Vaetchanan And How We Pray

If tisha b’av was a day when prayers were closed off, shut up, as Lamentations proclaims, "satam tefilati, my prayers were shut out," then this Shabbat nachamu should be a Shabbat of opening up of prayers. And indeed it is. The name of the parasha, vaetchanan means ‘and I prayed’ and the gematria of vaetchanan is tefilah, prayer, and Moshe here sets the standard for prayer. As the gemara in Avodah Zarah 7a says, a person should always organize his praise of G-d and then pray. The proof is from Moshe and how he asks to enter Israel in our parasha. The parasha also speaks of the Jews one day calling out to G-d from galut, exile, and of the unique role of prayer for Jews, "Who is like Israel who have G-d close to them, like Hashem our G-d every time we call to him."

But the notion of praising G-d before prayer can seem problematic. It seems as if we want to butter G-d up and then try to get whatever we can after that. It seems very self serving and insincere. So of course the Sfas emes comes to the rescue. He says that the role of praising G-d at the outset of our prayers is not to butter up G-d but to affirm a proper attitude and theology before we begin our prayers. If you look at the average prayer, you could come to the false conclusion that Hashem does very little for us and has created a fundamentally flawed world. We seem to say that there is something wrong with G-d’s world visa vis healing, parnasa, making a living, redemption, Jerusalem, you name it- it seems to be flawed. If all I see is G-dlessness, all I see are the gaps in which I can’t find G-d then where is there room for prayer? By beginning our prayers with praise we affirm that we see more than brokenness in this world.

Actually, by asking G-d for so many things, we are saying that we are under his hashgacha, Providence, so we do see him. The shevach, the praise, explicitly states that I believe in His providence over the world. I believe that G-d has already shined his godliness on all of us. And help is on the way.

Kavanah means that we see the heorot, the lights in the world, the near perfection. Then we can ask for the perfection of the imperfect, but first you need to see the geulah, redemption, how G-d makes things good and then you can go on to ask G-d to fix what is missing. This explains why the rabbis insist that in our prayers after shema we link redemption and prayer, g’ula and prayer. First we must see how there is light and redemption in the world, then we can begin to ask G-d, who is involved in the world, to perfect that light.