It is one of the most heroic moments of Avraham’s life. Hashem has
just confirmed His promise that Avraham & Sarah will have a child, and he
is on course to be the father of many nations.
Yet, Hashem cannot hide from Avraham His plan to destroy Sedom.
And Avraham then proceeds to fight Gd, davening in a poetic and
beautiful back and forth argument, to save a group of people he barely knows,
and who have the worst reputation on the planet.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Chazal use this tefillah
as the source of the first tefillah we daven every day, the tefillah of
Shacharis, as the gemara in brachos tells us that Avraham’s standing in that
place, is reference to his davening.
But, of course, this is a strange source. After all, we know that Avraham’s tefillah
for Sedom, as beautiful as it was, was a FAILURE. Avraham pleaded over and over for Hashem to
save the ENTIRE city of Sedom on account of the tzadikim, the righteous that
would be found in the city.
However, in the end of the day, Hashem DID NOT spare the city, as
it was destroyed in its entirety.
Why, then, is this tefillah the source of the very first tefillah
we say every day?
I would like to share TWO answers to this question
One answer comes from the words of Rav Soloveitchik:
The Rav, in Worship of the Heart, writes the following:
When man is in need and prays, G-d listens. One of G-d’s attributes is shomeia
tefillah: “He who listens to prayer”.
Let us note that Judaism has never promised that G-d accepts all prayer.
The efficacy of prayer is not the central term of inquiry in our philosophy of Avoda
Shebalev. Acceptance of prayer is a
hope, a vision, a wish, a petition, but not a principle or a premise… The basic
function of prayer is not its practical consequences but the metaphysical
formation of a fellowship consisting of G-d and man.”
In other words, argues the Rav, that the goal of tefillah is not to GET
WHAT WE WANT, but to come to Hashem, knowing that He is willing to listen to
us, and, in so doing, we create a living, breathing relationship with Him.
If this is true, then maybe there is no better example to use as a
paradigm for tefillah, because it reminds us that we don’t ONLY daven to get
what we want. We daven in order to
cultivate a RELATIONSHIP with Hashem.
This is an idea which I believe is extraordinarily fundamental in terms of
how we approach tefillah.
However, this morning I would like to share with you a second answer as
well:
Rav Tzadok HaKohein of Lublin, in his work, the Pri Tzadik, writes that we have to realize that no one taught humanity about
tefillah. And Avraham is really the
FIRST PERSON to ever daven.
–
Noach
heard about the gzeira on the world that it would be destroyed, and he didn’t
consider davening. “How can I change
Gd’s will?”
–
Even
Avraham, never davened for himself. He
was left childless for so many decades and never davened on his own
behalf. But it was at THIS MOMENT, when
he heard of the destruction of Sedom, that he decided to try asking Hashem to
“CHANGE HIS MIND”, as he davened the first tefillah, and he did so on behalf of
someone else.
–
[And,
parenthetically, it was only once Yitzchak learned that one could daven for
someone else, that he thought to daven for himself, him and Rivka to have a
child.]
However, says Rav Tzadok, if you’ll ask me, but Avraham’s tefillah
was a failure! Sedom wasn’t saved! I’ll answer as follows:
Even though Hashem knew that He would never give in to Avraham, and
that it is true, that He destroyed Sedom anyways, Avraham’s tefillah was not a
total failure.
There were survivors, Lot and his daughters. And what came from Lot
& his daughters? The Nations of Amon
& Moav. The nation of Moav brings us
Rus, who eventually marries Boaz, and becomes the great grandmother of David
HaMelech.
And, writes Rav Tzadok, that David HaMelech, the composer of almost
all of Sefer Tehillim becomes known as the ‘Shliach Tzibbur’ of all of Klal
Yisrael.
And, of course, certainly his most famous attribute is that David
HaMelech is the great-grandfather of the Mashiach himself.
With this, of course, we can answer our question: How can we use
the tefillah of Avraham as the source of Tefillas Shacharis if, in the end, his
tefillah was a failed tefillah?
The answer is that this is the BEST source for a tefillah. Because
if you would have asked Avraham if his tefillah was a success or a failure, he
would have certainly told you it was a failure.
He davened to save Sedom and it didn’t happen.
And how many generations did it take for anyone to realize that Lot
and his daughters being saved would have any kind of significant
impact? It is almost 1,000 years from
the destruction of Sedom to David HaMelech being anointed King. It was only a MILLENIUM LATER, that we can
look back and say that not only was Avraham’s FAILED tefillah NOT a failure at
all, but that this tefillah on its own would sew the seeds of Mashiach himself.
Why use Avraham’s FAILED tefillah for Sedom as the paradigm of our
tefillah every day? The answer is that this is the greatest way to teach us
such a fundamental lesson: that there is NO SUCH THING AS A TEFILLAH THAT IS A
FAILURE.
A story is told about a holy Jew named Rav Yitzchak Vorka:
The time came when Reb Yitzhak died. His son Mendele kept
expecting to hear from his father in some way, even if just in a dream. No
message came so about a month after his father’s death Mendele went to visit
the Kotzker Rebbe to ask why he had not heard anything.
The Kotzker Rebbe said that he too had expected Reb
Yitzhak to contact him from Heaven and when he heard nothing he decided to go
to Heaven to find him.
He went and looked in all the palaces in Heaven, in the palace of
Rashi, the Rambam, Rav Akiva Eiger, and every place he arrived at, they said,
yes, he was here, but he left. Desperately, he went to the angels and asked.
From them, he learned that if he wanted to find his dearest friend, he
would have to search for him in a dark forest at the farthest end of Heaven. He
mustered all of his strength and entered the forest.
Finally, he came to the end of the forest and saw a huge ocean.
Leaning on a walking stick, staring out over the vast sea, was Reb Yitzhak.
The Kotzker Rebbe rushed to him, embraced him, and asked what was
happening. Reb Yitzhak pointed at the ocean and said: “Don’t you recognize this
ocean?”
The Kotzker replied: “No, what is it?”
Reb Yitzhak said: “This is the ocean of tears.
In it are all the tears shed over the centuries by God’s Holy
people, the community of Israel. I cannot leave this dark place. I spoke to God
about the countless people who’s suffering this embodies. And I vowed to
God that I would not leave this place until he has dried up all the tears of
our people!”
There are many lessons to take from this story. But for me, the lesson of the story of the
Ocean of Tears is that there is no tefillah, no sincere tefillah that HKBH
casts aside. No tefillah that falls to
deaf ears. No tefillah that is
considered unworthy.
Whether the tefillah is answered in the way we had hoped, whether
it is used many hundreds of years later to help someone else, or whether it
simply brings us another step closer to HKBH, no tefillah is ever a failed
tefillah.
We all have a lot to daven for.
And sometimes we feel “why bother?”
“What will it really accomplish?”
The response of the Torah is clear:
We may NEVER know where our tefillos land. We may never know their impact in this world
or the next. But we must NEVER tell ourselves our tefillos don’t matter. Because there is no such thing a failed
tefillah.