Tefillah - 100 There is Always Hope

A Slanderer Is Hopeless

ולמלשינים אל תהי תקוה – We ask Hashem in this blessing of Shemoneh Esrei that slanderers should have no hope.

The Gemara[1] recounts how this blessing was added to Shemoneh Esrei at a later time when the Jewish people were suffering from disloyal people who were slandering them to the Roman government. This blessing was not part of the original 18 blessings that was established by the Great Men of Assembly; it was a blessing that came entirely due to the spiritual descent of the generations.

The Vilna Gaon explains that we merited the exodus from Egypt due to the fact that we did not change the way we spoke. We recognized that our power of speech is more elevated than the other nations, and thus, we praise Hashem that we became “exalted above all languages” when we departed from Egypt. But someone who slanders another Jew has misuses his power of lashon, and in doing so, he has basically extricated himself from the Jewish people. A malshin (slanderer) is therefore a moiser. He has fallen to the state of being “given over.” By slandering another Jew he has disgraced the elevated power of speech in the Jewish people, he has really given himself over to the sitra achra Other Side of Evil. In his act of disloyalty, he becomes like “another” person, who is apart from the Jewish people.

The malshin/slanderer has reached such a low level that he is considered to be hopeless. Thus, we ask Hashem in this blessing that such a person should not have any hope, because indeed, such a person has sunk so low that he is deserving of hopelessness.

The Gemara[2] says that most wicked people that suffer in Gehinnom eventually achieve their rectification, and they are purified in Gehinnom. But a Jew who became a malshin endures an eternal Gehinnom, and he is never rectified. Although there is a rule that the wicked will eventually be rectified in the future, this rule does not apply to slanderers. Slanderers have sunken to such a low level that they have no hope whatsoever, not even in Gehinnom.

The Blessing That Describes The Ultimate Death

This blessing in Shemoneh Esrei, ולמשלינים, was not part of the original 18 blessings that were enacted. The 18 original blessings of Shemoneh Esrei correspond to the word chai (life) in Hebrew, which has the numerical value in Hebrew of 18. In other words, the 18 blessings of Shemoneh Esrei represent life. In the 18 blessings of Shemoneh Esrei –whether it is a blessing in which we praise Hashem, or whether it is a blessing in which we make requests of Hashem - we are “standing before the King.” We are amidst life. But in the blessing of ולמלשינים we are not amidst the original 18 blessings, thus, we are really standing at a point of death. In this blessing, we do not ask to better our life - we ask Hashem to bring death upon the wicked slanderers. It is a blessing about death.

In the regular 18 blessings of Shemoneh Esrei, we are in a state of to “stand before the King.” This is because in whatever it is that we go through in our life, we always have hope [we can always “stand before the King”, i.e. reconnect to the Creator]. Even when a Jew becomes distanced from the Creator through sins, there is always hope that he can return and once again stand in front of the King. In this blessing, though, we are describing people who have no hope – slanderers. This implies that as long as one is not a slanderer, there is still a hope in the soul to stand in front of the King.

The Power of Tikva/Hope

The power of hope is called tikvah, and it is described in the words Kavei el Hashem – “Place your hope in Hashem.” The Sages expound on this that one should keep placing his hope in Hashem, continuously – chazor v’kavei, keep hoping.

What does it mean to place hope in Hashem? It does not just mean that a person hopes that Hashem will provide him with parnassah or something else he needs. It is not a hope we have for partial aspects of our life. It is rather referring to a hope that our soul has to return to its root, its Source – a hope to stand in front of the King. This is the soul’s entire hope that it longs for.

We all have various hopes in our life, such as hope to earn a living, hope that our health will be fine, etc. But often these are hopes for partial aspects of our life; they are not hopes that use the root power of hope in the soul, tikvah. The real power of hope in the soul, tikvah, is when we continuously hope to return to our Source, to be able to stand in front of the King, Hashem.

Slanderers will never have this kind of hope. ולמלשינים אל תהי תקוה. That is what we mean when we say in this blessing that they have no hope; a slanderer is missing the root power of hope in the soul, because his act of slander shows that he has removed himself from amidst the Jewish people, and thus he is hopeless to return to Hashem.

In this blessing, the 19^th blessing of Shemoneh Esrei which got added on due to the low situation of the generation (in which we were suffering from the disloyal), we leave the 18 blessings of Shemoneh Esrei, which represent life, and we enter the arena of death. We describe the death that awaits the slanderers, who are hopeless. The depth of this is that when hope a person completely loses hope, his entire life is really lost with it.

Only the slanderers are hopeless. In any other case when a Jew sins, there is always hope for him to return. The sefer Nefesh HaChaim writes that when a Jew sins, his soul leaves his body, and he becomes like a dead person, whereupon his body becomes impure. However, there is always hope. A slanderer is the only exception to this rule; he has no hope.

Using The Power of Hope

Now we will expand upon this discussion and sharpen the concept.

There is a Creator, and there is His Creation. What can connect all creations to Hashem? How can a human being have a connection to the Creator, Who is way above our perception? Even the most perfected person in the world is, after all, a mere human being; therefore, how is it possible for man to have a connection with the Creator, a Being completely beyond any human? The answer is: because we have a power called tikvah, hope.

Tikvah is listed as one of the 70 forces of the soul, according to the Vilna Gaon. However, it is not just another one of the forces in the soul. The sefarim hakedoshim write that tikvah is the power that can ultimately return a person to his Source, Hashem.

No matter how much a person tries, it is not possible with human effort to get to the Creator. The only way is to keep hoping that you will get there. To have tikvah means to continuously hope in Hashem, again and again – Kavei el Hashem (Place your hope in Hashem), chazor v’kavei (and keep hoping). If a person keeps hoping, again and again, that he can have a connection with the Creator - he has hope in getting there.

People have all kinds of hopes in their life for various things. But the root hope in the soul is the hope to return to the soul’s source, Hashem.

Tikvah/hope is really a power that our seichel/intellect cannot understand. Our intellect does not understand the concept of hope, and it rationalizes with you, telling you that there is no point in trying when something doesn’t seem possible. But when we use our power of tikvah/hope, we can connect ourselves to the point that is beyond our intellect, and then we will be able to see how it really is possible…

For example, one of our 13 principles of faith is that we believe in the coming of Moshiach. Not only do we believe he will come, but we must keep hoping in his arrival, “even though he tarries, I await for him.” Our intellect cannot fathom how we can possibly await Moshiach, since he has not come for all these years. But through our power of tikvah, we can access our hope that he will come. When a person has tikvah, he connects himself to the reality of spirituality – he receives the power to hope in Moshiach, because he places his hope in Hashem, continuously.

When a person doesn’t reveal the power of tikvah in his life, he has no source from where to draw his vitality from. This is true even if he knows intellectually about the concept of tikvah, but he hasn’t yet revealed it yet as an active ability in his life.

When a person does not reveal tikvah, he is placing himself in the same situation as a slanderer, who does not have hope. Without tikvah, a person has no source of vitality in his life; he lives a life that is like death. Similarly, Chazal say that the wicked are dead while being alive. It is because the wicked have separated themselves from the true source of vitality, thus, they have no life-sustaining energy, so they are considered to be dead.

Without revealing the power of tikvah, a person lives life in one big slumber. A person needs to actually reveal his power of tikvah, to draw forth vitality from it.

Revealing Hope

Each of us has two parts to our life – there are things we have, and there are things we don’t have. On one hand, Chazal say that we need to be someach b’chelko – to be happy with our lot, to realize what we have. But on the other hand, we also need to reflect on what we are missing in our life. We need to reflect on the pain we have from our life and what to do about it.

Now, if a person’s feelings are deadened, he simply does not reflect at all about his pain that he has in his life. But if someone has even a little bit of feeling still left in him, he feels pain from his life. What should he do about the pain? One must reveal the power of tikvah – to place hope in Hashem that Hashem can take you out of any situation.

‘Hope’ does not just mean that a person simply acts ‘hopeful’ in his life and he begins to hope for things. Hope is not a purpose unto itself; rather, it is drawn from our hope in Hashem. When we place our hope in Hashem that He can take us out of any situation - that is where we draw forth our power of hope.

Our Rabbis wrote that once a person reveals his power of tikvah, he is found with the light of Hashem - “For In the light of Your face we walk.” Similarly, Chazal say that if someone properly mourns Jerusalem, he will merit to see it rebuilt. The depth of this is that when a person has tikvah in Hashem, when he truly has tikvah in Hashem, he will feel the reality of Hashem more and more, according to the amount of tikvah that he revealed.

Coming Out of Emptiness

When a person doesn’t access the power of tikvah, he remains with a deep empty void in his life, a chalal (emptiness). If a person never feels this inner emptiness, then all kinds of “snakes and scorpions” can enter, for when the “pit is empty and there is no water in it”, Chazal say that “snakes and scorpions” will enter it, a reference to evil influences that can come upon a person when he has a spiritual emptiness in his life.

But if a person is a bit of sensitive, he can feel what’s going on inside himself a little, and he feels the emptiness. From that very feeling of emptiness, though, he can awaken his power of tikvah. In fact, it precisely because he has discovered his inner emptiness that he can reflect on the spirituality that is lacking in his life, and he will then seek to fill the void.

What does it mean for a person to place his tikvah in Hashem? It means that one’s entire hope should be in Hashem, and not to simply ‘hope’ for other things to go well. This is the true description of an inner kind of life – that we should place our entire hope in Hashem, and to realize that we have no other source of hope.

The first step is for a person to at least feel how he is somewhat empty inside. After reflecting upon the emptiness, the next step is for a person to focus on how the source of hope is Hashem.

There are people who succeeded to become more hopeful in their life, but they don’t reveal that the source of hope is Hashem. They become more hopeful in that they feel that maybe others will be able to help them. But this is not what it means to reveal the power of tikvah. Tikvah is only when a person realizes that his only source of hope can come from Hashem. This is because hope is not just another power of the soul. It is the root of how we connect to the Creator.

The word tikvah comes from the word kav, a “straight line.” When a person puts himself on a straight line with Hashem, so to speak, he can move up towards the end of the line and see how the source of his hope is only Hashem.

When We Feel Like We Are Missing Things In Our Life

If a person ever feels that he’s missing something in his life, he should know the following. Whenever we feel lacking in our life, the only thing we are really lacking is to feel Hashem as a reality in our life. Any feeling of lacking in our life can only stem from a lack of feeling Hashem. So if we ever feel like we lack something, it is a reminder that we lack one thing alone: that we need to feel Hashem as a reality in our life. If the reality of Hashem would fill our heart, we would never feel lacking at all about anything.

So when we feel like we are missing something in our life, we need to make a deep reflection and ask ourselves where this feeling is coming from. Why do I feel like I am missing such and such in my life?It can only be because I am missing the feeling of the reality of Hashem in my life.After reaching this conclusion, use your power of tikvah and place your hope in Hashem that it is only He who can fill the emptiness you are feeling.

The words here are really simple, but at the same time, they are very far from most people in this generation. Most people feel that they are missing things in their life and they feel somewhat empty inside, but they often do not know what the source of the emptiness is. We must be able to feel what the source of all inner emptiness is. The soul inside us is never satisfied with any of the things found on this world, for it comes from Above.

In Conclusion

This is a description of an inner life. The opposite of this are those who are deemed hopeless, the slanderers, whom we daven about in Shemoneh Esrei that they have no hope – ולמלשינים אל תהי תקוה.

The inner way to live life is to continuously place our hope in Hashem, and only in Hashem. When we continuously place our hope in Hashem, we will then feel Him more and more in our heart. When the reality of Hashem fills the entire heart, one has d’veykus (attachment) with Hashem, and it is then that he is truly considered to be alive, as it is written, ואתם הדבקים בה' אלוקיכם חיים כולכם היום.