Printable PDF available here. Last year’s piece on Parshat Eikev is available here.
Rav Kook (Ein Ayah, Berachot 34a)
“So I fell down before the Lord the forty days and the forty nights that I had fallen down; because the Lord had said to destroy you.” (Devarim 9:4)
Once, a student served as shaliach tzibur in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer, and he was excessively long in his prayer. His students complained and said to R. Eliezer: “How long-winded he is!” He said to them, “Is this student prolonging his prayer any more than Moshe, about whom it is written that he prayed for forty days and forty nights? Another time, a student served as shaliach tzibur in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer, and he was excessively short in his prayer. His students complained and said to R. Eliezer, “How short is his prayer!” He said to them, “Is this student shortening his prayer any more than Moshe, about whom it is written (Bamidbar 12:13) when he prayed to G-d to cure Miriam from her tzara’at, that he said “Please, G-d, heal her, please!’” (Gemara Berachot 34a)
What are our Sages trying to teach us about the essence of prayer? It cannot be just an idle curiosity that at one time, Moshe davened at length for forty days, and another time, he kept his prayer short. And what is the significance of the number forty?
To answer these questions, we have to understand that the spiritual purpose of prayer unfolds in two different dimensions. On one level, prayer is an attempt to change things, but not G-d’s mind, like many superficially assume. It is directed at transforming our very selves and uplifting our spiritual consciousness – or, when we pray on behalf of others, at transforming and uplifting them as well. Like all growth and development, this change can only take place gradually, as part of a process.
This was the nature of Moshe’s prayer in the wake of the Golden Calf, when he sought to impress a new character and a new heart upon the nation that had become sullied by sin. This explains why he prayed for forty days specifically. Our Sages teach that the basic formation of a fetus takes forty days, and by association, Moshe’s forty-day prayer was part of his attempt at national spiritual rebirth.
However, there is another type of prayer that focuses not on transforming the self, but on giving expression to one’s deepest spiritual needs and longings. In this modality, prayer is an opportunity for a person to verbalize what is transpiring in the depths of his soul. This modality is an opportunity for one to “pour out” his soul, and not for him to “fill up” their vessels.
This type of prayer does not demand a great length of time, as the feelings and emotions given expression are already present in the soul, simply waiting for an opportunity to burst forth. This is typified by Moshe’s prayer on behalf of Miriam, which was exceedingly short in length. This prayer reflected Moshe’s love and concern for his sister, which was already latent in his heart.
We now appreciate Rabbi Eliezer’s teaching about the length of prayer. “Long prayer” and “short prayer” are not simply quantitative categories that are established by a stopwatch. They represent two different spiritual worlds, two different modalities of prayer to G-d. Rabbi Eliezer taught his students that both are important and necessary. And as long as one’s heart is directed toward G-d, he should not be criticized for adopting one modality instead of another.
Food for Thought
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (Commentary on the Torah, Bereishit 20:7): התפלל means to take the element of G-d’s truth, make it penetrate all phases and conditions of our being and our life, and thereby gain for ourselves the harmonious even tenor of our whole existence in G-d. Jewish tefilah is accordingly, the most complete contrast to what is generally called “prayer.” It is not an outflowing from within, an expression of that with which the heart is already filled – for that we have other expressions (siach, techinah, etc.) – but it is a renewed intake and penetration of truth which come from outside. If our prayers were not tefilah, if our praying were not התפלל, working on our inner self to bring it on the heights of recognition of the Truth, and to resolutions for serving G-d, there would be no sense in having fixed times and prescribed forms for them. For this assumes that periodically at fixed times the masses of a community are always filled with one and the same state of feelings, one and the same trend of thoughts. Yea, such prayers would be rather superfluous. Feelings and thoughts which are already lively within us have no need first to be expressed, and least of all in set phrases placed in our hands. When the heart is full it can always find its own way to express itself, or it can be so full, that words, mere words, mean nothing, and inarticulate silence is the only expression of such depths of feeling. Hence our prescribed prayers are not facts, truths, which they assume we are already fully conscious of, but are such that they wish to awaken, reanimate and keep ever afresh in us. One can truly say that the less we feel inclined to prayers, the greater is the necessity for saying them, the greater the importance, the greater the effect on us, of the work which we have to accomplish on ourselves by tefilah. The lack of the inclination for it is itself the clearest sign of the clouding over and darkening of that spirit and that recognition of the great Truth which does not assume us to have, but which it is rather to create, animate and set right in us.
Rav Soloveitchik (Worship of the Heart): [A]s we have explained, prayer is a vital necessity for the religious individual. He cannot conceal his thoughts and his feelings, his vacillations and his struggles, his yearnings and his wishes, his despair and his bitterness – in a word, the great wealth
stored away in his religious consciousness – in the depths of his soul. Suppressing liturgical expression is simply impossible: prayer is a necessity. Vital, vibrant religiosity cannot sustain itself without prayer. In sum, prayer is justified because it is impossible to exist without it.
Rav Soloveitchik (The Lonely Man of Faith): Prayer likewise consists not only of an awareness of the presence of G-d, but of an act of committing oneself to G-d and accepting His ethico-moral authority. Who is qualified to engage G-d in the prayer colloquy? Clearly, the person who is ready to cleanse himself of imperfection and evil. Any kind of injustice, corruption, cruelty, or the like desecrates the very essence of the prayer adventure, since it encases man in an ugly little world into which G-d is unwilling to enter. If man craves to meet G-d in prayer, then he must purge himself of all that separates him from G-d. The Halakhah has never looked upon prayer as a separate magical gesture in which man may engage without integrating it into the total pattern of his life. G-d hearkens to prayer if it rises from a heart contrite over a muddled and faulty life and from a resolute mind ready to redeem this life. In short, only the committed person is qualified to pray and to meet G-d.
Prayer is always the harbinger of moral reformation. This is the reason why prayer per se does not occupy as prominent a place in the Halakhic community as it does in other faith communities, and why prayer is not the great religious activity claiming, if not exclusiveness, at least centrality. Prayer must always be related to a prayerful life which is consecrated to the realization of the divine imperative, and as such it is not a separate entity, but the sublime prologue to Halakhic action.
Questions for Discussion
- Rav Kook gives one explanation for why someone might choose “lengthy prayer” over “short prayer.” Can you think of any others?
- Why is it so hard to daven?
- Do Rav Kook’s insights resolve the philosophical problem of praying in order to change G-d’s mind?
- See Rav Hirsch above in “Food for Thought.” Is he saying the total opposite of Rav Kook, or are they in partial agreement?
- How exactly does prayer transform a person, as Rav Kook claims?
