תפילה מפגש ראשון

Rabbi Chama the son of Rabbi Chanina said,

"What is the meaning of the verse, 'After

, your God, shall you walk (Deuteronomy 13:5)'? Is it possible for a man to walk after the divine presence?

Rabbi Simlai expounded,

The Torah begins with loving-kindness and ends with loving kindness.

It begins with loving kindness, as it is written (Genesis 3:21), "And God made for Adam and his wife coats of skin, and he dressed them." It ends with loving kindness, as it is written (Deuteronomy 34:6), and He buried him in a valley."

(1) It is a positive Torah commandment to pray every day, as [Exodus 23:25] states: "You shall serve God, your Lord." Tradition teaches us that this service is prayer, as [Deuteronomy 11:13] states: "And serve Him with all your heart" and our Sages said: Which is the service of the heart? This is prayer.
The number of prayers is not prescribed in the Torah, nor does it prescribe a specific formula for prayer. Also, according to Torah law, there are no fixed times for prayers.

(2) Therefore, women and slaves are obligated to pray, since it is not a time-oriented commandment.
Rather, this commandment obligates each person to offer supplication and prayer every day and utter praises of the Holy One, blessed be He; then petition for all his needs with requests and supplications; and finally, give praise and thanks to God for the goodness that He has bestowed upon him; each one according to his own ability.

(3) A person who was eloquent would offer many prayers and requests. [Conversely,] a person who was inarticulate would speak as well as he could and whenever he desired.
Similarly, the number of prayers was dependent on each person's ability. Some would pray once daily; others, several times.
Everyone would pray facing the Holy Temple, wherever he might be. This was the ongoing practice from [the time of] Moshe Rabbenu until Ezra.

(4) When Israel was exiled in the time of the wicked Nebuchadnezzar, they became interspersed in Persia and Greece and other nations. Children were born to them in these foreign countries and those children's language was confused.
The speech of each and every one was a concoction of many tongues. No one was able to express himself coherently in any one language, but rather in a mixture [of languages], as [Nehemiah 13:24] states: "And their children spoke half in Ashdodit and did not know how to speak the Jewish language. Rather, [they would speak] according to the language of various other peoples."
Consequently, when someone would pray, he would be limited in his ability to request his needs or to praise the Holy One, blessed be He, in Hebrew, unless other languages were mixed in with it. When Ezra and his court saw this, they established eighteen blessings in sequence.
The first three [blessings] are praises of God and the last three are thanksgiving. The intermediate [blessings] contain requests for all those things that serve as general categories for the desires of each and every person and the needs of the whole community.
Thus, the prayers could be set in the mouths of everyone. They could learn them quickly and the prayers of those unable to express themselves would be as complete as the prayers of the most eloquent. It was because of this matter that they established all the blessings and prayers so that they would be ordered in the mouths of all Israel, so that each blessing would be set in the mouth of each person unable to express himself.

(5) They also decreed that the number of prayers correspond to the number of sacrifices - i.e., two prayers every day, corresponding to the two daily sacrifices. On any day that an additional sacrifice [was offered], they instituted a third prayer, corresponding to the additional offering.
The prayer that corresponds to the daily morning sacrifice is called the Shacharit Prayer. The prayer that corresponds to the daily sacrifice offered in the afternoon is called the Minchah Prayer and the prayer corresponding to the additional offerings is called the Musaf Prayer.

(6) They also instituted a prayer to be recited at night, since the limbs of the daily afternoon offering could be burnt the whole night, as [Leviticus 6:2] states: "The burnt offering [shall remain on the altar hearth all night until morning]." In this vein, [Psalms 55:18] states: "In the evening, morning and afternoon I will speak and cry aloud, and He will hear my voice."
The Evening Prayer is not obligatory, as are the Morning and Minchah Prayers. Nevertheless, the Jewish people, in all the places that they have settled, are accustomed to recite the Evening Prayer and have accepted it upon themselves as an obligatory prayer.

(7) Similarly, they instituted a prayer after the Minchah Prayer [to be recited] close to sunset on fast days only, its purpose being to increase supplication and pleading because of the fast.
This is called the Ne'ilah prayer, as if to say that the gates of Heaven are closed behind the sun, which becomes hidden, since it is recited only close to [the time of] sunset.

(8) Thus, three prayers are recited daily: the Evening Prayer, the Morning Prayer, and the Minchah Prayer. There are four on Sabbaths, festivals and Rosh Chodesh: the three that are recited daily and the Musaf Prayer. On Yom Kippur, there are five: these four and the Ne'ilah prayer.

(9) The number of these prayers may not be diminished, but may be increased. If a person wants to pray all day long, he may.
Any prayer that one adds is considered as a freewill offering. Therefore, one must add a new idea consistent with that blessing in each of the middle blessings. [However], making an addition of a new concept even in only one blessing is sufficient in order to make known that this is a voluntary prayer and not obligatory.
In the first three [blessings] and the last three [blessings], one must never add, detract or change anything at all.

(10) The community should not recite a voluntary prayer, since the community does not bring a freewill offering. Even an individual should not recite the Musaf Prayer twice, once as the obligation of the day and the other as a voluntary prayer, because the additional offering is never a freewill offering.
One of the Geonim taught that it is forbidden to recite a voluntary prayer on Sabbaths or holidays, since freewill offerings were not sacrificed on these days, but only the obligatory offerings of the day.

(1) The 5th mitzvah is that we are commanded to serve G‑d (blessed be He). This commandment is repeated many times: And you shall serve G‑d, your L‑rd";1 "And you shall serve Him"; "And to serve Him." Although this commandment is of a general nature, as explained in the Fourth Principle, [and apparently should not be included in the count of the 613 mitzvos,] nevertheless it has a specific quality, since it is the commandment to pray. [We see that "service" is not just a general command from the following statements:] The Sifri says, "The verse, 'And to serve Him' means prayer." The Sages also said, "The verse, 'And to serve Him' means Torah study. In the Mishnah of Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yosi HaG'lili, the Sages said, "What is the biblical source to include prayer among the mitzvos? From the verse, 'You shall fear G‑d, your L‑rd, and you shall serve Him.' " They also said, "Serve Him through His Torah; serve Him in His Temple." This [statement, 'serve Him in His Temple,'] means that one's goal should be to pray in the Temple or in the direction of the Temple, as King Solomon, peace be upon him, explained.

(3) R. Eliezer says ‘one who makes his prayer fixed, his prayer is not supplication.’ What is meant by fixed? R. Yaakov bar Idi said that R. Oshiya said - all to whom prayer is like a burden. (Berachot 29b)
Before prayer, the inner image of one’s soul must be as if she is weakening beneath the burden of the gloom (See Yishayahu 50:3) of ideas, distant from notions of wholeness and the light of the face of the living King. Only through this will the load which lies heavy on her heart be rolled back– through pouring out her plaint before her Maker and her Father in Heaven. And through this she gathers courage, and in place of a dim spirit wraps herself in garments of joy (See Yishayahu 61:3) , and a new spirit in the power and delight of G–d will be her stance. (See Divre HaYamim I 16:27) But when this truthful conception is lacking and in place of the proper quality of prayer, which increases courage and renews strength in the soul and its feelings, it further exhausts - this is not the proper form of prayer, which must emerge from inner feeling and not from an imposed external obligation, which perforce is like a burden.
‘Rabbanan say – anyone who does not say it in a language of supplication.’(ibid)
Even if one finds their heart stirred by the inner desire to pray, nevertheless so long as their intention is only to fulfill this inner feeling, this is not the foundation for prayer which is Divine service. Emotion is a proper means for placing the soul and ideas in a prayerful posture, but her (prayer’s) essence is above any emotive state of the human soul, because she is supplication before G–d, that His will be done. Therefore, it must be said in a language of entreaty, and through this shape as an inner image the truth that the feelings of the human heart have small value when compared to the lofty purpose of realizing G–d’s will in the world, which happens through prayer.
‘Rabba and Rav Yosef both said – anyone who cannot introduce something new in it.’(ibid.) It is not enough that a light of awareness of G–d’s blessed majesty accompany the exalted inner natural feeling of the soul (nefesh). Because the activity of the intellect must have a greater extent than the emotions, until one can open something new in prayer through the clarified intellect, aside from inner feeling; and then the wholesome natural inner feeling will join with the intellectual innovation to pray with holy emotion. And on this R. Zeira said ‘I am able to introduce something new in it…”(ibid.) because the immensity of his feeling did not prevent his intellect from bearing its fruit according to the nature of the moment and day. However since, in the final analysis, intellect is not as natural as feeling, therefore he added ‘…but I am concerned, lest I become confused’ and I be drawn toward intellectual conceptions further than I can extend the inner feeling of the heart, and through this lose the quality of prayer. Therefore, he left place for the good sentiment alone, joined to the intellect which escorts it, but without overextending intellectuality in the moment when that feeling rules.
And the name kevah (fixed) contains all these three. A lack of inner awareness is included in the term kevah, because one’s prayer is not responsive to the changing feelings of man. The natural feeling by itself is called kevah, because it is fixed in the nature of the soul, unlike the service of the intellect which must be acquired through a path of chosen perfection. And the contraction of the intellect to the measure of the natural feeling is also called by the name of kevah, because it does not spread beyond the boundary of the natural quality of the soul, which is fixed and stable.