In his sefer Imrei Aish, Rav Shmuel Eliyahu of Modzitz quotes his grandfather, Rebbe Yechezkel of Kuzmir, who explained why it is that when davening for another person, he is answered first. “It is because, when a person davens for himself, there are many מקטרגים who seek to thwart his tefillah.”
We have already learned in the past a famous segment of Me’or Einayim (Parashas Va’eschanan) containing many important yesodos in bitachon and in Yiddishkeit. In it, the Me’or Einayim explains that when a person davens, he is in essence asking for the shefah to come down to This World from Above. Now, how can such a great light—the shefah from the Ribbono shel Olam—come down to our lowly world? Only through the process of צמצום—contraction or constriction of Hashem’s light. In order to effect צמצום, we must arouse the הדין, מידת and thus through our davening for shefah, we are also arousing the הדין. מידת Therefore, whenever a person davens, he is in need of siyatta diShmaya that the shefah shouldn’t be stolen by מקטרגים.
Who Are These Prosecutors?
When we say that there are מקטרגים who seek to rob and thwart the tefillos, it means simply—as Chazal have explained—that the forces of the klipah come with complaints that a person did such-and-such and so-and-so... and thereby they seek to rob him of the shefah. These מקטרגים are aligned both against the person who davens—so that his tefillah shouldn’t be accepted—as well against the person in need of the shefah, so that it shouldn’t come to him.
However, when one person davens for another person, such a kitrug does not exist—because there is no one to complain about. The person who is davening is not the one in need of the shefah, and the one in need of the shefah is not the one who is davening... thus, kitrug wouldn’t stick in any case. When a person davens for himself, however, they say to him, “You want shefah, you want a shidduch, you want money... let’s see if you’re worthy.” And in this way, the מקטרגים are awakened.
This, explained the Kuzmirer Rebbe, is the superiority and preference of davening for others as opposed to davening for ourselves.
