Ears to Hear 17 | Prayer of the Era of Moshiach

00:00 Speaker 1 And Hashem has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

00:08 Speaker 2 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from the World ATAH organization.

00:15 Speaker 3 A chossid who doesn’t daven and sees the Rebbe’s sicha from 11 Nissan may regard it as just another date on which the Rebbe said something. I also have something to say about that date—but does it obligate me? Not necessarily. But if he takes the whole subject of Geulah and brings it into his davening, he sees himself on the field. Yes, sir, I am one of the people entrusted with the mission of bringing Moshiach. Shalom aleichem to all the Temimim in Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch yeshivos throughout the Holy Land and the entire world. We’re now beginning a special program in the Ears to Hear audio series, a program permeated with a spirit of firm hiskashrus to the Rebbe, King Moshiach shlita, the leader of our generation, and with our subject: living in the days of Moshiach in actual practice. In this program, we’d like to speak with Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Bakshi, spiritual director of Yeshiva Gedolah Chassidei Chabad Lubavitch in Nof HaGalil, about the work of living in the days of Moshiach and welcoming Moshiach Tzidkeinu. We’ll discuss the inner, essential work within ourselves in preparation for the Geulah, with the aim of living the Geulah through avodas hatefillah—through davening at length and focusing on davening in the right way, as befits Chabad chassidim, especially when we stand [unclear] on the threshold of the Geulah, when we are already in the days of Moshiach. Let’s begin this special program with Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Bakshi. L’chaim, l’chaim. Shalom aleichem, Rabbi Bakshi. L’chaim, and blessings.

02:11 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem, we’re sitting together now for episode seventeen of Ears to Hear, talking about such an important subject: avodas hatefillah in the days of Moshiach. I’m sure this is a subject that occupies you and is close to your heart.

02:22 Speaker 3 Yes, certainly—and to every chossid.

02:25 Speaker 2 So let’s talk about it and try to examine it in all its details and fine points. We’ll also discuss the right ways to engage in avodas hatefillah: the finer points, how to go about it, and guidance from mashpi’im, mentors, and yeshiva administrators. How is it right to do this according to the instructions of the Rebbe, King Moshiach? But before that, perhaps we should focus on a more fundamental question. Every one of us is constantly talking about living Moshiach and living in the days of Moshiach. And when we look at the Rebbe’s sichos, particularly the Dvar Malchus of Beshalach, we see that the Rebbe says a person’s personal Geulah comes through avodas hatefillah. Each person’s personal Geulah comes through davening at length and doing avodas hatefillah properly, in footnote 140 [unclear]. My first question is how to understand this. We’re constantly talking about Geulah and Moshiach, about wanting to live with Moshiach. Suddenly we’re told that our Geulah—each one of ours—comes through davening properly. What does that mean? How exactly does it happen? Why does it happen? What is the essence behind it?

03:28 Speaker 3 Well, Chassidus tells us that avodas hatefillah is the work of refining our middos. And if we look properly at the subject of Geulah, at the way the Rebbe looks at it—when you learn the Dvar Malchus, you really see the Rebbe’s outlook, his vision of Geulah—then it immediately follows that for someone who truly lives the Geulah as one should, it has to connect with davening. Davening is meant to affect a person. Davening is the work of refining one’s middos. It has to speak to the person. And especially now, when we’re at the [unclear] of the Geulah, the subject of Geulah has to find expression in a chossid in that same way. Through working on himself in avodas hatefillah, he brings himself to look at the world through the eyes of Geulah. If we’re talking about Geulah, think of a person in prison, for example. He isn’t free to do whatever he wishes. There’s a system, and someone has control over him. He isn’t his own master; he’s caught in a situation full of restrictions. Now we want to take that person out. The same is true of a person living in this world: circumstances on every side seemingly dictate, or can dictate, what he does. If he lives like anyone else in the world, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be governed by the way the world operates. But if he wants to be guided by what Chassidus demands, by what befits a chossid, he has to be liberated. First, to live as a chossid; and second, if we’re speaking about this generation, he also has to look at the world and everything he

05:16 Speaker 3 goes through from a perspective of Geulah. And the way to do that—the very basics of doing that—is through avodas hatefillah. We’ll soon discuss how, and exactly what to do. But davening is what lifts a person into a different atmosphere. He looks at the world knowing that this world does exist, that I’m part of it—but I look at it differently.

05:42 Speaker 4 Let me make sure I understand. Besides all the classes on learning Chassidus properly, if I sit immersed in books of Chassidus from morning to night but don’t engage in avodas hatefillah, I can’t reach that inner Geulah in my avodas Hashem?

06:00 Speaker 3 Absolutely not. No. A person can be a professor of Chassidus, but for it to affect him, the work of refining his middos happens through davening. He can’t encounter reality and live it differently if he doesn’t daven. He can come along and say, “There’s this view of the situation, and there’s that view.” And I’ll ask him, “Well, where are you? Where do you live?” He won’t see himself as part of it. He’ll see himself as though he’s sitting here [unclear], saying how things ought to be and what he thinks about that reality. Sir, where do you live? Show me where you are in this. No, without avodas hatefillah, it won’t enter into him. Heaven forbid. Avodas hatefillah is what instills within us everything we’ve learned, contemplated, and understood. That happens during davening.

06:46 Speaker 4 So what is it, specifically, that happens through davening? When I sit down to daven, open the siddur, and try to think about the substance of these ideas, what does that do to me? How can it suddenly bring me to act differently, think differently, have a different awareness, live in a different world? What can we see in it?

07:05 Speaker 3 Now I’m coming down to actual practice. How do we get from learning Chassidus to behaving differently in the world? That’s what it means to talk about avodas hatefillah now.

07:16 Speaker 4 Okay.

07:18 Speaker 3 I’ll explain it this way. When a person learns Chassidus, it’s all theory. If he wants to bring it down into practice—if he wants to live what he’s learned—he has to get there through davening. Before davening, there’s contemplation. Broadly speaking, there are several kinds, but mainly it means contemplating what he’s learning. Then comes contemplating how he himself fits into what he’s learning: how it obligates him, what it says to him, and how he’ll act in response to what he’s learned. Davening then does more than bring him to identify with it; it actually instills the learning and that self-examination within the person himself. A person genuinely wants to change himself. He’s learned how things should be, and he contemplates it. During davening, he truly sees: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here, and He directs the world. I’m part of this world; I’m part of what I learned earlier, and of how I’ll act in response to it. Davening makes that happen.

08:23 Speaker 4 Like becoming a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the work of creation. You want to be the Rebbe’s partner in bringing the Geulah, to be on the same level as the Rebbe in terms of how deeply the matter concerns you. That has to come through a deep, inner connection to it, created through davening, when you connect yourself to it. That’s essentially what you mean.

08:41 Speaker 3 Two things.

08:42 Speaker 4 What do you mean?

08:43 Speaker 3 Davening—let’s first talk about davening itself in the ordinary sense, yes? Before we spoke about Moshiach in the way the Rebbe makes it vivid for us now, we spoke about a chossid who wants to live as a chossid and needs to daven. [unclear]—that brings us to this point. You’ve added another point: how, through davening, I live as a chossid, and since the Rebbe is now living Geulah and working to bring Moshiach, how do I also take an active part in the Rebbe’s work? In a sense, the two go together, yes.

09:17 Speaker 4 …

09:18 Speaker 3 And that, too, is accomplished through davening.

09:20 Speaker 4 So that is really the heart of it. If we look closely at what the Rebbe says in the sicha of 28 Nissan—the sicha that moves every chossid whenever he hears or reads it again, with its call to “do everything you can”—the Rebbe says there that there is also, and most importantly, an inner exile in matters of serving Hashem. In other words, within the exile we are all in, every chossid has an exile of his own. Every Jew experiences an inner exile in his service of Hashem. So what Rabbi [unclear] is saying about the possibility of leaving our own prison, our inner exile, is a substantial response to the sicha of 28 Nissan.

10:00 Speaker 3 It starts there. Yes, it starts there.

10:02 Speaker 4 What do you mean, “starts”?

10:03 Speaker 3 I mean that it starts with a person seeing that he has to take part in this. He lives in this generation, and he is a chossid who received this idea and these instructions from the Rebbe. So he cannot say, “Okay, this is something I understand less.” Sir, you are part of the army here. That is the first thing. But I don’t know whether that is the whole answer for a chossid who wants to “do everything you can.” Yes, he needs to engage in the work of davening, but that is not all. It certainly starts there. Afterward there is also practical action to bring Moshiach, and whatever needs to be done to bring Moshiach. But the overall approach certainly starts there.

10:44 Speaker 4 In other words, once I—

10:45 Speaker 3 A young man, a chossid who doesn’t daven and sees the sicha of 28 Nissan—for him, it is just another date on which the Rebbe said something, and he also has something to say about that date. But this date places a demand on me. Why? Because if he sees the whole subject of Geulah and brings it into his davening, he sees himself as being on the field. Yes, sir, I am one of the people entrusted with the mission of bringing Moshiach.

11:15 Speaker 4 So Rabbi [unclear] is actually saying more than that. Reaching the point called 28 Nissan and caring even a little about the sicha comes from a person being connected to the Rebbe and to Moshiach from an inner place. That is why it troubles him and matters to him. And that, in turn, leads him to do what the Rebbe calls for after the sicha of 28 Nissan. In other words, if the Rebbe now speaks about studying the subjects of Geulah and Moshiach, or increasing in Torah and mitzvos and Torah study, he is so connected to the matter that, generally, all those actions follow naturally.

11:44 Speaker 3 By the way, I also think that for someone who lives with Moshiach and davening, you cannot separate the two. So he doesn’t live with it only up to 28 Nissan or only from 28 Nissan onward. It is all one continuum. You cannot say that you study the Rebbe of Lubavitch up to 28 Nissan, and then suddenly something changes. You cannot [unclear].

12:03 Speaker 4 What do you mean? But—

12:04 Speaker 3 Yes, he called for something—

12:06 Speaker 4 Something—

12:07 Speaker 3 Something of worldwide scope that had never happened before. But you cannot disconnect it from what came before, or take only what came afterward.

12:13 Speaker 4 Yes.

12:14 Speaker 3 You cannot. It all goes together. That really is a very interesting point. As the Rebbe says clearly in the Dvar Malchus of Parshas Beshalach, a person’s personal Geulah comes through the work of davening. Now there is a very central question. We are deeply involved in matters of Moshiach, and we ourselves live with Moshiach intensely. We are always looking to speak about it, to make it a reality, and to bring about the goal for which the Rebbe—yes, for which the world was created. When we want to bring Moshiach, we know there are actions that bring Moshiach. We need to publicize this to everyone in the generation. There is studying the subjects of Geulah and Moshiach, there are actions to bring Moshiach, there are mivtzoim; these are the things we do to bring Moshiach. In other words, we are coming from the atmosphere of soldiers, of people working for Moshiach, and for us, action is what matters most. When we are focused on “action is what matters most,” why is the point of inner Geulah placed so prominently before us? Fine, we are bringing Moshiach; we are Moshiach’s people, soldiers bringing Moshiach with the strength of our arms and the work of our hands, as the saying goes. Why is it so important that I be inwardly whole, that I be personally present in this state of Geulah? I’ll tell you. If a person is not permeated with it in his inner being—if, let’s say, it is not bursting out from within—then even his actions are mechanical. A person can go out on mivtzoim, but if he lacks an understanding of what he is doing—of the way the Rebbe spoke about what putting on tefillin means, about his connection to the Rebbe, every mitzvah and every Jew and one more Jew—and it all remains mechanical, then his passion will drop dramatically. His vitality will fade, and eventually it will disappear altogether. Even the mechanical activity will disappear. Time and circumstances wear it down. Everything. The world—

14:11 Speaker 3 —takes its toll, habit takes its toll, and the fact that Moshiach has not come after another year and another year takes its toll too, unfortunately. Yes. Whenever something happens, people say, “Listen, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is to blame for not bringing Moshiach.” That is the price of exile. What can you do? A person who does not live with these matters inwardly and keep drawing new life from what the Rebbe says will, at best, carry on mechanically for a while. Eventually, even that will fade. … You cannot live in this world without continually strengthening and clarifying that inner fire, until it permeates you. And here too, I think, if a person does not know the inner, essential meaning of living with Moshiach at every moment, in every single mitzvah he does and every time he davens, then everything remains mechanical. Eventually he will ask himself, “Well, why?” Fine, chassidim in the first generation did these things, and chassidim in the fifth generation did them too. Woe to us if we compare ourselves to them. So why another generation? Why another [unclear]? We are in a different place. You cannot say that today we are doing what they did. As someone once said to me: there was a Mishnah the Rebbe had discussed, and he said to me, “What do you think?” I think the Rebbe had spoken about Rabbi Akiva afterward. So he said, “What do you think? Rabbi Akiva will appear?” As though he really is Moshiach and will start taking action and so on. Or even if Rabbi Akiva came into the world now, after the Rebbe had already revealed the depth of the Mishnah about Rabbi Akiva, and people did not study Rabbi Akiva the way the Rebbe had revealed him, he would be embarrassed. What do you mean—why? His Mishnah has been printed [unclear], and this is how it was revealed.

15:45 Speaker 3 “And this is how you study it?” It would be so pale by comparison. He would be embarrassed by it. … There is no way a person can be a chossid, or call himself a chossid and be connected to the Rebbe, yet treat these things as just a matter of doing the actions. Sir, even a robot can do that. Let me stop you there. A chossid has to live it; that is where the action comes from, where it springs from. When it bursts out from there, the action looks different too. In other words, even on a practical level, that inner life is a guarantee that we will live with Moshiach consistently, rather than simply accept the ready-made attitudes served up outside by the circumstances and the times. I definitely think that someone who does not live with Dvar Malchus and study Dvar Malchus every week has a very hard time living with it. It is hard for him. He lives in a paradox: on the one hand he is a Chabad chossid; on the other, he goes out into the world and hears what he hears. It is bound to affect him. Then he asks himself, “Tell me, am I normal? I’m afraid of the very things people out in the world talk about as frightening. Where is the Rebbe in all this?” We need only look at the war we are in, and all the alerts and everything else. Tell me, are you out of your mind? Don’t you realize that you sound just like anyone else? Someone could interview you and get nowhere. What do we need you for? We need you to reflect what the Rebbe says. How do you live? If you are just another person telling us what the rest of the world sees, then what are you? Why are you a chossid? What kind of chossid are you? But here, too, could I make do with studying Dvar Malchus, as the Rebbe says? Studying the sichos, studying Dvar Malchus, and rekindling our inner fire through Dvar Malchus? Can studying the sicha alone give me that inner vitality?

17:24 Speaker 3 Why am I asking about getting to davening? Because davening is what brings this in and makes it accessible even to the animal soul. Until you daven, it can remain a theory. Once you daven, it goes much deeper. That’s how I feel. That connects very closely with what the Rebbe says in the Dvar Malchus of this Shabbos, where the Rebbe calls for avodas hatefillah, the work of davening. Later in the sicha, the Rebbe speaks about the special quality of Jewish women and girls, may they live and be well, culminating in the sicha of 26 Shvat. There the Rebbe says that for there to be “a dwelling for Him,” for a person to connect with the matter inwardly, that is the special quality of a woman. So it is specifically through Jewish women and girls, because only then do you connect with it inwardly and essentially—just as women used to sing to their children that the Torah is better than any merchandise. In other words, it’s a connection from within, not just a dry connection based on commands and instructions. So this is all one continuous idea: connecting to davening, connecting to a place where you care—and, as the Rabbi says, bringing it to the animal soul. Yes. Well, if we really understand what davening is and how important it is, alongside, of course, studying the sichos and Dvar Malchus, then we need to invest in the inner work of davening. What matters is getting guidance and being guided on the right path. Certainly, students often receive guidance from the mashpi’im in their yeshivos, but there must also be some general principles. In addition to each person getting guidance from his own mashpia on how to daven properly, what would you say are the basic elements of guidance in avodas hatefillah? First of all, as you say, we see many times in the Rebbe’s responses and letters—

19:21 Speaker 3 —that the Rebbe writes that, regarding avodas hatefillah, a person should go to his mashpia and ask for personal guidance. Each person has his own mashpia. But first and foremost, I think that in this generation people need to know—and this is where I would begin—that a young man needs... It starts when he’s a yeshiva student, yes. Students need to know that avodas hatefillah is something that concerns them and that they can engage in. We need to proclaim this loudly, because we have these preconceptions. We were used to seeing chassidim of the previous generation, or hearing about chassidim of earlier generations, or seeing people who are certainly on a different level from us davening. And from that we tell ourselves, “Well, a person knows himself. What connection do I have to this? It’s certainly not for me. And if not, then I’m not involved in avodas hatefillah [unclear].” You absolutely must not say that. I want to begin with a story. Once, a group from the vocational school came to the Rebbe. These were people who studied Torah for half the day and spent the other half learning various trades. Naturally, they weren’t the sort of young men we were used to seeing every day in black and white. One year, they came with their instructor for yechidus with the Rebbe. Among other things, the Rebbe asked them to engage in avodas hatefillah, and their instructor was beside himself. Here the Rebbe was, standing before young men whose situation he knew very well, and he was asking them to work on their davening. What did he mean by avodas hatefillah? We tend to picture someone who contemplated seven teachings of Chassidus, got up before dawn, [unclear], and davened at such length that he had no time left—

21:25 Speaker 3 —[unclear] in the course of an ordinary day. So the instructor didn’t understand it. Here’s what he did. Reb Mendel Futerfas was known as a perceptive chossid. Chassidim who wanted to understand more deeply what the Rebbe meant and what the Rebbe wanted would go to consult Reb Mendel. They would tell him what the Rebbe had said and ask how he understood it. So when Reb Mendel came to Eretz Yisroel, the instructor went to him and asked, “What does the Rebbe want from these boys? The Rebbe asked them to work on their davening!” Reb Mendel told him, “There are ten levels in avodas hatefillah.” That’s what Reb Mendel said. He listed all the levels for him, and then said, “But the first level is to say every word.”

22:19 Speaker 5 Word by word.

22:20 Speaker 3 Word by word. Simply to hear with your own ears what you are saying, as the Mishnah already says. That is something they can do. Then he told him, “The second level is understanding the meaning of the words”—and so he began to go through the levels. He told him that there is no such thing as a person from whom avodas hatefillah is not expected. There’s another story that illustrates not only that it is relevant to everyone, but that in our generation we need to know this—and we, as mashpi’im, need to know that it is relevant to everyone. We heard about a student who approached Reb Shlomo Chaim Kesselman, who was known for guiding people in avodas hatefillah, and asked him about his own avodas hatefillah. Reb Shlomo Chaim told him it wasn’t for him. The student took that very hard and wrote to the Rebbe. The Rebbe then wrote to Reb Shlomo Chaim—I think it’s printed in volume eight of Igros Kodesh, if I’m not mistaken—that every single person is connected to avodas hatefillah, each according to his abilities. In other words, it is work. That’s what avodah means: something you’re not accustomed to doing. As Tanya explains in chapter 15, something you’re already used to isn’t called avodah. If a person was never taught to think about the meaning of the words, or even to say them word by word—I don’t know why; perhaps he’s reached a certain age and still hasn’t been taught—then he needs to start working on himself: to hear with his own ears what he says and to say every word.

23:55 Speaker 5 In effect, he’s going beyond what he’s used to, and doing that is his avodas hatefillah.

23:58 Speaker 3 Absolutely. After that comes understanding the meaning of the words, and then the next step. But everyone has this assignment called avodas hatefillah. An assignment—I mean, value the assignment you’ve been given. So the first point is that it’s relevant to everyone.

24:13 Speaker 5 Because there are simply levels and stages to it? If you look at the whole scale, you start with a first-year student in a junior yeshiva and go all the way to someone past Kvutza.

24:19 Speaker 3 Absolutely.

24:20 Speaker 5 Everyone is at his own point on that scale, and he can certainly progress from year to year if he’s really moving in the right direction.

24:26 Speaker 3 Certainly. I remember once sitting with Rabbi Chaim Ashkenazi a"h and asking him, “What is avodas hatefillah for a student in his first year of junior yeshiva?”

24:37 Speaker 5 Were you in your first year?

24:38 Speaker 3 No, I was a mashpia.

24:39 Speaker 5 Oh, already.

24:41 Speaker 3 Yes, we sat and talked. He told me, “Do you know what avodas hatefillah is for a student in his first or second year of junior yeshiva? Davening with the minyan.” At the time I didn’t understand. I thought, “Come on, you’re talking to me about a minyan?” Later I understood that if you don’t start in the shallow water, you can’t make a real dive afterward. The foundations have to be maintained. Talking about avodas hatefillah doesn’t mean that we’ve put aside the Shulchan Aruch’s laws of davening and said, “That’s not talking to us. We’re already involved in avodas hatefillah, so I don’t need to do what halachah says.” No, sir. Avodas hatefillah is in addition to what halachah requires of you as a Jew. You are also obligated to reach the level of avodas hatefillah.

25:34 Speaker 5 So you’re talking about the basics—davening with a minyan, [unclear]—there’s a minimum.

25:38 Speaker 3 Yes. I think that a bochur in shiur beis of yeshiva ketanah is at a stage when he’s absorbing all his foundations. At that age, he can internalize values in a way he won’t be able to later on. When it comes to avodas hatefillah, he needs to start with the simplest things—the things we learned from our mashpi’im in shiur beis. Mikveh, for example. There were chassidim who took pride in saying that they had never put on tefillin without first going to the mikveh. You can’t just set out on this path without that. Mikveh is the foundation. Then a minyan. Then learning a short chapter before davening, something the Rebbe spoke about in the winter of 5749. The Rebbe spoke about chassidim learning a short chapter before davening, and wrote that they did it immediately before beginning the entire davening—even before “Hareini mekabel,” before they had opened the siddur. Right before “Hareini mekabel.” I remember one of the mashpi’im in our yeshiva speaking about avodas hatefillah. He said, “First of all, start with the Rebbe’s instruction about davening.” The Rebbe’s instruction was to learn a short chapter before davening. You can learn a different chapter every day, or the same chapter every day, whichever works for you, but certainly—

26:53 Speaker 5 There’s a schedule, because there are also parshiyos and chapters. Each week, you learn the short chapter belonging to that week seven times, and then you finish Tanya seven times a year. Each week you live with a short chapter, and you finish it.

27:05 Speaker 3 Good.

27:06 Speaker 5 That belongs to the guidance, and certainly there’s contemplation and davening.

27:10 Speaker 3 Yes. I’m not going to go into every single detail now, but I do want to talk about things that, in my opinion, are particularly needed right now. And I think their foundations are in the Rebbe’s holy words. I heard Reb [unclear] say several times—he spoke about what’s written in the laws of Torah study, where the Rebbe writes, “Idle talk brings foreign thoughts.” It’s an acronym: idle talk brings foreign thoughts. He would always say that. I later heard it from others too, and you can see it in practice. As the Rebbe Rashab discusses in Kuntres HaAvodah, when a person leaves himself open—meaning he isn’t focused on a goal for davening, and before davening he does all sorts of other things—he’s open to suggestions, open to being led, available to be led. So he gets drawn into idle talk, and that leads to foreign thoughts during davening. They aren’t necessarily foreign thoughts in the usual sense, but thoughts that divert his concentration from davening. You can see it plainly: when a person is focused on a particular goal, he isn’t available for other things. But when he starts making room for other things before davening—whether it’s chatting in the mikveh, or just some spare time between the study session and davening—people start talking. You can simply see that this is davening’s number-one enemy. A bochur went to the mikveh, he [unclear], he learned during seder, he’s contemplating. Then suddenly there’s a bit of time. That little break suddenly pulls his concentration away from where it was. He may still want to be in that same frame of mind, but he no longer has a goal. He’s no longer there.

29:08 Speaker 3 These are things people often don’t notice.

29:13 Speaker 6 That’s the first piece of guidance.

29:14 Speaker 3 That’s the first piece of guidance. I’ll add something else. Our mashpia in yeshiva gedolah used to say that when a bochur goes to the mikveh—after all, it says in Tanya, and in [unclear], that there are three preparations for davening. The Tzemach Tzedek writes: tzedakah, mikveh, and a study session. So when you go to the mikveh, you aren’t just going to shower, or to do this or that, or to talk. Right now, you’re preparing for davening. If, from the time a person gets up in the morning, he goes to the mikveh because he’s preparing for davening, then that thought should run like a thread through everything he does until davening. How much more so should he avoid talking and turning his attention to other things. Today, a bochur can get up and— We’ve spoken several times about this: in the age of cell phones, you know? A person gets up and has this bad habit of needing to see what’s in the newspaper before davening. On the way to davening, he takes the paper from the mailbox and has to look at it. Not necessarily a newspaper. The point is that it distracts him from davening. It’s something harmful, and you can see that it really is the number-one enemy. If I were guiding a bochur, I’d tell him, “Listen, you can do a great deal, and it will simply go to waste”—go to waste in the sense that it won’t help your davening right now. You’re doing so much; make it more effective. Use it to help your davening.

30:22 Speaker 6 That’s guidance for before davening.

30:24 Speaker 3 Before davening. Yes, yes, yes.

30:27 Speaker 6 Okay. What else can we say about the study session and contemplation before davening?

30:32 Speaker 3 Well—

30:33 Speaker 6 We’ve spoken about not getting involved in other things. What should one focus on, and how?

30:37 Speaker 3 First, what the Rebbe says: “A fixed place and an orderly schedule.” Second, as is well known—and the Rebbe writes this too—the day’s main davening is supposed to affect the entire day. That’s why we focus more on Shacharis. We should approach that davening as the one through which I connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in a more inward way. There’s a statement by the Frierdiker Rebbe—I don’t remember the exact wording, but the point is—that the only way to connect with the light of Ein Sof is through davening. So that has to happen once a day. A person can’t, so to speak, eat a main meal only once a week or once a year. Every day, there needs to be a davening in which he connects, contemplates, and approaches davening with greater composure.

31:21 Speaker 6 Amid the confusion of whether it’s today.

31:27 Speaker 3 Yes, yes. Shacharis takes first priority, both because of what it says in Chassidus and for practical reasons. I’ll tell you something else. Once I spoke to my mashpia and told him, “I can’t daven properly at Shacharis. I have a responsibility in yeshiva, you know...” He said to me, “There’s no such thing. So if not Shacharis, then Minchah. Daven Minchah in shul. If Minchah didn’t work out, daven Maariv in shul. And if Maariv didn’t work out either, say Kerias Shema she’al hamitah in shul.” That’s what he told me. It can’t be otherwise, right?

31:55 Speaker 6 That’s a novel idea.

31:56 Speaker 3 What’s novel is that he said Kerias Shema she’al hamitah, yes. But it’s not novel that it has to happen once a day. You haven’t met Hakadosh Boruch Hu yet. So if, by the time you reach Kerias Shema she’al hamitah, you still haven’t met Hakadosh Boruch Hu, then please, sit down and do it now. It’s time. Yes.

32:19 Speaker 6 So that’s generally the second piece of guidance: to focus and understand that this is the davening in which I want to connect. Because of time constraints, we can’t talk too much about the study session and contemplation, but let’s at least talk about davening itself as a third piece of guidance, okay? What should we actually focus on? Again, the range is wide. We’re talking about bochurim in yeshivos ketanos, bochurim in yeshivos gedolos, and bochurim on kvutzah. So where do we start? Let’s focus for a moment on bochurim in yeshivos ketanos, and then move on to bochurim in yeshivos gedolos. What should they focus on during davening?

32:47 Speaker 3 I’ll speak just about a student in a younger yeshivah. Besides doing what the Shulchan Aruch says, he should start by spending a few days thinking about the meaning of the words in one passage of davening. On the first day, he studies that passage in a siddur that explains the words—not during davening. The siddur with the explanations—I have one. Yes. Of course, if he has learned something more about it, another verse in the siddur, that counts too. But for the basic meaning of the words—the mistake is putting that siddur on the shelves with the siddurim. It isn’t a siddur for davening; it’s a siddur for learning. Put it in the study library. And I always used to tell students: before saying Krias Shema She’al Hamitah, learn a passage that you’ll daven with tomorrow. If you learn it right before davening, you learn it that moment and forget it by the next passage. If you learn it before going to sleep, your mind also processes it during the night. It does something. And every day you go over it—or every two days, or every five days; it doesn’t matter. If you want something to sink in, you can even take a week for it. But during the time I’ve set for myself, I take that paragraph, the words “asher yivcharcha,” the first verse, the second. I say it more slowly, more deliberately, think more about the meaning of the words, and then move on.

34:15 Speaker 6 For students in an older yeshivah, there’s a definition, a requirement, you might say, that belongs to stage two.

34:21 Speaker 3 For a student in an older yeshivah, I would already advise this after he’s done that for three years—but even earlier, even for a student still in a younger yeshivah. I think a student can think about something personally relevant before davening. Some maamar. Not the maamar that... If we pause here to ask what to contemplate, there are two kinds of contemplation. Some people say they want to contemplate whatever new thing they learned that day. Another option is to take a maamar and think it over...

34:51 Speaker 6 For a year, two years.

34:51 Speaker 3 A year, two years, yes. Once I’ve reached—

34:53 Speaker 6 You connect with it in a deeper way.

34:55 Speaker 3 Yes. And if you connect with that point and think about it every day in terms of your own life—meaning, what does it say to me? Not just, what does it say, so that I can repeat its content. Rather, I talk through its content, say it to myself, contemplate it. I already know it, and then I ask myself: Well, where am I in this picture?

35:14 Speaker 6 That belongs more to stage two, a more advanced stage. But again, it isn’t about age; it’s simply about stages. A student in an older yeshivah might still be at the stage of a student in a younger yeshivah. The point is to know that there’s always room to advance. As the Rabbi said in Reb Mendel’s name, there are stages, there are ten...

35:29 Speaker 3 Ten levels—that’s how Reb Mendel put it.

35:31 Speaker 6 Start with the minimum, and know that we’re always advancing step by step, with the aim of connecting to the Infinite.

35:37 Speaker 3 But we have to remember that at every stage, we can’t skip or bypass the earlier stages. I’ll give you an example. Often you see people involved in avodas hatefillah, what’s called davening at length, and I ask myself when I see this practice: Did you hear Kedushah, Borchu, Kaddish, Krias Shema, the repetition of the Amidah? Those are essential. According to the Shulchan Aruch, you’re obligated in them. The Frierdiker Rebbe instructed, as printed in Sefer Haminhagim, that people engaged in avodas hatefillah don’t have to daven with the minyan, but they do have to respond to all the prayers that require a communal response. There’s even a letter in which the Frierdiker Rebbe writes that our not insisting on the prescribed time for davening is only because of the preparation for davening. With that preparation, what difference does it make whether I began davening when I said Hodu [?], or when I opened the [unclear] [?]? That’s—

36:34 Speaker 7 But it doesn’t exempt you from basic matters of halachah.

36:36 Speaker 3 G-d forbid, G-d forbid.

36:39 Speaker 7 So on these points, we have clear guidance. Of course there’s much more to discuss, and everyone should consult his mashpia.

36:44 Speaker 3 Certainly.

36:44 Speaker 7 His mashpia. But at least we can take this general guidance—the three guidelines the Rabbi gave—and understand that there are stages and levels, and basic things through which we can advance, with the aim of connecting to G-dliness and living with Moshiach in an inward, sincere, genuine way.

36:59 Speaker 3 If we’re talking about yeshivah students, this certainly has to go hand in hand with their study schedule. It can’t—

37:07 Speaker 7 That really is a troubling question. If the Rabbi says you have to respond to all the halachically required parts before you begin davening—

37:14 Speaker 3 Why before? It can also be during davening.

37:16 Speaker 7 During davening. But even then, with the—

37:18 Speaker 3 You can’t shut yourself in a room and say, “I’m engaged in avodas hatefillah now, and the whole Shulchan Aruch doesn’t apply to me.” That’s impossible.

37:24 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

37:25 Speaker 3 You have to respond to everything. You have to start with the minyan, but you have to engage with this. Yes, it’s printed... I see that the Rebbe also addressed this, and I think the Rebbe said Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbos. The Rebbe really [unclear], and so on.

37:44 Speaker 7 Since we’ve spent an entire program talking about davening, about Moshiach, and about how we take in the idea of living with Moshiach inwardly—and one of the main ways to do that is through davening—perhaps, as we come to the end, we could discuss something the Rebbe speaks about in many sichos: davening for the Geulah. In our regular davening, which we say three times a day, we ask for the Geulah. We ask for Moshiach, for the Geulah, for the Beis Hamikdash, for the revelation of G-dliness, and to see the Rebbe. And in maamarim of Chassidus, the Rebbe says this prayer has to take a very particular form: in addition to sorrow and bitterness, and in addition to yearning and longing, there also has to be—above all—joy that the Geulah is coming immediately. So we daven for Moshiach, to see the Rebbe already in the true and complete Geulah, not only out of yearning and longing but also with joy. How can we bring the two together? And how can we place the main emphasis on joy when we’re still in some form of exile?

38:46 Speaker 3 Look, that’s a good question. I think there are two things. First, we’ve already made tremendous progress toward Moshiach. We aren’t in the sixth generation; we’re in the seventh generation, and within the seventh generation itself, we’re already after the actions of Melech HaMoshiach. When you really absorb all those maamarim that speak about the beginning of Moshiach’s revelation and his actions in the world, you say to yourself: I’m in the middle of this process. I’m part of it. I’m living in a world that has already been led somewhere different from where a Jew stood two generations ago, saying, “And to Jerusalem, Your city, may You return in mercy.” Personally, I think that when someone lives with this, then even during Shemoneh Esrei, when he reaches the Throne of David—yes, “all of Israel,” “and in Jerusalem,” “the Throne of David”—wherever Moshiach is mentioned, joy wells up within him. It rises to the surface.

39:43 Speaker 7 How does the Rabbi reach joy? Because the first thing that comes up seems to be longing, desire, yearning. So how do you get to the point of joy here?

39:53 Speaker 3 True. At first glance, longing is what comes immediately. But when you learn these things and tell yourself that the Rebbe speaks as though we’re already in the days of Moshiach, that we’re part of the process, you say to yourself: Wow, we’ve merited this. Others didn’t merit what we have.

40:07 Speaker 7 In other words, we’re part of a process that has already begun and is on its way to completion. It isn’t only yearning; there’s also—and above all—a feeling of joy.

40:13 Speaker 3 Yes, you focus on the full half of the glass too.

40:17 Speaker 7 Well, with Hashem’s help, may we merit not only to daven for the Geulah, but to see the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach shlita, and the revelation—

40:24 Speaker 3 Amen.

40:24 Speaker 7 [unclear] and peace. Thank you very much, Rabbi Bakshi, for the guidance, for helping us understand how we live with Moshiach. One of the main ways to do that is to approach davening properly, with the right guidance. Thank you, Rabbi Bakshi.

40:37 Speaker 3 We’ll just finish with this: [unclear] Long live our master, our teacher, and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever.

40:44 Speaker 7 Yasher koach, Rabbi Bakshi. Long live the King.

40:48 Speaker 8 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from ATA Haolami. For more programs, dial star six three five eight. Long live our master, our teacher, and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever.