pray, or
with the command v’dibarta, to speak, but
rather with the unusual phraseology, l’avdo,
to work with the heart. This choice of words
is meant to convey that the fulfillment of real
tefilah is only when we put our heart in it.
Indeed, the Rambam, in Moreh Nevuchim,

says that lip-service without any heart-
involvement is not considered tefilah at all.

Woe! Woe! For many of us, this perhaps
means we haven’t prayed in decades!!!
The saintly Shaloh HaKodesh, of blessed
memory, writes that you could break people
down into two distinct groups. There are
those who when they pray, they pray to
Hashem; and when they bless, they bless
Hashem. Then there are those who pray but
Hashem is nowhere in their thoughts, and
when they bless they are not focusing on
blessing anyone. The first group, he says, is
very few indeed and can be counted even by
a little child. The second is very numerous,
like locusts and he, the Shaloh, hopes he is
never included in the second group.
To dramatize further the great misfortune
of tefilah without kavanah, let me share with
you a chilling suppositional story. Yankel

Chaim passed away at the ripe age of ninety-
three. Now it is Yankel Chaim’s turn to face

Hashem in judgment. Yankel Chaim was a
decent fellow, a kind husband, a good father.

He had fixed times for Torah study, attended
shul regularly, greeted his fellow man with
a smile, gave charity. Therefore, he was
greeted very pleasantly at the Heavenly
Gates. But when his turn came to face the
Almighty, he said to Hashem, “Master of
the Universe, I have one question for You. I
believe with absolute certainly that all You
did for me during my lifetime was for the
best. But why, Hashem, with your unlimited
source of Heavenly wealth, couldn’t You
have made my parnasa a little easier? Why
did I have to struggle so mightily to make
ends meet? Why did I have to move around
from job to job and suffer under the verbal
whips of many a merciless and insensitive
employer? After all, Hashem, I was always
a loyal soldier in Your army. Couldn’t You
have greased the wheels of life a little better
for me?”
Listen closely my friends to Hashem’s
answer to Yankel Chaim. “My dear Yankel
Chaim, it’s really quite simple. You see,
when you went to work for Me, (after all, you
know that the work of the heart is tefilah),
you were a very poor employee. You used
to come to shul and when you davened, you
didn’t even talk to Me. When you were
praying on Shabbos, you thought about the
Kiddush after davening, the sleep after the
meal. During the week in the morning,
you contemplated your clients and in the
evening you thought about what you were
going to have for supper. This kind of
work, Yankel Chaim, was what you did for
Me for decades. And you know, on earth, I
always judge measure for measure. That’s
why, when it came to your work, you were
fated to have such a bumpy time.”
I believe this is another meaning of the
popular saying, “Daven for parnasa.” It
doesn’t simply mean that you should
pray for a better livelihood. Rather, more
profoundly, our davening is a link to our
livelihood, because if we work diligently
for Hashem in tefilah, then Hashem will
afford us wonderful working opportunities.
What exactly does the “Work of the Heart”
mean? The Avudraham explains that the
work of tefilah is to free our minds from all
worldly distractions, focusing on talking to
our Creator and concentrating on what we
are saying to Him. In this vein, the Vavei
Ha’Amudim explains that tefilah is truly
like a sacrifice, since by the korban we had
to flay it before putting it upon the alter. So
too, we must strip all exterior thoughts from
ourselves, working to concentrate only
upon the One above.
The Avudraham then adds an adage which
you might want to consider inscribing on the
flap of your siddur. He states simply, “L’fi
rov hakavanah, t’kubal ha’tefilah,” in direct
proportion to the amount of concentration is
the effectiveness of our tefilah. This is very

good news for most of us. It means that if,
until now, our tefilos have been very flippant
and shallow, we have a grand opportunity to
drastically improve our lives immediately
with more meaningful tefilah.
The awesome Menoras HaMeor writes
that, when one steels himself to pray with
proper kavanah, he creates for himself a time
of special favor with Hashem which helps
greatly with the acceptance of his tefilos.
Perhaps this is the meaning of the verse,
“V’ani tefillasi lecha Hashem eis ratzon
– And I, if my tefilos are focused on You
Hashem, will create a special time of favor.”
The Midrash tells us that because of Aaron’s
unwitting participation in the sin of the
Golden Calf (and because of the strict justice
meted-out to the righteous), he was supposed
to lose all four of his children. However,
since he prayed with kavanah, Hashem cut
the punishment in half. He therefore lost
two of his children, Nadav and Avinu. The
commentaries teach, extrapolating for this
Midrash, that who one prays thrice-daily
with real kavanah, he can cut any punishment
he was supposed to get down to an eighth of
its original amount. The calculation is quite
simple. Shacharis cuts it down to a half,
Mincha further cuts it to a quarter, and Maariv
decimates it to a relatively tiny eighth. Thus,
we see what a powerful difference real tefilah
can make in our daily lives.
In the merit of our working diligently on our
tefilos, may Hashem answer all our tefilos
and bless us with good health, happiness and
everything wonderful.