Prayer in Halacha and Chassidus - Rabbi Yekusiel Green a"h

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lemaan Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 In the hour ahead, we’ll discuss chayei sha’ah, “the life of the moment.” Chayei olam, “eternal life,” is a term applied to Torah study: “He planted eternal life within us.” Prayer, by contrast, is described as chayei sha’ah. Sha’ah is related to the word in the verse “And Hashem turned to Hevel and to his offering”—it means turning toward someone. The time of prayer is when we turn to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And what do we turn to Him about? In truth, prayer is a very broad and varied system, with several dimensions in the service of Hashem. There is its halachic side, the halachic framework of the three prayers—Shacharis, Minchah, and Maariv—and there is its inner side, as expressed in the service of Hashem, the way Chassidus sees prayer. From a halachic perspective, when we speak about prayer, there is the request for one’s needs: a person is obligated to turn to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Ramban and the Rambam disagree about what the Torah requires of us in the mitzvah of prayer. The Ramban says the Torah obligates a person to pray and cry out to Hashem only when he is in distress. When a person is in distress, he must turn to Hashem and ask for His help. In the Ramban’s view, daily prayer is a rabbinic obligation. The Rambam, on the other hand, holds that every Jew is obligated by the Torah to pray. The Torah requires a person to pray to Hakadosh Boruch Hu every day and ask Him for what he needs that day, even if he is not in distress. There are everyday requests. According to the Rambam, a Jew is obligated by the Torah to pray every day; the Sages established only the wording and times of the prayers. These are the two approaches, the two views of the Ramban and the Rambam. As for the practical halacha, the Alter Rebbe cites both opinions in the Shulchan Aruch, and the practical ruling is that we must

03:22 Speaker 2 pray every day. So we pray every day and ask for our needs. There is also a person’s inner work, as we’ll soon see—inner work within the soul. According to Chassidus, prayer gives us strength to serve Hashem; prayer gives us strength to study Torah, and Torah gives us strength for the work of birurim, refining the world. As explained in the writings of the Arizal, sparks of holiness are scattered throughout the world. We need to draw those sparks out and, of course, put them to use; then they illuminate a person in his service of Hashem. Prayer gives a person strength to succeed in his daily work of birurim. That is regarding requests for one’s needs—there are everyday requests. Sometimes, though, a particular situation calls for a different kind of prayer. In the fourth section of Kuntres Acharon in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe presents a problem. What happens when a critically ill person is before us and the doctors can find no cure for his illness? Or when we face a drought—when all the meteorologists say the coming year will be dry? There is no water; no rain is falling. What do we do? Here we need a special prayer. The daily prayer is not intended for such things and will not help us. What should we do? The Alter Rebbe explains in Kuntres Acharon in Tanya—which he wrote alongside the first and second parts of Tanya. He wrote it separately because its material is deeper, and when first studying the first part of Tanya, one cannot yet introduce these deeper ideas. So he wrote Kuntres Acharon separately, as notes on the side, and his sons added Kuntres Acharon

06:19 Speaker 2 to Tanya after his passing. They placed it after Igeres Hakodesh because only after studying Igeres Hakodesh in Tanya can one understand what is written in Kuntres Acharon. The Alter Rebbe says something very interesting. Every mitzvah a Jew performs draws Divine light into the world. It also draws Divine light into the object with which he performs the mitzvah. Take Sukkos, for example. A Jew takes the lulav and the Four Species and waves them. He has fulfilled the Torah’s mitzvah, “And you shall take for yourselves.” As he waves the lulav on Sukkos, a special Divine light is drawn down and enclothed in the Four Species—in the lulav, esrog, hadassim, and aravos. This is a special Divine light, not the light that brings them into existence from nothing. But although performing the mitzvah draws this special Divine light into the physical esrog, the esrog itself does not change at all. It remains the same esrog. I see it physically: it is the same physical esrog it was before, and it remains so afterward. When a critically ill person is before us and we pray for him, however, we draw down Divine light that will change his condition. Until now he was ill, and we pray for his recovery—that means his condition will change. The Divine light that changes the sick person’s condition is an exceedingly lofty light, beyond the order of hishtalshelus, because we need to change the situation. The Divine light drawn into the esrog does not change the esrog’s condition. The prayer we offer for the sick person changes his condition. The doctors gave him no chance of surviving, and now he is alive and continues to live—his condition has changed. Suddenly the drought ends; suddenly rain falls. A change has taken place. This raises an apparent question: Surely this situation, this drought in the world, is the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted there to be a drought, and all the forecasts accordingly predict a drought. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted this person, Hashem protect us, to be ill. So this is the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why, then, do you pray for that will to change? Surely it is the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

09:13 Speaker 2 Rather, we pray and ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “May it be Your will”—may it be Your will to change the situation, to change the sick person’s condition, so that his condition changes. If this was decreed for him, we nevertheless dare to ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to change His will, save the person, and keep him alive. But to have the audacity, the ability, to offer this prayer, it must be a special prayer. This request must be joined with “And you shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Sometimes a Jew loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu and serves Him with all his heart: his entire heart is filled with love for Hashem. Good. Sometimes his love for Hashem extends further—it is “with all your soul.” If the heart is the vessel for love, his love then bursts beyond the heart. He loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu with every part of his body and every faculty of his soul, even faculties that are not specifically associated with love. Yet however much he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu “with all your soul,” his love for Hashem is still limited. To love Hakadosh Boruch Hu “with all your might” is to love Him without limit. When, in your prayer, in your request to Hakadosh Boruch Hu to save and heal the sick person, to bring down rain, you reveal this—you join it to your request, you express it,

11:44 Speaker 2 You plead, you ask with all your might, without limit. That arouses the Divine power, the Divine light in the world—the Divine light that is above the order of spiritual descent. You arouse that Divine light above the order of spiritual descent so that it comes down and changes things. That light changes the situation. This is still prayer within the framework of asking for a person’s needs. When we move to inner work, Tanya introduces something new about prayer. Throughout Tanya, we see that prayer is work within a person’s soul. Prayer is work within a person’s soul. One of the foundations of Chassidus, which the Alter Rebbe expresses in the first part of Tanya, chapters 12 and 13, is that the time of prayer, when a Jew comes to daven, is a time of mochin Above and, correspondingly, an opportune time for a person below. Hakadosh Boruch Hu generally governs the world through His attributes. We know that, according to Kabbalah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu revealed His individual powers in the ten sefiros of the World of Atzilus. The ten sefiros of Atzilus are the individual powers of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, which He revealed when He decided to create the world. He revealed them and concentrated them in the World of Atzilus. So the powers of Hakadosh Boruch Hu are in the World of Atzilus. But “the world is built through kindness”: when Hakadosh Boruch Hu decided to create the world, He created it through chessed, through the attribute of kindness. He brought the world into being through chessed. So generally, in the day-to-day governance of the world, He activates His attributes to govern it. The time of prayer is a time of mochin Above. It is a time when Hakadosh Boruch Hu activates the higher intellectual faculties—the Chabad, the chochmah, binah, and daas of the World of Atzilus. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu activates His Chabad in the World of Atzilus, it is a time of

14:29 Speaker 2 mochin Above. Correspondingly, we are given the time of prayer below. This is a time when you contemplate the greatness of Hashem. It is a time when you are capable of it, equipped for it. You are now given the strength. You are now given the strength to contemplate the greatness of Hashem. According to the subjects the Alter Rebbe presents in Tanya, one begins by contemplating the greatness of Hashem found in the meaning of the words. There are different levels of understanding the words of prayer—in Pesukei Dezimrah, the blessings of Shema, and Shema itself. These are passages that speak of the greatness of the Creator, and through contemplating them, a person reveals the emotions within himself. Emotions such as love of Hashem and awe of Hashem are revealed in a person. With the emotions we are discussing, which the Alter Rebbe discusses throughout Tanya, we distinguish between two kinds. When we daven and contemplate the greatness of Hashem, sometimes a person arouses the emotions already within him, and sometimes he gives birth to new emotions. What is the difference? Every Jew has within his soul—within the soul of each and every Jew there is an inherent, hidden love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is natural, but it is hidden. When he contemplates the greatness of Hashem, he arouses the natural, hidden love in his G-dly soul. There is a deeper contemplation. A person may contemplate the greatness of Hashem and not merely arouse the hidden love that comes naturally to him; he gives birth to intellectually generated love and awe. He gives birth to new love and awe that were not hidden within him, that were not previously inherent in his soul. He gives birth to them. And when a person davens, making use of that opportune time to contemplate the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu as expressed in the passages of prayer, and as expressed in the three Kabbalistic concepts that Hakadosh Boruch Hu “fills all worlds,” “encompasses all worlds,” and “before Him, all is considered as nothing,” then

17:31 Speaker 2 through deep contemplation with all three faculties of Chabad, a person gives birth to—arouses—and, beyond that, gives birth to these emotions within himself. So prayer is a period a person sets aside during the day in which he arouses and gives birth within himself to love and awe of Hashem. A Jew who succeeds in absorbing and acquiring these emotions during prayer behaves differently throughout his day. The Torah he studies and the mitzvos he performs during the day take on an entirely different significance. As Tanya says, love and awe are wings for Torah: they raise the Torah. When a Jew later sits in kollel and learns, or performs a mitzvah, they raise his Torah study and mitzvos from their state as they were given to us here in this world to higher levels—to the World of Yetzirah through natural love and awe, and to the World of Beriah through intellectually generated love and awe. He raises his Torah study and mitzvos to a very, very high level, as explained at length in Chassidus. The love and awe of Hashem felt by the G-dly soul also affect the animal soul. The animal soul too. One of the foundations of Tanya is that a Jew has two souls. Yes, from the beginning of chapter 1 of Tanya: he has a G-dly soul and an animal soul. The animal soul has negative traits, and it also has positive traits, though they are animalistic. Everyone, whether a tzaddik or a rasha, has two souls. It is something innate, something natural: every Jew is born with these two souls. But the animal soul was given to a person so that—the soul descended into this world to refine the body and the animal soul. The soul does not descend to refine itself. After all, before its descent it was beneath the Throne of Glory; that was its place. So what is it lacking? What is

20:31 Speaker 2 lacking in it? The soul descends to refine the body and the animal soul, and this happens in stages, in different ways, throughout the hours of the day in the service of Hashem. When a Jew davens properly and contemplates the greatness of Hashem properly, then during prayer he brings about iskafya—he subdues the evil in his soul. The evil in his animal soul is inactive. The evil in his animal soul is inactive. In the Alter Rebbe’s words, “the evil in the left chamber is subdued and nullified before the good that spreads through the right chamber from the Chabad in the brain.” When the Chabad in the brain is connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu during prayer, the evil of the animal soul is inactive. Or, as the Alter Rebbe says more specifically in chapter 13, during prayer the evil in the beinoni—the beinoni of Tanya, the typical person described in Tanya—is like a sleeping person. It is like a person asleep. It has gone to sleep. The evil of the animal soul—the animal soul, the yetzer hara—knows that during prayer it has nothing to do with this person, with this beinoni. When he contemplates the greatness of Hashem and goes to daven, it knows it cannot influence him right now. What can it do to him? It has nothing to do, so it goes to rest, it goes to sleep. Of course, when it goes to sleep, it is like a person who sleeps and can then wake up with renewed energy. One has to know how to deal with it after prayer. But in any case, during prayer, during prayer the evil goes to sleep; the evil of the animal soul goes to sleep. In fact, a Jew who has—the Alter Rebbe explains at the end of Tanya, in Kuntres Acharon at the end of Tanya, page 162, that a person arouses the natural, hidden love within himself,

23:14 Speaker 2 So the Torah says, “You shall love Hashem your G-d,” and it is not satisfied with merely awakening love. You can awaken love and it can still remain only in the mind. A person contemplates the greatness of Hashem, but the love is still in the mind, still in the G-dly soul. That is not enough. The Alter Rebbe demands that this contemplation, this love of Hashem in the G-dly soul, become revealed in the vital soul. The vital soul is the animal soul, or the part of the animal soul that gives life to the body. The love of Hashem needs to penetrate; it needs to become revealed in the heart. The natural love of the G-dly soul becomes revealed during davening, but to what extent do we want it to be revealed? We want it to become so apparent during davening that it penetrates the vital soul, that it seeps into the vital soul. At a higher level, when we deal with intellectually developed love and awe, they stir a person and bring him to a love like a blazing fire. There are different kinds of love. Just as with worldly things, there is love that is cool, and there is love that burns like a blazing fire. Not everyone who likes a pear or an apple gets excited every time he eats one. He likes the apple; it has good vitamins. He likes the pear. The dietitian told him it would be good to eat it, that it has many benefits, so he likes it. But that is not love like a blazing fire; it is a cool love. When a person contemplates the greatness of Hashem, how Hakadosh Boruch Hu watches over the Jewish people, how there is individual Divine providence at every step, how Hakadosh Boruch Hu watches over the Jewish people as a whole and over every single created being, how Hakadosh Boruch Hu accompanies him for his good at

25:57 Speaker 2 every step, then he comes to intellectually developed love and awe that blaze like fire. He burns with that love like a blazing fire. And your G-dly soul is naturally enclothed in your animal soul. That is how Hakadosh Boruch Hu created a Jew: with two souls, a G-dly soul and an animal soul. The animal soul gives life to the body; that is its practical role. The G-dly soul does not give life to the body, but it can be present in a person only when it is enclothed in the animal soul. Yet that is not merely a technical arrangement. You, living here on earth, go to shul to daven. You need to see to it that your animal soul changes. When you daven with intellectually developed love and awe, that blazing love penetrates the animal soul as well and changes it. This is one of the demands Chassidus makes of us. There are the practical mitzvos, and there is the service of the heart, which is davening. This service of the heart, davening, requires a person to change his character traits. Every person has natural traits of his own. One is stingy, another is lazy, a third is a sadist. A person needs to change the nature of his traits. But first and foremost, it begins by developing intellectually grounded love and awe and letting them seep into the animal soul as well. You change its very nature; you change the very nature of the animal soul. That is the avodah of davening. It is a very significant part of it. When we speak about davening in the broader sense, there is the davening of each individual Jew, and there is also the davening that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has entrusted to the tzaddikim—the davening of tzaddikim. The holy Zohar says, as the Alter Rebbe quotes in letter 27 of the third part of Tanya,

28:36 Speaker 2 Igeres Hakodesh, letter 27, that the tzaddikim protect the world. A tzaddik does not daven only for himself; that is what being a tzaddik is about. A tzaddik is not merely a teacher in cheder, nor is he a rosh yeshivah who teaches Gemara. A tzaddik is a person who protects the world through his conduct, and in his davening he davens for the world and cares for it. That is a tzaddik as defined by the Alter Rebbe in Tanya, following what he received from the Maggid of Mezritch and the Baal Shem Tov. And the holy Zohar says: “The tzaddikim protect the world, and after their passing, even more than during their lifetimes.” Were it not for the davening of the tzaddikim in that world, in the higher worlds, the world could not exist for even a single moment. The world needs the davening of tzaddikim. In this world, even the Arizal would recite the confessional prayer: “We have sinned, we have betrayed, we have robbed.” He was not speaking about himself. In davening we do not say, “I have sinned, I have betrayed, I have robbed.” In our daily davening we say, “We have sinned.” The world bears responsibility. The world has problems. There are many, many faults in the world that need to be corrected. Were it not for the davening of the tzaddikim in the higher worlds, the world could not exist for even a single moment. “And whoever was close to Hashem’s dwelling place during his lifetime has precedence for blessing.” There is the tzaddik in this world and the tzaddik in the World to Come. The tzaddik davens for the world. Without the davening of tzaddikim, the world cannot exist. And when a tzaddik davens, whoever was closer to Hashem’s dwelling place during his lifetime—whoever was closer to the tzaddik, who is Hashem’s dwelling place—has precedence for blessing. “As water reflects a face back to a face, so one person’s heart reflects another’s” is not said only about friends in the physical world, about one person and his fellow. It also finds expression

31:22 Speaker 2 in the relationship between a chossid and a Rebbe, between an ordinary Jew and a tzaddik. When you feel close to the tzaddik, you have precedence for blessing. And as the holy Zohar says, were it not for the tzaddikim protecting the world, the world could not exist for even a single moment. That, too, is davening. As we said, davening has broader dimensions. The avodah of davening extends further. In Chassidus, davening is an avodah, something expansive, something all-encompassing, something great. There is a deeper avodah in davening, as explained in Igeres Hateshuvah, chapters 9–10: davening is the time when you can succeed in fulfilling “to cleave to Him,” to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so that this attachment is spirit with spirit, rucha berucha, a mutual attachment. A Jew rises higher in davening when he makes sure his desire to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not one-sided. “I love You, Hakadosh Boruch Hu; we love You.” We are not satisfied with loving Him. We want this attachment to be mutual. Return our love; shower us with love in return. And that love in return needs to find expression in all the particulars set out in Igeres Hateshuvah, chapter 10. More specifically, through this attachment of spirit with spirit, the person davening can reach a point where the soul within his body is connected to its source, to the root of his soul. As explained in Chassidus, the entire soul is not enclothed in the body; only a ray of it, a ray of the soul, is enclothed there. Through davening, with all its details as described in Igeres Hateshuvah, chapters 9 and 10, a Jew connects the soul within his body to the root of his soul as it exists above. He then receives more elevated spiritual strength. The root of his soul shines within him, and when it does, that is greater than a revelation of Eliyahu. He merits an exalted revelation of G-dliness. His entire

34:16 Speaker 2 life takes on a far more elevated form. This is part of what we tried, within the scope of this class, to do: give a general sense of the different aspects of davening that can be included in the broader avodah of davening. Davening is a whole system. It is not just going to shul for Minchah and Maariv and coming home. Davening is a broad, intricate system with different aspects and different dimensions. And little by little, “a ladder stood on the ground, with its top reaching heaven.” The Zohar says that this is davening. Yaakov Avinu saw a ladder standing on the ground with its top reaching heaven. The Zohar says that this is the ladder of davening: over time you rise, a little more each day, a little more, a little more. We rise higher and higher.