Rebbetzin Leah Gans
Wholehearted Prayer
It is written in the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah, 17b): “Rabbi Meir said: ‘Two people took to their beds (fell ill), and their illness was the same; likewise, two went up to the scaffold, and their sentence was the same. One came down (recovered), and the other did not; one was saved, and the other was not. Why did one come down while the other did not? Why was one saved while the other was not? One prayed and was answered, while the other prayed and was not answered?’” This is a difficult question: one person's fate changed because of his prayer, while the other's remained the same. Why?
Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Eliezer differed in their answers to this question. Rabbi Meir says that although both people prayed, only one of them offered a wholehearted prayer—and he was answered. (Rabbi Eliezer, however, holds that the person whose sentence was revoked had not yet received a final judgment, which is why his prayer was successful.) Rashi answers the question of what wholehearted prayer is. It is prayer offered in the proper frame of mind.
The best-known prayer by a woman in the Tanakh is the prayer of Hannah, Samuel's mother.
From her prayer, the Sages of the Talmud derive the laws governing how one should pray (I Samuel, 1:13): “And Hannah was speaking to herself; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard…” “To herself”—that is, not aloud; “her lips moved”—meaning that the words must be articulated.
Hannah prayed for the L-rd to send her a son, and hers was a prayer from a mindful heart. Hannah's prayer accomplished the impossible and changed nature: according to our Sages, until then Hannah did not even have the organ needed to bear children (a womb), but through her prayer it was created for her.
Prayer from the heart can change nature!
Concentration
Rabbeinu Bachya writes in “Chovot Halevavot” about a righteous man who always prayed in these words: “L-rd, save me from pizur hanefesh (a scattered soul).”
Concentration is very important in prayer. We have said that our Sages compared prayer to the service in the Temple. It is known that if, during the offering of a sacrifice, a kohen had machshavot piggul (thoughts about certain changes to the sacrificial procedure), he thereby rendered the sacrifice pasul (invalid).
Similarly, unrelated thoughts interfere with prayer—they prevent it from being accepted, which is why concentration is so important.
Rav Elchanan Bunim Wasserman, head of the yeshiva in Baranovich, was murdered by the Nazis at the Ninth Fort of the Kovno fortress. On his way to execution, Rav Elchanan explained to the students walking with him that they were going to undertake mesirut nefesh (sacrifice themselves) to sanctify the Almighty's Name (al kiddush Hashem—this is what it is called when a Jew dies for being a Jew).
What matters most now is to know that machshavot piggul invalidate a sacrifice; in other words, we must concentrate on clearing our thoughts of doubts about faith and about the completeness of Divine governance, and stand before the Almighty in such a state that this sacrifice will be accepted with favor in Heaven and counted as a merit for the entire people.
to be continuedprepared by: Mrs. Zissi Skarzhinskaya