Rebbetzin Leah Gans
"Grabbing" Mitzvot
Sometimes a person becomes so absorbed in their thoughts during prayer that they only “surface” at “Barech Aleinu” or even later... What should they do now? Is everything lost?
The Chafetz Chaim offers the following parable. A woman brought a basket of apples to the market to sell. A rampaging troublemaker suddenly overturned her basket, and the apples scattered in every direction. People with “sticky fingers” began grabbing the apples. She cried out, “The apples! They've scattered my apples!” There was a wise man there. He approached the woman selling the apples and said, “Grab them! They're grabbing them, so you grab them too, or there really will be nothing left!”
The same applies to prayer and to every mitzvah a person performs: wherever you come to your senses, start grabbing! Grab—don't stand still! There is no need to say that everything is lost, that it is too late, or “I've already made so many mistakes.” Whatever a person manages to grab will be theirs. In prayer, this means that from the moment a person “surfaces,” they should begin praying with kavanah.
The Required Minimum
The Rishonim disagreed over whether there is a Torah commandment to pray every day.
Rambam (Sefer HaMitzvot, 5) held that praying every day is a Torah commandment, and that with one prayer a day a person fulfills the Torah commandment of prayer.
He cited the verses (Exodus, 23:25): “And you shall serve (va'avadtem) the L-rd your G-d, and He will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from your midst,” and also (Deuteronomy, 6:13): “You shall fear the L-rd your G-d and serve Him, and (then) swear by His Name.” Our Sages explained that prayer is avodah (service) of the heart. At first, people prayed as they felt moved to—some at greater length, others more briefly—but later the Men of the Great Assembly established the form of prayer.
Ramban holds (Hasagot) that the Torah does not require a person to pray every day; rather, it was the Men of the Great Assembly who instituted three prayers a day.
Ramban holds that the Torah obligation may be to pray when misfortune befalls a person, when a difficult period in life begins. He cites the verse (Numbers, 10:9): “And when you go to war in your land against the oppressor who oppresses you, sound short blasts on the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the L-rd your G-d, and you will be saved from your enemies.” Since this verse mentions turning to the Almighty during an enemy invasion, Ramban holds that under Torah law, the obligation of prayer is to turn to the Creator when troubles overwhelm us.
Which sections of the morning prayers should women recite today (if they are not overwhelmed with caring for children and running the home)?
Rav Elyashiv answered as follows: The blessings over Torah study, the morning blessings, “Tamid”; “Pesukei DeZimra”: “Baruch She'amar,” “Ashrei,” “Yishtabach”; “Kriat Shema” (“Emet Veyatziv,” “Ga'al Yisrael”); “Shemoneh Esrei.”
It is said of the Chafetz Chaim that throughout the time his wife was caring for their young children, until they grew older, he exempted her from the obligatory prayers during the day. There are several reasons for this.
First, “one who is engaged in one mitzvah is exempt from another mitzvah.” A woman cannot simultaneously watch a baby crawling away and stand in the Amidah. Second, “her mind is not at ease”: she is constantly thinking about her responsibilities and the tasks she needs to do, and this distracts her.
to be continuedPrepared by: Mrs. Zissi Skarzhinskaya