351 - Emunah = Tefillah

The Torah teaches us in a verse about Moshe Rabbeinu, “Vayehi yadav emunah”, and his hands were emunah. And the famous commentary on the Torah, the Targum Unklus, translates the words as, “and his hands were spread out in prayer.” What the Torah calls emunah, the translation that follows is prayer. One of the most potent expressions of our belief in Hashem is praying and talking to Him. If I sincerely believe that Hashem exists, an obvious go-to is talking to Him. We need to internalize the tremendous gift that Hashem has given us, the opportunity to daven to Him in numerous ways. We have the tremendous opportunity to daven the prescribed prayers with all their holy words every single day. And doing so is a very potent expression of our emunah in Hashem. The words of the prescribed prayers were authored by very holy sages who were able to imbue these words with tremendous holiness. So, besides for their basic meaning, which is really a personal conversation with Hashem, these particular words and format and order of prayer that has been prescribed by the early great sages are particularly potent and powerful. And we should certainly capitalize on the opportunity to daven the prescribed prayers every single day.

What is important to remember whilst we are praying is to do our best to mean what we are saying. One of the great halachic authorities throughout halachic literature, the Chayei Adam, says that to pray without kavana, concentration and meaning and intention is comparable to a body without a soul. Although the words of the prayers themselves are very holy, a very important component of the prayers is to mean what we are saying. For some people, understanding the words may be easier. For others, more preparation might be necessary, such as finding time to learn the meaning of the prayers and the words of the prayers so that when we do pray, they are more meaningful and we understand more what we are saying. Besides for the prescribed prayers, however, we have the constant opportunity every moment of the day to talk to Hashem in our own words, which is also very much considered prayer.

The Chofetz Chaim, in fact, writes that the reason so much suffering was befalling the people of his time was because they only prayed the three prescribed prayers every day. But because these prayers are something that we repeatedly do day by day, he writes, we become habituated to the prayers and sometimes they become monotonous, to the point that we don't sincerely mean the prayers anymore. And therefore, says the Chofetz Chaim, multiple times a day a person should talk to Hashem in their own words because the nature of our own personal prayer is to be much more sincere and real. What a privilege! We have the opportunity every single day both to pray the prescribed prayers as well as to talk to Hashem in our own words.