Especially now, in the days leading up to Shavuos, we must engage in davening for success in Torah. Quantity breeds quality. The more time a Yid spends on his tefillah, the greater will be the quality of his tefillah. We see this yesod through Moshe Rabbeinu, who davened 515 tefillos to merit entering into Eretz Yisrael, until the Ribbono shel Olam commanded him not to continue davening. We’re told that had he davened one more tefillah, he would have been granted his request. Why is this so? Why are 516 tefillos effective while 515 are not?
The answer is that a proper tefillah is one that comes with the feeling that I can’t survive without this. When we daven with such a feeling, it has tremendous power to effect yeshuos. But not every tefillah is of this quality. However, when a person davens and davens, more and more, he will eventually reach this feeling. One never knows which tefillah will bring him this feeling, which tefillah will bring him the yeshu’ah he seeks.
For this reason, we must daven constantly, without letup. Because if we daven halfheartedly, it means that the issue doesn’t hurt so much. We’ll forget about it tomorrow. The proper and desired tefillah comes from the depths of the heart, and this can only happen after we have davened long and hard for the same request.
