So we're defining what we have to be conscious of when we pray for personal things. How did that question come up? Moshe Rabbeinu, Salafi Givarecha, don't pray anymore.
Nefesh HaChaim says that we are called chayal Hashem, soldier Hashem. The last thing a soldier thinks about is himself. You are in the army for the king. Your whole focus is on the king. How could you say in your tefillah (prayer) that you are thinking about yourself? Then you're not a chayal; you're a regular person. An army officer, a member of the army, thinks only about the mission, which is for Hashem.
He brings a proof from Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is the most important day for prayer, I guess; everything gets decided. Yet it's all about Malchut Hashem (the kingship of Hashem). That's all we care about. We don't talk about ourselves. Then he brings up the tefillot and the korban tamid (daily offering), keneged temidin (corresponding to the daily offerings). What was the korban tamid? A korban olah (burnt offering). Olah is kulo laHashem, nothing for you. It's interesting that the replacement for the korban tamid is tefillah. It has to reflect that. It's kulo laHashem; it's not for you.
Then he says: How is it possible even to try? When you ask for things that seem to you unfair, or not the way you think they are supposed to be, conceptually and logically, it makes no sense to challenge that. A: Hashem knows what you need, and there's a reason He gives it to you. B: Along the same lines, he gives the example of a patient who needs surgery to have a limb removed and pays for it. What are you going to say to the doctor? “No, don't cut.” If you want to survive, that's it. Hashem gives a person things that are necessary—not sometimes; everything He gives a person is necessary. The pleasant things and the less pleasant things are all necessary.
When you pray and say, “No, no, don't give me that,” do you even know what you need? Somebody is there doing the job for you, so why are you praying against what is happening to you, what God is doing? You're praying to God, “No, don't do that.” It's as if He says, “I'm your doctor. Why are you trying to change what I'm giving you?”
At this stage, you might ask, “Why pray, exactly? If everything that happens to me is dictated by Hashem and is supposed to be okay, I'll be a recipient, a leaf in the wind. I'll go wherever life takes me.” But that defines prayer as asking for change. Prayer isn't necessarily asking for change. He's not asking for change. I'll take it one step further: you don't rebel, but that's not what you were praying about. You don't rebel against anything. What we need to define is what is right. We associate what is right with a change in our personal lives. That proves we're living regular lives. I understand: he's assuming prayer means asking for that. I would change the wording. You said, “Stop praying.” I would say, “Stop praying like that, or for that,” because it makes no sense. That's exactly why he says all this.
He's saying there are two things we need to know to understand this, two things we need to change in our understanding. The first is the direction of things. When you pray, instead of being the receiver, really you're the giver. You pray for something; you give a beracha (blessing). Think about it as giving a beracha. The sandak (godfather) gives a beracha to people. Who is the giver and who is the receiver? Clearly, the sandak is the giver, and the person who receives is the receiver. The Kohanim (priests) give the beracha, and the Kahal (congregation) receives it. The one who gives the beracha is the giver; the one being spoken about is the receiver. So if you put it in perspective, who gives to whom? We're saying the beracha to God, so we're giving a beracha to Hashem.
That is accurate. He doesn't need anything. Fair enough, unless the way He made it—He may— I like to say that, in general, in any relationship you try to establish, the next question is, “Why would that be?” I wouldn't say He's right. He doesn't need us either, but He made us. Somehow He decided to do that. We don't know why, but He did.
Now that He's established this relationship with us and wants a relationship with us, there is no relationship if it's not a two-way street. A relationship can't survive if it's one-way. You give everything to your kids? That's not true. They give you everything, too, because if you didn't have kids, you'd be miserable. It's too easy to say, “We give everything. Unconditional love.” Why? Because they give it back to you; you have meaning in life. If you didn't want children, you wouldn't have them. So who gave to whom? I'm trying to take the opposite view. It's not one or the other; it's both. Even in the relationship between parents and children, the parents clearly give everything to their kids. But the parents give meaning, and the kids give meaning and a raison d'être to their parents, to the point that people are miserable if they don't have kids. It's not a one-way street. There is no one-way street.
So your relationship with Hashem can't be one-way. A one-way relationship isn't meant to survive; it just can't. That's a human way of understanding why Hashem decided to be needy of something from us—“needy,” of course, at our level. That's number one.
The other point is that you have to care deeply for Hashem, in a sense. That's more tricky. You have to care for Hashem in order to pray for Hashem, in a sense. If you care about somebody enough to pray for them, you wouldn't do things against their will that annoy them or put them in a bad mood. That's why it gets tricky. On one hand, you say, “I'm praying for Hashem,” as he said: anything negative is a void of Hashem, and you pray to restore the name of Hashem. But our actions, I'm adding, have to make sense; we have to try to do that as much as possible. If we heal Hashem's people, you can pray for Hashem against Hashem, right? It has to make sense. You have to care for it; it has to be genuine. I don't know if “pray for Hashem” is the right wording, or maybe it's praise for Hashem. Chilul Hashem is the desecration of Hashem's name, and Kiddush Hashem is the elevation of Hashem. “Pray for Hashem”—I don't know if that's the right terminology.
We also try to redefine Chilul as a vacuum. Then you're praying to reestablish Hashem's presence in the world. Today we're heading so far south that maybe this is the great recess. Maybe our prayer should be about needing God back in the world. Forget my personal needs; we need God to restore the direction of the world. In the absence of that prayer, praying for God to come back—it's a halal. In the times we're living in, the question is: are we asking for anything, or is the fact that we're praying mekadesh shem shamayim (sanctifies the name of Heaven), and therefore Hashem's presence comes? Does it make a difference what I wish for? I think it does, every time.
Let's consider it. I don't understand what you're talking about; for me, it's Chinese. You think it's only individual? I also have my plan of Chilul Hashem in terms of the vacuum of Hashem in this time in history. If everything is controlled by Hashem, can we go back to free will? No, that's not true. Everything is controlled by Hashem except that, in spiritual matters, it's all us. He has no involvement. What do you mean, He has no involvement? Tell me what to do. If I'm welcome, I'll come; if I'm not welcome, I'm not coming. I think every time God comes, we have to make it welcoming. But when you pray for something, that's what I'm trying to say.
Let's look at the lashon (wording), because it's difficult. Is it a prayer like, “Oh, I wish that You would be...” What kind of impact does this have? Or is it maybe something else? If my tefillah is an action somehow, you have to figure that out. That brings the shamashem; that elevates the shamashem. Then the Chilul Hashem—not as—that is Hir Hashem, the way we understand it. The void of Hashem is lessened; there is more presence of Hashem. My wish was granted, but I have to care. That's what I really have to care about.
Then the text of the 13 berachot in the middle—what we're talking about is at that level, not just whichever way you want to understand it. We're talking about very specific things that we relate to, that have nothing to do with Hashem. We did that last week already, so I'm going to avoid that. Let me tell you: we start here because of the most obvious question. I think that's how we started, actually, because he got into it. He said specific words: you're asking for this, and he asked for the child, too. That means the question is, how do you pray for that?
For sure, we're describing the end result. What happens when there's no Chilul Hashem, or less Chilul Hashem? There's more presence of Hashem. When there's more presence of Hashem, there's more shalom (peace) and more beracha in the world. That's the description of what the world would look like if all this came back. Do you need to do this in order to get that? The description of the Amidah is this. I'm looking at myself as a world that's missing teshuvah (repentance), selichah (forgiveness). Let's go through the berachot: refuah (healing), geulah (redemption), all the things we're going to describe—Yerushalayim, Bet HaMikdash, whatever you want. I'm looking at all this and saying, “What a wonderful tefillah. Every day I'm going to say this. This is what I wish for.” That would be the shortcut. You're looking at yourself here, and the goal is there. You're saying, “I want Bet HaMikdash. I want refuah, beracha, all of that,” and that's what we're praying for.
The problem is that we don't know how to go from point A to point B. Point B is the description of the perfect world, or what Hashem wants for the world, which is the tefillah. We think we're here, we want to be there, and we pray for that. That's the simple reading of the tefillah. The problem is, how do you get from here to there?
I'll use the example of Boca. You said that from your house to I-95, although it would take three minutes to walk, let's say it takes 20 minutes to drive when there's traffic. Why? Because you have to go all the way to the end of that block, 18th Avenue, then 199, is it? Whatever it is, then make the turn, go back along that road, make a left, go on the ramp, and get to I-95. What do you mean, from my house to here is here? It's three minutes from here to here, but the description in the Amidah unfortunately doesn't tell you how to get there. It's like a mountain road. You have to go from here to here. There's one mile. If you ski down, it's one mile; if you're driving, you have to do this and this and this. You get there. That's what we're discussing now: how do you get from here to there? You have to go all the way back to Chilul Hashem, fix that, and then you get the description in the Amidah of the perfect world of Hashem that you are wishing for.
So yes: “Baruch Atah Hashem, rofeh cholei amo Yisrael”—“Blessed are You, Hashem, who heals the sick of His people Israel.” You don't know how to get from here to there. If you think it's just that, that's first-grade level. You have to do all that, and then that's the description of what you get at the end. That's not what you want, because if that's all you want, you're tricking God, and God isn't something you can trick. What you have to care about is Hashem Himself. It's not about you; you're a soldier. You care about the king. When the king is in a good, healthy state in his relationship with the world, that's what you get. But that's not why you're doing it. You don't fight in wars so that you can have a good life. You fight in wars because the king told you to, and all you care about is the coronation of the king. As a result, you're going to have all this. But you have to do this.
That's what we're missing in all the tefillah courses: they go from point A to point B. But what about the journey? You have to go around North Miami Beach to get to I-95. It doesn't go straight like that. There's no road that goes straight there. “I need to get there. I can see it from my house.” Yes, but there's no road. That road doesn't exist. That's the route of tefillah we take. We do it wrong. Does that mean we should change the tefillah? “I should pray my prayer: ‘Thank you, Lord, for everything You've done.’” It's more complex than that, but it's more in the direction of us going to God and then letting Him do His job, as I described. But how do we do that? That's where we are. That means that every thought process should never be about you, never about you, never about you. One phrase should always be: “Hashem, I want to bless Your name. I want to make sure there's no Chilul Hashem. I want Your presence to be glorified.” Beautiful, same idea. I'm not saying it has to be in that order, but is it going to be the same thought in every single tefillah? Probably.
I'll make an admission. I tried changing a little bit of the kavanah (intention) I have. When you do this once or twice, you think about it. Is it about me wanting to be in Yerushalayim because I'm sick of Biden and the US is gone and it's time to take me back to Israel? Or is it about recognizing that You have the power to make this happen, You said You would make this happen, and hopefully You will? It almost takes you out of the equation.
I want to add something key. It's about Hashem's Shekhinah (Divine Presence) in the world when we're all in Israel. That's the bigger aspect. Does it become monotonous, with every beracha underwritten by, “You're the king. Let me move on to the next one. You're the king”? No. It's about what aspect of His kingship we want Him to bring down. So it takes you out of the equation. “I know You can make a visit. I look forward to that day.” Move on. “You have the ability to do this because You said You would.” If you become more accepting of people who are sick: “I know You have the power, and I trust that You do.” That's amazing for me—and for all of us. The way I think about it, I don't know any of them, and that's the most difficult way for me to relate to it, but I think it's the best way. I get to that beracha and think, “What is this doing here? It has nothing to do with me.”
By the way, everybody talks about the 13 berachot. There are really three berachot that we care about: Chonen HaDa'at, lofi cholam yisrael, and b'al echenu. The rest—semichah, smach kol yisdel—when you say there are 13 berachot, it's all about us. In this perfect world we're praying for, when we say b'al echenu, you take care of all. Maybe that's why. Assi v'ajortenu, labini, tekab b'shefat. It's really not much about us, if you think about it. That's what you're actually afraid of. According to me, that's exactly what you're actually getting at. He's saying that for the most part, today we don't have this. Yes, you have infiltrators once in a while; you find a guy undercover playing this card. But for the most part, we don't have it like we did back then.
Maybe it's also because we're very disconnected from this beracha. In a sense, we're trusting. I think we're disconnected from most berachot. It's really three, but I hope that you care about—I don't know what you care about. Do I want to live in that world? Can you delay a little bit? Just stay there. We like it that way. “Oh, it's because of me that the Mashiach is not coming.” I'm sorry. Chesed v'lachamim, and then you say something. B'tzei kumishpat. No, no, no. What I'm saying is, lo nagu lomar ze. I don't understand. Most berachot really—people say, “It's all about your needs.” No, it's not. Tishkom b'toch v'shamim; it's about the most spiritual thing. It's semach, the most spiritual thing. Al hatzadikim (For the righteous), lam enim v'lamashinim (and for the slanderers), tekah b'shofar (Sound the great shofar), ashi v'hashoftenu, de teshuvah, de selichah. But today, for us, it's not like that. Like I said, the prayer is a referral program. That's really the word. I explained to you how it's a referral program. We're here to learn that it's not about you when you pray; it's about God. That's what you say. That's why you're blessed to Him. But what exactly we do is something we can discover. That's exactly what I didn't want, because then it becomes, again, a hidden business relationship. You don't want that business relationship. It's like the nature of the world: a tree grows when you put water on it. You shouldn't think of it that way, because then it becomes a transaction. Imagine having that relationship with your wife: “I'm only nice to my wife because I want her to give me certain things.”
Look at the words. We did them, but we have to start again. Omnam tachrit hakavanah (Indeed, the purpose of the intention). The perfect kavanah is only about Hashem. It sounds like the need of the gavua, because in a place where there is—again, Chilul Hashem has to be understood as a vacuum of Shemot Barach, for example, the suffering of the Klal Yisrael. The suffering of the Klal Yisrael is a by-product, or proof, that there is Chilul Hashem, because if Hashem's name is full, there is no Salat Klal Yisrael. That's right; that's what I told you. It's not so simple. Chilul Hashem doesn't necessarily mean what we think it means. No, it surely doesn't mean what we think it means. Which is crazy, because at the time of the—The Rambam uses one example.
Every time you really do an aveirah (transgression), you mechalel Shem Shamayim (desecrate the name of Heaven). You're removing the name of Hashem from where you are. If you had the presence of Hashem, Shemit, Hashem, and Gitzamid, you wouldn't do the aveirah. God is right in front of you. The only way to do the aveirah is to remove that presence from the world. That brings ra (evil), that brings bad. But we do that. Our tefillot and our actions have to match a little more. When you wish for something, it's like, “Come on, stop talking and start doing.” You're praying for health and eating your Cheetos. “I want to lose weight,” while smoking. You say, “Oh, Hashem, I suffer so much,” when you're suffering; maybe change certain things, and it'll help. So why even talk? We'll have to see, but it's a specific thing. So, k'gon tzalat kayser, it's all about Hashem.
You have to be very honest about that, too: the fact that we're suffering shows that we are suffering; it shows that there is a Chilul. Let me pray for that. Let me try somehow to restore it. As an end result, you're right: it's a description in the Amidah, but that doesn't mean it's a straight line. It goes all the way there, then it goes back like this. This is an indicator of the person's health, of the health of the relationship between HaKadosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, blessed be He) and the world: what's going on around us. But we treat the core of the problem, not the booboo on the finger, as we said. If you have a heart problem, or blood that keeps flowing and doesn't stop, the problem isn't here. The problem is in the liver or somewhere else. Let's treat the problem. Don't say, “Oh, my booboo doesn't stop bleeding. Let me put something here.” That's not what it's about.
The description at the end is that your finger will be healthy. “Beautiful. You see, it's all about the finger. That's the Amidah; it's all about refuah.” No, it's not. That's the end result. If you treat the problem, then you'll be fine. If you're not fine, that means there's a problem much higher up. Let's fix that. Let's focus on that. It's l'Chilul Shem Hashem, and His presence, His connection with the world. V'gam yachid al tza'aro (and even the individual in his distress): even a person who's a yachid (individual) isn't being ignored; he's not a machine. I understand that people are suffering, people have needs, and people have things going on. There's also a sense of normalcy. Certain things are acceptable as normal parts of life, and there are things that are criminal, things that are very difficult to deal with. We can't be a machine, either.
Hashem and us have a perfect mirror relationship. If you're suffering, He's suffering, because He is suffering; you are suffering. The words don't reflect that. Why don't they forget the words? We have to go, but I'm not saying that. I'm saying we keep discussing the words when we don't know how it works. Let's understand how it works, what we're doing, and then we'll see if it works with the words. Don't worry; they know how to do that. Don't think that question is going to topple the whole thing: “Oh my God, you got it wrong.” Let's focus on how it works, and then we'll see how to make it work with the words. Because He is suffering, you are suffering. Yes, your reflection of that. Again, the problem is above.
We'll see. The Midrash (rabbinic interpretation) is important. Amru b'Shemot Rabbah, parasha bet. B'chezita, b'pasuk (verse), “Ani yeshenah (I am asleep).” Tamati, my twin. It describes tamati, “my twin.” As with twins who are miles away, when one feels something, the other feels it. At the end of the parashah, after every yeshuah (salvation) that came to Israel, for good and for bad, it goes together. You bring the yeshuah to us. It's almost as if, if Hashem needs the yeshuah, we need the yeshuah. It's all happening at the same time.
“My heart will rejoice with your yeshuah.” This is one of the difficult readings. That yeshuah is the yeshuah of Israel. Don't try to understand this yet. Maybe yes, maybe not. What is he saying by saying, “Bishuatecha”? “My heart rejoices in Your yeshuah.” Who is speaking? It sounds like Hashem is speaking to us. No, it's us speaking to Hashem. I'm the one talking to Hashem: “I'm happy in Your yeshuah because when You have yeshuah, I have yeshuah.” No, the yeshuah that He's going to bring. So why can't you say that's precisely the discussion? You should be able to say, “I'm waiting for Your own salvation,” or, “I'm waiting for the salvation You're going to bring, that You have to bring upon us.” So that's precisely the question: how do you pray? Do you praise it as being about me or about Him?
Who is speaking? Us. David HaMelech: “And I had confidence in Your chesed (kindness), to reveal to me Your yeshuah.” You can say “Your yeshuah”; it's the yeshuah that You have prepared for us. But it's Your yeshuah that You're preparing. I'm not going to bring yeshuah to anybody. Hashem is going to bring yeshuah to us. It's Your yeshuah that You bring upon us. What's the yeshuah that You bring upon us? The Midrash has a question: Why did you say yeshuateinu? I don't cause that yeshuah to happen. No, but they bring it; it's Your yeshuah that comes to us.
But one second. It's not you and me arguing. If you're really praying for God's name to be fulfilled and blessed, then you don't care about yourself. Yet the Midrash says exactly that. That's a huge chidush (novel insight); you need a Midrash for that, because otherwise we could have this argument. The Midrash says that yeshuah means the yeshuah You bring upon us. Okay, whatever; it's not super meduyag (precise), but it would work. But the Midrash doesn't say that. The Midrash says we're talking about something that belongs to You, that You give to us: Your chesed and Your yeshuah. It's even parallel in David HaMelech's song. It's clear; it flows better as a concept. You don't say “chasdeinu.” You have a point, but again, we have a Midrash. What I'm saying is, the Midrash doesn't learn it that way, right? But it's telling you the different mindset we should have. That's the difference, I think. It only works because the Midrash says that. If you go with Bishra, you could say, “You're going to bring it upon us.” He says, “Bishra, keep you tall.” He goes more verbatim, meaning—
V'ayein (and see) Zohar, Emor. There you could learn it two ways. LaHashem haYeshuah means He owns the yeshuah. The Zohar—I don't have the text here. That's grammatical Hebrew: LaHashem haYeshuah, Hashem has the yeshuah. It's His. That's how you say it. Look at the Zohar. He brings it in the notes, 47; he brings us the source. Ta chazi, patach v'amar (Come and see; he opened and said): “LaHashem haYeshuah, al amcha birchatecha selah (Salvation belongs to Hashem; may Your blessing be upon Your people, Selah).” LaHashem haYeshuah (Salvation belongs to Hashem), achit aninan. Wherever they go, the Shekhinah is there with them. So if there's a galut (exile) for the Klal Yisrael, it's a galut for the Shekhinah. When the Bnei Yisrael go out of the galut, why does the pasuk focus on that? It's exactly what Dan pointed out so eloquently: it goes in the right direction. We have to go through Hashem's yeshuah in order for us down here to enjoy the yeshuah. So we're causing Hashem's status today, and the only way we can fix it is by fixing our status, which is very logical. Everything is us. We dictate Hashem's status. The beracha is the same thing—sorry, the tefillah. It's the refuah for what we call, inshallah.
So the question is: if we go into galut, He goes into galut; He doesn't go into galut before we do. But if we want to go out of galut, we have to make sure He goes out. Now He has to go out before we do, because if He doesn't get out of galut, we can't get out of galut. So why? You're only going to get out of galut if He gets out of galut. Who can do that? Us, again. We are the most important players here. So how do we get Him out? By praying for His name to be— You already want the quick fix again. I don't know. This is the destination. The definition is everything, and He knows everything; He's master of the world, and He knows what we need. If we bring the right intent, even though we don't yet know what we're praying for, what are we saying? It's very premature to ask this question. You just want to get to the end. It's a journey. You're trying to change the world here. This whole idea is changing the entire perspective on tefillah, everything that we do, to a completely different platform. And it makes more sense.
“I am in tza'ar (distress) with him.” I don't know. It's us talking to Him. Usually, it's us speaking. “Imo anokhi b'tzarah”—I'm with him in his pain, in his suffering. Yes, that works perfectly. That's why he's using it, right? It sounds like it's not just ours; it's also His. So, imo anokhi b'tzarah, heinu, shemin ha-metzar.
The biggest risk is that a person doesn't know he has a problem. Of course that happens. He's so bitter about everything that he doesn't realize. How did he get there? It's hard. I don't think it's simple.