After the sin of the golden calf, Moshe said to Hashem, ועתה אם תשא חטאתם ואם אין מחני נא מספרך, if you would but bear their sin, but if not then erase me from Your book.
Rashi comments, “Erase me from the entire Torah, so they shouldn’t say about me that I wasn’t worthy enough to daven for them.” Although Hashem forgave us, still, Moshe’s name is not mentioned in Parshas Tetzaveh. What did Moshe do to deserve this?
The Nesivos Shalom explains that Moshe erred when he said ואם אין, if You won’t forgive them.... Why did Moshe even consider such a possibility? He should have believed that since he was davening for their forgiveness, his tefillos would certainly be answered, because we believe in the power of tefilla.
The gemara relates a case where two people were confined to a bed with the identical illness. One recovered while the other didn’t. Why? Because one davened and was answered while the other person davened and wasn’t answered since one davened a complete tefilla. Meaning he concentrated properly and thus he was answered, whereas the other didn’t. How could it be that two people who are deathly ill and one wouldn’t have kavana? Because they don’t truly believe in tefilla. They reason that according to nature there is no natural salvation, and the doctors already despaired. So both daven with kavana but only one believes in his tefilla.
The story is told that during a drought, farmers came to their rabbi seeking guidance, desperate for direction as their lives depended on proper rainfall. Their rabbi told them, “Meet me on the hilltop by the town’s entrance at exactly noon tomorrow. Come ready to pray. We will ask G-d for rain and He will hear our prayers.” The farmers were relieved. When they showed up the following day, their rabbi turned them away. He said to them, “Did you believe that G-d would hear your prayers and bring rain?” They nodded. “Then where are your raincoats? If we expect G-d to answer we must ready ourselves for His blessings.”
We must believe that our tefillos will be answered. R’ Yitzchak Isaac of Kamarna translated לא יחל דברו ככל היצא מפיו יעשה, as follows: Don’t hope that your tefillos will be answered (לא יחל דברו). Rather ככל היצא מפיו יעשה, feel that it will certainly be effective.
The Chazon Ish once told R’ Shmuel Greinman that it seems in Heaven they concealed advanced knowledge about the coming Holocaust from us because had we known, we would have davened and maybe there wouldn’t have been a destruction!
About Rabbi Alt
Rabbi Alt merited to learn under the tutelage of R’ Mordechai Friedlander ztz”l for close to five years and received semichah from R’ Zalman Nechemia Goldberg ztz”l. Rabbi Alt has written thousands of Torah articles on numerous topics for various websites and publications and is the author of nine books including the recently released “Exhilarating Torah Insights on Recreation and Vacation.” His writings, many of which have been translated into Yiddish, Hebrew, German and French, inspire people across the spectrum of Jewish observance to live with the vibrancy and beauty of Torah. His shiurim can be found on various websites including Kol Halashon’s. Rabbi Alt lives with his wife and family in Kiryat Yearim (where the Aron was for 20 years [Shmuel 1, 7:1,2]) where he studies, lectures, writes and teaches. The author is passionate about teaching Jews of all levels of observance.
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