We say every morning in birchas haTorah: והערב נא ה' אלקינו את דברי תורתך בפינו - “Please make sweet, Hashem our G-d, the words of Your Torah in our mouths”. The Taz (Orach Chaim 47) explains, that we should have in mind when we say this berachah, that Torah should be sweet for us, and that we should learn it lishma without any ulterior motives.
The question is, Torah itself is sweet, like it says in Tehillim (19:11): הנחמדים מזהב ומפז רב ומתוקים מדבש ונופת צופים – “More delightful than gold and diamonds, sweeter than honey and honey combs”. If the Torah is sweet, why do we need to daven for it to be sweet, it seems like a wasted tefillah?
Answer:
The common answer is, even if something is sweet, if one has sores or bad tasting things in his mouth, then he may not taste the sweetness. Unfortunately, we have done lots of aveiros, spoken lashon horah etc. so we have messed up our taste buds, therefore, we need to daven so that we are able to taste the sweetness of Torah.
However, I recently came across a novel insight into the berachah of והערב נא which would also answer this question.
The Sefas Emes observes that the word “v’haarev” is made up of the root letters, ayin, reish and beis, making the word “erev”. This can mean to “mix,” for example the word, “evening” is “erev” in Hebrew – referring to the fact that the evening is the time when the darkness begins to mix with the light. In this sense, the Sefas Emes explains that we are also asking Hashem to mix the Torah that we learn into our being, so that it not remain merely superficial knowledge. If we interpret the berachah in this manner, our question falls away.
