Tefillah - 131 The Cure to Loneliness

Hashem Always Hears

(אב הרחמן) שמע קולינו ה' אלוקינו–  “Hear our voice, Hashem our G-d.” We ask Hashem in this blessing of Shemoneh Esrei that our voice “be heard” by Hashem when we pray.

It is understandable that we ask Hashem to have mercy on us, as we describe later in this blessing. But why do we daven that our prayers should be heard? Hashem knows everything – nothing is hidden from Him. So He is obviously hearing us as we pray. Why then must we daven that our voice be heard? Does He not hear us?

Our Sages state that if a person doesn’t have merits, his prayers aren’t heard. For example, the wicked king Menashe, when he realized he was about to die, began to scream out to Hashem in prayer to be saved. The angels in Heaven argued with Hashem that because he has no merits, he does not deserve to be answered.[1] So it seems that Hashem doesn’t always “hear” a prayer, because it depends on the accrual of merits.

However, the issue is not whether Hashem ‘hears’ the prayer or not. He hears every person praying. The entire issue is: Is a person talking to Hashem as if he would talk to a friend? The Mesillas Yesharim says that when a person prays to Hashem, he should talk to Him as when he talks to a friend.

Sensing The Existence of Hashem

Our original state, before the sin, was to talk to Hashem directly with no other calculations, and it was only after the sin that man become deviating and he lost the direct connection with Hashem. Man was created yoshor, upright, and after the sin, mankind fell into cheshbonos rabim, “many calculations“ – we deviated from our original pure state. Our avodah is to return to seichel hayoshor (our original straight-mindedness) and leave the cheshbonos rabim (“many calculations”) we are in.

A person might know, intellectually, that Hashem is everywhere and that He can be reached anywhere through prayer, but it might be entirely intellectual knowledge, and it is not yet a feeling by him that can be sensed.

To illustrate, when two friends are near each other, they can whisper; when they are far away, they have to call out to each other. When there is closeness, they talk together in a soft tone, even in a whisper, because they can hear each other.

When a person is davening to Hashem, he doesn’t always realize that he’s in front of Hashem. He might know that he’s davening to Hashem and be aware of it, but he doesn’t know that Hashem is right in front of him. Therefore, he doesn’t think that Hashem is hearing him very clearly. He might daven louder because he thinks that davening louder will get Hashem to hear him…

The Kotzker Rebbe zt”l pointed out that the people of Ninveh, who were non-Jews, screamed out to Hashem in order to be saved - whereas a Jew davens silently to Hashem. A Jew is close to Hashem, therefore, he can whisper to Hashem and be heard, whereas a non-Jew, who is not close to Hashem, has to scream out to Hashem in order to be heard. Only a Jew possesses the ability of a silent cry in his prayers to Hashem. Therefore, a Jew who needs to daven loudly to Hashem and doesn’t understand that Hashem can always hear him is missing a basic understanding about the essence of a Jew.

Thus, when we ask Hashem that He should hear our prayers, it is not because He doesn’t hear and we want to get Him to hear. It is so that we should realize that we are in front of Hashem and feel that Hashem is listening to us. The prayer of “Hear our voice” in Shemoneh Esrei is thus meant for us to realize that indeed, Hashem is hearing us.

When the light of our soul shines, we can feel Hashem’s existence, and we can feel it all the time with more we reveal the light of our soul. This helps us feel that Hashem is hearing our voice.

This understanding is not achieved through intellectually reflecting about it; it is something you can palpably sense. You can reflect about emunah with your intellect and you can know what it is conceptually, but you can’t feel a sense of Hashem just through your intellect. Rather, only when you feel and sense Hashem can you know what this experience is.

In order to achieve this, we should know that although tefillah is called avodah, first, we have an avodah to begin to recognize Hashem, and upon that our tefillos gain greater meaning. Generally, if we purify our existence through Torah and mitzvos, we reveal the light of our soul upon ourselves, and then we can recognize Hashem as a reality. This is true in the general sense. But besides for this, we must know the following.

Talking To Hashem More Often

One of the Sages said, “If only a person would pray the entire day.”[2] What does this mean? It doesn’t mean to daven 24|7. Even the entire day wouldn’t be enough to sing all of Hashem’s praise. Rather, it means that although we daven three times a day through the three payers that our Sages established, that’s not enough to recognize Hashem as a reality - even though we talk to Hashem for three times a day. If a person only talks to Hashem when he davens three times a day, what happens? The rest of the day takes away from that state of closeness, and he loses all his gains, just as a person who keeps interrupting his Torah learning, which causes him to lose his Torah learning.

Besides for the three times a day we daven, our life is supposed to be filled with talking to Hashem throughout the day. That is the inner kind of life. This is how the entire day becomes filled with tefillah – to keep talking to Hashem throughout the day.

When you live with people in the house, you talk to them. So too, we live with Hashem in our life. The more we realize that, the more we can realize that we need to talk to Him all the time, and not just when we daven three times a day. Living with Hashem will result in talking to Him all the time. If one gets used to talking to Hashem, in turn, he can feel Hashem’s existence more and more.

This inner way to live life is hidden from most people. Talking to Hashem doesn’t mean to only thank Him or ask Him for things. It means that because we live with Him in our life, that is why we talk to Him. That is how we include Him in all aspects of our life.

Rashi says that the Torah is called aishes chayil (woman of valor) because when one exerts himself in Torah, the Torah reveals its secrets, just like a wife tells her secrets to her husband. When a person lives a life of “Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li” (I am to my Beloved, and my Beloved is to me), he talks to Hashem all the time, because he realizes that he lives with Him in his life.

This entire idea might sound strange to people when they first hear it.  But when a person understands the truth of these words, when he absorbs them and internalizes them, he transforms - entirely.

Old Age and Loneliness

How painful it is to see the lonely people on this world. Many people on this world feel terribly lonely; even people who have family and friends still feel lonely inside. People seek more and more friends in the hope of trying to fill their loneliness, and it doesn’t help.

In the younger years, most people are very busy in whatever they are involved in – whether it is family or livelihood or health. People are bogged down from all their various responsibilities. But when people get older and the responsibilities of life lessen, and the body grows weak, then people begin to take their minds off the physical troubles of life, and instead, they begin to become more internal, and naturally, they feel lonely.

Older people will often get renewed vitality from their grandchildren who come to visit their house sometimes, or from kind people who come to visit them to cheer them up, but for the most part, they feel lonely all the time. Why is it that so many old people feel lonely all the time? It is because they never lived life correctly until now.

Old age is the greatest testimony to what happens to a person who never developed a relationship with Hashem when he was younger and never regarded Hashem as the main companion to have in life. When they were younger they were busy, so they didn’t feel lonely, but when they get older and they have a lot less to do, the loneliness hits them.

Life is not mainly about having friends. It is about making Hashem into your companion – and He is our only true companion. He is the companion who was with us all along, from beginning until end, and He is the companion that we take with us to the grave.

If a person would only realize this, he won’t need friends so much. Of course, he will still need to ‘schmooze’ a little, because the lower part of the soul (the nefesh habehaimis\animalistic layer of the soul) has some need to socialize. But a person who spent his time talking to Hashem a lot will mainly feel fulfilled from his relationship with Hashem, and he won’t suffer from loneliness that much. When old age comes, his mind will become more settled, as Chazal say, that “the minds of Torah scholars become more settled as they get older”. His body will weaken of course, but his soul will feel serene inside, because he doesn’t suffer from the natural loneliness of old age. He has evaded it.

It is very painful to watch all the old people in this world, generation after generation, who get lonely. The old people get lonely, and their children have to come visit them so that they won’t be lonely.

Of course, it’s a mitzvah for the children to visit them; it is the mitzvah of honoring parents, and it is a kindness for them. But we must not think that this is an ideal kind of life for us to want to follow. We need to develop our life in a way that we don’t get lonely when we get older.

Beginning To Talk To Hashem More Often

If a person gets used to talking to Hashem all the time, every day, every hour, at first it will be superficial lip service, but a person can keep doing it and he will find that he is more sincere each time.

It is impossible to give exact guidance on how to talk to Hashem.[3] But the general lifestyle should be that a person keeps talking to Hashem throughout the day. When you finish davening, talk to Hashem - simply! You can do it mentally or verbally.

Throughout the day, keep talking to Hashem about your problems and your joys. Just like a person includes his closest friend in all his issues, happy or sad, so can a person include Hashem in all aspects of his life, all the time. This chips away at one’s loneliness.

Most people in the world are really lonely! Even people who have tons of friends can still be very lonely – deep down, they are lonely. Only someone who forms a deep connection with Hashem and realizes that Hashem is his true companion will be saved from the pain of loneliness.

There are many things a person will gain from talking to Hashem more often throughout the day. It will help a person come out of himself, more and more, and it will help him sense more and more of the existence of Hashem.

Thus, when we daven in Shemoneh Esrei that Hashem should hear our voice, it is to send ourselves a message, that we must realize that Hashem is our companion - who hears our voice. It is something we must deeply realize.

In Conclusion

Elul until Yom Kippur is 40 days of tefillah; Moshe davened for these 40 days consecutively. How can a person daven so much? It means to live a kind of life in which a person includes Hashem in all aspects of life, that he always talks to Him throughout the course of the day. That is how a person can reach forgiveness by the time it comes Yom Kippur, to be purified again and return to his original state, to leave the cheshonos rabim and return to the original, purified state of mankind: yoshor.

This is the true and inner kind of life – one who deeply connects to Torah, and to Hashem Himself, every day, all the time, in a true and inner way, forming a true bond with the Almighty G-d.[4]