Parshas Beshalach: Do You REALLY Know How to Pray?

Unlock the profound secrets of prayer embedded in Jewish tradition. How did the Israelites' cries at the Red Sea resonate with the ancient profession of prayer passed down from Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov? Join us as we unravel the depth of these emotional supplications, exploring insights from Rashi's commentary and Rabbi Yerucham and discussing how prayer has been essential to Jewish identity across generations. This episode promises to transform your understanding of prayer beyond the ritual, illuminating its role as a cornerstone of faith and identity.

We also tackle the tension between rote practices and genuine faith, using the Israelites' actions to mirror modern spiritual challenges. Can we move beyond mechanical rituals to embrace the essence of sincere prayer? With insights from the Maharal and reflections on societal relationships, we draw parallels that challenge us to seek authenticity in our spiritual lives. By the end of this episode, you'll be inspired to reconnect with the heart of Jewish prayer, gaining a richer appreciation for its traditions and the profound spiritual experience it offers.

Chapters

• 0:05 The Power of Jewish Prayer
• 12:09 The Pitfalls of Mechanical Prayer
• 22:49 The Essence of Heartfelt Prayer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

The Egyptians chased down the Israelites. It seems like this entire incredible narrative of Moshe Rabbeinu leading the Jewish people out of Mitzrayim with the Almighty's incredible wonders and the ten destructive and berating plagues, it seems like it will all be for naught, as Pharaoh and his riders and his warriors, they gather themselves up and they encamp by the sea near Pi-Hachiros, that is, right before Baal-Tzifon. It seems like they are gaining on them. Who Pharaoh, he crave, they are. And the Jewish people? They raise their eyes, they look over their shoulders. They're gaining on us, they're getting closer and they became overcome with dread. They were greatly frightened and they cried out to God. In a strange turn of events, the Dorodea begins. A bit of blasphemous sarcasm. Moshe, was it that there weren't enough graves to have our levios and be buried back in Egypt? Is it that you brought us out to the wilderness to die Sharp biting, and back in Egypt? Is it that you brought us out to the wilderness to die? Mazos hasisolonolotzionu mimitzrayim? Sharp biting and rather hard to digest words from the Dordea. But allow me to direct your attention to an incredible Rashi here. Rashi on Deber Maschil vayitzo aku b'nei Yisrael el Hashem, that they cried out to God. Zokt, the holy Rashi. What is it that they were crying out for? What was encompassed within it? Why did they do it, rashi? Taking care of perhaps many different bits of tension in the Pesach, they were grabbing onto the profession of their fathers. We know Avram Avinu cried out in prayer. We know that Yitzchak, the great patriarch, installed into Judaism and Yaakov, he bumped into the place and a pagia is a. He points out to us an incredible and rather novel insight that one may miss when reading this Rashi. Rashi calls our Vayitsoaku, our crying out, our prayer, an umnis, a career choice, our line of work, our profession, our trade, our job.

Speaker 1: 3:06

A Jewish person. When he wakes up in his day and commutes back and forth, his job is prayer. His umnes, that he inherited from his forefathers, is tefillah. Rabbi Urcham points out in the way that, in his classic style, he does that tailors a needle and thread with them. A chayit, a shoemaker, keeps his owl, this funky curved tool to punch holes in leather, with him. He keeps it, does the shoemaker and learns how to use it, because that's his umnes and a Jew. What is it that he wakes up to do? What is it that is his sacred tools. That's the trait. It is tefillah, it is prayer, it is hisidr, it is praying and crying out to God. That's what we do as Jews.

Speaker 1: 4:16

It's really a tale as old as time as this Fortune 500 company was really created by Avraham Avinu. He installed for us that we daven, that we cry out to God. Yitzhak followed and, just like my grandfather was a doctor and my great-grandfather was a doctor, and eventually my father was a doctor, I'm a doctor and I pray because I'm a part of the company Kalal Yisrael channeled their inner DNA and they bought into this profession that they have learned from the Avos Avram, yitzchak and Yaakov. Prayer is an occupation. But there's something else that Rabbi Urcham points out that the raya's the proofs of where we find the loshen of vayitzu aku to be a grabbing on to the tools of the trade and the profession. That is prayer that our forefathers utilized. It's being applied right here, at a time when there's ultimate distress, there's ultimate lachatz, there's ultimate fear and dread, and after being overcome with emotion, they cried out Ashrei, yoishvei, veisecha, oide, halaluch HaSelah. They cried out Boruch Ves, hashem HaMevoirach and Shema Yisrael, hashem Elokeinu, hashem Echad. They cried out in prayer, as they learned from their forefathers.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Rabbi Rav Yerucham shows to us is that, if this is to be a true Raya, and clearly what Rashi is getting at, is that we also get a look, alishar, we get a look over the wall into what the Shachras, mincha and Marav looked like when our forefathers daffened. Their Mincha was mitaych min ametza karasika. It was mitaych boyre oylem aynidja tata en himmel, the men of incredible strength and incomprehensible dveikas to the b'yirei oylem, their tefillah. You can imagine how powerful it was if it actually became installed into Shulchan Aruch for all of time, for every Jew to daven three times a day A chiddish here of that. Just imagine the crying Jewish people on the shores of the yamsuf. They learned that Tefillah, how that should look from the mincha, from the marav of the avos.

Speaker 1: 7:06

The truth is that the boiri oylem was really in search and was mis'ave for this type of tefillah. Shmos Rab Chof Aleph hey, look it up. It tells us that the Boirei Oylem was actually mis'ave for this type of tefillah Of a min ha'metz ark ha'rosi, ko'anoni, ba'mer chav ka type of tefillah, a tefillah mitaych lachatz, because, quote from Shemos Rabba Chof Aleph he. I wish that the Jews would cry out to me like they did in Egypt. The Medrash shows us. Rashi quotes it in one of his comments on our parasha, that Hashem actually orchestrated the events so that there would be some more lachatz, because Hashem craved, longed and had a hankering kaviyachol for the prayer mitoch lachatz, amenam, mitzvah type of prayer. So he set us up between the water and the mitzrim, our bloodthirsty taskmasters chasing us down because it seems Hashem was not misava for our half-hearted or perhaps less than pain-filled and pressure-induced shachres, mincha and marifs. We know this concept that God wants to hear us in this type of direct connection. God pains the righteous, pains the mothers, gives Zarev Geroch Ovelea infertility because he was mes'ave for their prayer. It's this type of umnes, it's this profession that tefillah is for the Jew.

Speaker 1: 9:00

I get to witness this every single day. I'm in a dating chabura. I watch the bachram continue to plug away and learn the sugyas of Hezka Zabatim about why one needs to have a claim along with his chazaka, chazaka shiyeshi motayna while traveling to and from distant locations trying to find their zivog. But when they stay for mincha after a shiur, I get a glimpse of what somebody who's standing on the edge of a large life decision, what it is that he looks like in prayer. Please, bayrei Olam, I need this sherech to go through. Please, bayrei Olam, hear my tefillah. All my friends are getting married and I'm stuck here in the mud. Please, bayrei Olam, a tefillah, mitayich lachatz, I get to witness and it's Ein Adayimah from somebody that prays with a stone-hearted, half-hearted, rather un-Kavana filled prayer. That's what happened at the Yom Tov.

Speaker 1: 10:11

The approach number two to this Rashi is far less encouraging, far less peachy, keen, hunky-dory and rainbows and butterflies, but much more dark, sharp, rebuke-filled and, may we even say, filled with chastisement and rebuke. So feel free to pause, turn off, fast forward or do what you like, but you have been forewarned and the approach is not mine. The approach is coming from the great Gur Arieh, rebbe Hulda Loewi of Prague, the holy Maharal Mi Prague, 1548 to 1578. And his super commentary on Rashi El Miprag 1548 to 1578, and his super commentary on Rashi, every word is gold and he flips the entire idea on its head. What does Rashi mean by Tofsu Omnis, avosom De'en Lomash Hayut Tzoyakim Kederach, hatzadikim Shehem Tzoyakim Be'e Sareh cannot mean that they cried out like the righteous.

Speaker 1: 11:08

It cannot mean something good that they grabbed onto the omnis. It cannot be positive. It's a ha'ayu mislonen emachsha, because we find that they're complaining. Well, there are not enough. Kivarim Lo yimahalo tov lo nuavodes mitzrayim. Why'd you take us out here, moshe? Clearly the nation is bemoaning the fact they are melancholic, perhaps the fact they are melancholic, perhaps even a bit depressed. So it must be that they grabbed onto an omnis. That is rather less than adequate. Ella zokta ma'aral shahayu omnis avosom shikach hayam minagavosom. This is what the forefathers did V'davarshu minagavosom nimshacha adam tamadacharav. And if it's the min, if it's the, they did it. So we do it, even though this generation, the Dardaiya, they did not do it with their heart, but they did it Because that's what daddy did.

Speaker 1: 12:09

The Ma'arau learns that Rashi is really bothered here by the fact of their tzarku el Hashem. They cry out to God, but then they continue to complain. They show a lack of faith, a lack of emunah. So it seems to be totally contradicting itself. A steer of mineyube, a tart of the sasri. How is it that the v'yitzaku v'yitzot akuel Hashem, and then they are misloining him, they're complaining, lacking faith.

Speaker 1: 12:40

That, says the Ma'aral is what's coming, that is what Rashi is coming to do, that they did technically pray, because that's what a Jew does, but they did not feel it. It was not. They did it because this is the minnuch. They did it in a very mechanical, motorized, uninvolved forgery, replication type of prayer, is that all I remember? My dad used to come home and watch the news, even though I don't care about the news yet, but that's what dad did, so I'll come home and watch the news. It's a bad muscle but hopefully you get the drift. The Jews prayed here Even though they did not necessarily feel it in their hearts, as is clear from their forthcoming actions. But the truth is that they just acted out of rote, out of minhug, because that's how dad used to act. But the sorry truth Maurel tells us is that the forefathers, they davened with Kavana, they da davened with Liboy, with Lev, but here it was a copying job and that's how it all makes sense as to why they went complaining in the future.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Psukim the Marah continues with something so sharp. But before we explain that, raya, it should shock you and should bother you and should also kind of provoke you. This idea, this idea that there's something unsatisfactory, something that needs improvement, by just acting out the mitzvos, without doing them with heart, the morale. He shocks us by telling us that if you daven and you follow in the ways of the Fortune 500 company of the umneshe lavosam, and you do it because Avram Yitz 500 company of the Umneshela Vosam, and you do it because Avram Yitzchak and Yaakov davened. That is still needing improvement. If you're going to daven hard, but then leave the shoal and go, act out not in accordance with how you have prayed and trusted in davening. It can be likened to a person. If this idea is hard for you to understand, the emshul l'chamashul amad avar doyme.

Speaker 1: 15:01

If somebody who is so badly in need of funds he needs to pay his rent and his mortgage let's put it his $4,000 and his bank account says $100, he needs money and he goes into shul and he davens because God said you gotta daven, but because and he davens because God said you got to daven, but because I know that my dad when he needed money, he would go and he would daven. But you don't actually understand what tefillah is, what it represents, what its value is, but you merely go through the mechanical actions of prayer before running out of shul and then you continue to rob, steal and cheat to do whatever you can to find the money because you are misleading him, and cheat to do whatever you can to find the money Because you are misleading him. You're complaining, but how is it that you prayed it to Styra? No, it's not a Styra, it's just we go through the actions of what God asks us to do and what our grandparents used to do, but we do it Without our minds and hearts attached. Tafsu umnes shel avosam Minagavusenu biyadenu.

Speaker 1: 16:01

From the dark side of the moon, the Maral tells us, citing a Gemara in Chulan, if you want to see an example of this concept, gemara's talking about what's the halacha of a heretic? Should shecht? Is it rendered treif? What status of treif? And the Gemara eventually comes out. Are there those that serve Avodah Zarah and Chutz La'aretz? Maybe there's a rove and maybe we'll have to pass all the shechita of roiv, oiv de kai chavim, and we'll go basar a roiv and therefore it is treif. Before Amr Rabi, yochanan Nachram, shebechutzol La'aretz.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Lav oyvdei avoydes k'ichavim. Rabbi Yochanan tells us that most oyved k'ichavim are actually not oyved avoydezara Ella minog avoseyhem biyodenim. Rather, they go to church, they bow down to idols, but it is not out of faith and devotion to their idols. They are not deemed, but rather it is just the passing down of the traditional custom of their ancestors that was transmitted to them and therefore they are not called because their hearts and minds are not attached to it. They're just following what their grandparents used to do. How chilling is that that the Ma'aral attaches that here to the nation. Standing by the Yom Sof Tof su'um nish'alavos and they prayed, but they went right off to complain because they were just merely mimicking Yaakov's Amida, yitzchak's Lasuach.

Speaker 1: 17:58

I'd listened to recently actually really shedded a lot of dark light upon this topic. A recent podcast that's forthcoming from a really smart person who interviews people that have been through traumatic divorces to try to figure out why it is that so many couples seem to be separating themselves from each other and divorcing each other, and sometimes it happens even within a week or even within two months. What exactly goes on? How can we stop this and how can we kind of make a social gathering to make people feel not so alone and even come up with some more information to solve the problem? And in the very first interview, the person being interviewed, who shall obviously remain nameless, mentioned that it was actually a very peaceful divorce. It was simply that one person her spouse was practicing orthopraxy instead of Judaism.

Speaker 1: 18:54

I wrote this word down. It's a hard one to say and I wasn't sure exactly what it meant Until I looked it up. The person also elaborated upon the topic, but apparently Her husband had gone Orthoprax. What that means Is that he was practicing Religion, torah, judaism, in the correct conduct, both ethical and liturgical, but in their heart did not buy in, they could not get behind the grace, the faith, but they were too embarrassed in their situation to stop acting as such. And it was a horrible situation.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Probably some poor choices made by some educators of this fellow, but that's not for today's discussion. But what is for today's discussion is that how scary is it that there's been a name given to mindless, half-hearted, stone-hearted service of God, a tefillah of atovs who shall umnes, shall avosam, a grabbing on to the avida. How many of us can honestly say that we are not guilty at some level of orthopraxy Orthopraxy, however, to say it, but acting, because of course dad didn't wear tefillin on Chol HaMoet, so I don't Do I know why, how or what. I know that dad davens three times a day, but do I know the priceless value of tefillah? I know that, dad, he has his chavrusa you have to learn in the morning and he did dafiyomi, but with the proper conduct, but without heart.

Speaker 1: 20:46

If it's merely a grabbing of what your grandparents used to do, you're either orthopraxy. And the slightest bit of God forbid some elements of conservative, of reform, of trying to mimic in some way and keep alive some old sacred tradition of Judaism. But it's so mistaken and so sad, because Judaism is vibrant and beautiful and fully alive in all of its effervescent colors today and now, and it's for each Jewish person to understand it and to ask those very same questions that his grandparents asked and get to the same clarity that you and your grandparents got to, and to ponder the great creations of the world, like Avraham Avinu. Because Judaism is not supposed to be an impartial exercise. It is supposed to be a study, it is supposed to be a searching. It is supposed to be a searching.

Speaker 1: 21:39

My rebbein would always tell me in a rather facetious way I beg of you, you take it the proper way, but don't trust rashi. What did they mean? Look it up for yourself, see if you learn it. The same way, how do you understand the gemara or the posuk? And then compare your notes with rashi and see why he's correct, why he learned that way and why he disregarded your approach. But be inquisitive, be insightful, be growth-seeking, come to the truth by your own right. Don't answer or say or mimic or barf out what your parents told you. Don't merely grab the career of your dad. Be a doctor, not because your grandparents were doctors and your dad Be a doctor, not because your grandparents were doctors and your dad was a doctor, but because you have a tremendous interest In medicine, in large profits and helping people. That's the dark side of the Tafsu umnes Of Osam.

Speaker 1: 22:49

Our lesson here today is that number one, your tefillah should be with a screaming out, pressure filled, pressure induced menametzar karossi ya type of tefillah, because that is how the Avos prayed. And on the other side, the flip side, how is it that the Jewish people prayed but then seemed to act without total faith when they complained that there were not enough graves in Egypt? That's because, the way the Ma'aral learns Rashi, their tefillah was mechanical, phony, computerized and without heart, but merely just a mimicking of what their grandparents used to do. And that is not how you pray, because it's an avodah shebelev. It's a prayer. It's a service that happens in the heart. It's a prayer. It's a service that happens in the heart.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Choose to act after educating yourself and internalizing the worth, the richness, the uniqueness of tefillah, of avodah. Choose to understand the unending Value and glory and beauty Of being Jewish. Educate yourself about the depth of Torah and the depth of tefillah. Daven from your heart, because you understand the value of Tyra and the depth of Tefillah. Daven from your heart because you understand the value of it. And that's because that's what one does, that's his profession, that I wake up and I daven, and I daven with fervor and passion, because I know that's what a Jew does, is he cries out to the master of the world Let us stop copying what dad and grandpa did. We should cry out to God because we know he is the only one that has the ability to help us and save us, and we should specifically dive in, like the Ma'aral tells us, like the Ma'aral tells us, that we should do it with our entire heart and entire mind, because that is the brilliant inheritance that we have inherited from Avosam, from our fathers.