Weekly Torah Portion V’eschanan

A Short and Powerful Lesson on Prayer

Many of us pray but all of us would like to know the secret of how to get our prayers answered. Due to a grammatical inconsistency in this week’s Torah portion, this issue is alluded to.

From there you will seek HaShem, your God, and you will find him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29)

The verse begins in the plural “you (plural) will seek" and ends in the singular, “you (singular) will find.” The Talmud says that sometimes two people daven (pray) but only one of them is answered. The difference in the two is that one person took the prayer seriously and gave much thought and concentration to it while the other just went through the motions. This phenomena is alluded to in the verse quoted above. “You (plural) will seek…” Many people seem to be seeking God by going through the motions of praying; that’s why ‘you’ in the plural form. However, only those individuals who pray with serious concentration (kavana in Hebrew) are answered and that is why the end of the verse “and you will find him is written in the singular.

Some people view prayer as a shopping list to God and in a few seconds tell Him what they need—and that’s it. They don’t think about Whom they are praying to and how much He wants to give. Imagine a person named Sam who desperately needed a loan but didn’t have a credit score high enough to get one. He had been to several banks and pleaded his cause but to no avail. Sam was distraught from all the rejections and then one day he ran into an old friend who told him that the president of a certain bank had come from Sam’s home town and it was know that the people of that little town had tremendous affinity towards one another. After Sam was granted an appointment, how do you think the meeting would go? Would he walk in and start rambling about what he needed and then leave? Obviously not. Before going in, two thoughts would enter his mind: this man has the ability to fulfill his request and this man is inclined toward helping him. He would go into the meeting dressed appropriately and deliver and presentation that was well thought out.

There are many aspects of praying with the proper intention (kavana) ; realization that God wants to help you and has the ability to do so are two thoughts that must go into every prayer. These thoughts are both comforting and cause us to think of God in a beloved way. He’s not just the listener of our wish list; He’s our loving father who created us so that he can bestow good to us. The man or woman who thinks about these ideas each time before he/she prays is truly fortunate.

Good Shabbos,


Rabbi Chanoch Oppenheim
Charlotte Torah Center
5824 Providence Road
Charlotte, NC 28226
(704) 367-1225
rabbi@charlottetorahcenter.com
Visit us at www.charlottetorahcenter.com

(Sources: Vilna Gaon, Talmud Rosh HaShanah )