There is only about a week and a half until Rosh Hashana. And typically, during this time, I begin to
close myself in my office and consider what messages I want to share over these
important days.
But this year, I have continued to think about a question that many
of us may have already been thinking about and will likely think about in some
way on Rosh Hashana. And that is: Did
our tefillos fail last year during the Yamim Noraim?
The Yamim Noraim season concludes, to a certain extent, on Hoshana
Raba, and the next day is Shemini Atzeres/Simchas Torah. And it was, of course, on that day last year
that Am Yisrael experienced the greatest tragedy since the Holocaust.
I have heard other rabbis mention that they have received this
question from their members. Some
rabbinic organizations have had conversations on this topic.
And while I don’t believe I can offer a satisfactory, or in any way
correct answer to the SPECIFIC question, I believe that through an exploration
of the question, we can begin thinking for ourselves about how we will approach
Rosh Hashana this year. Special thanks to Rabbi Mordechai Torcyzner for a
number of the sources on this topic.
I want to share three thoughts to consider.
#1 – It could be that the premise of the question itself is not
entirely correct.
The Gemara in Rosh Hashana 16b
notes:
“ג’
דברים מזכירין עוונותיו של אדם” והאחד מהם עיון תפילה.
There are three items that bring to the fore the sins of a
person. Meaning, things that someone
should NOT do. One of them is “IYUN
TEFILLAH”.
Tosfos there explains that this refers to
a person who tries so hard to daven and then expects that because he or she has
done so that Hashem is guaranteed to answer.
The gemara is stating clearly that this is not the correct approach.
Rav Soloveitchik writes that we
refer to Hashem as a SHOMEIA TEFILLAH, One who hears our
tefillos. That does not necessarily mean
that He will answer in the way we had hoped, even if the tefillah is incredibly
powerful and entirely sincere.
In fact, Rav Schachter writes in Nefesh HaRav that Rav Soloveitchik
was opposed to the language that many use when reciting a Mishebeirach for those
who are sick:
“בעבור
שכל הקהל מתפללים בעבורו”
“That the person should be healed BECAUSE all of us daven on
their behalf.”
We hope and pray that Hashem will respond to our tefillos, and of
course, we know that so often He does. But
we have no guarantee that it will happen just because we asked. And therefore, it is fair to argue that even
if we davened the most powerful tefillos of our lives last year, Hashem could
have still decided to do what He did.
#2 – Tefillah should never be viewed as ALL or NOTHING
Rav Mayer Twersky shlit”a was asked
recently about this same question, and he noted that we should never view
tefillah as an all or nothing proposition.
We don’t need to recount the horrific and terrifying tragedy of last
Simchas Torah and the months that ensued.
At the same time, we all know the stories of incredible miracles that
have occurred to so many people. Yes, of
course, so many families did NOT experience miracles, and their tefillos were
NOT answered, but that does not mean that there weren’t many many tefillos that
were answered in the affirmative.
Rav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky zt”l, also known as the Steipler Gaon, [the brother-in-law of the Chazon
Ish, and the father of Rav Chaim Kanievsky] was once asked about what happens
to the tefillos we daven for someone who is sick and did not recover. Does it mean those tefillos were said in
vain?
He responded that to believe the tefillos had no impact is
absolutely a MISTAKE. We never know, he
said, all the different ways in which our tefillos have an impact. They may have eased the suffering of the
patient. They may have extended his or her life even a small amount. The tefillos may have created as merit for
the person even after their death because it was on their account that you decided
to turn to Hashem in tefillah. And then
he concluded by stating the following:
We will never know, until the time of Mashiach, the power our tefillos
may have to help all kinds of people in all kinds of difficulty. Even a tefillah that we davened for a
particular individual, he writes, can have an impact on others in ways we can
never fully appreciate.
#3 – The question itself should call upon us to rediscover the real
goal of Tefillah all year round, and certainly on the Yamim Noraim.
In Ein Aya, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohein Kook zt“l writes that, of course, TEFILLAH on its own, is NEVER ONLY about
speaking in a sincere way to Hashem.
Rather, the tefillah we daven IN SHUL should be a catalyst for our
growth OUTSIDE OF SHUL. It is the
COMBINATION of sincere Tefillah COMBINED with our growth in our ACTIONS that we
hope can be Maavirin Es Roa HaGazeira.
Rav Kook writes that the true goal of Tefillah is:
שיוציא האדם שלמותו מן הכח אל הפועל
To inspire us to realize our true potential.
And he writes that it has the power to do so within the following general
framework:
Hashem created a world in which we all have needs. And because of the needs we have, we are stimulated
to turn to Him in Tefillah. The more we daven, the more we come face-to-face
with reminders that HKBH controls the world, and that we are dependent on Him
for everything. And the more we have
that awareness, the more we will come to express that awareness in our everyday
lives, in improving the types of people we are, and in terms of our shemiras
hamitzvos.
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains that
the word to daven, להתפלל, has the shoresh פלל, which means to judge, and it is reflexive,
something one does to oneself. And he
explains that to daven, is to judge oneself.
As we go through the siddur and we encounter the values that make up a Torah
life, we ask ourselves, we consider whether we are living up to our potential.
But the truth is, that this idea isn’t new to Rav Kook or Rav Hirsch.
In Parshas Breishis, when Kayin brings a Korban to Hashem and it is
REJECTED, Hashem tells him:
הֲל֤וֹא אִם־תֵּיטִיב֙ שְׂאֵ֔ת
Yes, I haven’t accepted your sacrifice, but if you improve your
character, then there is hope.
Yeshayahu HaNavi tells Am Yisrael:
החפץ ה’ בעולות וזבחים כשמוע בקול ה’
Does Hashem want your service of Korbanos? No, He wants you to listen to His mitzvos!
In other words, as I heard Rabbi Mordechai Torczyner put it
recently, “the point of davening is not to request a better lot. It is to
create a better us, which will then hopefully help us create a better lot.”
But this last point is a difficult one. Because to SAY I believe,
to EXPRESS our commitment and dependency on Hashem through tefillah is one
thing. To show it each day OUTSIDE of
shul is much more challenging.
But that, of course, is what Rosh Hashana calls upon us to do: U’Teshuva,
U’Tefillah, U’Tzedaka Maavirin Es Roa HaGzeira.
It is through our commitment to Tefillah, but ALSO our commitment to
being more committed Jews, that has the potential, at least, to make an impact
in the world.
There was a young man
from the New York area who went to learn in Eretz Yisrael. He became very
attached to Eretz Yisrael and decided to enroll in a Hesder Yeshiva, and
eventually rose to a position of leadership in the IDF. In the summer of 2005,
the Israeli government decided to evacuate Gaza and offer it to the Palestinian
Authority. The IDF would be charged with the task of forcibly removing the
Jewish residents of Gush Katif and the surrounding areas from their homes.
The American student was
very distraught about the assignment. He felt it was the wrong thing to do; but
as a solider he followed orders and participated in the forced evacuation.
His unit arrived at a
certain yishuv in Gaza. It was his job to see to it that everyone boarded the
buses to be evacuated. He worked with the Rabbi of the yishuv. Everyone gathered in the town’s shul, the
Rabbi spoke, the soldier spoke, they all cried and finally they all filed out
of the shul and boarded the bus. After everyone had evacuated the building, the
soldier took out a siddur from his backpack.
He kneeled down on the
ground, dug a hole, and buried his siddur. The Rav asked him why he did such a
thing. The soldier replied that maybe a year from now or 5 years from now or 50
years from now, we will come back to this place, people will rebuild here and
maybe they will find this siddur. And
if they do so they will realize that we left our hearts and prayers behind in
this place.
Fast forward 11 months to
the summer of 2006. Gilad Shalit had been kidnapped by Hamas, and Israel
decided to invade Gaza in an attempt to find him.
The unit of this
American soldier was sent back into Gaza to set up a camp as a base of
operations. They entered Gaza under the cover of darkness. They did not know
exactly where they were, but they stopped at a certain deserted place to set up
camp. The next morning, the soldier looked around. He was totally disoriented.
He
did not really know where he was, but he just had this feeling that he should
look for his siddur. He knelt down on the ground and started digging, and
he found the siddur.
He was so shaken by what
had happened, and he called his Rav to ask for advice. The family’s Rav, Rabbi Aryeh
Lev Ginsberg was astounded, and could not bring himself to interpret the
meaning of the story.
However, he
arranged a meeting between the soldier and Rav Chaim Kanievsky, one of the
greatest Talmidei Chachamim living in Eretz Yisrael.
Rav Chaim asked him,
“What did you do when you knew you were going to need to evict the Jews of
Gush Katif?”
The soldier replied,
“I went to my commanding officer, and I went up the chain of command
trying to convince everyone that it was a mistake and that we should not go
ahead with the operation.”
“What else did you
do?” persisted Rav Chaim.
“I davened to HKBH that
it should not happen and that He should please show Mercy.”
Rav Chaim then asked,
“So when it happened, and you had to evict them, so what did you do
then?”
The soldier responded,
“At that point I stopped davening for it to
not happen. It was over.”
Rav Chaim responded to
him: HKBH is sending you a message:
“Never stop davening! You buried the siddur because you felt it
was futile to daven anymore. G-d caused you to find it so that you would
realize that it is never too late to daven! “All is lost?” G-d tells
you: “No. All is not lost. Pick up your siddur and daven again!”
Now, in the month of Elul, we are saying the
tefillah of L’David Hashem Ori (Tehillim 100) two times each day. In the last line of that tefillah we say:
“Kavei El Hashem, Chazak V’Ametz Libecha,
V’Kavei el Hashem.” Hope in God, strengthen your heart, and then
hope in God. Why the repetition? Explains the גמ’
in Brachos 35: When a person davens
and sees that their tefillah has not been answered. Pick up the siddur and daven again. B/c we never know the impact of our tefillos.
Did we fail last year during the Yamim Noraim? I just don’t know the answer. No one does.
But what I DO BELIEVE, very strongly, is that Hashem is waiting for us
this year to RESPOND like never before.
And that response comes with a renewed commitment to what Tefillah
is SUPPOSED TO BE. A Tefillah that yes,
we hope, and IY”H, will be answered fully.
But also a tefillah that connects us back to Hashem. A Tefillah that reminds us of who we CAN
BE. A Tefillah that allows us to realize
just HOW RELIANT WE ARE ON HKBH and inspires us to lead lives more committed to
Him than ever before.