Forging A Connection
This Dvar Torah was originally published in Torah && Tech, the weekly newsletter I publish together with my good friend Ben Greenberg. To order volume one of Torah && Tech containing the first year’s worth of Divrei Torah or to subscribe to get the weekly issue delivered straight to your inbox click here.
A few weeks ago, we spoke about the concept of Teshuva. We mentioned that the common translation of “repentance” is inaccurate, and how the real meaning of the Hebrew word Teshuvah is closer to the idea of “return” to your true self.
This week I would like to examine another term commonly associated with the High Holidays, the concept of Tefillah.
Tefillah is commonly translated as “prayer,” but “prayer” in Hebrew is not Tefillah but bakashah.
These terms are opposites. Bakashah means to pray, request, beseech. But Tefillah means to attach oneself (see Rashi on Bereshit 30:8).
In bakashah, the person asks G‑d to provide them, from above, with what they lack. Therefore when a person does not need anything or feels no desire for a gift from above, bakashah becomes redundant.
But in Tefillah, the person seeks to connect to G‑d. It is a movement from below, from humanity, reaching towards G‑d. And this is something appropriate to everyone and at every time.
Similar to how when you need to access a website, you do it with an HTTP request. The meaning of the word “request” here is not the same as what laypeople mean with that word; you aren’t asking the server to please be nice and serve up a webpage. The server is ready to serve the web page, you just need to connect to it via the HTTP request, and as soon as the connection is established, the server can send over the webpage.
And, just as there are different kinds of HTTP requests, there are also other kinds of Tefillot. There are GET requests, where we ask G-d to provide us with our needs. PATCH requests where we beseech G-d to annul any harsh decrees that may have already been decreed against us. And (most relevant to Yom Kippur), DELETE requests where we ask G-d to erase our sins.
The Jewish soul has a bond with G‑d. But it also inhabits a body, whose preoccupation with the material world may attenuate that bond. So it has continuously to be strengthened and renewed. This is the function of Tefillah. And it is necessary for every Jew.
For while there may be those who do not lack anything and thus have nothing to request of G‑d, there is no-one who does not need to attach themself to the source of all life.
Shanah Tovah,
Yechiel
