Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto’s talks are known throughout the Jewish world. They combine chassidic teachings and philosophy, along with tips for a better life. We have collected pearls from his teachings that are relevant to our daily lives. This week he comments on the Torah section of V’Etchanan.
"I entreated God at that time"
We find two great individuals in the Bible who prayed and begged God for a matter that was of great significance to them. In this week's Torah reading, Moses asks God to let him enter the Land of Israel, and we also find the childless Chana, who became the mother of the prophet Samuel, asking God to bless her with sons. These two great and holy individuals, Moshe and Chana, prayed with all their heart and put all their soul into their request to God.
There is a connection between these two requests, as King David says (Psalms 96:6) "Moses and Aaron with his priests and Samuel among those who called on His name, they called upon the Lord and He answered them." Moses and Aaron was on one side and Samuel was on the other. What is the difference between the two requests of Moses and Chana and the requests of all the other righteous and holy individuals of the Jewish people since the creation of the world?
Every righteous and holy individual among the Jewish people paved a road from This World to God due to the difficulties they underwent. We utilize these paths to reach God through our prayers. Every time another righteous individual prays for the same request, he retraces the same path and renews it for his generation. It can be compared to a road that was paved a hundred years ago and no one drove on it. It became full of holes and pits until a person came along who repaired the road as he drove over it. The meaning is that our patriarch Abraham showed the way and after him all the righteous who went through trials similar to his, showed the same way a second time.
There was a righteous man who had no children and he prayed to God for children. He opened the door for everyone else who was praying for children. Righteous individuals who came afterwards who were praying for children reinforced the path. The righteous who were suffering in other matters came and showed the way for the generations who came after them.
The Jewish people in previous generations went through trials, crises and difficult tribulations. Every crisis that the previous generations went through, made it easier for future generations to be saved from those things because there are paths and routes in heaven that were already prepared for their prayers and good deeds. You just have to get on the same route that past righteous individuals set up and prepared.
Now we understand that Moses and Chana paved two strong and good roads to make it easier for every Jew to make his own requests and prayers to God. When Moses understood that God was being just by not letting him enter the land, he make one last request asking to enter the land not because he deserved it but because he hoped for God’s kindness. “I entreated God at that time, saying...” Rashi explains that wherever the verb chanan is used, it always denotes a gift given gratis. Moses was asking for a free gift from God’s treasury of kindnesses. God told him, "Enough! Don't keep talking to Me about this matter." If Moses would have entreated God one more time to do him a kindness and let him enter the land, God would have had to give it to him. If one asks God to deal kindly with him, there is no situation where God will say no. As long as Moses asked God to deal with him justly, God can tell him no, but as soon as he asked God to do a kindness with him, God had to stop him from requesting this.
When one comes to ask for a request from God, there is an order he has to follow concerning how to make the request. First he has to say the Pesukei d’Zimrah verses to exalt God, to sweeten things, give a gift to the King and speak in the King's praise. Only then he can ask for whatever private request he wants. The same is true of the Shemoneh Esreh prayer. First we praise God and then we make our requests.
Another thing of great importance is that when asking something of God, a person must be happy. A person cannot ask God for anything when he is sad and broken because he causes a fifty percent chance that his request will be rejected. He must ask God with joy.
The two supremely holy people who changed the order of the world was Moses and Chana. When Moses asked God to let him enter the Land of Israel, he did not do it in the right order and the proper and wise way by praising the Creator. Moses realized that most likely he wouldn’t be allowed to enter the Land, so he felt great sadness when even making his request. He realized that the Israelites wouldn’t achieve their complete rectification and the First and Second Temples would be destroyed and the Israelites would go into exile. Moses was already broken and sad when he begged God to let him enter the Land of Israel.
This was already different from the way that all the holy individuals up to that generation asked God for requests. Moses immediately asked God to enter the land, instead of preceding his prayer by first propitiating and honoring God. He was like a person who goes to a king and gives him gifts but immediately after makes a personal request. Moshe changed the order that was accepted in the world at that time to ask God for requests.
Chana also changed the order. When she prayed for sons she did not pray in the customary way which involved coming to Eli the high priest in the Tabernacle, offering a sacrifice and asking for her request with joy. When Chana came to the Tabernacle, "and Chana spoke to her heart, only her lips were moving and her voice was not heard and Eli thought she was drunk." (Samuel I 1:13) She was sitting and crying, instead of praying in the way that a person usually arranges his prayer - with joy. When Eli the high priest saw her, he thought she was a drunkard, because he knew that one who prays properly is joyous and not sad the way she was. Eli thought she was intoxicated because a drunkard can do two opposite things at the same time, such as to cry and laugh. Eli saw that, on one hand, Chana’s heart was lofty and devoted to Hashem, but on the other hand, she was crying.
That is why the Midrash Rabbah (2:1) says on the verse, "I entreated God”: If a Jew is standing in prayer, should he be permitted to pray out loud? Our rabbis teach (Brachot 31a): “If one is standing in prayer, he can pray with a loud voice."
But we see from Chana (Samuel I 1:13) that she prayed silently to herself. The midrash links Chana's prayer to Moshe's prayer because their prayer was similar, containing the two aspects of weeping and sadness as well as great devotion to God. That is how they made their requests from God.
And this is the great path of prayer that Moshe and Chana showed to the Jewish people. Moses was the first that did this and Chana reinforced it. The fact is that a person can come to God without preparations and "Pour out your heart like water" (Lamentations 2:19) without the usual preparations and well-known rules with which one comes to pray. A person can come with a broken heart deriving from his devotion to Hashem. He can pour out his heart to Hashem for a certain thing, and be happy and pray to God at the same time over his request.
This article was written in cooperation with Shuva Israel