What Are We Trying to Accomplish Through Tefillah

[Music] i want to welcome everyone to this new series on tv in this series we will explore emirates hashem the meaning of prayer the purpose of prayer the profundity of prayer but the truth is let's give a little bit of background because at the end of the day we have a lot of tfilo ahead of us in the month of el mir and sasham we try to become a bit more focused on what it is that we're doing in our relationship with hashem and prayer prayer itself is a dialogical connection between ourselves and akhadeshparahu we add on tv and then we enter into slichos going into rosh hashanah aserus yom kippur and even if the yum keeper is over baruch hashem over the course of sukiyas we have so many beautiful filos as well beautiful uplifting telos but all too often we lack a little bit of an appreciation or better stated an understanding of what it is that we're trying to accomplish within our tv loves why is it that we davin what is it that we are trying to accomplish through those trilos so in this sheer i'd like to give a little bit of just the conceptual background ash gothic background without delving into any one specific tfila but what is it that we are trying to accomplish through the tfila experience in last week's parasha in paris as a gif mosh rabbin who said an incredible statement to claude israel and a statement that gets the attention of the gemara of ghazal throughout the ages and the is this is individual days chapter 10 verse 12. israel and now jewish people ask of you kim literally again to fear or maybe better translate it to revere hashem to walk in all of his ways and to love him with all of your hearts and all of your soul and of course again the commentary is the gemara and messages already jumps on this puzzle because think about it just a moment listen guys god asks so little of you all he asks of you is to revere him fear him to walk in his ways to love him to serve him with all of your heart with all of your soul that's it that's it by the way in this positive motivation describe the entirety of judaism and yet here mosha bin was saying that's all hashem asks of you now of course on a basic level what mosh rabino is saying is if you look at everything that hashem gives us versus what hashem asks in return it is very little but nevertheless moshrabinu seems to be minimizing the ask the ask is huge the ass that hashem is making of us the answer that moshe knows is making of us to be good people to fear to revere to follow one of his ways to service him with all of our hearts with all of our soul so the gemara discusses this idea and the mark is an interesting answer the gemara says daflam and gimmel um based page 33b tigimara says because what moshavin was really teaching that at the end of the day everything is in the hands of god except the spiritual character our relationship with hashem that's the only part that's the only part that's in our hands meaning what mosh rabbinu is saying rabbinach live explains this so beautifully that we spend our lives worrying about the things we don't control experiments really about things we don't control and moshaving was teaching us that in reality we only control one thing and the one thing we control is the nature of our relationship with god the nature of our relationship with hashem and the spiritual identity that we carve out for ourselves that's the only thing i control this is more clearly expressed in the gemara masera's nido the gemara says interacting with days 16b the kim are a beautiful gamer according rabbi khanina talks about that the angel who is in charge of pregnancy when a woman becomes pregnant the malach what does he do he takes the tepa he takes the little drop the little embryo and he brings it before hashem and he says what is going to happen what is going to be with this child what is the child going to be like when he or she grows up stronger weak wise or unwise usher au ani rich or poor so and the mother goes through a whole list of questions and the gemara says but one second the most important question is missing the ilo russia author doesn't ask is the child going to be righteous or not righteous russia right sadiq righteous or russia wicked the malloc doesn't ask that why says the gemara because because at the end of the day whether you're rich or poor that's decided by god whether you have heightened intellectual acumen or not that's up to god tall or short good looking not so good-looking athletic non-athletic those are all up to akudashima the ribosome decides all of those things there's one thing that kurdish barracuda doesn't decide there's one thing and that one thing is the nature of your relationship with hashem that one thing is the spiritual identity that you carve out for yourself everything everything is in the hands of heaven except your yeras shamayim yerushalayim is a catch-all phrase that refers again to my relationship with hashem and it refers to my personalistic spiritual identity everything else is up to god the only thing i control is my relationship with my father above and the nature of my spiritual religious identity and now we understand what mosh was saying israel as you're worrying about all the wrong stuff you're obsessing and you're worrying and you're constantly preoccupied with the things you don't control but yet we pay so little attention to the thing we do control we pay so little attention to the only thing we control which is our spiritual identity which is who we are and our relationship with hashem that's the only thing that is in our control hakol moshavinu telling us stop worrying about the stuff you don't control and focus on the stuff or the thing you do control who you are what you are and your relationship with hashem the great sally club livietzek of berdychev had three sons his oldest son a young boy or mayor known as mayoral mayor died at a young age he died in his late teens early 20s and the story is told that one time mayor was a boy of about nine years old and he comes over to his father i believe yitzhak of bradicho the great and he says to his father father i don't understand i don't understand the gemara says everything is in the hands of heaven except for one's spiritual identity and their relationship with god and the young male or nine-year-old boy said i understand either hashem controls everything or he doesn't control everything you can't say it controls everything but one thing you see children are concrete thinkers so in young mayoral's mind either if god controls everything then everything means everything and if he doesn't control everything then there must be a whole bunch of other stuff that he doesn't control either good kasha the great actor olivia looks at his son there he says numero tell me what do you think what's the answer and dear friends listen to what young mayoral of berdychev a nine-year-old boy said to his father he said father i think the answer is like this everything is in the hands of heaven meaning what when i dive into hashem for something it's possible god is going to say yes and it's just as possible god is going to say no that's the way fila works god is not an etm machine you put in your card put in your pin code and as long as you have money in the account you'll get it which is the way it works kashmar is not it's not a transactional relationship i ask you give you give i that's not how it works and we know this we know it's from our own to us how many times have we dabbled for things that we felt were like genuinely good genuinely meaningful other fools but children and the answer sometimes is no because i call me deshawn god has the power to say yes and say no and sometimes he says yes and sometimes he says no hutzmirai there's one thing that a jew could dive in for that the answer is always yes and what's that one thing what's that one thing is if i dive into hashem and i say to hashem god i have but one request i want a relationship with you i want the relationship with you i love you and i know you love me but i don't feel we're as close as we could be i don't feel we're as connected as we could be so you know what i'm diving to you for i'm not diving to you for paranosa or for this job interview or for this exam or for a for my kids referred to this one i'm not daving for any of that stuff right now i'm just daving for a relationship with you only has one answer to such a tv like that and that answer is a resounding yes who always answers the tephila for connection with the resounding yes whatever you dive in for in this world sometimes the answer is yes sometimes the answer is no except if i dive in for connection davening for connection always meets with a positive and affirmative divine response hashem always says yes and this dear friends gives us such a profound insight into fila you see what is tefila really all about so often we think that fila is the opportunity to ask hashem for things and that is true and we'll talk about this in future urim the ability to ask my father for anything and everything is a huge part of thila an incredible part of tila but there's something so much more fundamental tufila te fela that dialogue with god that dialogical connection offers me the opportunity for just that to say hashem i want the relationship before i even ask you for anything before i need anything i just want to have relationship and by the way my father i don't even know necessarily what that relationship means and i don't know exactly what the relationship entails and i don't know what my expectations are of you and what your expectations are of me but what i know is that i want connection what i know is that i want relationship the first step in meaningful tfila doesn't begin with moda'ani or a siddhar or a maxer it doesn't begin with understanding the intellectual construct of tsila the first step in powerful and purposeful prayer is recognizing that the ultimate goal the building block and really the overarching goal of tefilo is relationship because ribono shalom is such an integral part of my life he's everything to me and i know that i'm everything to him but we have to create relationship and filo offers us the opportunity telo offers us the platform to begin to create relationship and the desire for relationship god's desire for relationship is so strong that you could dive in for a lot of things and maybe you'll get a yes and maybe you'll get a no but if you dive into hashem a simple prayer that says ribonus i want to feel closer to you i want to feel connected to you that tfila always meets with a resounding divine yes with the resounding divine affirmative response that tfila is never turned away david alex says we're going to begin saying hashem and one of the most meaningful phrases in that capital says shift hashem i have one request of you hashem one request i just want to dwell in the house of god all the time all the length of days i just want to dwell there and the melbourne in his commentary until him says really david that's all you want you have one request to dwell in the house of hashem what about paranosa what about children and what about shidduch and what about shalom so about all the things we dive in for all the things we dabbing for understood says them album dwelling in the house of god represents relationship and hussein i know that if i have a relationship with you everything else falls into place it doesn't mean that i get everything i want it doesn't mean everything goes the way that i want but i know that when i have a relationship with you hashem that relationship is my anchor that relationship is my anchor in a turbulent sea of life without that relationship i'm just floundering around i'm flailing i i don't know where i'm going or what i'm doing with that relationship i have stability with that relationship i have strength with that relationship i have the ability to navigate even through the difficult things in life with that relationship i have the tools that i need to be successful in this adventure in this journey called life the first step in meaningful prayer is to understand that my goal is the creation of relationship and to dive in for a relationship how many of us we've all documented for the same basic things right i've done when i was a kid for the test as i get older for the job interview as you get a little bit older for the shidduch as i get a little bit older for children and then paranasana and then this and then agnes was having this boy all diving basically for the same bucket of things but how many of us have dived into hashem you know what i'm not asking you for something tangible today i'm davening to you for relationship i just want to be connected that's it and i think that's aravoda now especially during khodesh elo to dive in not necessarily also for specific things but to make sure to include in our fellows a desire request for connection i just want to feel kashem this is the tila bono i'm davening to you to allow me to feel connected to you i'm davening to you to help me feel close to you i'm davening to you because i want you and i need your help in bringing the two of us closer that's the first step in creating a relationship around tifila that's aravoda especially during khadija as we prepare to enter into a season where there are so many filos our fellows are only meaningful if they are embedded in a context in a framework of connection why am i dividing why am i dabbling because i want to establish connection why am i davening not because simply i need stuff but because i want to feel close why am i dabbing because i want the ribonucleolum in my life and guess what he wants me in his divine life as well that's why i'm davening hashem when you dive into him for stuff sometimes he says yes sometimes he says no hako hutz but if we dive in for a connection if we dive in for a relationship and if we dive in for closeness the answer is always yes i look forward to miranda hashem to continuing this journey in the sea of tefila together and hopefully emerging on the other shore with a renewed sense of commitment a renewed sense of appreciation and a renewed sense of connection have a wonderful day [Music]