Tefillah - 068 Praying For The Redemption

Davening For Our ‘Personal’ Redemption

גאלנו גאולה שלימה וכו'. We daven in Shemoneh Esrei to Hashem that He bring the redemption. Later in Shemoneh Esrei, we also daven for the redemption, in the blessings of ולירושלים andאת צמח דוד, but there we daven for the general redemption that will come to the masses. Here we are davening for our own “personal” redemption.

Usually, why does a person want redemption? Why does a person want the redemption?

The simple reason is because we all have tzaros (suffering and troubles). The world is indeed full of many, many tzaros. The more we go through life, the more we hear about that others go through, in addition to our own personal tzaros. The more we hear about tzaros, the more we wish there would be a redemption already. We can’t take the suffering.

Our soul suffers from all the suffering of our brethren. Thus we yearn for the redemption, so that the world will be a tranquil place once again and there will be no more suffering.

If a person only focuses on his own tzaros, he davens for the redemption only so he can get out of his personal tzaros, or from his general sadness in his life, and his entire yearning for the redemption is all about himself. But if a person uncovers a more inner place in his soul, he davens for the redemption because he wishes that others’ tzaros will end, out of love for Klal Yisrael.

Nefesh HaBehaimis Vs. Neshamah

Yet there is a deeper motive we can have as well, to want the redemption.

When a person davens, where he is davening from in himself? We have a body and a soul. Are we davening to put an end to our body’s pain, or to our soul’s pain? It’s possible that a person is davening for 20 years, for 3 times a day, and he davened thousands of tefillos, yet he always davened from his body! The same is true with doing mitzvos. It’s possible that a person did all the mitzvos, but he did it all by rote, (melumadah).

If a person davens that the suffering of others should end, it can still be coming from his “nefesh habehaimis” (lower, animalistic part of the soul) that can’t take the suffering of the world. (If only a person were to even reach this basic level of Ahavas Yisrael, in which he doesn’t want other Jews to suffer, which is a simple feeling that comes from the nefesh habehaimis).

What does it mean to daven from our soul, from our neshamah? The simple answer is to daven for our spiritual needs. But even when a person davens for spirituality, his davening isn’t necessarily coming from his neshamah.  Davening for others to have a child or they should find their shidduch doesn’t yet mean we are davening from the neshamah; it comes from a simple feeling of empathy that our nefesh habehaimis feels. Davening for our spiritual needs is perhaps a spark of spirituality, but it isn’t yet coming from our neshamah. It is still the level of nefesh habehaimis.

In order to daven from our neshamah, we need to identify our neshamah’s perspective, and actively live with it.

Otherwise, a person goes his whole life and learns Torah and does all the mitzvos on a superficial level. He learns Torah by rote, or because it’s intellectually stimulating, or because he gets honor from it, or because it gives him satisfaction in life…these are all motives felt by our nefesh hebahaimis. This is not yet the neshamah.

The Perspective Of Our Neshamah

Our neshamah in Gan Eden did not just ‘want’ other things than our body wants. It had a whole different perspective on how to live life. So living a life of neshamah doesn’t just mean to “want” different things than our body wants. It means to change our entire perspective on life altogether. Then we will want different things, because our desires will change as our perspective changes and matures.

For example, a child is into things that children like. He’s into toys, games, and various activities that children like. Adults want different things than children, but very often they are still like little children, and in fact, they seek even more things than children in the material world. It is just that they’re not running after toys anymore; they’re onto ‘bigger and better’ things, such as the pursuit of honor. He still sees life with the same way a child views life. In the ideal situation, an adult needs to gain a mature perspective on life and see things totally different than how a child sees things.

That was a parable we can use from the physical world that helps us understand of how we can relate to our neshamah’s perspective: we need to change our perspective entirely.

Here is a very clear example of the concept. A chosson and kallah get married, and they are very happy when they are engaged; they are thrilled with each other. Soon after they get married, they usually aren’t as happy as when they got married. Rav Dessler zt”l would often speak about this: What happens? Where does their simcha go?

Their perspectives changed. They used to be immature, so they were happy when they get engaged, because they were immature then. They sensed something between them that they couldn’t understand, and that is what drew them together. Their mazal saw that they were for each other, so they felt happiness with each other. But for the most part, the immaturity of their life takes up larger space than their “mazal”, so they mostly experience a kind of infatuation for each other that stemmed from immaturity.

They are engaged and excited to be married, and then comes the wedding. Weddings today are very joyous occasions, in spite of the fact that people know good and well that the happiness will soon wane afterwards. Why? It because all of this ‘happiness’ comes from the body. Thus, weddings today also reflect the usual kind of ‘happiness’ we find today, which is devoid of the soul.

Simcha (happiness)is a deep feeling that comes from the neshamah. It comes from a mature and deep perspective towards life, and not from a state of childish immaturity.

The Depth of Praying For Redemption

When we daven that Hashem should take away our suffering, and we daven that our children should be spared suffering and that others be spared suffering, this is not a spiritual request. It is not yet a yearning for the redemption, where there will be the era of Mashiach, a world in which G-dliness will be fully revealed.

When we daven here in Shemoneh Esrei that Hashem spare us from suffering and that He bring us personal redemption, what indeed are we davening for? It is not to daven to be spared from our many physical tzaros or even for the tzaros of others, which indeed there are many. The main tzarah we have is that our inner world of the soul is hidden from us.

A young child sees the world differently than an adult. His outlook on life is immature and superficial. In the same way, most people live life superficially, and they do not have a mature enough outlook on life. If people would gain a more mature outlook on life, a spiritual outlook that comes from the neshamah, most of the “tzaros” that people have would go away. Most of the tzaros that people have in their life are about physicality.

One of the students of the Ramban was niftar young. The Ramban asked the student to come to him in a dream after he dies and reveal to him what’s going on in the World of Truth. The student came to his teacher in a dream and said, “If people would live a more spiritual kind of life on this world, most of their troubles would go away.”

So when we ask Hashem for the redemption, it is not just about taking away our suffering of the exile. It is so that we can leave the perspective of our body and enter the perspective of our soul.

The Things That Pain Us

Even people who devote their lives to serving Hashem are affected somewhat by the desires of this world, wanting things that do not come from the neshamah. All of these retzonos (desires) are stemming from the body and not from the neshamah. This is our biggest problem right now, our biggest tzarah – the fact that the true yearnings of our neshamah are concealed from us.

People are full of many desires, all kinds of desires, which cause them tremendous anxiety. Even people involved with spirituality also tend to suffer from anxiety about their emotional well-being.

For example, there are people who can’t fall asleep at night, because they are obsessed with receiving kavod (honor); they wonder why they are not getting the honor from people that they feel should be coming to them. It can get to the point that a person needs to take pills so he can relive his anxiety over this.

This is just one example that we picked. But there are many more examples of this, in which people are full of internal suffering. There’s a lot of physical suffering on this world, but there is even more emotional suffering taking place - in particular, the suffering people have in which they wish they could be receiving more kavod. [But if a person would have the yearnings that come from his neshamah, the desire for kavod would be nullified, in place of greater spiritual yearnings].

In Conclusion

To daven for the redemption means to view life from our neshamah, and therein lays redemption.

This is not even referring to davening for Mashiach, which will be the situation of the Next World, a completely spiritual realm of revealed G-dliness. We are referring to a stage of redemption that needs to come way before that. It is a redemption that can take place in this current lifetime we live in, within this very physical world. It is that we gain the view of our neshamah, and then we will feel personal redemption.

Indeed, there were always individuals in every generation who lived with their neshamah’s perspective.

May Hashem merit us to be redeemed – not just from the personal tzaros that each of us has, but to truly experience the complete redemption, the coming of Moshiach, speedily in our days.